Unique Expectations of Fantasy

When I was a teenager, and even into my early twenties, I loved reading fantasy. Reading is a form of escapism, and what better form of escape could there be but to visit a made up world? I devoured some of the more lengthy series by Terry Goodkind, Melanie Rawn, Robin Hobb and Elizabeth Haydon.

And then one day, I stopped. It was a combination of factors, such as moving from Japan to England and starting graduate school, that brought it about, but I stopped reading fantasy. When I did have time to read, it was either Diana Gabaldon or Jane Austen. When I finished grad school in the UK, I then went to grad school in the US. By the time I was done, I realized I had free time again, which meant I could start reading for fun once more.

For a long time I focused on historical nonfiction, which makes sense since I am a certified history teacher. But eventually I wanted easy-to-read fiction. I wandered the aisles at my local bookstore and a cover for one of Karen Marie Moning's Highlander books caught my eye. And thus my interest in paranormal romance was born.

After a while I realized something: I was writing a book that would be termed "fantasy" yet I hadn't read any pure fantasies, aside from one attempt at Robin Hobb's newest series, in years. True my work is closer to paranormal fantasy, but I knew what I needed do: buckle down and research some new fantasy titles and read them.

I managed to wade through Richelle Mead's Storm Born without too much trouble. Was it a little slower than I liked? Yes. But at least the writing was to the point, and the story a nice length. I tried another book (which I won't name because of the negative review I'm about to give) that seemed closer to my own story: fairies lived below 17th century London. Now the premise of the book was interesting: a dragon was banished to a "star" that turned out to be Halley's comet and 50 years later, the fairies must find a way to defeat the dragon or all of London will be destroyed.

Unfortunately, the writing was long-winded. There were too many scenes of no importance and the writing got on my nerves. (Odd, considering how several reviewers praised the writing as an example of what fantasy should be.) In my opinion, the writer was more concerned with world-building and plot than character development. For example, you have a character who is always calm and collected, and then boom, for one scene only, she's yelling and out of control. The events didn't merit the over-reaction in any way.

This all got me thinking: Why do readers accept long-winded prose and lack of tension in fantasy novels? Any other genre, with the possible exception of literary fiction, would throw the story out or require some serious editing. But not necessarily in fantasy. Some of the masters can create necessary tension, but even Robin Hobb's Shaman's Crossing, while beautifully written, lacked tension most of the time. I grew bored of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series a long time ago for that exact reason: nothing was happening. And as much as people will disagree with me, JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is too slow-paced for my tastes.

You may be saying that world-building takes a long time and requires all those hundreds of extra pages. But if that be so, why can Anne McCaffrey or Richelle Mead create fully engaging worlds in under 400 pages? It requires focusing on what's necessary to know, not what's "nice to know." I'm begging fantasy authors: please take out the unnecessary and draw me in. I want tension, not flowery descriptions.

Broad Tapestries

Today I finished my big edit of "Book One" (still don't have a title) and started writing "Book Two." As the story ended on a cliffhanger for the first book, I thought about the influence of writers on my own style. Sure, I read a lot and have more than a handful of favorite authors, but do any of them really influence me? For the most part, no, they don't. Good writing makes me happy, end of story. Of course, there is one author I've been reading since I was 13 years old who definitely influences me to this day: Anne McCaffrey.

For those of you who don't know, Anne McCaffrey is most famous for her Dragonriders of Pern series. There are few authors who make you think you're reading fantasy only to discover it's really science fiction. (I dislike spoilers, so I won't go into specifics. But if you're curious, type in P.E.R.N. into a search engine, complete with the periods, and you should find out right quick what I'm talking about.) As you read the first book, Dragonflight, you realize the sheer number of characters introduced and think to yourself, "Doesn't this go against every how-to rule of writing?" Well, too many characters can be confusing if it's not handled correctly, but McCaffrey writes in "broad tapestries." For a better idea of her writing style, read the following quote:

I write in broad tapestries, interweaving characters lives, leaving the little details to the reader unless the details are important.

I have this scratched on a piece of paper I've kept since high school for a reason: this is my favorite style of writing. If you're going to create a whole world, it becomes more interesting with a variety of characters. Also, leave out the unimportant stuff. I don't want to know the description of every item in the room or read about you walking around the garden alone unless something is going to happen. SKIP the unnecessary, but DO include more points of view to help flesh out your world.

My own writing style reflects this, so if you're looking for elegant descriptions of rooms and clothing, or lots of irrelevant conversation, you may not like my stories. But if you do like stories that span longer amounts of time and leave room for your imagination to handle the little details, then mine might be worth a read.

I've always dreamt of Anne McCaffrey reading one of my stories, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Query Education

Since you're thinking it, let me ease your mind: I'm not talking about part of the XML computer language.

Okay, okay, that probably wasn't the first thing that came to your mind. If you were thinking of query letters, as in the letters aspiring writers send in to try and snag an agent or get published, then you'd be right on the money.

I'm less than 20,000 words away from finishing my first edit of my complete manuscript. While I'm waiting for my volunteer readers to finish, I decided it was time to start learning the best way to write a query letter. There are books on the subject, of course, but most of those focus on good ol' fashioned snail mail queries and most agents rely on email queries these days. But never fear, after a minimal amount of searching I found THE website for query advice (actually it's a blog): Query Shark.

Query Shark is run by an actual literary agent who critiques various drafts of query letters. Now, the beauty of this site is that the Query Shark is brutally honest, which can be amusing at times, but always helpful. After you read some of the posts, you begin to see patterns and detect glaring mistakes. (DO NOT put your address at the top of an email query. The Query Shark gets upset when this happens.) Once I finish reading the archives, I'm faced with the task of writing my own query letter. I cringe at the idea because I don't like "selling myself." I picked up some modesty whilst living in Japan all those years and it doesn't look to be going away anytime soon.

Read a few posts from Query Shark and then read an "example" query here that highlights everything you could possibly do wrong. I laugh every time I read it, so enjoy!

And to be honest, I'm actually looking forward to sending out queries and hearing back. I think my first rejection letter will be the equivalent of a solider's first battle scar; it may hurt like hell at first, but you learn from it and move on, thankful to be alive to take on the world.