Now I mouth off on fantasy novel tropes again

This blog post is a bit of a departure from my most recent postings, most of which have been not-so-shameless attempts to promote my own work that's come out (and is yet to come out) over the past year or so.  This time, I wanted to write a little bit about some of the more common story writting patterns I've seen in reading various books in the fantasy genre over the past few years.  As both a fan of fantasy novels, and a (sometimes) writer of books of the same ilk, this is not about me trashing the whole field or even any book or series in particular.  It's simply me venting my thoughts on some of the concepts or, dare-I-say, cliches that keep popping up in some of the fantasy novels I've read. 

I've written before about some of the more common writing tropes that bother me when I read them, particularly in fantasy novels.  I'll briefly reiterate my frustration with three of the most troublesome, yet commonly-found concepts.  First and foremost, the ubiquitous fantasy plot point, 'The Prophecy'.  Where we learn, usually very early in the story, that one or more of the characters are destined to do some great and/or important thing.  And sure enough, at the end of the story, they wind up doing the very thing they were prophecised to do.  Beyond being almost ridiculously common in fantasy novels, I am oftentimes frustrated at how these seem so often to be in-narrative spoilers built right into the book.  More importantly, it effectively takes the onus off of the characters to actually strive and endeavor to accomplish the things they were fated to do, as well as the impact of the event when it happens, since we've known all along that it was foreordained.

The other two I wanted to mention from the earlier post, are related to one another.  One was the constant inclusion in fantasy stories of the 'Chaotic-Evil Race', a.k.a. orcs, goblins, trollocs, wolfins, gremlins, dark-men, or whatever the fantasy story's standard-issue horde of bipedal baddies are called in their own particular idiom.  They could be small and spindly or huge and hulking.  They'll have varying degrees of intelligence, spanning from primitive and frenzied, to deviously cunning.  Some will even have elaborate languages, weapons and armor, and even social structures.  But one thing they all have in common is that they are all vicious killers of the innocent, and they are all irrideemably evil.  They can't be civilized, reasoned with, or trusted, and whatever this world happens to be called, said world would be better off without them.  The whole point of having the chaotic-evil race of man-creatures is so that the good guys have someone to fight - and kill - in the dozens or even the hundreds or thousands, without any pesky feelings of remorse or doubt that they might have if their combatants were barbaric, misguided, or coerced human warriors.  Human foes, even particularly nasty ones, still have this link to our common humanity; they were children once, many may well have families of their own waiting for them in some far-off land.  Often, the chaotic-evil races will not only not have women and children to feel sorry for, sometimes it's pointed out that they were never even children themselves - they might have been 'born' as a fully-formed adult killing machine with no childhood pathos or familial connections to suggest any sadness at their bloody demise. But since it's inhuman monsters our heroes are slaughtering by the scores, it makes it much easier to know who's the good guys and who's the bad guys.  Speaking of which ...

'Good vs. Evil' is a trope that is hardly limited to the fantasy genre, but there are few genres in all the realms of fiction which are more saturated with the concept of there being two clear, divergent, and morally distinct sides to any point of story conflict.  There's always an evil arch-villain, bent on destroying/ruling the world, and the outnumbered, outgunned, outmatched group of scrappy, often scruffy, but ultimately good heroes who are tasked with stopping them.  I haven't mentioned any specific fantasy franchises in regards to any of these tropes yet, but I want to single out one here, specificly for skillfully subverting this particular trope:  The Song of Ice and Fire Series (known to most people specifically by the name of its first book: 'Game of Thrones').  In this series, there are very few people who are what one could call out-and-out evil.  Even the most irredeemable, assholic antagonists in the story have something to say for their defense, if not some positive, redeeming qualities of their own.  Conversely, all of the innumerable 'protagonists' of the series sport their own character flaws, wherin one can't really define them unequivically as 'good'.  Indeed, I think most fans of the series can find themselves relating in some small way to Stark and Lannister alike.  Turns out, showing characters in shades of gray doesn't diminish the readability of a fantasy series after all. 

Among the other tropes I wanted to mention was the 'Chip-in-the-Water Hero' scenario.  This is something of an offshoot of the classic 'Hero's Journey' trope, wherein a young person is swept up in events and taken from an ordinary life into a story of danger, desperation, adventure, glory and all that good story stuff.  In and of its own, the hero's journey is a perfectly good (if a tad worn) trope to start off an epic adventure story.  But here's where it is in danger of digressing into a chip-in-the-water hero story:  when the young, wet-behind-the-ears would-be hero, spends the entire course of the adventure, getting swept up in events without actually influencing them.  Often, this happens when the 'Old Mentor' (who will invariably die at some point in the story), or the 'Motley Crew of Do-Gooders' team do most of the heavy lifting, adventure-wise, while the story's 'hero' spends most of his (or her) time as simply a slack-jawed, pie-eyed witness to events as they unfold.  Granted, at some point, they're supposed to be crucial to the course of events in the story (particularly if The Prophecy said so!), but if it's just some big moment at the very end, particularly if the 'big moment' could have happened with any other particular character in the hero's place, then was it really that much of a hero's journey?

Sometimes though, in that big moment, the hero (or 'Chosen One', as they might be called) might be face-to-face with the big bad guy at the climax of the story, and defeat them with some hidden, deep-down special power inside him (or her, but whatever) that he didn't know existed until that very moment, and used that power to overwhelm the shocked, disbelieving supervillain to win the day.  This is a prime example of the 'Magic Our Way Out of This!' trope, where a seemingly insurmountable problem is overcome by convenient magical, supernatural, or otherwise fantastical means, with minimal explaination or even previous mention of the existence of such means.  The non-fantasy, contemporary (or sci-fi) adventure equivalent to this would be something akin to the hero defeating the villain at the end of the story because he shot them.  It's probably for the best that the bad guy's dead, but really, it was the wonderful handgun that saved the day.  You just pulled the trigger - something almost anybody could've done in your place.  The hero should be the hero because he (or she ... whatever!) did what nobody else in the story could've done in his place. 

There are a few other time-honored fantasy tropes that annoy me as well, like 'Proper Noun Mad Libs', 'Real World Equivalency', and the 'Plot Development Treadmill', but I think those pretty much speak for themselves.  I also get irked when novels go on and on, poetically describing a summer glade, and then only use character dialogue for clunky exposition, but that's just this grumpy old man grousing to hear himself speak, I think.

To be sure, these thoughts about the preceding subjects are entirely of my own opinion, and I hope I haven't offended anyone who disagrees with my take on them.  But, heck, if it motivates you to post a comment with your own thoughts on the subject (0 comments yet recieved in 3 1/2 years of doing this blog!), then it was at least worth it to spark a discussion on the matter.  We all have different opinions, and just because these things stick in my literary craw, doesn't mean it has to be that way for everybody.  Maybe some positive, constructive discussion would make me see things differently?

Word Picture

As any writer can tell you, there are innumerable ways to write prose (poetry too, but that's not really in my wheelhouse, so I'll stick to what I know here). Besides genre, talent and possibly era, one thing that makes us readers prefer one author over another is their writing style. Telling a story through writing is often times very tricky, because creating an image in the reader's mind of settings, characters and events, all in a vivid yet succinct fashion, is what makes a novel unique compared to other storytelling mediums such as film or music.

I like to think there are no right or wrong ways to tell a story - yes, there really are a whole lot of wrong ways, but I prefer to consider them more specialized to the author rather than bad writing (which is why I'd make a horrible creative writing teacher or a literary critic). While some writing styles might be ... ill-advised, let's say, it doesn't mean that there is only one way to write a narration "correctly".

A few people who have read my previous work have remarked that I spend less time describing the environment of the story than other authors. I've heard nobody cite this as a complaint, but more of an observational comparison. It's true that I don't utilize as much of my word count on describing things in my story as other authors I've read. My descriptions of characters are often vague, particularly of primary characters, and my narrative often offers less of a physical description of the story's environment than one might be accustomed to. I would have to say that both of these qualities of my writing style are deliberate.

Coming, to some extent, from a filmmaking background, I am accutely aware of a story's pacing, and I am constantly concerned with a narrative dragging. Particularly in moments of high drama or action, I believe that it can really bog down a story when paragraph after paragraph are spent describing in tremendous detail in painting a word picture of events. Keeping a balance of brevity and imagery during important moments in a story is one of the great challenges of novel writing.

It's also important, I think, to notice what perspective the narrative is coming from. For my stories, it is commonly from a single protagonist's point of view, and so the narration itself should reflect that. If our hero is battling a dragon, he or she isn't necessarily going to be noticing how the creature's "blood-soaked scales are glistening in the sunlight like the sheen of a thousand polished aegis shields from a legion of soldiers marching to battle". My view would be that our hero should not be trying to figure out the most poetic metaphor for the shine on the dragon's hide - they should we worried instead about ducking its fire-breath.

In addition, it's as much for me a question of personal preference as anything. Someone mentioned that female authors tend to be more verbally descriptive, and maybe it's true (though it's hard to discount other male authors like JRR Tolkein in that respect). My own personal view as a reader is, that I've seen a sunset before - I don't need half a page of flowery descriptives to tell me what one looks like. I feel like often-times authors like to show off how poetic they can be with their writing in this way, but as a reader, I prefer to fill in the gaps with my own imagination. The real excitement for me comes from the unfolding of the story's events, and especially in the nature of the characters themselves.

Describing the characters is even more down this path for me. I draw pieces of myself in almost every character I create, but I suspect that even those closest to me don't fully comprehend what part of me I draw them from. What characters are supposed to do, in my opinion, is allow the reader to find parts of themselves to relate to them. If the reader can't relate to the character on some level, then there's no real connection between them.

Look at it this way, when you're reading a story, in your own head, what do the character's voices sound like? I know that for me, in every story I read, every character's voice, male and female, sounds like my own. If the description of their voice says that it's low and raspy, or high-pitched and nervous, or with a thick accent, it still sounds like my voice with those properties added. It's how I subconsciously connect with the characters, so that they sound like a person I can relate to on some level.

In the same vein, when I'm allowed to fill in the blanks based on some general guidelines on how a character looks, then I'm free to create an image of the character in my head that I'm comfortable with. It might be very different from any other reader's image, but that's the beauty of novels. In a movie, we're stuck with whomever the casting director thought was good for the role, whether they're right for it or not. In novels, we can custom cast every part, and build every set and location ourselves, in our own mind - if the author allows us that freedom.

Obviously, this can be taken to an extreme, as a lack of descriptions can dull our view entirely of the characters and the world. I should also add that I too like to strut my flowery pen now and again as much as the next writer. But I feel like such things are the whipped cream of the meal. A chef should add just enough garnish to offer some extra flavor, but don't go overboard, because the diner might grow sick of it.

Anyway, that's how I feel about it. I don't know how controversial such a stance would be to an established critic or professor on the subject. They might tell me that I'm wrong to suggest it, and that my writing is bad because of it. They might even be right. But an author should always write for themselves above the dictates of others, if only so that they will have at least one fan of their work.

Origins of the Story

Besides my extended synopsis for my novel, The Other Side of the Gate, I've been avoiding actually writing about the book here in my blog thus far. The book has only been available for some six weeks now, and I know that very few people actually have the book at this point, much less have read it. I can't help but feel a bit self-aggrandizing to be talking about the details of a book that nobody's actually read yet. And naturally, I don't want to spoil any of the story for those who read this blog and who are currently reading or intend to read the book (which I naturally hope is everyone reading this blog - available on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, by the way!)

Even so, I don't think this would be considered much of a writer's blog unless I actually talked about my own writing now and then. So today, I wanted to talk a little bit about where the story of TOSOTG came from. I'll try to avoid assuming that you have actually read the book, and will also do my best to avoid spoilers as well.

I know it sounds almost corny, but The Other Side of the Gate has its origins in a dream I had. I was actually working on a completely different novel at the time, but after having a strange and incredibly vivid dream one night, I woke up and was compelled to write down as many details as I could remember. So, I got up and went straight to my computer and started typing down all the details I could recall. Before I knew it, I had spent nearly six hours typing around forty pages of notes about the dream. Much of it was actually in the dream, while other details I instinctively expanded on in a way that seemed perfectly natural to what I had envisioned.

I dreamt that I was floating on a tiny wooden boat into a bay side city made out of ceramic clay. When I got to the dock, someone wanted to buy my boat, but I didn't want to sell it because I thought I might need it. So, I stashed it underneath the pier and went into town. There, I would meet people, most of whom said that they were born here, and that people float in from the bay on a regular basis. Nobody knows why, but it's been happening for as long as anyone can remember.

I learned that there was a great stone portal at the far end of the town, which led to other worlds, but once you went through the portal, you couldn't go backwards until you reached a certain point. This made me very wary about going through it, because I had no idea what things were like on the other side of the portal (that almost sounds like a good title!). Still, I was growing increasingly frustrated about why all of these people were here, and befuddled about what I was supposed to do next.

Finally, I went back to the pier to sell my tiny boat, convinced that there was no way I could use it anymore, and once I got the pouch filled with gold coins, I went exploring some more. I found this poorer side of town where the clay brick buildings were crumbling and doorways were covered by heavy cloth sheets rather than doors. I found this are infested with these bright red, marble-sized bugs scurrying about. I also saw a girl there who was methodically chasing and capturing them. I talked to her for a while, and we quickly became friends

Shortly after that, we were being chased around by a large, foul-looking man who had a bazooka on his shoulder, and we were forced to flee the town and go through the portal in order to escape him. On the other side, we found a vast, barren desert where an ocean of sand flowed like the rolling tide.

As I put down on the computer's Word file all of the details I could recall from the dream, I would extrapolate on things that weren't actually clarified during it. Even though I found myself making up certain details, it seemed as natural as if they too were the reality of the dream, but that I simply hadn't discovered them yet. After several hours and dozens of pages of notes, I finally got up from my computer to shower and eat and get on with whatever was left of that Saturday. Even so, I found myself constantly thinking about the details of the dream and inventing new things that popped into my head, until I finally went back and continued jotting down more and more notes.

When I was finally done, I wondered if there was something useful in all of this in a story, so I spent the rest of the weekend trying to organize it into something which I could turn into a novel. I structured out the different worlds, or realms that were all connected, so that each had its own unique geography and personality, like each had its own story to tell. I tried to put together the physics and the logistics of the world, making it plausible that different communities would have sprouted up in the different realms and interacted with one another. I also built up the more fantasy elements of the world - the magic and the creatures - and tried to understand how they all interacted with one another.

I wanted the world to be wondrous, but believable. I didn't want anything to be explained away with a "because I said so" explanation, that there was a reason behind every curiosity in the world. I've always felt that, as a fiction writer, if I can lay down certain ground rules to anchor the world I'm creating to its own reality, then the reader will be able to buy into the things they read, feeling confident that I'm not trying to trick them.

I also needed to figure out who the characters were going to be. As interesting as I am, I don't think I'd make much of a fantasy/adventure hero. I won't go into too much detail about the characters here, because I'd rather save them for a different blog posting, but from the outset, I wanted to make the main characters of the story pretty young. In a general sense, I think it's easiest to relate to a young teenager in a novel than virtually any other age group. Those of us who are older can still relate to the internal transitions we underwent when we were that age, and younger readers can identify still more closely with characters in that age group. Most of all, I wanted to have characters who were old enough to live in a world that is not altogether friendly and safe, yet who were young enough to still be developing into the men and women they would one day become.

I can't say that I've never been inspired before that dream. I've captured great ideas from my experiences, from other people, and out of the ether of my own imagination. But I've never before had such a vivid inspiration for a story like that dream gave me in my life. I didn't know if it was going to amount to anything, but I resolved to put my other projects to the side to work on this one for as far as it would take me.

I figured that I would work on it for only a few days, perhaps a week before I grew tired of it and went on to other things. As a result, I started the novel on a MS Word file which I labeled under the working title of "BTW", which was short for "Brilliant Time Waster". Even after I had given the story it's real name, the file name stayed the same right up to the day when I finally finished it. I can't say for certain whether it deserves to be called "brilliant", but I know for sure now that it certainly wasn't a waste of my time.