Living the Research

[Malik]

I started reading this yesterday. Half the time I have no idea what you're talking about. In a good way. Your knowledge of all-things-sword is both refreshing and inspiring.

Thank you.

A couple of reviewers have noted that they enjoyed it more on the second read once they had a handle on the technical stuff. Enjoy.

- JM

 

[Nomadica]

About three weeks after I wrote this, I received the first of what has become a concerning raft of emails and messages suggesting that the world where my series happens is real. The common thread in these messages has been that there's no way I could know so much about all this unless I've been there.

One reader sends me these long, Dr. Bronner-esque emails, absolutely convinced that I was part of a Black Ops program guarding a magic portal -- he's gonna lose his freaking mind when I get to Book IV and

Spoiler: SERIOUSLY, MAJOR GODDAMN SPOILER

introduce an ex-Green Beret-turned-stuntman associate of the MC to help him run a counterterrorism operation.

Another reader tells me that the descriptions of the elves in my novel align exactly with one of her past-life regressions. She's really nice about it, though, and thinks that I'm remembering all this from a past life, myself. She has this whole thing about how what we create in this world is based on spiritual memory from alternate realities and past lives, and that's all fine by me. A third keeps sending me pictures of his armor and sword and assures me he's ready to go. I'm not so sure he is; he doesn't look like he could keep up with me in the field, and his sword has wings on it.

A couple of others -- messages and reviews -- have been much more subtle, mentioning how real the world feels, and how it reads like I've been there myself. And then, a few weeks ago, I found myself in an increasingly weird conversation with a guy at Norwescon who I really hope was high as shit and kept pressing me on the mechanics of how the characters got back and forth between worlds. I finally broke contact when he started asking how my sword got its patina and all those dings.

At first, I was sure I was being trolled, but at this point, if I am, then it's by a well-organized and dedicated group. I have come to the conclusion that there's a subset of fantasy readers who are just flat-out nuts.

I brought this on myself. As I've discussed on these boards, I took deliberate pains and used a lot of narrative tricks to make the book seem hyper-realistic, past the research and the intentional demolition of expected inaccuracies. The big thing is, I wrote it in omniscient third, crafting a narrator who's constantly dropping hints that he's been there and knows the characters, but who never drops into first person. The narrator just knows all this stuff. It reads like a memoir, like someone's sitting in your living room with a drink in his hand telling you all this. Nobody writes in omniscient third anymore, so this might have taken some people by surprise, and some readers who don't know any better might even construe it as a first-person account.

It's all a trick. All of it. It's sawing a woman in half onstage. Flowers out of a handkerchief. But coupled with the amount of research I put in, I appear to have exactly pulled it off. And as of this week, Dragon's Trail is an international bestseller, so I'm preparing for a whole new deluge of weird.

Would it be wrong to mess with hem just a little bit? I mean you don't have to give them any straight answers right? >:}

 

[Rkcapps]

My 2 cents. My personal preference is with you JM. I personally can't experience anything at present. I'm wheelchair bound but I listen, as a teen I did martial arts, I've been knocked out cold. I also was fortunate enough to see the reenactment of the Battle of Hastings. Still I know it's not enough.

I started my fantasy in my twenties. It has changed so much and may still. It's been a work of 20+ years and I feel I'm really just getting to know my characters now, through all the rewrites.

What I do know is I just started you book too and I've been searching for a fantasy book I can appreciate. I start so many but they don't hold my attention. I'm not engaged. You can't imagine my relief to start yours. This is the book I've searched for. Dare I say it, but for me, the proof is in the pudding.

But I firmly believe, each to their own.

 

[C. A. Stanley]

Thank you.

A couple of reviewers have noted that they enjoyed it more on the second read once they had a handle on the technical stuff. Enjoy.

- JM

I am really enjoying this book. Have you released anything else that I can read once I'm finished with this one? It's probably not right to intrude on the thread just for that, so...

From your writing, I can tell you have first-hand experience of combat, specifically with swords. This shows. I've always thought I could combine imagination with research, and come up with the goods; it's becoming evident that you cannot blag knowledge of an art form that has been present throughout human history! Even though a lot of the technicalities and jargon you use go right over my head, it all adds to the immersion factor. To begin with it was a little jarring, but that's more testament to my own ignorance than anything else.

By the end of the book I'll have a much better understanding of medieval weapons and armour, no doubt. A book that entertains and educates is a fine thing.

 

[Malik]

Thank you so much. I don't have anything else that I've written, other than my blog at my website, below.

I'm working on the sequel right now. I received orders last night to mobilize in June, so the next few weeks will be a sprint, writing 10-12 hours per day when I'm not making arrangements for care of the house, making out my will, etc. I'll be busy until October, so that's going to screw the whole timeline up. I hope to have at least a finished skeleton in a month that I can tweak on my off-time, and get it to my editor by September.

You can do a lot by combining imagination with research -- you don't have to become an expert fencer to write a good fight scene -- but there's a lot to be said for going out and doing it a few times, or talking to someone who's done it, just to get the little things. It's the little things that sell it. There's a huge difference between knowing how something's done and how it feels to do it. Not just the physical sensation, but the emotional and mental processes behind the action having put the time in to learn it. And it's also the little follow-on things that you don't get from Google or YouTube that really sell the story.

An obvious example is the fight outside Horlech and the after-care for the soldiers that results in -- well, you'll read it. I often read fights in fantasy novels that are brilliantly done, but then the heroes win the fight and then go off and do the next part of the adventure, and what; they just leave the badguys bleeding out and crying and shitting themselves? Seriously? You're just going to walk away from a dying man? You're gonna let this guy die alone and in pain, with nobody there to hold his hand, because he backed the wrong horse? Way to go, hero. You're really something. (There's a time and a place when a badguy has it coming, and you want to see the hero shatter his spine and leave him sputtering on the floor. That's not this.)

Also, the cleaning of swords, the taking of inventory, the pulling off of helmets, and most of all, just sitting the **** down for a minute and drinking water and getting your head straight. I have never been in a fight of any kind and wanted to just go about whatever the hell it was I was doing beforehand like it never happened. Even if everything goes your way, you need a minute. These are the "been there, done that" details that you can get from sitting down with someone over a beer if you don't have the ability to do it yourself.

I'm extremely proud of a scene at the end when the MCs are armoring up in full harness. I could have gone into a 37-step description of locking each other into their armor piece by piece to show you how much I learned about armor for this book, but instead, I show them mid-process; one guy is jumping up and down to seat his pauldrons and the other is futzing about with a bootlace because his foot is going numb. I can give you a much better level of detail with those two vignettes than I ever could with a five-page infodump I built from watching a video of some yutz putting on armor.

The castle escape, though; I did that one in person. I wouldn't have missed the chance. "Oooh. Look what they're doing over there. Research!"

 

[Malik]

Would it be wrong to mess with hem just a little bit? I mean you don't have to give them any straight answers right? >:}

You think I've given anybody a straight answer? I'm all about the mystique, here.

Don't get me wrong; I haven't lied to anyone and I won't. I've just dropped breadcrumbs and let them get lost on their own.

 

[C. A. Stanley]

I don't have anything else that I've written, other than my blog at my website, below.

That's my evening sorted then...

I received orders last night to mobilize in June, so the next few weeks will be a sprint, writing 10-12 hours per day when I'm not making arrangements for care of the house, making out my will, etc. I'll be busy until October, so that's going to screw the whole timeline up. I hope to have at least a finished skeleton in a month that I can tweak on my off-time, and get it to my editor by September.

Be safe out there, brother.

I will wait patiently for the second instalment (I say that now, I may not be so patient once I finish Dragon's Trail and want to know what happens next aha).

It's the little things that sell it. There's a huge difference between knowing how something's done and how it feels to do it. Not just the physical sensation, but the emotional and mental processes behind the action having put the time in to learn it. And it's also the little follow-on things that you don't get from Google or YouTube that really sell the story.
...
I often read fights in fantasy novels that are brilliantly done, but then the heroes win the fight and then go off and do the next part of the adventure, and what; they just leave the badguys bleeding out and crying and shitting themselves? Seriously? You're just going to walk away from a dying man? You're gonna let this guy die alone and in pain, with nobody there to hold his hand, because he backed the wrong horse? Way to go, hero. You're really something. (There's a time and a place when a badguy has it coming, and you want to see the hero shatter his spine and leave him sputtering on the floor. That's not this.)

Also, the cleaning of swords, the taking of inventory, the pulling off of helmets, and most of all, just sitting the **** down for a minute and drinking water and getting your head straight. I have never been in a fight of any kind and wanted to just go about whatever the hell it was I was doing beforehand like it never happened. Even if everything goes your way, you need a minute. These are the "been there, done that" details that you can get from sitting down with someone over a beer if you don't have the ability to do it yourself.

I'm extremely proud of a scene at the end when the MCs are armoring up in full harness. I could have gone into a 37-step description of locking each other into their armor piece by piece to show you how much I learned about armor for this book, but instead, I show them mid-process; one guy is jumping up and down to seat his pauldrons and the other is futzing about with a bootlace because his foot is going numb. I can give you a much better level of detail with those two vignettes than I ever could with a five-page infodump I built from watching a video of some yutz putting on armor.

Real talk.

As much as a lot of people don't actually want to read about the grim realities of war, or the 'tedium' of pre-/post-combat, these are the things that make it real (figuratively, of course, I'm not going to ask you where the portal to Falconsrealm is!). For me, reading is a way to experience things I will never experience in this life. To experience something fully, you need the good and the bad. If you don't appreciate the time and effort taken to train and prepare, how can you fully appreciate the battle itself, and its rewards and/or consequences? How can you appreciate a character's character if you don't see how they react to taking a life, almost losing their life, losing a friend, comforting a dying 'enemy'? As you mention, that sh*t is real, and important. Character building, literally.

If storytelling is about people, each scene has to show a characters humanity, or lack of. It needs to affect the character deeply in some way, not just leave them with a sore leg and a split lip. We are not only bodies, but bodies and minds.

 

[C. A. Stanley]

I'm working on the sequel right now.

Btw, I just have to say, the fact I'm talking about this with the guy who wrote the book I'm currently reading is surreal. And awesome.

Mythic Scribes is so great

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Thank you so much. I don't have anything else that I've written, other than my blog at my website, below.

I'm working on the sequel right now. I received orders last night to mobilize in June, so the next few weeks will be a sprint, writing 10-12 hours per day when I'm not making arrangements for care of the house, making out my will, etc. I'll be busy until October, so that's going to screw the whole timeline up. I hope to have at least a finished skeleton in a month that I can tweak on my off-time, and get it to my editor by September.

You can do a lot by combining imagination with research -- you don't have to become an expert fencer to write a good fight scene -- but there's a lot to be said for going out and doing it a few times, or talking to someone who's done it, just to get the little things. It's the little things that sell it. There's a huge difference between knowing how something's done and how it feels to do it. Not just the physical sensation, but the emotional and mental processes behind the action having put the time in to learn it. And it's also the little follow-on things that you don't get from Google or YouTube that really sell the story.

An obvious example is the fight outside Horlech and the after-care for the soldiers that results in -- well, you'll read it. I often read fights in fantasy novels that are brilliantly done, but then the heroes win the fight and then go off and do the next part of the adventure, and what; they just leave the badguys bleeding out and crying and shitting themselves? Seriously? You're just going to walk away from a dying man? You're gonna let this guy die alone and in pain, with nobody there to hold his hand, because he backed the wrong horse? Way to go, hero. You're really something. (There's a time and a place when a badguy has it coming, and you want to see the hero shatter his spine and leave him sputtering on the floor. That's not this.)

Also, the cleaning of swords, the taking of inventory, the pulling off of helmets, and most of all, just sitting the **** down for a minute and drinking water and getting your head straight. I have never been in a fight of any kind and wanted to just go about whatever the hell it was I was doing beforehand like it never happened. Even if everything goes your way, you need a minute. These are the "been there, done that" details that you can get from sitting down with someone over a beer if you don't have the ability to do it yourself.

I'm extremely proud of a scene at the end when the MCs are armoring up in full harness. I could have gone into a 37-step description of locking each other into their armor piece by piece to show you how much I learned about armor for this book, but instead, I show them mid-process; one guy is jumping up and down to seat his pauldrons and the other is futzing about with a bootlace because his foot is going numb. I can give you a much better level of detail with those two vignettes than I ever could with a five-page infodump I built from watching a video of some yutz putting on armor.

The castle escape, though; I did that one in person. I wouldn't have missed the chance. "Oooh. Look what they're doing over there. Research!"

I must say that I've been in martial arts for...what? Hmm, seven, eight months? And I already judge fight scenes in books I read. Last time I read one it kind of just hit me that "i've just impaired my ability to enjoy reading. Crud."

I don't know how much I'm improving my own fight scenes, but I did get to overhear a well-told anecdote from one of my instructors about That Time A Guy Jumped Me which I have pressed into my mind for safekeeping.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

That's my evening sorted then...


Be safe out there, brother.

I will wait patiently for the second instalment (I say that now, I may not be so patient once I finish Dragon's Trail and want to know what happens next aha).


Real talk.

As much as a lot of people don't actually want to read about the grim realities of war, or the 'tedium' of pre-/post-combat, these are the things that make it real (figuratively, of course, I'm not going to ask you where the portal to Falconsrealm is!). For me, reading is a way to experience things I will never experience in this life. To experience something fully, you need the good and the bad. If you don't appreciate the time and effort taken to train and prepare, how can you fully appreciate the battle itself, and its rewards and/or consequences? How can you appreciate a character's character if you don't see how they react to taking a life, almost losing their life, losing a friend, comforting a dying 'enemy'? As you mention, that sh*t is real, and important. Character building, literally.

If storytelling is about people, each scene has to show a characters humanity, or lack of. It needs to affect the character deeply in some way, not just leave them with a sore leg and a split lip. We are not only bodies, but bodies and minds.

One of the things that bothers me most is how 'heroes' in stories can straight up kill someone and not be mentally affected by it whatsoever. I know it's gotta be hard for a writer to get into the mind of someone who has just killed, hopefully having never done it themselves, but can you not just try?

Closely tied with this is the heroes that have seen so much horrible crap, family members killed in front of them, gruesome killings, torture, etc, and not suffer from PTSD or any symptoms of trauma whatsoever.

Or characters that have sustained tons and tons of grievous wounds after years of fighting and are never troubled by any past injuries.

I could go on...

 

[Aryth]

I think you all make good points. Writing will be richer if drawn from personal experience, but it would be unreasonable to only write about things we have experienced first-hand. Lots of things we will have to make up as well, such as what having wings might feel like for a person or how it feels to use magic or have a spell cast upon you.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I think you all make good points. Writing will be richer if drawn from personal experience, but it would be unreasonable to only write about things we have experienced first-hand. Lots of things we will have to make up as well, such as what having wings might feel like for a person or how it feels to use magic or have a spell cast upon you.

That's the fun of it, imagining those things that no one has experienced and making your reader experience them. But even then, having a real life analogy for what you're describing really helps.

 

[C. A. Stanley]

One of the things that bothers me most is how 'heroes' in stories can straight up kill someone and not be mentally affected by it whatsoever. I know it's gotta be hard for a writer to get into the mind of someone who has just killed, hopefully having never done it themselves, but can you not just try?

Closely tied with this is the heroes that have seen so much horrible crap, family members killed in front of them, gruesome killings, torture, etc, and not suffer from PTSD or any symptoms of trauma whatsoever.

Or characters that have sustained tons and tons of grievous wounds after years of fighting and are never troubled by any past injuries.

I could go on...

Yes to all of this.

I know how bad I feel if I just spill a drink on someone lol, so to take someone's life? I can only imagine it is the worst feeling, even if this person did rape you sister, kill your mother etc...

In my opinion, PTSD should be rife in the fantasy genre. As you say, killing people, seeing people killed, being tortured etc. would, for most people, lead to some form of mental illness. And an MC is likely to be right in the middle of whatever sh*tstorm is driving the plot, and so should be more susceptible than most.

Malik mentioned earlier, even if you win a fight, you need time to recover. You don't just bandage up a grievous wound and continue on your way. And that grievous wound certainly doesn't disappear before the next challenge. And if that grievous wound doesn't play a part, why bother putting it in there?

Back on topic, I fully appreciate the benefit of first-hand experience, and am so jealous that a lot of you seem to have martial arts training! Given my current medical circumstances it's not possible for me, but hopefully one day DOTA, did I read somewhere it's Krav Maga you do?

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[Russ]

So pleased to see this vital topic back up and going again.

I have been fighting with medieval weapons in and out of armour for years. All real steel and I find the experience invaluable. I really do need to get Malik's book and read it now. He is a cool guy and I bet his writing is very strong and enjoyable. I just have to make the time.

Anyways, I thought I should chime in on the question of how people react to killing others. Our modern society is very divorced from death. Older societies were much closer to death with people encountering it much closer up, even at a young age. Now while a few trendy shrinks are trying to figure out whether historical soldiers suffered from PTSD, historians went down the road years ago of trying to apply modern psych terms to historical figures and have rejected the approach.

The simple fact is that people in different time periods and in different cultures were fundamentally different that modern folks in their psychology and worldview. So even if you take the time to read a great book like On Killing you have to realize most of the information in it is useless in understanding the pre-civil war soldier or the medieval knight.

If you are curious about this phenomena you might want to read the classic work Shrinking History or if you don't want to dive that deeply you could read the appropriate chapter in the writing book Many Genres One Craft, for a overview of the importance of this topic to the writer.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Yes to all of this.

I know how bad I feel if I just spill a drink on someone lol, so to take someone's life? I can only imagine it is the worst feeling, even if this person did rape you sister, kill your mother etc...

In my opinion, PTSD should be rife in the fantasy genre. As you say, killing people, seeing people killed, being tortured etc. would, for most people, lead to some form of mental illness. And an MC is likely to be right in the middle of whatever sh*tstorm is driving the plot, and so should be more susceptible than most.

Malik mentioned earlier, even if you win a fight, you need time to recover. You don't just bandage up a grievous wound and continue on your way. And that grievous wound certainly doesn't disappear before the next challenge. And if that grievous wound doesn't play a part, why bother putting it in there?

Back on topic, I fully appreciate the benefit of first-hand experience, and am so jealous that a lot of you seem to have martial arts training! Given my current medical circumstances it's not possible for me, but hopefully one day DOTA, did I read somewhere it's Krav Maga you do?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Yup, Krav Maga.

 

[C. A. Stanley]

I have been fighting with medieval weapons in and out of armour for years. All real steel and I find the experience invaluable. I really do need to get Malik's book and read it now. He is a cool guy and I bet his writing is very strong and enjoyable. I just have to make the time.

From what I know of him (from his profile etc.) he does seem like a really cool guy. Very experienced and world-wise (I can't think of a better way to describe it), the kinda guy who would have his own action figure aha. You should definitely read his book if you get a chance. It's a really fun, original concept, imo. I'm glad I bought it; I'm about half-way through, and already I don't want it to end! The way his experience shows through in the writing is really refreshing, and as I mentioned to him earlier in this thread, I'm finding it all rather educational. It's not something I'd ever considered before now, but reading it is making me want to get involved in EMMA myself. I wonder if it's just my love of the sword and sorcery genre, or an inherent, primal human instinct to want to swing a sword?

Anyways, I thought I should chime in on the question of how people react to killing others. Our modern society is very divorced from death. Older societies were much closer to death with people encountering it much closer up, even at a young age. Now while a few trendy shrinks are trying to figure out whether historical soldiers suffered from PTSD, historians went down the road years ago of trying to apply modern psych terms to historical figures and have rejected the approach.

The simple fact is that people in different time periods and in different cultures were fundamentally different that modern folks in their psychology and worldview. So even if you take the time to read a great book like On Killing you have to realize most of the information in it is useless in understanding the pre-civil war soldier or the medieval knight.

This is a great point, and one we, certainly I, had overlooked.

I am fortunate enough to have never seen anyone die, or come close to death myself. In today's society, with Health & Safety in the workplace, advanced medical technologies, etc. death is intangible. By that, I mean it's something we think about from time to time, but don't really grasp. The "it won't happen to me" attitude.

I'm sure those that live in less developed countries, or war zones, regard death differently to us lucky folk, just as we regard it differently to our ancestors. It's a really interesting subject of discussion. We could use the input of an anthropologist / sociologist / psychologist here!

 

[C. A. Stanley]

Yup, Krav Maga.

I did take a Krav Maga class a couple of years back, and really enjoyed it. It was just too expensive for me to keep it up at the time. Definitely something I want to pick up again in future, health permitting. Hopefully with a less crazy instructor aha, "If there's no CCTV around, keep stamping."

 

[Malik]

the kinda guy who would have his own action figure

"With POWER DRINKING ARM!"

"Comes with 6 questionable coping mechanisms!* Try them all!"

"Available in 3 versions: High-Rise Window Cleaner (includes Paternity Suit minigame**), Special Ops Soldier (includes push-button profanity generator and Article 15 paperwork), and Street-Legal Drag Racer!***"

Special Ops Soldier Joseph Malik Action Figure shown with Power Drinking Arm and Alcoholism[SUP]TM[/SUP] Coping Mechanism.
(Alcoholism[SUP]TM[/SUP] Coping Mechanism includes contraband Martini kit for plate carrier.)​

*New coping mechanisms available each month with a subscription to our web service. Collect them all and trade with your friends!

**Office Bimbo Action Figures required. Sold separately.

***Manufacturer's note: Dragster starts 50% of the time. Street-Legal Joseph Malik Action Figure also includes a late-model Volvo.

 

[C. A. Stanley]

"With POWER DRINKING ARM!"

"Comes with 6 questionable coping mechanisms!* Try them all!"

"Available in 3 versions: High-Rise Window Cleaner (includes Paternity Suit minigame**), Special Ops Soldier (includes push-button profanity generator and Article 15 paperwork), and Street-Legal Drag Racer!***"

Special Ops Soldier Joseph Malik Action Figure shown with Power Drinking Arm and Alcoholism[SUP]TM[/SUP] Coping Mechanism.
(Alcoholism[SUP]TM[/SUP] Coping Mechanism includes contraband Martini kit for plate carrier.)​

*New coping mechanisms available each month with a subscription to our web service. Collect them all and trade with your friends!

**Office Bimbo Action Figures required. Sold separately.

***Manufacturer's note: Dragster starts 50% of the time. Street-Legal Joseph Malik Action Figure also includes a late-model Volvo.

Excellent.

"Be careful with that Power Drinking Arm though, Drunken Joseph may reveal the co-ordinates to a super secret portal!"

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[Malik]

Power Drinking Arm is calibrated in accordance with applicable security clearance levels.