Don’t Judge a Series by Its First Book

Series are very common in speculative fiction, and especially in fantasy.  And even more especially in Urban Fantasy.  Normally, when you read the first book in a series and find it less than satisfying, you don’t read the rest of the books in that series.

So, when I finally put down Stacia Kane’s Unholy Ghosts, the first book in her Downside Ghosts series, I was very disappointed.  Here was I book I had greatly been anticipating, and had recommended to me, even though I don’t usually read a lot of Urban Fantasy.  The author is also active on Absolute Write, my favorite writing forum, and I have in fact spoken to her there.

But after the first 50 pages, I found the book very slow going.  The magic system was interesting, there was a unique twist on the post-apocalyptic world, the character was a strong but flawed woman with drug issues and ties to the underworld that actually caused conflict with her everyday job.  The writing was good.  The villain was interesting.  Yet the book wasn’t.  (Keep in mind this was my first Stacia Kane book.)

I tend to finish things I start, and so I finished the book.  I didn’t enjoy it as much as I usually enjoy books, and I felt let down.  Even though I was desparate for reading material, the other two books sat on the shelf for two or three weeks.  If I hadn’t bought all three currently available books in the series in one mass splurge of book-balancing, checker-shocking hemorrhage of cash, I would have written it off as bad luck and moved on.  I would not have picked up the sequels.  And I would have missed out big time.

Because the sequels were both page-turners, which I tore through in one day instead of studying for my finals.  I loved them.  I could see how much they benefitted from the set-up in the first book.  There was a bit much re-hashing from Unholy Ghosts, and I think the books could have still been good reads if I hadn’t slogged through the first book.  But overall, they were great, and I’m glad I bought them.

I’ve heard similar stories about Steven Erikson’s Malazan series.  Fans are constantly explaining that the series really gets started after the first book, Gardens of the Moon, which is apparently slow and boring in its overwhelming detail.  (Personally, I loved it.)  The point is, even though writers are often advised that the first whatever–sentence, paragraoh, page, chapter, novel–is what makes or breaks a sale, those criteria don’t always match up with reality.

While it’s true that there are more books out there than a single person could read in ten life-times, that you can always just move on to a series that is good from start to finish, that doesn’t mean you should never read a book by that author again.  Some authors deserve a second chance.

If you haven’t taken the hint already, Stacia Kane is one of those authors.  But this post is not about how much I now love Stacia Kane.  It’s about how no matter the amount of polish you grind into your first whatever, it won’t always be good enough to hook someone’s interest.  But that doesn’t mean it sucks, or that you should give up on further work in that direction.  So keep writing, and keep reading, and hopefully you’ll find what you’re looking for.

 

Book Review: The Spirit Rebellion by Rachel Aaron

Learn more about Rahcel Aaron by visiting her website.

Read more about The Spirit Thief on the Orbit website.

As I said the first time, I normally don’t review books.  But, having reviewed the first book in this series, The Spirit Thief, I figured why not review the second?  So, here’s my review of The Spirit Rebellion by Rachel Aaron.  And, to pack even more goodness in, I’ll use it as an example of good series structure.

There may be minor spoilers for the first book, but hopefully none for the second.

Book Two of the Legend of Eli Monpress starts out Miranda Lyonette returning to the Spiritualist Court to face charges of improper acquisition of a spirit and conspiracy with our anti-hero Eli.  Eli is of course looking for a way to replace Nico’s dampening coat to hide her presence from the spirits.

Both of these opening conflicts have fairly high levels of tension and are built strongly on the foundations laid in the first book.  While the main plotline of Spirit Thief was clearly resolved, it has lead to some very good opening subplots for Spirit Rebellion.  And while these subplots are based on the first book and follow cleanly from the events surrounding that book’s climax, they do not undo what has occurred, nor make it irrelevant.  Thus, the previous book could have served equally well as a standalone novel, and so can the second.

Now, I like long interconnected epic fantasy as much as anyone, but a good fantasy series does not require video-game style stakes elevation, and I personally prefer when it doesn’t.  if you don’t agree, the rest of the post will still be interesting and relevant, but ymmv.

So, we’ve  established that each book has its own personal conflicts but that the second book builds on the first.  I’ll also note that the main plot of the second book is very similar to the first.  It is first and foremost a caper, in which Eli runs around stealing fantastic things from their less than fantastic owners. 

That said, the series is not episodic, as many urban fantasy series tend to be.  The two main plots still rely on one another.  In fact, the main event of the first novel is key to solving the conflict of the second.  While avoiding the common fantasy trope of “plot coupons”, where the character runs around exchanging one valuable artifact for another, Aaron manages to incorporate previous material into the solution of the present conflict.  And all this is accomplished while widening the readers understanding of setting and character.

We’ll start with the first.  In Spirit Rebellion, we learn a lot more of the functioning of the spirit world and the Spirit Court.  Both have their important figures and inconvenient politics.  The politics of the Court are an obstacle to Miranda, while the politics of the spirit realm serve to frustrate Eli’s attempts to steal the thing which will absolve him of a rather large debt to a rather dangerous person. 

What really makes these believable conflicts is that they cannot be easily solved with the skills and powers that got the characters through the last story.  Eli finds out that all the charisma in the world won’t help when no one will talk to you.  And of course, Miranda’s strong belief in the difference between right and wrong gets her in a great deal of trouble.  There’s no black and white in politics.

We also learn a great deal more about Nico’s part of the story.  There are several hints and clues as to the nature of demonseeds and how they grant their hosts their powers, as well as some revelations into their true nature and their relationship to the spirit realm.  Fascinating stuff, but I won’t be going into it here.  You’ll just have to read the book.

As for Josef, I learned that even publishers get confused by names, unless there’s an identical twin named “Joseph” somewhere that we have yet to meet.  Anyway, while we get basically zilch in terms of character backstory, there some lovely character-building scenes and a lecture from my newest favorite talking sword that do a good job of making him more than just Nico’s bodyguard.

Finally, there are relatively few minor characters cluttering up the pages, but those that are there are well-portrayed within their limits and move the plot along without being obvious plot-bots.

Okay, now for the bad part.  I’ve seen this mentioned in other reviews, most notably the one of the Spirit Thief over at booksmugglers, so I know it’s not just me.  While the books are fun and the plots competently constructed, the main characters tend to be a bit flat.  They’re fairly archetypal, I suppose you could say.  Eli is the charming rogue, Miranda the feisty female mage, Josef the stolid swordsman, and the Nico the quiet girl with a mysterious past and incredible powrs.  I like to compare Eli to David Eddings’ Althalus, and Miranda reminds me of Jordan’s Morianne, or possibly Siuan Sanche.  I could make many more comparisons, but this is fantasy, so I’m sure everyone has some character they find a bit similar to every other.  The point is, while there are three books left in the series, a little bit more info wouldn’t have hurt.

And now for the MCs.  Miranda is not so bad.  Things tend to go in her favor, but she’s a fantasy heroine, so it’s neither surprising nor especially damaging to the plot.  But, Eli is another story.  While he’s certainly powerful on his own, he would never have gotten so far without the backing of a powerful patron.  As Mellinor remarks in the climax of the Spirit Thief, how could any spirit be allowed to bring Eli to harm?  This backing has many positive and almost no negative effects on Eli.  While it’s impressive of him to refuse direct help in tight situations—it’s typical of Marty Stus in that he doesn’t really seem to need it.  It’s an empty refusal.  He doesn’t lose anything precious that could have been saved, and he gets to keep his pride.

Of course, I appreciate the unique approach to making Eli special.  Using a third and difficult method of encouraging the help of the spirits.  But he seems to do little enough of it after the first book, preferring to rely upon his inner “light” to do the trick.  Unlike the rest of the magic, this part seems little integrated into the story.

Overall, I liked the second book.  It’s a good build-up and there has been some writing improvement.  It’s not my favorite style of fantasy, being a lighter, more humorous take on the genre, but good writing and a good story make it one of the nicer additions to the new fantasy canon.  I am looking forward to the rest of this series.

 

Review: “The Spirit Thief” by Rachel Aaron

Read more about The Spirit Thief on the Orbit website.

Buy The Spirit Thief on Amazon.

Learn more about Rahcel Aaron by visiting her website.

It took me about four hours to tear through my signed copy of Rachel Aaron’s new fantasy caper, The Spirit Theif.  Starring Eli Monpress, the world’s greatest wizard thief, Aaron’s book will put you in mind of David Edding’s Redemption of Althalus and Scott Lynch’s atmospheric The Lies of Locke Lamorra.

Eli, his sword-swinging comrade Josef, and the shadow-stalking demonseed Nico, conspire to kidnap the King of Mellinor, an old kingdom well known for its hatred of wizrds.  With a bounty on his head of 20,000 gold standards, Eli is one of the most wanted criminals among the Council Kingdoms.  And he has hatched his daring plot not for the ransom he will be paid, but to raise that bounty even more.  In order to reach his goal of 1,000,000 gold standards, kidnapping a king may be the pettiest of the crimes he plans to commit.

Opposing Eli is the formidable Spiritualist, Miranda Lyonette, assigned by the Spirit Court to hunt down and bring to justice this rogue mage, before he brings a bad name to all wizards.  With her ghosthound mount and her rings full of servant spirits, she sets out to rescue the king and capture Monpress before the kingdom of Mellinor collapses in shambles.

Rachel Aaron weaves these two sides together with a deep, dark secret, and a clever twist on the idea of the anti-magic kingdom.  You’ll have to read the book to find out what the twist is, but I promise you it’s worth it.

Now, on to the specifics:

All fantasies are made up of four components: the characters, the plot, the world, and the magic system.

1.  Magic:  Rachel Aaron’s magic system is a unique blend of elemental magic and the idea that everything in nature is possessed of its own soul.  Think Japanese kami, elemental magic, and contract spirits all rolled into one.  Now, contract magic is one of my favorite systems , and I liked that even within that strict framework, Aaron left room for various paths to power.  While the powerful Spirit Court emphasises fair exchange, and duty to spirit and human alike, there are other ways to control this power, and most of them aren’t very nice.

2.   Plot:  If you’ve read any capers before, fantasy or otherwise, you pretty much know how this goes.  The clever thief arrives in town with a carefully crafted plan and a desire to thumb his nose at authority whenever possible.  Of course, no plan is perfect, and even the best strategies rarely survive the first engagement.  But that’s okay.  If everything went according to plan, there wouldn’t be much of a story, would there?  Well, both Eli and Miranda’s plans go drastically wrong and the most exciting part of this book is discovering how they clean up the mess.  No one makes it through unscathed.

3.  Characters:  I mentioned Locke Lamorra and Althallus earlier.  I’d say this book leans much closer to Althalus, with a light heart and a willingness to play around with the cliches of the genre.  Monpress is witty and charismatic, and frequently takes time out to joke with boulders and whisper sweet nothings in the ears of nearby trees.  There’s a fine line between magnificent bastard and mary sue, and Eli keeps a foot planted firmly on either side of it.  On the bright side, you get the clear feeling that these characters existed before the book began and will still be gallivanting through the lands long after it ends.

4.  World-building:  Now we get to the only real disappointment I had with the book.  I’ve heard it said that fantasies live or die by their world-building, and while I appreciate Aaron’s desire to keep the story moving, I felt the novel lacked the weight of history that really brings a fantasy together for me.  The characters may have existed before this story began, but I can’t quite be sure that the world did.  Aaron does bring up historical events, and one of them is even integral to the progression of plot.  But I felt she relied a little too much on the generic tropes of fantasy, and this means the world didn’t have the living, breathing indivdualism you find in many works.  Before you say, well, it’s light fantasy, I’d like to point out that Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn and  Lynch’s Locke Lamorra have very similar stories, but I get a strong sense of the past and present and the way things are outside of the protagonists tiny little section of the world.

All that said, if you enjoy light fantasy and grand capers that move all over the world, I’d definitely recommend reading this book, and I plan to read the rest of the series, too, if I can get my hands on it.  It’s very clear to me why this novel got published, and even though I think the author is still maturing, I look forward to her future work.

 

I Don’t Normally Do Book Reviews, but…

Whenever you make a rule for yourself, there’s always going to be a “,but…”  No matter if it’s word count, books a year, limiting your research.  It doesn’t matter.  You can be the most organized, planned-out person in the world, and there will still be times when you come across an oppurtunity that is too good to pas up.

For this post, the rule in question is that I don’t do book reviews.  I have written a very few reviews of things, books and otherwise, and while some of them may have been good, it’s just not something I’m good at.  Also, I have so many other things to do, or even to just write, that doing any sort of regular book reviewing would be an enormous dissruption to my schedule.  And of course, I only buy paperbacks, and I make a small number of large buys a year.  I don’t have time to officially work my way into being an arc reviewer, either.  Finally, I’m terrible at not giving spoilers, because I don’t mind them all that much myself.  I’d prefer not to see them, but it doesn’t destroy the story for me if I do. 

So, I try to avoid the temptation to review things.

But, then one of those oppurtunities came along:  Rachel Aaron was having a giveaway to celebrate the release of her book, The Spirit Thief over on The Magic District.  I read the blog all the time, so of course I wanted to read the book, and support Rachel.  I’ve just recently caught up with the last 400 posts of my blog reading, and I was lucky enough to catch up just in time for this giveaway.  Twenty people were going to come away with a free, autographed copy of this book, and I haven’t read any books for the past two months.  (I love my college, but it’s in the middle of nowhere, and I hate Amazon.)  So I threw my name in the hat, and out of 28 entries, I was one of those picked.  Not tough really, since there was about a 75% chance of winning.

One of the caveats of this giveaway was that it wwas promotional.  In order to enter, I had to promise to post a review of the book somewhere online.  Now, I don’t use Amazon(though I have an account), LibraryThing, or GoodReads, so that just left my blog.  So, sometime in the next week or so, I’m going to be posting a review of this book.  I anticipate a fantastic read, and I’ll try not to give away too much in the throes of my enthusiasm.

Other days,

Atsiko

 

Who Are We Blogging For?

I just finished reading a fantastic post on how the Internet is affecting YA literature.  It was written by the wonderful Hannah Moskowitz over on her blog “Invincible Summer”—which I have only read about two posts on.  And that has clearly been my mistake.

The gist of the post is that we writers, or at least those of us with a significant investment in the authosphere, have moved away from writing for readers, and fallen into the trap of writing for writers.  As someone whose first significant strides in writing came from the poet’s perspective, I can tell you that one of the greatest criticisms I have ever heard about the poetry community is that poetry is no longer written for everyone, but only for other poets, who have the knowledge, background, and exposure to appreciate the currently popular poems.

We do not want this happening to fiction.  We do not want to become a community of people writing only for each other, having lost track of the true purpose of our craft.  It’s all good and well to learn and discuss trends, and clichés, and how “proper” books should  be written.   But we can’t lose site of who we’re writing these books for.

I’m going to ask you now to follow the above link, so that I don’t have to repeat everything Hannah has already so elegantly articulated…

Okay, here goes.  I completely agree with Hannah that the YA writing community has moved in the direction she describes.  It has not completely lost itself, but it hasn’t stayed completely true to its mission either.  And the horrible, terrible, throw up a little in your mouth truth is…  The entire authosphere, the entire online writing community, is falling into this trap.  I see signs of it everywhere.  Writers blog for other writers, sink their valuable writing time into maintaining their status among online peers.

Part of this can be laid at the feet of the aspiring writers who have infiltrated and conquered the author community.  Everywhere, we are encouraged to start blogging, to build platforms, to make connections on Facebook and Twitter, and other blogs.  But we haven’t published anything.  What can we say to readers, who haven’t read us because we’ve given them nothing to read?

And so we build a community amongst ourselves, aimed towards our goals.  We share info, support each other, and work to build up everyone’s careers.  And it’s wonderful!  But it doesn’t really have much to do with our initial reason for joining this community:  to create things for other to enjoy.  Others who do not write, do not know the difference between submitting to an agent or submitting to a publisher, may not be fast friends with every aspiring and published writer on the web.  They do not go to every writing con they can afford, or buy six copies of a book because they want to support their best friend who wrote it.  When we take advice, and suggestions, and encouragement from those just like us, we can easily forget who we’re trying to please. 

Readers matter.  Readers have a voice.  Readers may even use that voice.  In fact, there are innumerable readers taking part in the authosphere as a whole.  But many have neither access to nor interest in the authorial, writerly community with it’s focus on mechanics and mutual support.  They want to hear about new books, win ARCs, make recommendations, and read reviews.  To those of us who are unpublished, these are not relevant to our main goal.  And so we listen more to each other, and less to the readers.  And that’s a dangerous road to take.

 

Why I Will SPEAK Up When Someone Says That YA Isn’t “Real” Fiction

If you pay any attention to any literary blogs or newsites at all, you will probably have heard about the “controversy” that’s been raging over Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak.  I will not link to any of the other posts on the subject, except these two: Laurie Halse Anderson’s Post and a round-up by the wonderful Sierra Godfrey.  That should be plenty of info for folks still not clued in to understand the situation.  (I only came across is this morning, but that’s because I’m 410 posts behind according to my googlereader.)

Basically, some fellow in Republic, Missouri has tried to get three books banned from the districts curricula, including Speak, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler.  As a citizen of Missouri and a reader, I am extremely upset that this kind of crap still goes down in my home state.  I have only personally read the Vonnegut book, though the other two are now on my enormously long TBR list.  But that’s really irrelevant.  I’m only using this kerfluffle as an example.

I hear all the time that YA isn’t “real” fiction.  YA authors are often looked down upon, seen as inferior, treated as if they “couldn’t hack it” in adult fiction.  After all, they’re only writing for children.

Now, to be fair, it’s not all YA authors–or even necessarily a large majority of them–who have had personal experiences with this.  There’s an enormous amount of positive commentary on the internet.  Many YA authors are extremely popular, and some are even famous.  But I personally–while not being a YA author, or any other kind of author–have many times run across the afore-mentioned prejudice against YA fiction.  People I know, especially many who went straight from MG to AF, have made all sorts of comments on how YA is “fluffy”, or lame, or shallow, or just poorly executed.

Shenanigans.  90% of everything is crap, but there’ still that 10% sticking it out.  And books like Slaughterhouse Five and Speak stick like nothing else.  If you follow the links above, you’ll find an enormous number of writers and readers exlaining how fiction, and especially YA fiction can and has saved lives.  I’ve often been kept above water by the books I read, both in merely depressing and completely unbearable situations.

I’m not a YA reader.  I’m just a general reader.  But I count many YA books among my top favorites, and it isn’t because I read them when I wasn’t capable of understanding real world issues, or because I lacked the maturity to appreciate their irrelevance.  It’s because they were damn good books and still are.

So keep up the fight YA authors, and when shit like this rolls around, remember that you’re not the only voices ready to speak up for your stories.

 

Things I Wish SF(F) Had More Of

So, after thinking about my last post on education, I’ve come to some conclusions. I’ve been reading less and less science fiction lately, and I haven’t been able to figure out why. But now I think I know. It’s because I’ve been seeing a lot of the same things recently. Here’s a list of recent sub-genres I’ve become disillusioned with lately, and some ideas I think could infuse them with new life:

1. Space Opera–Don’t get me wrong, I love this sub-genre, but we’ve been harping on post-humanism and alien combat quite a lot lately. How about we try something new? Like some new thoughts on STL travel, or Near-Earth Space exploration.

2. Near-future SF–Love this genre as well. (Futurismic, here’s to you!)  But we’ve been seeing a lot of the same thing, lately.  Nano-tech, cyberpunk, bio-punk.  I’d love to see some more stories on information technology pre-singularity.  VR’s been a common theme, but very few books out there seem to be addressing Augmented Reality(AR), which–for those who don’t know–is the mapping of virtual information, such as audio and video, onto the real world.  The more well-known application here is the good old “heads-up display”, or HUD, in use in targeting systems and mapping.  Stories about AR that come to mind:  Dennou Coil, Rainbows End, Eden of the East.  There’s a lot of potential in this technology, and a lot of conflict that it could create.  Virtual ads in fields, or modern digital graffiti are two.  And think of the networking and social media applications.

3.  Science fantasy:  There’s been a rise in this genre lately, which I have greatly enjoyed.  Some examples are anime’s Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou, which postulates a modern form of magic created with digital information instead of personal energy and ancient symbolism.  A great deal of steam-punk also falls into this category, although it’s generally not as modern as the normal idea of the genre.  Of course, I’m somewhat misrepresenting this term to describe a combination of scientific and fantastical elements.  I’m not really refering to just planetary romance or dying earth scenarios, as much as contemporary or near-future fantasy outside of the UF genre.  We might also include some space opera works in the category.  Anime provides the example of Heroic Age, while C.S. Friedman has given us the Coldfire Trilogy.

4.  Let’s also throw in alternate universe science fiction here.  Earth-like worlds with different cultural and geographical settings that nevertheless approximate our present level of technology.  I’m hard-pressed to come up with an example of this grouping that doesn’t involve alternate dimensions or the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  I’m not talking multiverses or dimension-hoppers here.  I’m thinking of entirely independent worlds.  Which makes me want to read this sort  of story even more.  Perhaps Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch could be an example book, although that veers closer to Science Fantasy/New Weird than I’m trying to go.

5.  Oh, and let’s not forget the Chimney-punk.  This isn’t a recognized genre yet, but I’m hard at work behind the scenes, spreading awareness(lol) and writing material.  New Weird isn’t the only interstitial genre out there–at least, not for long.

Anyway, those are a few genres I’d really love to see some new material in.  Does anyone have particular areas of their own that they find interesting but under-populated?

 

Revised Comments Policy–Please Read and Complay. kkthanksbi

I’ve revised the comments policy.  No big changes, mostly to incorporate some elaboration on inline links.  Please read and comply.  Thank you.

 

The Tragedy of the Titles

 Awhile back, I did a post on possible ways to create a title for a book. Now I’m going to revisit the subject of titles, but from a slightly different perspective.

One of the most popular questions among writers, published and un-published alike, is how can I come up with a title for my book? That’s the question I tried to address in my last post on the topic. But lets go a little deeper. Why is this question so important? There’s a lot more to a book than the title after all. (Same for short stories and poems, but I’m going to focus on novels here.) About 400 pages of text for one. Why then are we so worried about titles? Why the endless debates and the tales of publishers annexing another bit of creative control? It’s pretty simple.

Most of you already know the answer. The title sells a book. It’s not the only thing. Covers, copy, and the afore-mention content are all important. For word-of-mouth, content is king. But when a reader is trudging down the aisles of their local bookstore, two things stand out: the title and the cover. The title is how you look a book up online or in a catalog. It gives you your first idea of what a book is about. “The Romancing of Ms. Elisia Keen”? Probably not for the 15-year-old science fictionist in your family. (Or is it?!)

Titles can convey story, theme, character and much more. When we google “SFF with spaceships”, the most likely thing to draw us to one book result over another is the title. It’s the first thing that pops up. Looking at an author’s wiki page? Their bibliography has titles and dates. Guess which one is going to draw our attention. All that effort and suffering for the perfect title? Totally worth it.

Now the big question, how do we get that perfect title? A title is like a beautiful young maiden (or a MILF, if you’re into that sort of thing, but I think the former makes a better analogy). An unnamed book is like her ardent pursuer. This book could be the reincarnation of Romeo, or it could be a Casanova. Or, even worse, it could be an abusive boyfriend in the making. He might be nice for the courting, and maybe he’s perfect for making the other ladies jealous, but you wouldn’t want to marry him. But, once the book is published, the deal is done. That ring’s not coming off.

Now, say another book comes along. He’s like Edward Cullen, except not a freaky, abusive stalker. He’s smokin’ hot, he’s sweet, and he cooks a mean rhubarb pie. But he’s from a rich family, and has his reputation to consider. (Now, keep in mind, titles cannot be copyrighted. Two books, or poems, or songs can have the same title. )  So along comes Edward 2.0, and our young lady decides to run away with him. But wait, it’ll be a scandal. Even if she divorces Casanova, everyone knows how he treated her: running around with other titles(some less than flattering), verbally abusing her in front of readers. Her reputation is ruined.

Even if Edward agrees to take her, he’ll be disowned by his family, and abandoned by his friends. Nobody will read him, because she connects him to Casanova, who everyone despises. Our young title has already proven her bad taste; you know Edward’s going to turn out the same way. And there we are, a beautiful title tarnished by a terrible book. All her promise, her possibility for attracting readers is gone. She’ll forever be associated with that terrible book. Her life is over.

As an example, let’s look at Pat Rothfuss’ “The Name of the Wind”. I picked this book up entirely on the strength of the title. If it had been called “Kvothe Goes to Magic School and Plays the Lute and is Tota-fucking-lly Awesome Because Pat Says So”, which is what it’s really about, I would never have even read the reviews, or the cover copy. Which, to be fair, were not terrible. There were some interesting premises beneath the narrative. Musician heroes are fun and rare in fantasy, at least compared to the mercs and farmboys and spoiled noble girls.

So, here we are, with this fantastic title, and Rothfuss has ruined her with a mediocre book. If a wonderful, incredible novel were to be written, which this title would fit perfectly, and which this title would hurl from the shelves into the arms of a legion of readers… well, it couldn’t use it.

Before anyone calls me out on the ridiculousness of such a scenario, remember there’s a reason that new authors are advised to google their prospective titles. I cannot count how many times I’ve arrived at what I’d thought was a perfect title, only to see it had already been claimed—twice. Now, sometimes it was by a wonderful book, which I subsequently loved and enjoyed, and even forgave for stealing away the love of my book’s life. But often–maybe even mostly–it’s been by rather average stories, and also some mediocre or even terrible ones.

So, remember, when you set up your book with his dream title, make sure it fits—and that your book deserves her more than all the other drooling slobs out there. (Which it will, of course. After all, you worked your ass off writing and revising and editing that story, ‘til it shone with the avariciousness of a thousand starving ferrets spying a mouse scurry out of the wall.)

Now, back to our regularly scheduled rant on cultural ideals in fiction.  (A domani!)

 

World-building—And Why It Matters

One of the first things you’ll hear on going to a writing forum dealing with the genres of Speculative Fiction is that “characters and stories are more important than world-building.” Which, on the surface, is absolutely correct. You could create a fictional world twenty-thousand times as deep and fascinating as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and if you didn’t have a story with characters that took place in it, you’re not going to sell a book. At least, not a commercial fiction book.

But think about this, you could come up with the most fast-paced, suspenseful story ever written, and if the characters are cardboard, you won’t sell it. The same goes for having the most fascinating and intricate characters in the history of story-telling. If you don’t have a story, something for those characters to do, you won’t convince anyone to pay you for writing about them. So, we’ve concluded that no one aspect of a story make up for a lack in the other two.

But wait, didn’t I just quote Generic SFF Writing Forum Member as saying that both character and story are more important than world-building? Well, yes, I did. You can’t sell a story without a story, and it isn’t a good story without good characters. But the question is, how do you create a good story? With good characters? I would like anyone who would buy a story that was exactly the Borne Identity set in 435 BC Japan to raise their hand.

Now, for those of you who didn’t raise your hands, why not? (The rest of you can GTFO.) One reason might be that it makes absolutely no sense. You can’t set a story that’s identical to the Borne Identity in 435 BC Japan, because the story is set in Zurich, relies on the real-world geography of Zurich, and includes a great deal of not only Swiss, but also 20th century culture, that just didn’t exist in Japan (and still doesn’t, and never will) in the 5th Century BC. That makes sense, right?

Now, you could set a similar story to the Borne Identity in 5th century BC Japan. Perhaps an ambitious warlord or clan leader is using deadly proto-ninjas to assassinate his adversaries. (Yeah, it’s cliché, and historically inaccurate, but that’s not the issue. Well… okay, it’s exactly the issue.) But a similar story is still not the same story, right? There are going to be differences, most of them enormous, at least as far as the details go.

You might still be able to throw in some amnesia, and espionage, and a romantic subplot, but there won’t be any car chases, or guns, or long-range communications technology (e.g., cell phones). The characters and the setting, and probably many themes, will be informed by an entirely culture and perspective. And readers will expect the writer to be accurate in those things.

How does a writer do that? They research. A lot. Even the most seat-of-the-pants writer will be constantly checking their ideas against reality. They may decide to ignore it in very important areas, but they will know they are doing so.

In fantasy, or at least, secondary world fantasy, the writer does not have that enormous pool of reality to compare the story to. Instead of research, they do world-building. Everything that your normal, non SFF writer can look up on Wikipedia? You have to make that stuff up.
Of course, you do get the advantage of flexibility. Whereas an author writing in a well-known period of earth will have to fudge things—even when they know some readers will bite their head off for it—an SFF author has a lot more freedom to make shit up.

But, lest the reader still find plot holes you could drive the Deathstar through, you must be internally consistent. And that’s where all that effort you spent world-building comes in. Now, you can borrow a lot from real life: gravity, thermodynamics, human beings—but for most of the history and culture and geography, you can only get inspiration. Same for characters. You have to sew it together yourself from whole cloth. All of it…

Er, well–as much as you need for the story anyway. How much that is will depend on the scope of the story, but considering that most SFF written today has relatively large scope, you’ve still got a lot of work to do.

“But wait! It’s hard enough to come up with a plot and characters. Why must I create an entire world, as well?”

What? You thought SFF was easy? Reality check!

Making shit up is hard, but you have to know all of this stuff because your story and characters have to fit in the world in which they live. Remember our talk about setting the Borne Identity in 5th Century BC Japan? Setting matters—a lot. Now, there are many approaches, many methods, many ways to do this creation.

Some authors spend a few months working this stuff out at the beginning. Some people mix it together with the story and characters as they go along. Some people go back and revise once they have the basic draft of their story on paper. But you’ve got to do this work sometime. We can discuss the advantages of the different methods later. For now, you just need to understand why this stuff matters. In the next post, we’ll discuss how to decide which aspect to cut when they conflict.