J.R.R. versus H.P.

You can’t write fantasy and not think about Tolkien. Or at least I can’t. Tolkien is like The Beatles of fantasy fiction: love him or hate him he’s always there, if not influencing you then influencing those who influenced you. You may react against him, or try to recreate the vibes you felt when reading The Lord of the Rings, but it’s difficult to avoid his influence.

One of the things I find fascinating about Tolkein's world building is that it is so ordered. Despite the hugely powerful figures that populate the story of Middle Earth, from its formation through to the events of Lord of the Rings, the history of Middle Earth is just that: history. There appears to be very little in all the songs and stories of the many ages of Middle Earth that is not true. Everything recounted in these tales actually happened; the heroes and villains, the battles and the sorrows, are all historical, not mythical. (The Appendices make this absolutely clear.)

It's fascinating that stories that appear so mythic are actually empirical fact. This empiricism makes for a very ordered world. Middle Earth is rooted in certainties. Nearly everyone has a long and well-documented path. The great powers of Middle Earth – Sauron, the wizards, the elves, etc. – all have clear motivation for their actions, much of it rooted in their racial or personal history. Their actions may be for good or evil, they may want to destroy rather than build, but what drives them is hardly ever in doubt. Everything can be explained.

Compare this with that other great fantasist, HP Lovecraft. His universe is defined by doubt, by randomness, by chaos. In Lovecraft's mythos there are great powers in the cosmos but we can never understand what they are, how they work, or what motivates them. If they are even aware of us, then these Great Beings don’t care about our fate. Their thoughts are unfathomable to humans, and anyone who does manage to gain even a slight glimpse is driven insane or destroyed. In many ways, Lovecraft's universe is the antithesis of Tolkein's: order versus chaos, meaning versus madness, a comprehensible history versus unfathomable scope.

I like to think that the world of Will's adventures is a bit of both: there is a past that everyone is connected to in some way, that frames and pushes each character's actions. Yet there is also another world, another dimension beyond the mundane that cannot be truly known except by those who immerse themselves in it. If these travellers are not careful, looking into the abyss may drive them to the edge of reason.

Sometime in Book 3 - yes, I have plotted it out - we encounter a character who is a synthesis of Tolkein and Lovecraft. I hope I can make it work.

So where are you from?

Fairly early in The Blade Bearer - what do you mean you haven't bought it yet? - Markham of Mallarn, lofty knight of the kingdom of Aeoland, and our hero, Will, meet for the first time.

‘What is your name, stranger?’ he asked.
‘Will,’ I answered.
‘And?’ he said, expecting more. ‘Will..? Of…?’
‘Nowhere in particular,’ I replied.
Captain Koseck whacked me on the side of the face: ‘You will address His Grace as befits his station and yours, you little shit!’

Now, believe it or not, there is actually some world building in here. Folk in medieval times are always Gordon of Somewhere or Mary of Anotherplace. Robin of Sherwood or Richard of York, for instance. A bit of light googling has not revealed the technical name for this thing, so let's call it placenaming.

Placenaming in Aeoland is actually really important. As a people, the Aeolish are very much tied to their place of origin. It gives them their identity, it makes them feel part of something bigger than themselves, even if that something is a hamlet. The scale of your placename indicates a lot about your position in the social scale. For instance, if you're named after a small village that indicates that you are fairly lowly, while if you're named for an entire region, that makes you more important.

So when someone hears that Markham is fully titled 'Markham of Mallarn', they know immediately that he is a big cheese, Mallarn being a duchy in the south of Aeoland. Same with other noblemen in the book such as Carnyth of Leth Fordun. At the other end of the scale we have someone like Neghel of Armwick, clearly a serious commoner as Armwick is a small village.

But what really freaks them out is when you don't have a placename. The placename indicates where you belong and so, without one, you are effectively an exile from society - you belong nowhere. To admit this directly to Markham of Mallarn - evidently someone of great importance - is a fairly substantial insult. When Will replies that he is from 'Nowhere in particular,' Markham's lackey assumes Will is withholding his placename, rather than genuinely not possessing one. A profound insult.

UPDATE: Turns out the 'of' thing is a form of Byname called a 'Locative'. https://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/bynames/.

Who Wants a Fight?

In Chapter 13 of The Blade Bearer - buy it now , you won't regret it - there is a scene where Will, Markham and Rayne save an innocent peasant from some nasty soldiers. This involves a short and fairly brutal fight in which Will (our narrator and a jolly good archer) shoots some of them with arrows, Markham (a knight) lays about one or two with his sword, and Rayne (a sorceror) casts a type of energy bolt spell.

I originally wrote the scene to break up a long spell of travelling. A friend of mine once said he had no interest in the Lord of the Rings movies because, 'Why spend almost three hours watching some people go for a walk?' That stuck with me, so I wanted to make my characters' walk fairly perilous. The encounter was also an opportunity to show the reader how lawless certain parts of Aeoland were becoming, rather than having characters point it out. And that was about it for the reasons why.

When I went back to the novel and started editing I realised that this fight was actually a waste of time. It was intended to inject some excitement but, apart from breaking up a travel sequence and imparting some simple information, it served no purpose. Nothing was different after the encounter was over. It hadn't moved on the story and it certanly hadn't affected any of the characters. This is usually where the writer has to make that difficult decision: do they remove a scene that doesn't need to be there, no matter how much they like it.

Instead of just cutting out the scene or editing it down, I stepped back from the screen and thought about what purpose this fight might serve. If the scene had to argue against being edited out, what would that argument be? The answer lay in what the fight did to the characters, how it changed them or made them think differently. The most profound effect was on Rayne, a theoretical practitioner of magic who had barely stepped outdoors in his life never mind killed someone. What would this do to him? It's unlikely he'd just shrug it off. So Rayne had to come to terms with taking someone's life, even if that someone was a villain. Having Rayne troubled by what he'd done then presented an opportunity for Will to show his more compassionate side, showing concern for what Rayne's act had done to him and, in so doing, reveal to the reader a little more about what motivates Will. For Markham it was easier. He sees very clearly that Will is a much better archer and he doesn't like it. I didn't emphasise this too much in the story, but I'm glad it's there. A constant theme in the novel is Markham waking up to not being quite the big shot he thinks he is. This encounter gave me a chance to give that bubble another pop.

So, yes, I know it's obvious to any seasoned author, but this taught me a simple and memorable lesson. Fights can help with story development because they are inherently dangerous and we need risk to make the plot work. But where fights really make your story sing, is by offering a short intense way to develop your characters. Threat forces choices, and choices display and develop substance in your characters.

There is a lot more to the role of fighting and action in fantasy novels. I'll return to this subject again.

Memory and the Citadel of Chaos

A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.
Albert Camus

I'm no existentialist, so forgive me if what follows completely misses the point Camus was making, but this quote echoes in my head a lot.

The act of writing Will's adventures is, in large part, an attempt to return to a feeling, to a vibe, that I remember from when I was a child. It's the feeling of discovering other worlds, of having a glimpse into a realm that is thrilling yet also somehow reassuring. I'm sure many of you can name moments when you first encountered the work of a writer - Tolkein? le Guin? Iain Banks? Neil Gaimain? - when your mind was opened to something beyond the everyday but, at the same time, it felt like coming home. You discover a place or a voice that sounds like where you want to be or how you want to speak. These moments linger long in our memory. In times of distress we might draw on them. Or when we turn to create our own worlds.

One memory that looms large when writing Will's story is of The Citadel of Chaos, the Fighting Fantasy book by Steve Jackson. It's a cold day, and I'm off school, probably not feeling well. I'm in bed in my room, warm and comfortable, 'playing' the book with my pencil and my dice. Those books were so evocative, so immersive, borne of the immediacy of being directly involved as the protagonist and the wonderful illustrations by Russ Nicholson. There is a kind of snug darkness about this memory, an odd combination of travelling to a perilous world without ever leaving the security of home. And there was a sense of a world waiting to be discovered, of adventures yet to be had, all in a fully realised world. Good writing does this, especially when combined with good illustration - it evokes a world beyond the story, a world you want to explore. Curled up in my room, I was taken to this other place, but the memory is defined by that atmosphere of potential, of setting out.

I want to generate that feeling in what I write. Obviously, I can't do it for the reader, but if I can do it for myself, maybe I'll be able to take you somewhere also.

I'm aware that this is a tricky business, leaning very close to self-reflexive nostalgia, an escape from difficult life into the security of memory. I don't want Will's story to be too safe a place - it has to feel real, risky, and not excessively derivative. It is, I suppose, the difference between performing cover versions and composing original material. What is it that you want to do? Are you happy to keep going back to the stuff that first got you excited, that introduced you to these other worlds? If so, there is a vibrant community of fan fiction writers out there, ready to welcome you. Or do you want to take those vibes, those early memories and use them to tell new stories?

For what it's worth, I'm trying to use those great and simple images in whose presence my heart first opened as the foundation for something new. And, if not new, then at least exciting.

Where's Gandalf?

The thing about Lord of the Rings - you've heard of it, right? - is that everyone pretty much knows what's going on. They know what's at stake.

For example, the main reason Frodo knows all about the Ring and its power is because Gandalf is there to tell him. Bilbo's disappearing act makes Alf suspicious so off he goes to find out more then hotfoots it back to The Shire to clue in Frodo. Everyone knows the significance of the ring and acts accordingly, despite its many temptations.

But here's my question. What if Gandalf hadn't made it back to Bag End? What if all Frodo knew was that this ring was a bit special and nothing more? Well, the Black Riders would have rocked up at his door and tried to get it. And what would you do if some nasties tried to take the thing that your wizard pal had told you was so jolly important? First, you'd run for it. But second, you'd remember what Uncle Bilbo did back at his party. He disappeared.

'Splendid,' you say to yourself. 'I'll just pop the ring on and no one will be able to find me!' Next thing you know your kebabed by a Ringwraith.

There is a point to this. I like a mystery. I like the idea of having our main character hamstrung by not knowing. What if Frodo had the Ring but had no idea where it came from or what it was designed to do? And that's what happens in The Blade Bearer. Three companions, each with their equivalent of the One Ring, but with no idea what the things do. All they know is, how the thing makes them feel, and that it wants them to go North...