Category Archives: Ideas
Dark Fantasy: Our favourite undead
My work-in-progress is a dark fantasy featuring a splattering of undead. (“splattering” seemed an appropriate grouping). I’m not writing a paranormal or urban fantasy, so I shall be avoiding the usual suspects: vampires, werewolves, and zombies. I have nothing against them, and I’m a bit of a zombie fan, but I want to bring some of the rarer creatures of the night to life (or unlife, I guess).
Mythology and legend is full of nasty beasties, and here’s only a few of them. Remember back to the classic movies like Jason and the Argonauts and how cool the animated skeletons were? I’ve got to have them, but they’re pretty mundane compared to what I have in mind. I definitely have a place for ghouls. Love them! I haven’t decided about ghosts and their incorporeal cousins yet.
So here’s where I’d love your help:
- What are your favourite undead?
- What ikky creatures would you love to read about?
- What do you expect from a dark fantasy?
I’d love to read your comments, thanks.
Novels aren’t just words – maps, glossaries and appendices
A picture paints a thousand words. Isn’t it fun when a work of fiction includes cool appendices with extras? It’s like checking out the Special Features on a movie DVD. Have you considered adding extras to your novel?
Whether they see print is up to the publisher of course, since they add extra pages and cost. In the case of maps or illustrations, they may also have to commission an artist, unless the author is particularly adept at drawing. Though hand-drawn maps have a charm of their own – check out Tolkien’s maps in The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings.
Typical appendices include:
- Maps
- Illustrations of people, places, and items in the book. Often these are included at the appropriate point in the text.
- Glossary of names, terms, and language
- Timeline
- History, family trees or other genealogy information
What others have you seen? Please comment below and let me know.
Such items are commonplace in fantasy and sci-fi novels, where readers enjoy feasting on maps of the imaginary world. In a great quest novel, I always have a bookmark on the map page(s) and flick back and forth as the characters move from place to place. But then I have always loved maps. Glossaries can help explain alien terminology or science, or translate common slang in an urban fantasy novel. Pronunciation guides can be useful too. How many times have you happily pronounced a character or place name from a book, only to be totally surprised when you hear the author say it with an entirely different inflection? A friend of mine thought that J.K. Rowling’s Hermione character was pronounced HERM-EE-OWN, until she saw the movies. You could argue that it doesn’t really matter, but it’s interesting to appreciate the author’s intent.
Maps aren’t just for worlds. They can be on the micro level too. That assault on the evil sorcerer’s fortress can have a new perspective if the author provides floor plans. Literary purism suggests that the narrative should convey the scene adequately for every reader, but what’s the harm in a map reminding us that the wizard’s tower was on the opposite side of the castle from the temple spire?
Maps and glossaries don’t only apply to fantasy and sci-fi. What about a map of the island for that contemporary thriller set in a Russian arctic research facility? Historical fiction could benefit from a Timeline, glossary or family trees. And what did that mid-west town look like in Victorian times? How about a street map with important buildings labelled?
Are these extras helpful and informative, or distraction and spoilers? Let me know what you think.
The great ideas list
Do you have a huge list of novel ideas? My list totals about 100. I’m assuming that is a normal amount for most writers. I’ve spent my life accumulating ideas for books of all genres. I don’t mean a one-line snippet about a setting or character or a what-if; I mean semi-outlines of a book plot with key scenes, characters, plot twists, world background, etc. Typically, mine run from a half page to ten pages, with 1-2 pages being the average. That’s normal, right? I have them gathered into paper folders, word docs, text files, and all anally indexed in a spreadsheet.
The good thing about this resource, is that I could write a book every year for the rest of my life, simply pulling from my files. Over the years, I’ve weeded out most of the terrible, amateurish ideas, though I’m sure many still remain that aren’t tenable for a published book, but I still think I have a pretty solid collection. I’ve probably been lucky in that it’s much easier to generate ideas for fantasy and sci-fi than say, a political thriller, which no doubt is a dozen times deeper and involves considerable research. That’s the neat thing about speculative fiction: almost anything goes!
The bad thing, is that I’ve given myself too much choice. I started writing in my teens and it’s only in the last 10 years (I’m 46) that I actually finished a full novel draft. I have files and folders full of half-finished first drafts. For a long time I was convinced this was because I had too many ideas. Halfway through a manuscript, I’d get bored and want to write one of the other “great” plots in my portfolio. Now I’m wise enough to realize that I simply lacked discipline. I still yearn to get started on the next book, but I know now that published authors stay the course and spend as much time editing as writing, often more.
As I put the finishing touches on this manuscript and send it out for representation, I’ve been agonizing over which of my many ideas to write next. How do other authors handle this? I’ve narrowed it down to five with a current favourite. I’m sure they’ll all prove fascinating to write and I hope of course that all five will eventually see print. I feel safer knowing that whichever one I choose, I now have the discipline to complete it. To misquote Edison:
Writing is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Am I alone in this dilemma? Do other authors make the same choice, or am I just making it hard on myself? Comments please?
Why are my protagonists usually female?
People often ask me “Are you gay?”, “Do you secretly want to be a woman?” In case you’re wondering, the answers to those questions are No and No. Before I answer the real question, how common is it for authors to write protagonists of the opposite sex?
Since my current genre is YA fantasy, let’s skip over the classic examples, such as Tolstoy’s incredible portrayal of Anna Karenina, and D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley. History is full of such magnificent examples (and I’m sure many failed ones too).
- Harry Potter is the first series to come to mind. J K Rowling has a cast of both sexes, but I think it’s fair to say she predominantly had male protagonists in the form of Harry, of course, and Ron. Did she portray these boys better than Hermione? I would argue equally as well.
- Lyra, in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, is an excellent and highly believable character. She has much of the spunk, wits and sense of adventure that I have in my current heroine, Lissa.
- Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series is a classic and a must for every fantasy-lover’s bookshelf. Ged was a superb character to root for, a strong character that advanced the plot nicely, but I could always tell that he had been written by a woman.
- C S Lewis’ Narnia chronicles had a multi-sex set of heroes. He did a reasonable job with the girls but they came out less rounded than the boys, obviously written by a male author. I think it’s fair to put this down to the social values at the time he wrote.
- In The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins captured Katniss perfectly, as one would expect. She is a surprisingly deep and aware character for one so young. Peeta was a great sidekick, but lacked strength of personality somehow, a little weak.
- In my opinion, one of the best opposite-gender protagonist in YA fantasy has to be Branwen in Frewin Jones’ Destiny’s Path series. I wouldn’t have guessed that the author was male.
In summary, it is possible to write an opposite sex protagonist but it’s very hard to pull off well. I want to believe that male authors write female characters better than vice versa, but women are assuredly laughing at me right now, telling me that I have it backwards! I’ve read many poor attempts by women writing men, giving them flowery dialog, a lack of machismo, being overly romantic, or showing too much feminine emotion. Men, especially boys, are usually more direct and hate small talk.
So, is it easy for me to write a female heroine? Definitely not. Often, my teenage Lissa comes across as a tomboy, when I desire her to be more feminine. The women at my writing group (bless them!) often remind me that Lissa’s fight scenes are too masculine. “No, not punches! Slapping. Hair pulling.” I have faith in how she has turned out in this final draft, however, and hope that my readers find her as endearing as I now do. I learned much from reading about well-realized heroines in The Golden Compass, Warrior Princess, The Hunger Games, etc.
That only leaves the why of it. No, it’s not because I believe the world needs stronger, independent female characters; that movement was victorious a long time ago. There is a germ of that in my writing though; having grown up reading nothing but boy’s fiction.
Primarily, it’s because writing is my escape, my journey into worlds and plots of the imagination, my chance to embrace new experiences. No, I don’t want to be a woman, but I do enjoy empathizing how they would deal with my imaginary adventures, and trying to capture the essence of their outlook on the world around them. Will I always write about women? No, but for now I’m having a whale of a time, and that’s all that matters, right?
First planet detected in binary star system
http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/15/tatooine-gives-first-direct-proof-of-2-sun-planet/
Using data from NASA’s Kepler orbiting telescope, scientists have just seen the first direct evidence of a
planet orbiting a binary star system, which they are dubbing Tatooine after the classic desert planet in Star Wars. This is a fascinating new development in our continual charting of extrasolar planets, of which several hundred have been found to date.
This is particularly topical for me, since my current manuscript is set on a world orbiting two suns, a bright yellow/orange star called Eldrar and a smaller, blue/white star named Indar. Alas, Kepler-16′s star system doesn’t resemble my own.
Choosing a binary star system was part of the careful design of my world. We have all read SF or fantasy where the world is so alien that much of the terminology, descriptions, creatures, technology, etc. means nothing to us as a reader. The author’s intent is to reproduce an incomprehensible, alien world. We spend the first chapter(s) feeling like a stranger in a strange land, fighting to get to grips with it all. More talented authors lessen this culture shock, by using terminology in a way that allows us to grasp the real-world equivalent, or take the jargon at face value and go with the flow.
At the other extreme, some fantasy worlds are so similar to medieval Earth, often feudal Europe or Japan, that nothing needs explaining. Easy to read, but they lack the flavour, the spice of experiencing an exciting, far-off planet. I chose to take the popular middle ground, interspersing terminology and concepts, bizarre places and creatures, with more familiar terms like broom or bucket. I hope this allows me to keep the reader immersed in my world, without the constant jarring of unfamiliar words.
Hence, my two suns allow me to remind the reader often that “we aren’t in Kansas”, by a simple reference to a twin suns-set, or the image of two stars hanging above the horizon, just like those classic pictures of Tatooine. A simple, effective device, but one that becomes more important to the plot of later books.
