I have to confess that no matter what I've written in the Foundations to the left, I haven't been working on Fire and Jade lately. It's the summer, which means I've had a lot of distractions lately. Combine that with the nitty-gritty crap that I haven't spoken about much here, the stuff I need to do to move to Seattle, like packing and storing stuff at my parents' house, finding a moving company, finding a place to live, I just haven't gotten any work done on it. That's not meant to be an excuse, just a statement of fact.
In the meanwhile, it's not like I haven't gotten any writing done. I have, in fact, been doing a whole lot of research and note-taking for a few different things and actual scripting for another project. A project that will see the light of day, and the eyes of readers, much sooner than my massive pseudo-Chinese epic.
But once I'm off at school, I'm going to get back to that epic. When I do, though, I think I might be in some sort of trouble. See it's recently come to my attention that I have no idea how to write a best selling fantasy novel. Let me run you through the paces of what I've learned and tell you how I don't stack up:
1. Create a Main Character... 2. Create a Quest.Most of the people who read your book will be unconfident males. So make your main character a Loser. Aimless, shy, cowardly, guilty, ill, lazy, rural - any of these will do... Out of the blue, the Loser must be suddenly told that the fate of the whole world – or some other world - rests in his incompetent hands.
Let's see... Guan Wen's unconfident, yes, but that sort of comes from standing around the greatest heroes your country's ever seen. You'd be pretty unconfident if you had to fight, say, Darth Vader, too. Of course, he's not saving the world, so much. No apocalypse looms. If he screws up, the worst that happens is some people die and his country gets taken over by a foreign power.
3. Create a Motley Bunch of Companions.The Loser/Hero must have a Motley Bunch of Companions drawn from different human species e.g. dwarf, elf, Rotarian etc. Each of these companions will have one particular skill such as sword fighting, lasso twirling etc which will come in handy at a particular part of the story.
This is where I start to run into trouble. I've got no pointy-eared, thin and wispy types for girls to swoon over, no short, fat, bearded guys to make folks laugh. Do the hero's friends even have skills? More or less...
4. Create a Wise but Useless Guide.The Guide is wise adviser who knows all about the Quest, but never fully reveals it. He also appears to have immense powers but will not use them when they are most required.
Gandalf will not be making an appearance in this book. Nor will Allanon, Zedd, Moiraine, Fizban, Zifnab or aging wizards of any other stripe. The closest I've got is a doctor. He's a really good doctor. That's about it.
6. Create the EnemyEvery Fantasy Land has a Dark Enemy, an almost omnipotent ArchVillain who is trying to utterly destroy it. It is not clear how the ArchVillain benefits from this. This Villain always has access to vast armies which require no food, payment or other provisioning and can travel thousands of mile and lay siege to cities without any need for a catering corps. For all this, the Enemy is completely dependant on some insignificant object such as a ring or a piece of rock for his power.
Shit. I knew I forgot something. Conflict? Conflict I've got in spades. Villains... hhm... maybe... Nope. Not a one.
Bad Expendables.It will be necessary to create Bad Expendables. These are the orcs, goblins, trolls, dragons, wights or any other creatures that we are happy to kill in their thousands. They are usually black, hairy, sweaty or in some other way unacceptable by middle class Caucasian standards. Often they are deformed, based on the traditional belief that an ugly body reflects an ugly soul. It is our way of doing a service to the sick and disabled by reminding readers that people who are disfigured look that way because they’re evil.
Which means it's probably bad that, with one possible exception, every last character or extra in my book is human. Damn.
Note that in Fantasy Lands the concept of reform or rehabilitation is unknown. All allies, minions, vassals and instruments of the Enemy must be summarily killed even if they served their master primarily out of fear.
Also bad for me, in that the humans switch sides when they lose, what with them not wanting to die and all. And the army commanders take the troops, of course, since it gives them more soldiers fighting on their side.
Pure Maiden Warriors.Losers are scared of sexuality or dependency in women, so women in fantasy novels are so powerful and pure they make Joan of Arc look like Pamela Anderson. They are strong, noble, loyal, brave, high-bred and usually die in the end – well what else are we going to with them? They’re too scary to marry, and no one in Epic Fantasy Novels ever has sex.
Uhm... I've got women, yes, and I'd like to think I'm writing a few strong female characters. But none of them are "pure maiden warriors" by any stretch of the imagination. Don't have any sex scenes, either.
Body Types.Skinny people are wily and intelligent, big strong bear-like people are invariably dumb.
Things work a little differently in Chinese literature, where the wily ones are typically extremely obese. Because they're eunuchs. The going theory being that they've got plenty of time to eat and plot and scheme, what with them not having a sex drive and all.
Note: Fantasy Worlds never have working economies. Very few people work, there is little agriculture and it is not clear where food comes from.
And yet I keep putting all these damn farmers everywhere!
Of course, considering my initial idea when I sat down to write this thing was to get away from the stereotypical fantasy novel, which had become stale and boring and repetetive to my eyes (and clearly to the eyes of other people, if they're writing things like the web page I've been talking about, I think I'm succeeding admirably. Now I just have to, you know, finish.