Do you have to be a fantasy reader to be a fantasy writer?

[Devor]

So for instance,

Wizard Azulo enters a Troll cave to fight the troll. What happens?

Right now I'm thinking wizards - Magic, staff, robes, spells, items, so on.
I'm thinking trolls - ugly, tough, clubs, weapons, maybe some kind of riddle, maybe guarding a treasure chest.
I'm thinking caves - dark, damp, rocks, deep tunnel chasms, maybe it leads somewhere.

That is, boring, simple scene. If the wizard is a good guy, and the troll a bad guy, maybe he kills the troll with magic, maybe there's a rock slide. Maybe the troll wins, so sad. The obvious twist is to subvert all that, make the troll a good guy too, or a minion with intelligence, or a covert riddler, let them have a talk. Maybe you throw in something totally new, or you think "What's the troll doing?" and give him a magic cauldron, making him a witch.

You can keep going, but that's sort of the basic set of ideas based on those simple triggers.

Instead, what I'm going to do is manipulate the triggers. In fact, I'm going to manipulate a hidden trigger: Enters. Let's make it crawls. The wizard crawls into the troll's cave. Now what do you get?

The wizard is doing subterfuge, and the troll is up to something nefarious.
The wizard is injured, and the troll is a doctor.

Now I've got way different ideas than everyone else does. Let's go with the first situation - the troll is up to something sneaky. But I can even drop "crawls." It makes it too obvious.

I'm going to stop, now, but you can see where that's going?


((edit))

Darnit, I couldn't stop. That happens sometimes.

I said above that a choice was a wounded wizard crawls into a troll's cave, and the troll is a doctor. After I posted I saw that the original statement had "to fight" the troll, so I wondered why a wounded wizard would fight a troll doctor. I also said espionage. I went with both.

Now I have:

An evil wounded wizard sneaks into the cave of the troll healer, the greatest medicine-man in the country, to murder the troll and steal his healing ointments, but discovers that the troll is up to something sneaky.

There, that's my creative take on the opening sentence.

 

[Philip Overby]

I should just write this down somewhere and copy and paste it every time I discuss something, because the point above for me goes back to execution.

So here's my copy and paste job: "Execution trumps all."

If you have a wizard go into a cave and kill a troll, maybe your vision of that is boring. However, someone else may take that said boring idea and mold it into something significant. You can still do wizard goes in cave, kills troll and make it interesting in the hands of different writers. Hell, that may even be a good challenge. Take something that sounds boring on the surface, don't subvert it, and see how it turns out in the hands of different writers. The Jim Butcher Challenge toyed with that in some ways, but it may have been able to go deeper by giving everyone the same concept and seeing what each person came up with. Say wizard goes into a cave and kills a troll. Everyone has to use that. Some may say, "Well, that's just a contest in who can create the least boring story out of a boring, plaid out concept." I look at it as an opportunity to create something engaging without attempting to subvert. Is it possible? I think so.

Now in regards to your wizard is injured and the doctor is a troll scenario. Sure, that would probably pique my attention more on the surface. But say take that concept and put it in the hands of a beginning writer and put the wizard kills troll story in the hands of master fantasist. Is the troll doctor story going to be better than the nefarious troll story simply because it subverts tropes or not going with the obvious route?

 

[Devor]

Is the troll doctor story going to be better than the nefarious troll story simply because it's subvert tropes or not going with the obvious route?

You actually ninja'ed an edit because I added that the wizard discovers the troll up to something sneaky.

But execution wasn't the point. The point was honing your creativity. I absolutely reject the idea that you can expect to succeed as an author based solely on having a better execution of the same story; however, execution isn't the point. The potential for surprising the readers is much greater when you can find a way to give them the wrong expectations of what's going on.

And as I just demonstrated, the trick to creativity wasn't mysterious or difficult at its core at all. In fact it's very learnable. Take the same sentence - "Wizard Azulo enters a Troll cave to fight the troll" - and now change enters to a different verb, like dives.

Wizard Azulo dives into a Troll cave to fight the troll.

What ideas do you get now? Can you tell a better story now that you have those new ideas?

Why wouldn't you want to learn that kind of skill?

 

[Devor]

Wizard Azulo dives into a Troll cave to fight the troll.

*sigh*

I hate when this happens.

- The wizard is escaping something as he dives into the troll cave, so maybe the troll is the cause or source of what he's escaping.
- The troll cave is under water.
- The wizard is flying, and dives from the sky.

Add those to the doctor/espionage scenario, and we get:

An evil flying wizard is wounded by the troll's giant crow and dives at high speed into the island cave of the troll doctor, intending to murder the troll and steal his healing ointments. But before he casts his killing spell, he learns that the troll is also up to something nefarious.

It's getting a little unwieldy now, but whatever.

 

[Philip Overby]

I guess I get what you're saying, but surprising readers doesn't necessarily mean it's better. It has the potential to be better depending on whose hands it's in. There are probably thousands of authors who have become successful based on executing the same kind of stories in slightly different ways.

I absolutely reject the idea that you can expect to succeed as an author based solely on having a better execution of the same story; however, execution isn't the point

See: Shakespeare. And umpteen others.

Wizard Azulo dives into a Troll cave to fight the troll.

What ideas do you get now? Can you tell a better story now that you have those new ideas?

Why wouldn't you want to learn that kind of skill?

I actually wrote something similar to this a while back. It started with the idea of a skydiver attempting to kill a dragon before she hit the ground. The idea itself I thought was cool and different, but when I finished it, it wasn't so hot. This goes in the execution column.

On the other hand, I'm writing a story now about sky pirates trying to elude a ship with a magic cannon. I started this story with the idea of a magic canon, which probably isn't terribly original. But the story so far is more captivating to me because I'm just executing it better than I did the other story.

The creative process allows for lots of cool things to happen or new ideas to birth, but I don't see how you think execution doesn't play a part in something being successful or not. Super awesome creative ideas don't mean jack if they don't form what you want them to form. Which I suppose in itself, is something writers have to learn. Everyone gets a kernel of an idea different ways. Sometimes the great idea becomes great story, evolving out of several subversions and twists. But sometimes it becomes an incomprehensible mess.

I don't know if all that makes sense, but it's 4 am where I'm at. Time to go dream of wizards and trolls.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Your approach: what if the wizard sneaks into the cave?

My approach: I read a story where the hero snuck into the cave. What if my wizard does that?

It's six of one and half a dozen of the other. But if you're working off other stories with a sneak for a hero, you can mimic the best things about that kind of story rather than having to discover them all yourself.

The word I keep coming back to is "iterate." Why reinvent the wheel? (Unless, of course, you've never seen a wheel before--I do think there are stories that haven't been told or have been lost.) Reading more will always give you more tools, and if you don't like a tool, you always have the choice to set it aside and use something else.

 

[teacup]

I've seen people give up on a lot of key writing concepts, like description or romance or character arcs or worldbuilding or planning or all sorts of things. But this is a first.

Surprise is one of the biggest joys in life. How can a writer give up on delivering a full emotion to a reader?

I don't think Phil said to give up on it.



Surprising readers can be good, but as Phil said, it doesn't necessarily mean the writing is better.
Alone, it doesn't make a story/writing good. But it being used with other techniques, with good execution, is what leads to a good story/writing.

 

[Devor]

I don't think Phil said to give up on it.

That may have been unfair on my part. But Shakespeare's audience had never heard of the stories he was copying, and very little of the subject matter he was writing in. Again, as a first-time fantasy writer, you're not going to have that advantage. Your target audience is going to be people on their fiftieth fantasy book because you're not starting out popular enough to reach people who are any less into fantasy than that. You need creativity, and creative judgement, I would say, almost more than anything.

 

[teacup]

You need creativity, and creative judgement, I would say, almost more than anything.

I would say that it's good to have that and to read a lot. I don't see why you'd have to have just one or the other.

And though creativity and creative judgement is a big part of it, if you can't execute it well, it will all fall flat.

 

[Devor]

I would say that it's good to have that and to read a lot. I don't see why you'd have to have just one or the other.

Reading too much early on can make it harder to learn creativity later if you're not developing it from the get go. It floods you with ideas and makes it more challenging to sort out where they are coming from and why. However that stopped being the main point I was making several pages ago.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Since I can remember, since before I remember where I ever saw a Dragon, I've been slaying them, or riding them, or sneaking around them.

The dragon used to be the row of blueberry bushes behind our house, It's nest of eggs the sandbox, and my sword a hickory branch with the leaves stripped off.

It might have been a picture in a children's book, or some glimpse of some movie or T.V. show that told me what a dragon was and basically what it looked like, but I will never remember where it's image really originated from.

As far as I'm concerned, it has always been there.

I've defeated tribes of evil Druids in hand to hand combat, stormed castles, defended lone cottages from the onslaught of dark armies, all before the age of, oh, nine. I could speculate where such ideas came from, but the ideas were new and exciting to me then, and they're new and excited when they come to me now.

I created them, as best as something can be created, and my imagination that knew no bounds then still grows.

Were my ideas then just a mish mosh of different things i'd seen or heard? No.
Did i have to know what a dragon was to imagine one in my story? Yes.

I have stories to tell. great, glorious stories that chill the bones and warm the toes and wrinkle the brow and tear the eye.

they will inevitably be founded on the ideas of other stories i have loved, but the imitation stops there.

There is no need to WORRY if another wizard in another story crawled or charged or sailed or danced or somersaulted into the cave, because if i had been writing that wizard, whichever idea i chose would have been mine.

It is equally ILL practice, in my mind, to write something because another author did it and it worked, and to write something ONLY because no one else has. If you're only writing for fame, or money, then fine.

I don't think any great author would argue that being passionately in love with the story you're telling is a huge help in writing something other people will love as well.

There is a program now, that comes up with formulas for hit music. it reads patterns and sounds and effects, and puts out a formula that artists can follow to produce money making music.
Thats one of the saddest things i've ever heard, and I salute any band who refuses to use it. I condemn those who do, as entertainers perhaps, but not artists.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Reading too much early on can make it harder to learn creativity later if you're not developing it from the get go. It floods you with ideas and makes it more challenging to sort out where they are coming from and why. However that stopped being the main point I was making several pages ago.

I was reading Ender's Game when I was six years old. I read continuously from then on. But by the time I was eighteen, I had only written one story that wasn't for a school assignment.

When I was eighteen, I wrote The Silent Girl. I'm not going to argue whether it's a good story or a bad one--half the people who've read it think it's oddly cute, and the other half think only a sick freak could write something so twisted. But I don't think you could pin it down and say "This story was obviously inspired by this!" or "This story was obviously inspired by that!" It's very much its own entity, not despite but because I read so many different stories and incorporated elements from so many different sources.

I'm going to venture that if I had consumed less media, I would not have been able to write The Silent Girl. I certainly wouldn't have come up with the premise if I hadn't spent time on fan forums for Heroes. In fact, if I had tried to "find my voice" and not consumed so such media beforehand, I don't think I would ever have finished a story at all!

 

[Jackarandajam]

Vox Day is a great example of an author who wrote fantasy fiction based on the conglomeration of a bunch of existing ideas. It's Rome, and France, and Vikings, just in an alternate universe with goblins (based on hispanics) and elves, based on what everyone assumes elves are like.

He even says that he read GRRM's fantasy, and decided that he could "do it better."

That's fine, and I don't fault it's existence. it's just not at all what I am striving for.

 

[Ireth]

Somewhat on-topic: what are people's thoughts on characters acknowledging the stories or other media your works shares elements of? My WIP Winter's Queen started out as basically "let's take the core premise of The Hunter's Moon and turn it on its head", and as I kept writing I realized it shared a lot of the same plot and structure as Finding Nemo -- a young protagonist is taken from their widowed, overprotective father; said father teams up with an ally to get the child back, encountering friends and foes along the way.

The core human characters are from 20th/21st century Earth, and as such would be familiar with Pixar's films and O.R. Melling's books. Would it be awkward for the father's ally (in this case his older brother) to point out the similarity of their own quest to Finding Nemo, perhaps even going so far as to tease him with the nickname 'Marlin'? Or in the case of the kidnapped protagonist, making reference to The Hunter's Moon, which she will have read, and how that story is very different than her own situation?

 

[Devor]

When I was eighteen, I wrote The Silent Girl. I'm not going to argue whether it's a good story or a bad one--half the people who've read it think it's oddly cute, and the other half think only a sick freak could write something so twisted. But I don't think you could pin it down and say "This story was obviously inspired by this!" or "This story was obviously inspired by that!" It's very much its own entity, not despite but because I read so many different stories and incorporated elements from so many different sources.

. . . . .

I'm going to venture that if I had consumed less media, I would not have been able to write The Silent Girl.

The question isn't one of consuming different types of media but of reading fantasy to write fantasy. A direct comparison would be if you had read "oddly cute, sick freak" stories as an inspiration for "The Silent Girl." But that's not what you did if you're saying it's its own entity.

You're drawing on idea sets B, C, and D to write in category A. That's not the same as writing fantasy while drawing on the same idea set as everyone else who's writing in fantasy.

In fact, if I had tried to "find my voice" and not consumed so such media beforehand, I don't think I would ever have finished a story at all!

. . . . once again, this is not a discussion about finding your voice.

 

[Feo Takahari]

You're drawing on idea sets B, C, and D to write in category A. That's not the same as writing fantasy while drawing on the same idea set as everyone else who's writing in fantasy.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is fantasy. Perdido Street Station is fantasy. Even Princess Tutu is fantasy. None of those give the same idea set as Tolkien-style fantasy. (For that matter, Tolkien doesn't give the same idea set as today's "Tolkien-style" fantasy!) I guess if you only ever read, I dunno, Dungeons and Dragons tie-in novels, you might not have many different types of fantasy to draw from, but I don't think anyone on this site limits their media consumption that much.

 

[Steerpike]

My personal feeling on the matter is that it helps to be well-read in the genre you want to write in, so you have a familiarity with the genre in which you wish to inject yourself, and are aware of tropes, conventions, expectations, and the like (not that you have to adhere to them, of course).

I also think reading heavily outside of genre is invaluable. Read classics, read fast-paced thrillers, read detective/mystery novels, read Romances. The successful authors in each of these genres is doing something very well that could be drawn upon (in terms of technique) in your own writing.

 

[Devor]

I guess if you only ever read, I dunno, Dungeons and Dragons tie-in novels, you might not have many different types of fantasy to draw from, but I don't think anyone on this site limits their media consumption that much.

I really feel that you're being deliberate in misunderstanding me at this point. Nothing that I've said has been in any way shape or form designed to discourage anyone from reading anything. All the way back in my first post I said:

I don't like to say "yes," not because I think you can go without reading fantasy, but because I think you should be more careful about what you read, how you read, when you read, and why you read. I think it can be an advantage to begin developing your story concept and your creativity skills before absorbing too many existing influences.

The key to being creative is figuring out what you would think of that nobody else ever would. Once you're at that point, you should read as many good books as you can so you can incorporate better writing and storytelling techniques into your concept. But you need to find at least a seed of your creativity first, and you do that by shaking everything else off and pushing at your own ideas until they start to click with you.

Nothing about my opinion has changed throughout this discussion, and nothing about that statement encourages you not to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer or read Princess TuTu. If you want to be a writer, nothing I can say is going to stop anyone from picking up a book, nor should it. Instead my point has been a resounding encouragement to focus as early as possible on developing your own creative abilities because it gets harder to do if you wait.

 

[Penpilot]

Here's my experience with outside influences. And I don't think it's uncommon. When you're starting off as a writer, you're easily swayed by everything you read or see. You want to take all the good ideas you see and kitchen-sink them into what ever story you're working on, regardless of it really fits or not. And the thing is you don't really know if it fits because you're just learning the ropes, and don't really know how to define your story yet. You just know that's awesome and want to do something like that.

These influences can definitely ruin a story or two for you. I used to have to be careful about what author I read because I would unconsciously pick up on their voice and it would make its way into the way I wrote.

But I still read things and I watched things and I let all those tidal influences tug me all directions. And I learned how to handle them. I developed filters. I learned to judge the influences and used them on my current work when appropriate and set them aside when not. I learned to play with those ideas. I understood what the standard direction to go was and I tried to see what other directions were possible. Sometimes I go with the expected and sometimes not. But always, I try to do something interesting with it. Dare I say creative with it? For myself at lease, I don't think it has hindered my creativity at all. And I have a bucket full of unused ideas because of it.

This is the way I look at it. New writers should write to tropes, write the expected simple story. Those are the baby steps, before running. They allow a writer to accumulate the fundamental skills without worrying about originality or creativity before moving on to bigger and better. If a writer learns to finish, learns to write using a structure, and can avoid the purple prose, that's a foundation for creativity. Once a writer has a firm footing on the basics of writing, regardless of their derivative output, their minds are free. They no longer have to worry about finishing, structure, or prose style. They can simply focus on making their stories interesting. They can focus on being creative.

And I don't think it gets harder to be creative. If anything conforming to boring standard tropes feeds creativity. It makes one wonder if there's anything better. It's like if all a baker makes is boring white bread, over and over for years. Eventually they're going to daydream of making different types of bread. And because they're so familiar with the process of making white bread, they'll understand intimately how certain changes to the recipe will affect the result. At the very least, it will make them want to experiment. But instead of experimenting willy-nilly, they do it from a place of understanding.

 

[Feo Takahari]

@Devor: at this point, all I can say is that it's not at all deliberate that I don't understand what you're talking about. I give up.