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Going to the Bookstore for Some Motivation!

June 7, 2009 in Fantasy, On Writing

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When the smoke from my exams finally cleared, it was time to get back to reading and writing again (after a much needed break to clear my mind, of course).

It had been over a month since I last worked on my fantasy novel, and as excited as I was to recommence work on it, it also felt kind of daunting.  I had to reacquaint myself with the plot, the characters and the fantasy world that I spent so long creating and getting used to.

And even though I had the opportunity to do so this morning, I chickened out.  It was easier just to blog, or to read the news, or play some video games instead.

Anyway, we were meeting some friends in town for lunch, and while waiting, we waltzed into Borders for some light reading to pass the time.  I’m glad we did because I’m totally psyched to get back to work on the novel now!

A bookstore restores a writer’s fire like nothing else.  Just seeing row after row of books lined up like that made me realise how badly I want to finish this novel!  Flicking through some of the books on the stands made me think – ‘if they can do this, then so I can!’  But it was also rather frightening, because picking up a good book could make me think – ‘there’s no way I can ever write anything as good as this!’  Seeing the isles of published novels also made me think – ‘so many people have already been published, surely it can’t be that hard’.  But at the same time I thought – ‘this is nothing compared to the number of aspiring writers out there, it must be impossible to get published!’  And so there I was like a true idiot, switching rapidly between optimism and pessimism.  Fortunately, I left with the former firmly etched into my mind.

Starting tomorrow!

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A Word About Novel Word Counts…

March 11, 2009 in Fantasy, Novel, On Writing

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Potentially my finished manuscript

 As the first draft of my fantasy novel surged past 90,000 words, I started to worry about the final word count for the very first time. 

It was never something I gave much thought to before – after all, most fantasy novels you see on bookstore shelves these days are thicker than some of my law textbooks (not many though).  However, with my story not even at the half way mark (or so I think), I’m beginning to wonder just how much of a door stopper the finished product is going to be.  250,000 words?  300,000?

While I will be ecstatic just to finish the book, I’d be lying if I said publication has never crossed my mind.  But forget about selling any copies – would any sane publisher even contemplate publishing a 250,000-300,000 word book from a first time writer?  I’m certain the answer is a decisive ‘no’ (if I was James Joyce, maybe, but unfortunately I’m not).

So what is a publishable length for a novel?  I was lucky to come across this blog post at The Swivet (the blog of Colleen Lindsay, literary agent).  The post is almost a year old, but I doubt the publishing landscape has changed that much in a year.  According to Colleen, the ideal length of a fantasy/sci-fi manuscript is 100,000 words, and up to 120,000-130,000 for a truly spectacular epic fantasy.  Agents and publishers tend to think that if a novel is too long, it probably reflects a lack of writing ability (in my case it’s probably true).  The limits don’t necessarily apply to established, published authors who have already proven they can sell.  There are also exceptions like Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian (which I have read and personally don’t think is that great), but she was already a star and award winner, which few first time writers are. 

If you scroll down that post, you’ll see a message which lists the word counts of recent and historically popular novels.  Some of them caught me by surprise, like the first Harry Potter novel, which was roughly only 77,000 words, or the entire The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was only around 455,000 words!  Really?  I could have sworn both felt significantly longer when I read them.  Part of this might be because I’m already up to 90,000 myself and I feel like nothing much has happened in my story!

Yes, it’s just a first draft, and there will be a lot of re-writing, editing and cutting (A LOT!), but I just can’t fathom squeezing the completed manuscript down to a publishable 100,000 words.  So…perhaps a trilogy?  One that comes to mind is Patrick Rothfuss, who wrote The Name of the Wind (which I can’t wait to read).  He originally wrote a mega-long book entitled The Song of Flame and Thunder, which was rejected by all publishers he submitted to.  However, after he won the Writers of the Future competition, he managed to sell the book by splitting it into 3 volumes, the first of which was The Name of the Wind (which is still a ridiculously thick book that I’m sure exceeds 100,000 words).

Anyway, enough dreaming for now.  Have to try and finish the damn thing first.

PS: I can’t believe this is my 100th post!

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Writing action sequences

March 4, 2009 in Best Of, Fantasy, On Writing

How would you write an action sequence like this one?

How would you write an action sequence like this one?

Writing action sequences for any novel, not just fantasy, can be both exciting and frustrating.  The aim is almost always to create fast-paced, intense action that keeps the reader on the edge of their seats, but it’s not always as easy as it seems.

Writing action is a skill that needs to be practised and refined.  Often you can end up writing the entire sequence, explaining exactly what happened in the scene in your mind, and yet it turns out to be slow and boring – not the movie-like, fast-paced style that you had imagined.

Personally, I love writing action.  Consequently, my fantasy novel has its fair share of action-packed fight and battle sequences ranging from one-on-one sword fights to large scale, all-out battles.  I actually think it is one of my excrutiatingly few strengths as a writer.  It’s exciting to watch the action scene unveil inside your head as you write it, and even more exciting when you read back on it.  Here are some of my thoughts on it:

Imagine the scene and let your imagination fly

Some people prefer to choreograph the entire sequence in advance, like planning a dance.  For me, the preference is to just come up with a beginning and an end result – what is the situation at the beginning of the sequence, and what happens at the end of the sequence – and then fill in the middle with free, flowing writing.  Imagine the scene in your head like a movie.  Especially a movie you haven’t seen before.  When I start writing a fight scene, all I know is who wins in the end.  I don’t imagine every attack, dodge and parry in advance.  I let the image inside my head guide the action.  More often than not, I surprise myself with how smooth and innovative the sequence becomes.  If it gets a little out of hand, scrap it and do it again in a little while, after you’ve managed to get the old sequence out of your mind.

Stuff the cool verbs

A common problem with action scenes is the struggle to find the right verb to describe a particular action.

My advice: stuff it.

Describe the moves of each character precisely and in the most efficient manner possible.  Don’t worry about finding the perfect verb in the heat of the moment because it stops the flow of the action in your head, killing the creativity.  If it’s a kick, just call it a kick for now.  Just imagine – how annoying would it be if you are watching an action movie and every time a character is about to do something they call time out and ponder on their next move for a few minutes?

You can always come back with the thesaurus later and spend hours coming up with the best descriptive word possible.

Variety is crucial

If you have plenty of action sequences in your novel (like me), you need to spice it up with variety.  No matter how wonderfully you can describe an action scene, it will get boring if the reader keeps coming across the same sequence.  If every fight consisted of the same moves, it dulls down the action immediately.

I don’t just mean with the verbs and descriptions, though that does help.  But don’t go out of your way to use words you don’t even fully understand.  I still prefer to use easier, more direct verbs and descriptions as much as possible.  The faster your reader reads the sequence, the better it conveys the fast-paced nature of the action.  Using words they are unlikely to understand will just trip them up and retard the speed.

Instead, try and come up with something new in each action sequence.  As I said earlier, my novel consists of a wide range of combat situations, from the classic one-on-one encounter to the mass orgies.  But go even further than that.  Try to use a variety of weapons.  Different weapons will give rise to different opportunities in combat.  Try and come up with combat and battle strategies (which may require some research) that allow one party to outsmart or trick the other.  Try to make full use of a character’s physical characteristics and attributes.  Are they strong?  Do they have quick reflexes?  Think about the characters’ surroundings.  How can they utilise the equipment around them to their full advantage?

Most of all, try and introduce an element of surprise to some but not all of the sequences – guide your reader in one direction and then twist them around in the other.  Sometimes this can come naturally when you are writing freely; other times you have to push it in afterwards during revision.  Thinking of how to make each sequence work – both individually and collectively – can be a lot of fun.

Describing the other things

In an action sequence, the most important thing is the action.  However, you cannot completely ignore the other elements.  You may want to describe what a character is feeling (or appear to be feeling), or you may want to throw in some dialogue.  Perhaps you might want to give a clearer picture of the outward appearance of a character before, during and after a fight.  There are good reasons for doing so.

My opinion is that these things should be kept to a minimum in an action sequence.  The best way is to blend them into the action, if it’s possible to do so effectively, or alternatively, implement little breaks in the action to slot them in.  Just be careful not to make the break too substantial, or it will sever the pace you have built up from the scene.

Techniques and resources

There are specific techniques that can be employed to speed up the pace of your action sequence, like shorter sentences and more paragraphs.  Unfortunately, I’m not qualified to discuss them.  But fortunately, S B ‘Kinko’ Husley is, and here is a fabulous article entitled “Writing Action” that teaches you how to improve your shitty action sequence that goes through each step methodically using a set example.  Do yourself a favour and read it.  I am certainly going to be using it when revising all my action sequences in my second draft.

A more general article, also from the legendary Elfwood Tutorials, is entitled “Description, Dialogue, and Action” by Jessica Barnes.  I’m sure the sections not-related to action are also capable of assisting in writing better action sequences.

Here are a few others:

Lastly, a neat little article called “Novelists share their secrets on writing action.”

Pretty self-explanatory, though the article itself is not as good as one might expect.

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The Art of Fantasy Names

March 1, 2009 in Best Of, Fantasy, On Writing

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What would you name this creature?

I haven’t done any posts on fantasy writing tips for a while – but I have a few lined up, beginning with how to name things in your fantasy world.

I’m the first to admit that I absolutely suck at coming up with original and intriguing names.  I don’t just mean names for characters, but also names of locations (eg towns, kingdoms, forests, mountains, rivers etc), objects (ordinary, mystical or otherwise), flora and fauna, magical spells, religions – the list goes on and on.  When you are creating a fantasy world from scratch, everything needs to have a name.

However, coming up with the right name is harder than it appears (at least for me, anyway).  When you create an original character, you have to give them a name.  I’ve done so with all the characters for my fantasy novel, but I’m not happy with a lot of them.  Many of the names were made up years ago for one reason or other, and have been forgotten, remembered, changed and modified dozens of times.  I’ve decided to just stick with the temporary names until I complete the first draft, or else I’d never finish.

Here are some thoughts on the topic.

Picking a name that sticks and matches

It’s important to pick a name that readers will remember.  This is probably moreso in the fantasy world than in a story that reflects real life.  It doesn’t have to be completely unique, but it needs to be a name that matches the thing you are naming.  For a character, a name can give away clues about a wide variety of things, such as their personality, physical attributes, age and place of birth, ethnicity, social background etc.  For a location, it can reveal the type of place your characters live in or are going to – at the end of the day, it’s all about the connotations that come with the name, the feeling the name evokes in the reader.

For instance, you wouldn’t call a beautiful girl “Smaug” or a mighty male warrior “Jenny” (I can’t even come up with decent examples).

Memorable novels tend to have memorable names.  The easiest to bring up are JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien, because just about everyone knows their works and their characters.  When you say the name “Hogwarts”, everyone knows you are talking about Rowling’s books.  Similarly, when you refer to names like “Gandalf”, “Gollum” or “The Shire”, the image of Tolkien’s Middle Earth springs up in your mind.

The thing is, names don’t always have to be unique.  They just need to match whatever you are naming.  Look at Rowling’s use of simple names, such as “Harry Potter” or “Ron Weasley”, compared to more unique names like “Albus Dumbledore” and “Severus Snape”.  Both types of names are memorable, but can connote different things.  Readers may be able to relate more to common names like Harry and Ron.  It might also indicate the differences in age and culture (the former more “muggle” and the latter more magical).  Of course, a lot of how memorable a name is has to do with the characters themselves, but it doesn’t hurt having a good name that matches.  Just imagine switching the names of those characters around and you’ll realise that it doesn’t work.

Another thing to be wary of is using a name so closely linked to character, place or object that would make the use seem too blatant, even if it does match.  For example, the “Muscled Warrior” for a muscly warrior, or say the “Tall Mountain” for a tall mountain (two more bad examples).  There are less obvious ones too, like names that you see too often, such as “Fox” (for sleek people with red hair) or ”Wolf” (for savage loners).  “Hawk” and “Raven” are also common ones.  Not to say you shouldn’t use them, but just be aware of difficulties such names may cause.

Pick a name that sounds right and you can pronounce

I always read out the name that I created out loud to see if it sounds right.  If it doesn’t then I scrap the name.  The name doesn’t necessarily have to be aurally pleasant.  It just needs to sound right.

Take Tolkien and Rowling again.  Names like “Saruman” and “Voldemort” just roll off the tongue.  There are exceptions (especially for really well made characters), but again, it doesn’t harm your story to have a good sounding name.  I always thought “Tyler Durden” (Fight Club) was a cool name.

Also, it’s critical that you pick names you can actually pronounce. Whenever I see a name littered with apostrophes or contain more than five syllables I started to get confused.  Not to say you can’t use them, but make sure there’s a good reason for doing it.  Never make a name too complicated just because you can. If you can’t even pronounce the name properly (or you leave too much room for individual interpretation of the pronounciation), it will make it difficult for the name to stick.

Pick a name that is consistent

When creating a world, it’s important to remain consistent.  The same should go for names you use in that world.  If every character in your Kingdom has ordinary names like “James”, “Michael” and “Jane”, it would be weird if you suddenly tossed in a “Makunouchi” or “Sawamura”.  If you do, there needs to be a good reason, like they were from another place where everyone has Japanese-sounding names.  If they are from the same place, they should have the same broad type of name with linguistic similarities.  Again, not to say there are not exceptions.  One technique I like to use is to put myself in the shoes of someone living in that particular place and ask myself if I would give my child that name.

The same rule goes for locations and objects.  The best thing is to use your common sense and logic.  If the name doesn’t match or sound right, chances are it doesn’t belong.

Also, try and remain consistent with the real world wherever possible.  So if a creature looks and acts like a horse, then call it a horse.  Don’t try to be too cute.  There is no purpose for calling it something else.

Creating semi-original names

Coming up with completely original names can cause massive losses of brain cells.  One technique that appears to be commonly employed, especially for fantasy authors, is to look up existing names and modify them (check out the links below).  Sometimes, just changing a letter here or a syllable there can make a name sound unique, and yet be able to relate to readers.  A favourite is to use names from biblical texts, 0ld Celtic names or other ancient dialects, but using existing names in today’s world can work just as well.

Google it

One of the most annoying things is to think you have come up with the coolest, most original name all by yourself, and then find out that it’s not original at all.  Therefore, whenever I think I have come up with a good name, I’d Google to check if the name already exists and where it has been used.  Often I would find that my cool creation is the name of some company in a foreign country.  It won’t stop me from using the name, but if it turns out to be something that is used more commonly than I would like, then I would consider changing the name.

Name Generators

There are shortcuts to coming up with names.  One of them is to modify existing names as discussed above.  A more extreme way is to use Name Generators.  Why use your brain when you can use a computer program?

There is a plethora of such generators around on the web that come up with different names for you.  I too am guilty of using a couple of these.  After all, there is a Name Generator built into the writing program I am using, NewNovelist 2 (which I did a comprehensive review of).  But instead of using the generated names outright, I tend to mix and match the combinations a bit and also change a few letters or syllables here and there so I don’t feel as bad for being unoriginal.

Here are some good online Name Generators (in no particular order).  I recommend checking out at least a few if you are stuck for names.  Each has a slightly different system to generating the name.

  • Fantasy Name Generator by Samuel Stoddard – a very advanced generator which gives you options of serious names, fun names and specialised names.
  • Behind the Name’s Random Name Generator - awesome website that can generate names from dozens of languages, including historical and biblical ones, as well as specialised names such as Witch and even Transformer!
  • The Everchanging Book of Names - a program you have to download (for free) and is extremely useful (I plan to use this to come up with better names myself), and can name not only characters but also things such as fabrics and horses.
  • Historical Name Generator: 16th Century Irish and Scottish Gaelic Names - for those that like old-sounding Gaelic names.
  • Chris Pound’s Language Machines - another fantastic name generator for not only characters but creatures and spells, and are specifically categorised.
  • Cult of Squid’s Random Name Generator - pick a template (cultural, geographical, and others) then use it to generate names of peole, places and ideas – very useful, especially if you want a good name for a geographical location that sounds cool.
  • Yafnag (Yet Another Fantasy Name Generator) – self-explanatory.  The good thing with this one is you can generate lots of names at once to pick from and you can pick the desired lengths of names.
  • Random Name Generator - this uses data from the US census to generate random names, and you can even pick the level of obscurity!  Good for those that want to come up with names that reflect the real world (though sometimes it makes you wonder…).
  • Seventh Sanctum - not just fantasy names, but a whole load of different types of generators – eg martial arts moves, weapons, swords, magic.  Really worth a visit.  I will be when fixing up my first draft.
  • The Elvish Name Generator - for those that like Elvish names.  Also has a separate Hobbit Name Generator.  Enter real names and it generates your Elvish or Hobbit name.
  • Fairy Name Generator - similar to the above one for Elvish and Hobbit names.
  • The Pagan Name Generator - for lovers of Pagan names.

Resources and further reading

If you would like to read more about creating names from someone who actually knows what they are talking about, a good starting point is the article “What’s in a Name” by Moira Allen.  There is also an interesting article in the Washington Post by author Elinor Lipman entitled “The Writing Life” which discusses the importance of picking the right name.

Here are some other resources you may find helpful:

  • Behind the Name - the eptymology and history of first names – a website with loads of information about the source and meanings of names from dozens of cultures and in mythology.  For people who want to get a little more in-depth knowledge about the names they are choosing.
  • Baby Names - more of a general website but can be beneficial in coming up with more ordinary names and finding out which baby names are and have been popular.  The Baby Name Network is a similar site with similar features.
  • Celtic Name Meanings - thousands of Celtic names and what they mean.
  • Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online - a tool which helps you find geographic names around the world.
  • Medieval Names Archive - a website with tons of information about medieval names that will take a while to navigate, but could be worth it if your fantasy world is medieval in nature.

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Novel update…

February 25, 2009 in Fantasy, Novel, On Writing

It’s been a while since the last update on my fantasy novel.

Things had been going kind of slow as of late as I stunned myself into the realisation that I was more than halfway through my masters degree and there was only 3 months to go before final exams!  The exams are kind of on a collision course with the timetable I have set for myself to finish the first draft of the novel.  Not good.

Plus there’s been the NBA All-Star game, the trade deadline, AND the Oscars (including the ambitious goal to watch most of the nominees I could possibly get to, which I’m both surprised and frightened to say I achieved).  To say I’ve been a little distracted would be an understatement.

Nevertheless, I’ve been plodding along quietly, doing anything from 300 to 1,500 words a day (mostly in the lower region) while trying to shift the focus to my studies.  I finally decided to check the word count today, and I was somewhat shocked to see that it is now 77,000+ words.  I’d say in terms of the plot, I should be about a quarter of the way through.  Sadly though, in terms of the number of things I want the protagonist to do and the places I want him to go, I’m probably only about one-sixth through, if that.  Maybe that just means things will get a lot more exciting soon.

I had been stuck in a lull, feeling like things were moving along but not going anywhere.  It was kind of like my protagonists, who were trapped with the antagonist in a place filled with blood-sucking, skin-colour-changing, mutated/evolved elves.  Today, I finally managed to get them out of that dreaded place.  They escaped - sweaty, muddied and bleeding – at last.  Now hopefully, so can I – and get a move on with the story.

Another thing that has struck me is that I need to put more effort into distinguishing my characters.  Give them more obvious traits.  I want to keep them 3-dimensional but there’s a danger that they might end up bland and without distinctiveness.  That last thing I would want is for them all to seem the same.  The thing is, I’m not 100% sure what their personalities are like yet because I haven’t known them for all that long.  Perhaps that’s something I should worry about in the second draft.

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