Are You Writing Serious Fantasy?

[littlemanpoet]

Niphredil, I am so glad you made that fww place and now you're thinking "out loud" here - what a combination. I'm fascinated. Can't wait, can't wait! I wonder if you're giving away too much, but you probably know best.

Nar, you're advice is priceless.

So as background, I rewrote the entire story from his perspective to get him into my head-- just side notes, but when I went back to the scene, & she called him, he had something to say, and it rolled along. You can try creating some backstory for him on the side and see if it affects the character in your story. Or, just follow the flow of the story and see if he comes out later.

This ought to be exported to fww.

Picky, but are you sure lizard-brain is right? I thought it was the mammal-brain that tried to make some imagistic sense of the raw material the lizard-brain cooks up. Or is it the next level up? Are there three or four? I'm thinking there are four because consciousness is #4 and there has to be something subconscious and human between mammal and awareness, right? But what is it called, prehistoric/pre-aware human-brain? I would expect that to be the one that makes myth. I'm all confused. Heck I only read one book about it once last summer.

And this little summary below ought to get top billing somehow in this thread. It was great. Wish I'd put it in those words. Yes, yes, yes!

Our main issue in this thread is how to get out works that can stand by Tolkien and not just in Tolkien's shadow. At this point we're into techniques for bringing our stories up to the level of LotR. How do you write? How do you develop your world? What makes fantasy into the kind of book that fits into a reader's life like a key into a lock and opens up-- who knows? That depends on the book. Fantasy involves a sense of play for the author. The author can put anything in. There is a constraint, though, that Littlemanpoet might refer to as 'a sense of place.'

Aragorn the Ranger: I suggest scanning through the previous pages of this thread. There is a lot of really good stuff from a whole bunch of serious writers. Such as on doing battles (page 3?) As far as starting a story out, a literary agent advised a group of us fiction writers to first introduce the main character and make her/him someone the reader can relate to on some level (make sure there is some kind of conflict/tension on the first page) and after you have introduced the character, bring on the big conflict. That way the reader cares about the character enough to want to find out what happens.

By the way, another winner in publishable story-making that I'm finally trying to employ is "keep it moving". If there is any dead time killing the pace of your story, surgically remove it no matter how painful to your own personal favoritisms. Oh, and hand in hand with K-I-M is 'simplify'; that is, don't say anymore than the reader needs to know at this point in the story so that you don't slow the pace. If it ends up feeling rushed, internal thought process does a fine job of gearing down out of tenth to ninth, or whatever. Wups - gave unasked for advice there. Free for the taking!

Happy writing! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]