...and two steps back.

I recently read Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and there were certain aspects of the work which were simply awe-inspiring. As a reader, I found the novel to be tremendously engaging and as an author I found it inspiring. 

And yet, the experience filled me with a profound sense of apprehension. 

Fearing the worst, I re-read some Tolkein and portions of Tad Williams’ Memories, Sorrow and Thorn. I reacquainted myself with Glenn Cook’s Black Company, I pored over Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion series, poked at Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive, and briefly flipped through Robert Jordon’s Wheel of Time to reminisce. With growing trepidation, I went to my shelves and picked up books by Robin Hobb and Mercedes Lackey and Jacquiline Carey and Andrez Sapkowski and Mark Lawrence and Rob J. Hayes and Patrick Rothfus and Steven Erikson and so many others.  Unfortunately, my fears crystalized into horrified certainty.

In my current novel, I’d failed to consider something vital. Something blindingly obvious, something that—as a lifelong reader of many flavors of speculative fiction—I’d known intuitively but had not taken into account when beginning this particular project: peculiarities of genre. 

While there are no hard and fast rules, the truth is that literary genres generally have distinct flavors to them. They have characteristics that readers expect, aspects that are common, or elements that are almost necessary in order for a book to be classified to a given category.

I think that mysteries, for example, are most often about the puzzle, about finding the answers to the six basic questions: Who, What, Where, When, How and Why.  Thrillers usually focus less upon past events and instead build suspense about what will happen next. Science-fiction explores hypotheticals: taking something observed in the real world and pontificating upon theoretical scientific, social, political, and/or philosophical changes that might occur if that something were altered or taken to a logical extreme. Sci-Fi is about “What if?”

And epic fantasy—or at least almost all the epic fantasy that I’ve ever loved—is almost always characterized by an emphasis upon setting. 

Whether a scene’s setting be familiar or fantastical, the environment in which fantasy protagonist(s) have their adventures is tremendously important. Since the characters are not present within anything recognizable as the past, present or future of the Real World, establishing the fantasy work’s imaginary world is paramount.

In Gideon the Ninth, the sense of location was incredibly deep and immersive. Powerfully so. Anyone who has read Tolkein can envision the forests of Rivendell or the desolation of Mordor, and all of Middle Earth is decidedly distinct from, say, New Crobuzon or Malazan or Valdemar or any number of other fantastical worlds. 

And this is why I’d become sick to my stomach: I haven’t been writing my epic fantasy novel like an epic fantasy novel.

Don’t get me wrong…I have all the necessary worldbuilding done. There is an epic fantasy world in my head and it’s ready to be explored! But…my prose itself is unbalanced. Too little effort put towards environment, and—in re-reading my own work—it is painfully clear that this will have an effect upon the reader’s ability to suspend disbelief and become immersed within the story.

So.

Good news: My fantasy novel has grown into what I now know will be a trilogy. All three books have outlines jotted down and the first novel is plotted out in its entirety.  I’ve figured out what makes the main characters tick, their wants and needs, their strengths and weaknesses, their failures and their growth arcs. I have a fair bit already written and feel confident that just about everything that I’ve put on the page is worth keeping. Right now, I am feeling tremendously inspired.

Bad news: I have a lot of re-writing to do.