Rule 4: Plot, Plot, Plot
Having said that character is King, it doesn't meant to say that plot doesn't count. Quite the opposite, plot is hugely important. Obviously you have to know where the book is going, but the reader also needs a sense of where they are going, and a sense that they are on a journey. Plot is not just about deciding whether you're travelling to a, b or c, it's also about the shape of that journey. My feeling is that a lot of fantasy novels again don't put enough work into the shape of the plot (nor do a lot of books overall). The journey doesn't have to be linear, in fact quite the opposite. Subplots, circular journeys, digressions and diversions are all key plot elements, but they all need to fit within an overall shape and sense of direction. Perhaps I'm using plot as a catchall term and including in it dramatic shape, because I also believe you have to think carefully about where the rises and falls of your narrative lie, when and where the climaxes come. There's nothing more frustrating, to my mind, than a narrative which peters out, dribbles to an end, or is filled with forgotten digressions which run into cul de sacs. I could be accused, in my own writing, or having plots which are too complex, and I know that complex plots are sometimes the hallmark of fantasy writing. Look at Game of Thrones for goodness sake - a much better TV programme than book. But complexity is neither a vice nor a virtue in its own right. Used well its a way of giving your writing layers and texture. Used badly it is a pain in the narrative.
Rule 5: Big Emotions
One of the things I do love about fantasy writing is that it trades in big emotions. I love building towards scenes which have heroic interventions, massive disappointments, sudden rescues, daring escapes. It has always been one of the key things that has attracted me to the fantasy genre. Some of the scenes in Lord of the Rings I could read over and over, and I have to confess that there is a scene near the end of my own City of Fire and Ice, part 2 of The Great Project, which makes me cry every time I reread it. So, although I want my characters to be complex, to have real emotions, to have everyday lives in lots of ways, I don't think you should forget, avoid or ignore the big emotions in fantasy writing. It's one of the attractions of the genre.
Rule 6: Core Themes
A fantasy novel should be about characters, it should be driven by plot - yes, yes. But it should also have at its heart some core theme/s, idea/s. In other words, as well as writing a fantasy novel you're trying to explore some ideas. That way the book will stay with the writer after they've finished. That way you have something else driving the plot forward. That way you have implicit or explicit links building between all the disparate components of your novel. For me the book begins with the idea. With The Great Project it was the idea of two opposed approaches to magic which were gender specific, and were different ways of seeing the world. Tertia, heart, Alexander, head. Out of that then came all the ideas in the book of male and female differentiation and opposition, and it made sense to set it in an increasingly patriarchal society. Men rule, and rule badly, for the time being. The Perilous City, which I'm writing just now, started with the song by Jacques Brel, Amsterdam. I heard it for the first time and instantly fell in love with it. Then I read a translation of the lyrics and I fell in love with those. I listened to the song over and over, dozens of times.
Dans le port d'Amsterdam
Y a des marins qui boivent
Et qui boivent et reboivent
Et qui reboivent encore
Ils boivent à la santé
Des putains d'Amsterdam
De Hambourg ou d'ailleurs
Enfin ils boivent aux dames
Qui leur donnent leur joli corps
Qui leur donnent leur vertu
Pour une pièce en or
source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/j/jacquesbrellyrics/amsterdamlyrics.html
In the port of Amsterdam,
The sailors drink
And drink and drink again,
And drink one for the road.
They drink to the health
of the whores of Amsterdam
or of Hamburg or elsewhere.
In fact they drink to the ladies
Who give them their beautiful bodies
Who give them their innocence
For a coin of gold.
source: http://strangelyperfect.tv/390/jaques-brel-amsterdam-a-new-translation/
Then I started to form an idea for a story. About sailors, metaphorically shipwrecked. Men who once lived in the moment, who once drank and loved, but who now envy those who do. Men who want to lose themselves, but who are tied to one another by circumstance and guilt. That's the story I'm writing, I hope. As well as it being a prequel to The Great Project.
My site: http://www.greatproject.co.uk/
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