[Tarcanus]

Taken from another thread and a PM between Yellow and myself:

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(Yellow)

Sorry to hijack Gamet's thread here.

I find most of the writers on AW are probably not that into fantasy (except the fantasy section, obviously), especially epic fantasy. I dunno, I reckon that if you did a poll of epic fantasy readers, you would find that most not only read prologues, but actually enjoy reading prologues.

I mean, look at when Erikson, Jordan etc pre-release a prologue... people go mental for that shit.

I guess my point is you have to extract the advice that's going to work for you, and the genre you're writing in. I must admit that I would probably hate most of the books that people on AW are writing.

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(Tarcanus)
You do have a point about the prologues of most epic fantasy writers - their fans do go ape-shit crazy over that kind of thing. I guess I agree with the prologue thing because I want to bring more of a literary focus to (epic) fantasy to try and draw more people into the genre. A wordy prologue just won't cut it for me, anymore.

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(Yellow)
Sure, a prologue has to have a point. If it's really a chapter one, then call it chapter one. It should be distinct in some way.

Whether or not I want to read a wordy prologue depends on what mood I'm in at the time. I generally don't go for Jordan-esque books, but when I'm in the mood for it, I love how his prologues are up to 90 pages long, and I'm in the mood for his slow, detailed style.

So other than removing the prologue, what ways do you see that you're bringing a literary focus to fantasy?

PS - we should be having this convo in thread - excellent discussion points smile.gif

In order to answer, I think I need to bring up how I think fantasy is dividing. Back in Tolkien's day and the birth of such writers as Brooks, Zelazny, Jordan, Eddings, etc. you had epic high fantasy where either the authors used the basic elf/dwarf/human/orc distinction, quest plots, or overly descriptive narration that all culminated in the huge clash between good and evil.

Now, I'm not a literary expert by any means, but to my thinking we then had writers such as Glen Cook emerge with a new style that threw you into the action instead of spoon-feeding description and started to throw in shades of grey for everything, or just make everything dark and somber. Martin also fits into this era, what with his ability to make everything shades of grey.

Then we have writers like Erikson taking what Cook did and adapting it to the epic fantasy plotline.

All of this 'typical' fantasy aside, there are also the movements of magical realism, new weird, urban fantasy, steampunk, cyberpunk, etc. that are starting to come to the foreground in the fantasy genre. I'm generalizing here, but in many of these new sub-genres the writing is superb and on a rather literary level - or perhaps that's just my interpretation of the tighter prose and clearer images that these modern authors imbue their works with.

Either way, I feel like these new sub-genres need to leak back into the 'typical' fantasy plotline and bring a more literary and well-written front to the high, or epic fantasy plotlines. It can only improve the tropes that have been done to death before (and unfortunately are still rehashed by some lucky authors out there - lucky as in, i'm surprised they were published(Tom Lloyd, I'm looking at you))


Now to answer the question: I want to bring more of a literary feel to fantasy by not only trying to perfect world-building, but bringing new races into the mix, and making 'normal fantasy staples' (such as elements) truly ingrained in my world-building so they are no longer 'normal fantasy staples' but a realistic aspect of my world that I no longer have to put a spotlight on. Then, by keeping my prose controlled and keeping the manuscript from being overly wordy and succinctly telling the story, I should be able to make my world vivid enough to link the literature into the fantasy.


Now, I'm sure further discussion on this will get me to elucidate my points, since I know I can jump around when typing things like this, so does anyone have any comments? Perhaps their own ideas for bringing new ideas into the 'typical' fantasy of the day?

The only thing I ask is that this topic not devolve into everyone simply talking about their own works and how they're bringing something new to the game and ignoring everyone else's discussion on the overarching topic at hand.

[Fist Gamet]

I suppose it is all about attention to detail. We create the worlds to tell our stories, and we marvel at our creations, so much so that we have the burning desire to tell the readers. For me, there are two ways of looking at this: Either I want to impress the reader with my flair and imagination; or I 'believe' it is so much a normal part of everyday life in my world that it barely rates mention. I prefer the latter, in which case I must know precisely how my characters feel about such things.

For example.
The Gods and the magical powers they gift their followers are all real. In fact, they are fairly commonplace, and for my characters, seeing magic being used is as normal to them as seeing a plan fly to me and you. If I were writing modern fiction and my characters boarded a plane, would I really go into detail about how planes were invented and just how they can actually fly?

If we write in this way I think you will engage your reader and actually make them glad they are not being spoon-fed but treated as intelligent adults capable of making their own deductions. Got to get the balance right, though, for whilst I might not go into detail about the plane, I MUST consider the reader who has never heard of a plane. In which case, perhaps one of my characters finds magic truly awesome and extraordinary - in which case I need to do a little explaining without it becoming an infodump.

What do you think? Is this what you mean?

This post has been edited by Fist Gamet: 02 July 2009 - 06:14 PM

[Tarcanus]

Fist Gamet, on Jul 2 2009, 02:12 PM, said:

What do you think? Is this what you mean?

To a degree, yes, though the breadth of my thoughts are tough to explain.

I definitely agree with your comparison of not describing a plane if the characters in the story are familiar with planes. That's a big way to avoid unneeded infodumps.

But I'm also talking about a lot of other things that fantasy does that I think needs to stop (at least for a while, until the tropes of fantasy become 'retro' and are fun to read again). For instance, I can't stand when ancient prophecies come true and the main character is always 'chosen by fate' or some other prophetic malarkey. I'm tired of typical dream sequences which are always vague and only serve to make the reader go 'WTF'? Elves, Orcs, Dwarfs, and other 'typical' fantasy fare need to stop being used for a time. I'd love it if someone wrote a book where gargoyles, demons, and the fae are the only races - where, perhaps, humans are the evil creatures - and the world is built as if those races actually lived there. I can't stand fetch quest plots or damsel-in-distress plots - nor do I like the anti-damsel-in-distress(DiD) plots where the author obviously was tired of DiD and decided to make a female character overbearing and as far from 'in distress' as possible.

But what I really want to see in the genre is a more literary bent (and I mean that in a very literal sense, here). This could be why I enjoy Malazan - Erikson writes in a no-nonsense way and doesn't get as infodumpy as other authors or have scenes where the characters are obviously telling each other things for the benefit of the reader. Glen Cook is even better at being less wordy and yet still succinct. Many new authors are like this, too. Hal Duncan's 'Vellum', though a difficult read and not for everyone, was so tightly written that I feel like every word mattered. I don't get that feeling from Jordan or Lloyd or Hobb. That's the literary feeling I want in fantasy.

The feeling that the author isn't talking down to me or explaining everything very obviously through dialogue or info dumps. I use those two ideas - dialogue and info dump because they're more easily understood by more people. I also want to see less 'purple prose', less unneeded description; more dialogue that feels like it's actually between real people(not corny, "i will smite you" speech), more vivid imagery and characterization of the sort that gets such strong reactions from people about Deadhouse Gates or Memories of Ice.

In short, I want the fantasy tropes of knights, damsels, destiny, and quests to die for a while, so the genre can move more fully into the new age that new weird, magical realism, and *punk stories are bringing around. (Epic) Fantasy needs to be able to stand on it's own again and not feel like the same old same old. I want change.



I think I got on a bit of a rant, but I hope it shed some light. But that's what this topic is for, discussion! :-)

[Fist Gamet]

I think that to a large extent that is happening. I agree, and many others here will too, that the various, tired old cliches you mention irritate all of us. In fact, I believe it is part of what draws us to Erikson's work. We are all sick of elves and dwarves and quests and dragon-treasure and magical swords. We are all tired of the farm boy chosen by fate to save the world against the evil hordes from the dark northlands.

I think we have moved beyond that, and continue to do so.

On the other hand, I do not believe you will get your wish, because the generic stuff still sells, and publishers are in it for the money after all. They have no ethical obligation to the genre, and would only change if it profited them. I am not saying it is a bad thing, people gotta make money, right?

In some cases, I would argue that not all of what has gone before needs to be ditched for a time, and I had this thought when you mentioned the dream sequences. I use flashbacks and a couple of dream sequences in my work, but then, for me, this is often how the Gods communicate with mortals. The idea is that some of the Gods are so alien to humans that they could not possibly communicate with simple dialogue. It is a device, yes, for injecting a little intrigue but it serves an important purpose in the plot.

I suppose I like to believe there is more than enough room in the entire genre for the exploration and expansion of what you want, whilst preserving much of what we love. There have, after all, imho, been some very interesting and well written spins put on old stories that work in the hands of a gifted writer. For example, Gene Wolfe's Wizard Knight and Andrej Thingymebob's (Polish guy) Last Wish.

[Yellow]

Tarcanus, on Jul 2 2009, 07:44 PM, said:

In short, I want the fantasy tropes of knights, damsels, destiny, and quests to die for a while, so the genre can move more fully into the new age that new weird, magical realism, and *punk stories are bringing around. (Epic) Fantasy needs to be able to stand on it's own again and not feel like the same old same old. I want change.

I agree with Gamet that these things aren't really as commonplace as they may seem. If someone were to read modern fantasy, most of these factors are likely to be missing, except on the very basic only-seven-types-of-story level.

But I take your point. I'm not a big fan of elves and beasties, and "forsooth" is not something I want to hear characters saying.

I think the idea is to make the fantasy feel real. As (one of) you said, dialogue needs to feel like it's actually being spoken by a human being, or else it's never going to shake the juvenile/comic book feel. If there's more to the story than just hack and slash, if the characters are real people with real problems (emotional, physical, psychological, whatever) then they become more than just the cliché farmboy.

But there's a place for all that other stuff, too. It still paints a picture, but it's painted with a different brush, to a different finish. For all the people who want something new or to aspire to some different goal, there are still very many who like the destinies and the damsels. I like to read something I haven't read before, but then I also enjoy works like WoT. Authors set up their own rules within their own writing and worlds, and if I'm in the mood for that kind of thing, then I'm all for it at the time.

My favourite series is Bakker's PoN - I suspect that Tarc would find it to be full of navel-gazing and the author talking down to the reader, but for me it's the only fantasy series that actually feels like it could have actually happened in our own world (excepting the magic, obviously). Bakker's world is dirty, violent, harsh, and filled with all the worst traits of mankind, but there's also a lot of beauty in there, and I suppose for me it feels real because of the mix.

[RangerSG]

And I'll say here what I said on that thread. Every form of writing has its tropes. And the idea that fantasy literature by definition can't be high literature and some other genre can be is ludicrous. Even in the examples the OP provides, The Iliad would be considered a fantasy work. I like what Butcher said on this; When someone uses a trope well, no one complains. If it's dressed up, twisted a bit, well-decorated and (most importantly) actually fits in the story, then we accept it. It's when with 10mins more work on character development someone could've done something more, and the character been a LOT better that we go, 'Oh what a crappy cliche.'

The question is one of intent and execution, no genre. If someone is writing to sell books and not worrying about the perfection of the craft, it's going to feel the same whether that's Terry Badkind, Clive Cussler, or Stephanie Meyer. They have their reward, hoo-freakin-rah for them. If you want to develop your craft, you still might sell, but there's going to be more attention to detail and more time invested. Editing, plot development, narrative quality, and character development all will have to be stronger.

But to be fair to Tolkien, he was writing something different and distinct from much of what had gone before in the previous 100 years. It was a revival of the classic fairy tale as a story for grown-up kids at heart. Many have made criticisms of Dickens' plot and character development over time, as well. Especially that you can tell it was written for episodic publication and not as a novel. That doesn't make what he did any less literature either. It's easy to criticize even high literature after the fact. But what makes these works real literature is they last. The real issue is not to nitpick the genre as if it's the originator's fault. But rather to focus on making something real and original in your own right, and not simply derivative of either the successes or simply changing things to change things in the genre (which is, IMHO, equally derivative).

[Soletaken Peach]

I'd dare to say that the tropes come, from, well basic human experience? lol.

I like a book whose characters develop, grow, and seem believable. Example; I can't stand Twilight for the fact Edward is a relatively old vampire, compared to Anne Rice's vampires, but he acts like a pubescent teen on a hormonal high. On the other hand, Anne Rice's Lestat's wisdom with his years is formidable, but he still faces old tropes like obsession with mortals, shreds of humanity clinging to him; every book is a painful development of his story and person. The former [twilight] is famous amongst teenagers, specifically girls, while The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice is famous amongst /actual/ and avid readers and/or writers.

I personally never liked fantasy, unless it was in the form of some Manga. And, even then, not every Manga out there pleased me with its tropes and commonplace shounen hero who has the same facial features as all the others before it. I always enjoyed realism, books like Jeffrey Eugenide's Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides... Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero, Anne Rice... did I mention her? Lol.

Erikson wrapped me up in his world. Not all he does is completely original, it's just damn well done. I personally think it lays on what you want to achieve with your characters, and your writing, that decide the overall quality of the prose. I've seen wonderful writers, with bad ideas. and, vice versa.

This post has been edited by Soultaken Peach: 30 July 2009 - 09:28 PM

[Skywalker]

My 0.02...

1) Fantasy (especially epic/ high fantasy with any degree of world-building) requires something from the reader at the outset: the ability to accept the premise that this world they are reading about is not the world they live in. Historical fiction, contemporary fiction, biographies, even soap operas are premised in the "real world", whether past or present, and most people are OK with that. But to accept a completely fictional world with strange races (cliched or not) is incredibly difficult for most people. Heck, people even find "quasi-reality" imaginary worlds like Harry Potter's or suchlike difficult to digest. Science fiction has the same problem.

Some - especially critics - try to cope with this sudden dunking into an alien world (whether science fiction or fantasy) by treating it as a metaphor - which sort of defeats the purpose of fantasy. Immersion is impossible when you're constantly looking for parallels to the real world. Is Lether a comment on America? Are the Imass code for Neanderthals? Are the Liosan and their isolation like Imperial Japan when it just came out of isolation? These questions are fail, because to me they indicate that the reader is not accepting Lether, the Imass, or the Liosan AS Lether, the Imass, or the Liosan!

So I'm saying a lot of (if not most) people just can't "get with the program" when reading fantasy.

2) This leads to the second problem - critics. Critics love to comment on everything they've read from a cultural/ historical/ personal/ "human condition" prism. Which is fair... how else would we expect them to relate to us their experience of the read? The problem is, good fantasy - heck, even mediocre fantasy - is only tangentially commenting on the real world, if at all!

Now, critics are the gatekeepers whether we like it or not, to christening something 'literature' rather than so much ink on pulp. And in my experience, critics, especially the high-falutin ones just can't get enough from the books for them to recommend the books or call them classics. Ergo, a majority of the "avid readers" consider it fanboi fiction. (This is also why no fantasy movie before the Return of the King had even won a Best Picture Oscar... that movie was just too big for the Academy to ignore!)

I think it is no coincidence that good fantasy writing and fantasy akin to literature exploded only with the advent of the Internet. The Wertheads/ Neths/ Pats of the world bypassed established channels of literary criticism and made fantasy more accessible to the lay user. Newsgroups and forums and BBSs and blogs and suchlike made what were niche sub-cultures "mainstream"; just look at what Comic Con used to be and what it is now!

All this is good... but the stuffy ole critics are still gatekeepers. In fact, with the sheer volume of information now running free in the world, the literary world is more beholden to them.

Anyway... long post is long and I am at work, so I'll stop there for now. What do you guys think about these two arguments?

[Soletaken Peach]

Skywalker, on Jul 31 2009, 12:52 AM, said:

My 0.02...

1) Fantasy (especially epic/ high fantasy with any degree of world-building) requires something from the reader at the outset: the ability to accept the premise that this world they are reading about is not the world they live in. Historical fiction, contemporary fiction, biographies, even soap operas are premised in the "real world", whether past or present, and most people are OK with that. But to accept a completely fictional world with strange races (cliched or not) is incredibly difficult for most people. Heck, people even find "quasi-reality" imaginary worlds like Harry Potter's or suchlike difficult to digest. Science fiction has the same problem.

Some - especially critics - try to cope with this sudden dunking into an alien world (whether science fiction or fantasy) by treating it as a metaphor - which sort of defeats the purpose of fantasy. Immersion is impossible when you're constantly looking for parallels to the real world. Is Lether a comment on America? Are the Imass code for Neanderthals? Are the Liosan and their isolation like Imperial Japan when it just came out of isolation? These questions are fail, because to me they indicate that the reader is not accepting Lether, the Imass, or the Liosan AS Lether, the Imass, or the Liosan!

So I'm saying a lot of (if not most) people just can't "get with the program" when reading fantasy.

2) This leads to the second problem - critics. Critics love to comment on everything they've read from a cultural/ historical/ personal/ "human condition" prism. Which is fair... how else would we expect them to relate to us their experience of the read? The problem is, good fantasy - heck, even mediocre fantasy - is only tangentially commenting on the real world, if at all!

Now, critics are the gatekeepers whether we like it or not, to christening something 'literature' rather than so much ink on pulp. And in my experience, critics, especially the high-falutin ones just can't get enough from the books for them to recommend the books or call them classics. Ergo, a majority of the "avid readers" consider it fanboi fiction. (This is also why no fantasy movie before the Return of the King had even won a Best Picture Oscar... that movie was just too big for the Academy to ignore!)

I think it is no coincidence that good fantasy writing and fantasy akin to literature exploded only with the advent of the Internet. The Wertheads/ Neths/ Pats of the world bypassed established channels of literary criticism and made fantasy more accessible to the lay user. Newsgroups and forums and BBSs and blogs and suchlike made what were niche sub-cultures "mainstream"; just look at what Comic Con used to be and what it is now!

All this is good... but the stuffy ole critics are still gatekeepers. In fact, with the sheer volume of information now running free in the world, the literary world is more beholden to them.

Anyway... long post is long and I am at work, so I'll stop there for now. What do you guys think about these two arguments?

They make sense. I liked your arguments. Changed the way I see it a bit, too. Had heard the comment on Lether before; have made it before. Lol.

[Tarcanus]

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The problem is, good fantasy - heck, even mediocre fantasy - is only tangentially commenting on the real world, if at all!

I have to say that I find this statement utterly wrong. No writer worth his salt is using fantasy to only tell a story about his created fantasyland. The best writers use the fantasy genre to make statements about the real world because fantasy gives the writer any tools he or she could ever use or want to make his/her point. Granted, the writer will have fun telling about his/her fantasyland and will put plenty of things into the story that aren't commentary on real world things, but you can bet all writers are using the medium of fantasy to make a point or comment on real world things. Hell, even Erikson has said that the malazan novels are commentary on such ideas as civilization, family, empire, etc.

I could alter your statement, though, and say that the mediocre or poor fantasy writers are the ones who fail to make real world commentary and relate their stories to real life. Of course, many people like this kind of fantasy (of which, imo, such authors as Salvatore are guilty - but I bet even he was trying to make a point in some way)

[LadyMTL]

Tarcanus, on Aug 24 2009, 03:18 PM, said:

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The problem is, good fantasy - heck, even mediocre fantasy - is only tangentially commenting on the real world, if at all!

I have to say that I find this statement utterly wrong. No writer worth his salt is using fantasy to only tell a story about his created fantasyland. The best writers use the fantasy genre to make statements about the real world because fantasy gives the writer any tools he or she could ever use or want to make his/her point. Granted, the writer will have fun telling about his/her fantasyland and will put plenty of things into the story that aren't commentary on real world things, but you can bet all writers are using the medium of fantasy to make a point or comment on real world things. Hell, even Erikson has said that the malazan novels are commentary on such ideas as civilization, family, empire, etc.

I could alter your statement, though, and say that the mediocre or poor fantasy writers are the ones who fail to make real world commentary and relate their stories to real life. Of course, many people like this kind of fantasy (of which, imo, such authors as Salvatore are guilty - but I bet even he was trying to make a point in some way)

Well, I wouldn't necessarily say that Skywalker's point is utterly wrong (love that word, by the way...I must start using "utterly" more often) but I agree that IMHO it is true that most successful literature, whether fantasy or otherwise, somehow relates itself back to the world at large. It's how we become connected to the story, in that we can draw parallels between the plotline and our own lives and / or experiences, however loosely related it all may be.

Where the problem arises in my mind is that sometimes it can be very vague or hard to determine just what point the author is trying to make. For example, one of my friends and I once got into a massive discussion about whether or not GRRM deliberately wrote Sansa and Arya Stark as stereotypes/commentary on the pre and post feminist woman... Did GRRM mean to create this kind of distinction? Were we just reading too much into the fact that one daughter was a "girly girl" who hated to get her hair mussed and dreamed of marrying a handsome prince whereas the other was a more "liberated" tomboy who wanted nothing more than to swing a sword? Beats me! But it sure made it more interesting to read the books.

Basically, I think any fantasy that remains too insular or too strange for the sake of being strange is in danger of being either too "fluffy" like Salvatore or just flat out dull/odd. Anyway, to comment on the original question I think that if the new elements feel like they've been incorporated in an organic way, a way that makes sense to the story and isn't just there for the "ooh, isn't that weird" factor, then I think it'd work. Like SE, he's created a whole bunch of new creatures and races but they somehow don't come off as contrived, they just...fit.
So yeah...here endeth the rant.

This post has been edited by Maia Irraz: 24 August 2009 - 11:49 PM