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Formulaic Writing Part 2
By Cynthia Moore
(fanatic reader and reviewer of all genres)
Fantasy and Science Fiction
I love fantasy and science fiction! These genres sweep me away into imaginary places where life and death always hang in the balance of a hero’s courage. My favorite authors also build worlds that both fascinate and resonate, history and depth echoing throughout the tale. In the end though, fantasy and sci-fi rely just as much on great characters (for most of us) as any other genre. In my reviewing of hopeful fantasy/sci-fi writers over the last year I can honestly say that the genre is alive and well—and if given a chance, there are some awesome writers out there whose names I look forward to seeing on the shelves of my local bookstore.
Unfortunately, there are the other kind as well.
What makes a book fail to engage the reader can be different for each reader. We don’t all like the same books and I am thrilled with diversity—any artistic community that starts giving up on multiplicity is doomed to end up like Hollywood Studio Films (Have you seen Live Free or Die Hard? What was up with the jet shooting the freeway scene? I mean, come on people!).
That being said, there are some things that new writers do (and some old) that just leave a book dull and blah.
It works for anime!
Writers under the age of twenty-five have grown up with Japanese animation as their touchstone for fantasy/sci-fi. The beautiful graphics, the dramatic storylines and those girls in short skirts have changed the way an entire generation thinks about fantasy. My parents’ generation grew up on comic books, their grandchildren are growing up on anime—and I say great. The problem occurs during the translation from visual to written form. As inspiration, anime is a veritable well-spring of ideas, but without understanding the differences between what works on screen and what works on the page…well, I’ve seen car wrecks that were prettier. I think the real mess is created when the writer wants to describe something similar to what they’ve seen on their television. What takes only a second in one media can take paragraphs in a book—and when those paragraphs are weapon descriptions (usually right in the middle of the fight scene) than this really slows down the action. Rev up action scenes with action writing— keep it simple, sparse, and use precision with your words.
Why worry about world-building?
I’ve seen so many writers cut corners on their world-building—ignoring climate, history, religion and even politics. To write about an alternative world, you have to understand how that world works, right down to the problems of trade, where the food comes from, who are the neighboring states/planets—and what is their relationship to the land/planet your characters are inhabiting? No character was born into a vacuum, and just like Frodo and Sam were both products of the Shire, so is every character a product of the land and class that they were born to—or at least that’s the way it should work.
I think the most important thing to remember when starting to create a world is to use your common sense. Even a fantasy world has to make sense based on the prime assumptions of its creation. Your reader will have to think it makes sense, and without writing vast info-dumps into your work, you’ll need to show them that it does. The easiest way to do this is to ask questions. Take a land/planet and ask yourself what the prime character trait is, what traits are honored and why, what traits are reviled and why. You’ll need mythology and religion to bolster these beliefs. Keep asking a questions as you take notes—even if the details that emerge are so mundane you would never use them in your story, it’s important to the background. When reading amateur writing, I can always tell who’s done their homework and who hasn’t. It’s obvious from the second page, as noticeable as a cake baked with sugar and one without.
Cliché Characters:
A lazy way to write fantasy is let Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons write your characters for you. Does this mean we can never see another fantasy with an elf or a dwarf? No! You might as well throw the whole genre out the window—but elves need to be more than archers with pointed ears and good looks. The mystery and enchantment that Tolkien weaved into his elves was based on their mystery, their deep and strange culture. (World-building helps here, a lot!) The more a writer works on their world, the more interesting their characters will be—regardless of race. The worst of fantasy takes a group of characters, each with a “class” such as fighter/barbarian, mage, thief, and then has them go on a quest. People, D&D and role-playing video games do not equal a good book. I think World of Warcraft is interesting too, but you need more than a “class” of character and/or a certain race to make your reader want to turn the pages.
Monarchy in Space
Okay, I’ll admit that monarchy is space is not really one of my pet peeves, but my husband complains a lot. He doesn’t get why human kind advances all the way to space-drives and super-warps and yet regresses back to kings and queens on a political level. This makes enough sense that I’m included it here. (Let’s be honest though, an emperor is just easier to write about than a parliament.) Still, this is one cliché that if turned on its head could really inspire an interesting science fiction novel—if done right.
Find your own originality
Harry Potter is done, so no more boys going off to magic school unless you have something amazingly new to say. Lord of the Rings doesn’t need to be rewritten. Robert Jordan is still writing—he doesn’t need your help to finish his stories. Though fan-fiction can help you hone your skills, it’s not the best way to write a bestselling novel. Write about a character who you’ve never read about before, in a world you’ve yet to travel…and remember that the best books, whatever the genre, resonate with real people, even if the setting is fantastic. Remember, fiction writers expose truth through lies.
For Part 1 of this series click here
-Cynthia Moore July 2007 ccmoore@welovefiction.com
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