I don't even like the term Fantasy writing. Nonetheless I use it, because it comes closest to describing what I write, though Dark Fantasy is another. But I have been thinking about why I don't like the label 'fantasy' and it's because it tends to get used as an excuse for bad writing. A lot of fantasy that I have read seems to me simply to be badly written, and the weaknesses in the writing come from things which are excused by the genre. So I have my own set of rules for writing fantasy novels. These are:
Rule 1. Real World
I don't like fantasy worlds, I like fantasy to be set in the known, real world. Seen through a distorting mirror, yes, but the real, known world. I suppose that's why I use historical settings (so far), though I have plans for a novel set in contemporary Glasgow. I know that this type of writing tends to get called Steam Punk, which is fine as a label, but the name is not really important. What is important for me is that the geography, the landscape, the physical rules come from the real world. I get really frustrated by books which start out by inventing every single blade of grass from the bottom up. You can't locate in it, you can't visualise it, it is frustrating and annoying - for me. I hate books beginning with whole lists of names and titles. Having said that Lord of the Rings is still an all time favourite. But then Tolkein was reimagining the English countryside.
Rule 2. Rules
This comes from rule 1. I like my fantasy worlds to have real physical rules, and clear ones, which cannot be transcended and put aside just for convenience. I don't want my hero to be free with a single bound, or to suddenly be saved by some trick of physics which I hadn't explained before. To me that is just lazy writing. People are constrained by the world. If you pick up a thing you have to put it down again before you can do something else with that hand. If you leave something in one place it should be there when you come back. A bit like film continuity. For me characters should interact with their world - get cold if it's cold, wet if it's raining. To avoid that or misuse that is bad writing as far as I'm concerned. And that applies to magical/supernatural elements too. If you fire a gun the gun kicks back - it has a physics. Why shouldn't magic have a physics too? At the very least you should be clear about what is and isn't possible, and set yourself boundaries to work within. I like the books by Ben Aaronovitch, the Rivers of London series, because that's one of the things they concern themeselves with - the physics of magic. Anyone who says 'But it's magic, it doesn't need rules' is again a lazy writer, and is probably preparing the ground for something utterly inexplicable and stupid to happen in their book just because it's convenient.
Rule 3. Character, Character, Character
After that rant a simpler rule. Everything that happens in fantasy writing should still be driven by character. It is a rule which underlies all good writing, why should it not apply to the fantasy genre? What drives a story forward is character. You don't move someone from a to b, from Scotland to England, say, just because you need to get them there. There has to be a reason that comes from the character's motivations. I know external forces shape us, but internal forces shape us so much more. And in the end what people want to read about is people, not things. It is one of the problems with action/adventure books sometimes - they concentrate on the hardware, not the software. Frederick Forsyth could have been a much better writer if he'd listened to this. So, I don't want to know all the ins and outs of the politics of the Empire of the Dragons, unless you tell me it through people, through the people who make it and the people it affects. Consequently, characters need to be rounded and whole. I don't want my books to have characters like second troll or third magician. I don't want characters to be cyphers. That doesn't mean I always achieve that and to be honest there are only perhaps two characters in The Great Project, Fettle and Tertia, who I'm 90% satisfied with. Alexander, Jamsie and Ventglove75%. Actually the Princess Mary too. As I get better at writing I think I will get better at writing characters. That means thinking a lot about them before you even begin to write them. I've done that more with the new novel, The Perilous City, and I hope I will get better and better at it. This was a rant after all.
My site: http://www.greatproject.co.uk/
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