This was a post I made on the World of Fantasy group on Yahoo in response to another member's question. I think it also makes a number of points about why I write, so I thought I'd re-post it so more folks can read it and share their views on the subject.
--- In Worlds_Of_Fantasy@yahoogroups.com, "damodar1982" <damodar1982@...> wrote:
>
> i think almost anyone can write story better and nicer than Lord of the Rings an d or ovverrated Game of thrones ...whatchyu think ????
I think anyone can write epic fantasy, but writing good or great fantasy is quite another matter. The numbers of poor or outright bad epic fantasy grows every year. The numerous LOTR pastiches are so generally awful they could constitute their own genre. The problem I have with most epic fantasy is that it is so cliched, hackneyed, morally unambiguous and just plain dull and obvious. Think about how easy it is to have elves, dwarfs, dragons, wizards, unicorns, etc.
Having just had a fantasy novel published, I think the problem is that most fantasy novelists have a very narrow range of experiences in reading other fantasy works. They also seem to possess a limited repertoire of emotional experiences and cultural knowledge or curiosity with which to work. I confess I'm personally not a big fan of epic fantasy because of that, which is one reason my own novel (wait for shameless plug) Ukishima uses Japanese mythology and history. Partly I wanted to be different, but I also wanted to write a book that would interest me and frankly Western European tribal folklore, knights in shining armor, hairy chested (usually "Celtic") barbarians, and Christian allegory are just not my cup of tea. They're also just too easy to write and because of that over-familiarity such books are just plain contemptible because essentially you've already read it in multiple versions. But here's the real and fatal problem: those variants lack any imagination or originality.
Again, just to be a contrarian, I've considered writing a fantasy novel using Afghan and Tibetan mythology with a plot inspired by the real-life adventures of my late, first wife. In both Ukishima and this still gestating story idea, I was/am intrigued by these different cultures and learning about them was/is also rewarding.
So, yes, it is easy for anyone to write epic fantasy, if you lack any imagination whatsoever and have the soul of a plagiarist or slavish imitator.
-------------------------------------
I'd mention some specific books, except that some are by people I know personally. I like them too much as friends to let them know I find their works unreadable at best. Fortunately, someone else took on the "daunting" task of listing some of the worst series. It's located here: <http://bestfantasybooks.com/worst-fantasy-books.html>
I also confess I had no idea just how many bad epic fantasy novels and series are out there.
-------------------------------------
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
When Life Attacks!
One thing anyone who writes has to endure is reality. This week I've had a lot of that. I had an ear infection that left me deaf but has cleared up. My wife Nancy, however, had some swelling in her legs, which it turns out was caused by blood-clots. She's already endured a broken elbow and bronchitis since the end of November. Naturally that's not all--our 16-year-old cat Pyewacket had six ounces of fluid drained from around her heart. Turns out it contained some cancer cells, so needless to say there is little to do. Besides her age, another reason is vets do not do chest surgery on cats.
Why do I mention this? Because all these events directly and indirectly affect my writing. This is probably true for all writers, but certainly true for good writers. At some point I'm sure I'll incorporate every bit of this in something I'll write. Everything in my life is certainly grist for the mill. Sometimes, however, you have to think a bit about it, let it age, let the painful aspects grow more emotionally distant.
I've considered doing just that in writing a novel about my first wife. Vicki was an incredible woman, who traveled across Europe, most of Asia Minor (including Iran and Afghanistan with a hashish smuggler) and the Indian subcontinent, as well as Thailand and Taiwan. She became a practicing Tibetan Buddhist and was even blessed by the Dalai Lama.
She was, however, also bipolar, with schizoid affect, and had had several episodes starting in college. The illness was probably genetic as her sister, her mother, and grandfather all had been diagnosed with the illness. Only Vicki's version seems to have been much worse. She could be energetic, brilliant, and aggressively sexual on the highs, but depressed and eventually suicidal on the down side.
I'll say that I adored her. She was sexy older woman in my life. (She was eight years older than me.) We did things I'd only read about in sleazy novels. But in 1984, both my father and her father died. In the next year her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I don't think she could cope. Two or three times in the following year she tried to kill herself with pills and alcohol, but I always came home from work before she succeeded. But at some point the voices in her head told her to go to India and she left me. During that period I met Nancy, but barely a few months into our relationship I received a phone call from Vicki in which she told me the voices in her head said I was lonely and she had to return to Oklahoma.
So I broke off my relationship with Nancy, and tried to make a go off it with Vicki. Then one day she was gone and the day after I got a call at work that she was in a Tulsa hospital. She had checked into the Doubletree Hotel in Tulsa, about ninety minutes away and attempted suicide. She had failed. I drove up to get her, took her to the psych ward at St. Anthony's hospital in OKC where her psychiatrist was on staff, then went home and called Nancy. The next day I filed for divorce.
Eventually Vicki's psychiatrist managed to get her into a program in New Haven, Conn. (not associated with Yale) and she went there, worked briefly for mystical self-help guru Bernie Siegel and then went off to Thailand, seeking enlightenment I suppose. By then Nancy and I had been living together and then were married.
Did that have an effect on Vicki? I don't know. Perhaps. I just know that I had a good idea she would kill herself and her brother-in-law would call to tell me. In May 1991, that's exactly what happened.
So it's been over twenty years and only now have I even begun to think about writing a novel with her as the protagonist. (She does make an appearance in my forthcoming sf novel The Gonaymne Weapon where she's the insane wife of the main antagonist.)
So just other day I found a copy of Jason Elliot's An Unexpected Light, about his travels in Afghanistan in the 1990s and I realized it was about time to tell Vicki's story, although admittedly in a fantasy style. I'm not sure people would think she's believable in any other fashion. I just know it's time. In fact, I don't think I could have written this piece until now.
So I write in part to deal with my past, realizing I'm the sort of person who needs to forgive and to understand rather than someone who writes in anger and fury. That's true even if it takes two decades to realize it.
(copyright 2012 by Nigel Sellars)
Why do I mention this? Because all these events directly and indirectly affect my writing. This is probably true for all writers, but certainly true for good writers. At some point I'm sure I'll incorporate every bit of this in something I'll write. Everything in my life is certainly grist for the mill. Sometimes, however, you have to think a bit about it, let it age, let the painful aspects grow more emotionally distant.
I've considered doing just that in writing a novel about my first wife. Vicki was an incredible woman, who traveled across Europe, most of Asia Minor (including Iran and Afghanistan with a hashish smuggler) and the Indian subcontinent, as well as Thailand and Taiwan. She became a practicing Tibetan Buddhist and was even blessed by the Dalai Lama.
She was, however, also bipolar, with schizoid affect, and had had several episodes starting in college. The illness was probably genetic as her sister, her mother, and grandfather all had been diagnosed with the illness. Only Vicki's version seems to have been much worse. She could be energetic, brilliant, and aggressively sexual on the highs, but depressed and eventually suicidal on the down side.
I'll say that I adored her. She was sexy older woman in my life. (She was eight years older than me.) We did things I'd only read about in sleazy novels. But in 1984, both my father and her father died. In the next year her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I don't think she could cope. Two or three times in the following year she tried to kill herself with pills and alcohol, but I always came home from work before she succeeded. But at some point the voices in her head told her to go to India and she left me. During that period I met Nancy, but barely a few months into our relationship I received a phone call from Vicki in which she told me the voices in her head said I was lonely and she had to return to Oklahoma.
So I broke off my relationship with Nancy, and tried to make a go off it with Vicki. Then one day she was gone and the day after I got a call at work that she was in a Tulsa hospital. She had checked into the Doubletree Hotel in Tulsa, about ninety minutes away and attempted suicide. She had failed. I drove up to get her, took her to the psych ward at St. Anthony's hospital in OKC where her psychiatrist was on staff, then went home and called Nancy. The next day I filed for divorce.
Eventually Vicki's psychiatrist managed to get her into a program in New Haven, Conn. (not associated with Yale) and she went there, worked briefly for mystical self-help guru Bernie Siegel and then went off to Thailand, seeking enlightenment I suppose. By then Nancy and I had been living together and then were married.
Did that have an effect on Vicki? I don't know. Perhaps. I just know that I had a good idea she would kill herself and her brother-in-law would call to tell me. In May 1991, that's exactly what happened.
So it's been over twenty years and only now have I even begun to think about writing a novel with her as the protagonist. (She does make an appearance in my forthcoming sf novel The Gonaymne Weapon where she's the insane wife of the main antagonist.)
So just other day I found a copy of Jason Elliot's An Unexpected Light, about his travels in Afghanistan in the 1990s and I realized it was about time to tell Vicki's story, although admittedly in a fantasy style. I'm not sure people would think she's believable in any other fashion. I just know it's time. In fact, I don't think I could have written this piece until now.
So I write in part to deal with my past, realizing I'm the sort of person who needs to forgive and to understand rather than someone who writes in anger and fury. That's true even if it takes two decades to realize it.
(copyright 2012 by Nigel Sellars)
Monday, February 27, 2012
A positive review of my book!
Just got my first Amazon customer review of Ukishima. I'm stoked! So far two book reviews and both are positive! What a boost for my ego!
http://www.amazon.com/Ukishima-ebook/product-reviews/B0075CP4CA/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
http://www.amazon.com/Ukishima-ebook/product-reviews/B0075CP4CA/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The Idiots at Home
No doubt some of you have seen An Idiot Abroad, the Science Channel Program from Ricky Gervais. In it a likable dolt named Karl Pilkington endures all sorts of embarrassment and/or humiliation, yet at the same time he gets to do some things most of would like to do (climb Kilimanjaro, hunt yetis, travel Route 66, learn make-up techniques from Thai lady-boys--you get the idea.) Yet to call Karl an idiot is really unfair. He takes most of these experiences good naturedly and he learns from those experiences.
Compare that with our own idiots at home. I, of course, refer to the GOP presidential candidates. Rick Santorum has continually revealed that what lies between his ears is like Gertrude Stein's desciption of Oakland: There is no there there. Who would have thought a presidential candidate would say that John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech about the absolute separation of church and state almost made him throw up? Kennedy's speech eased tensions and fears over his Catholicism. Santorum's comment conjure up the 19th century fears of a papal fifth column ( the Irish) were here to undermine America and make it Catholic. The author of Maria Monk, or The Secrets of a Convent, and other anti-Catholic tracts would support Santorum's positions because the Senator's remarks actually prove their fears were justified. Similarly, cartoonist Thomas Nast, who portrayed Catholic prelates as alligators (it's the hats) threatening America would see Santorum as a prime example of what he was cartooning about. Santorum reinforces bigoted ideas that I thought were dead and buried. What's more remarkable is that it resonates with religious social conservatives who a century and a half ago would have been like the torch-carrying peasant mob in "Frankstein," only on their way to burn a Catholic church rather than a monster. Of course, to those yahoos there was no difference.
Only in America can you find someone who still holds to 19th, or even 18th century Catholic dogma. And only in America can you find Protestant evangelicals who have turned to aged Catholic dogma to justify their own positions, which seems oddly contradictory. Then again, I have an old friend who noted years ago that evangelicals have been slowly recreating all the things that caused the Reformation in the first place. As Marx once wrote: "History does repeat itself; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
But idiocy goes deeper. It's like watching second graders in a food fight exchange insults like "I'm rubber and you're glue..." or endless "Your mother is like..." cracks. The other candidates either stumble or mumble and still say things they'd have been better to keep to themselves. And somehow, Gingrich's enthusiasm for a moon-base that could become a state (Quelle surprise!) somehow suggests the man is three bricks shy of a load. And I'm a science fiction fan who supports space exploration. He makes me want to flee to the Canadian wilderness and build a bunker.
I'm hoping the current age of idiocy is the farce. Yet it makes it difficult for writers to satirize things because the satire of the past has unfortunately become the present. I think of Robert Sheckley's great short stories that lampooned television game shows. Apparently network programmers thought Sheckley was writing a game plan for them to carry out. Think about it, isn't "The Amazing Race" straight out of Sheckley? And aren't "reality" shows like "Survivor" just a version of any number of science fiction stories, just minus the actual killing of the competitors ala Sheckley's "The Tenth Victim"?
All of this makes writing near future science fiction virtually impossible. While we were all worrying about how computers would take over world and how the phone system could produce a massive, sentient super-computer overlord, what we actually got was the Internet and the World Wide Web, without which you wouldn't be reading this. We should have been reading and working to prevent the world(s) described by Frederick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth and by Sheckley. Instead of worrying about Communism, we should have worried about might replace it. Where were the stories about post-Communist Russian and China? Apparently no one could imagine China become the real engine of the world economy or a Russia run by gangsters whose actions often make Stalin seem like a pussy cat. No one, except maybe L. Sprague deCamp, thought Brazil might become a major force in the world. And India? Americans, let alone sf writers, could only see the world of Gandhi (the movie, not the man) and maybe also Apu from the Simpsons.
Good near future science fiction, which I like, needs to get beyond the parochialism that characterizes most Americans. The Founders were cosmopolitans, men of the world, and not the narrow-minded localists the Tea Party imagine them to be. Writers have to be more cosmopolitan, to imagine things beyond the neighbor's yard. We like to imagine ourselves thinking of the cosmos, of the universe, yet our social ideas are retro. We can only imagine a world that's like an imaginary small town America of the some century that never happened. Social, political and economic conservatism and libertarianism need to be supplanted by examining the trends of the real world, rather than imagining and longing for a past that never was. Good science fiction has to breakdown barriers, to image societies that are familiar, but also very strange. For example, could we imagine a future society deriving more from Polynesian or Maori cultural traditions, a society where machines have reached the point of providing everything humans need so a free market economy is irrelevant and greed is pointless and even passe', where Western Samoa or Papua New Guinea is the real power in the world.
I'm not even sure I can write that world. But I can tell you about future society almost none of us can write about in fiction because it's all too apparent. It's the world we live in, a fool's paradise and an idiot's delight. And that's because not a one of us thinks about Robert Heinlein's most important warning: "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." Now there's a real source of ideas for science fiction. And all you have to do is look around, but you can't let it overwhelm you.
Compare that with our own idiots at home. I, of course, refer to the GOP presidential candidates. Rick Santorum has continually revealed that what lies between his ears is like Gertrude Stein's desciption of Oakland: There is no there there. Who would have thought a presidential candidate would say that John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech about the absolute separation of church and state almost made him throw up? Kennedy's speech eased tensions and fears over his Catholicism. Santorum's comment conjure up the 19th century fears of a papal fifth column ( the Irish) were here to undermine America and make it Catholic. The author of Maria Monk, or The Secrets of a Convent, and other anti-Catholic tracts would support Santorum's positions because the Senator's remarks actually prove their fears were justified. Similarly, cartoonist Thomas Nast, who portrayed Catholic prelates as alligators (it's the hats) threatening America would see Santorum as a prime example of what he was cartooning about. Santorum reinforces bigoted ideas that I thought were dead and buried. What's more remarkable is that it resonates with religious social conservatives who a century and a half ago would have been like the torch-carrying peasant mob in "Frankstein," only on their way to burn a Catholic church rather than a monster. Of course, to those yahoos there was no difference.
Only in America can you find someone who still holds to 19th, or even 18th century Catholic dogma. And only in America can you find Protestant evangelicals who have turned to aged Catholic dogma to justify their own positions, which seems oddly contradictory. Then again, I have an old friend who noted years ago that evangelicals have been slowly recreating all the things that caused the Reformation in the first place. As Marx once wrote: "History does repeat itself; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
But idiocy goes deeper. It's like watching second graders in a food fight exchange insults like "I'm rubber and you're glue..." or endless "Your mother is like..." cracks. The other candidates either stumble or mumble and still say things they'd have been better to keep to themselves. And somehow, Gingrich's enthusiasm for a moon-base that could become a state (Quelle surprise!) somehow suggests the man is three bricks shy of a load. And I'm a science fiction fan who supports space exploration. He makes me want to flee to the Canadian wilderness and build a bunker.
I'm hoping the current age of idiocy is the farce. Yet it makes it difficult for writers to satirize things because the satire of the past has unfortunately become the present. I think of Robert Sheckley's great short stories that lampooned television game shows. Apparently network programmers thought Sheckley was writing a game plan for them to carry out. Think about it, isn't "The Amazing Race" straight out of Sheckley? And aren't "reality" shows like "Survivor" just a version of any number of science fiction stories, just minus the actual killing of the competitors ala Sheckley's "The Tenth Victim"?
All of this makes writing near future science fiction virtually impossible. While we were all worrying about how computers would take over world and how the phone system could produce a massive, sentient super-computer overlord, what we actually got was the Internet and the World Wide Web, without which you wouldn't be reading this. We should have been reading and working to prevent the world(s) described by Frederick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth and by Sheckley. Instead of worrying about Communism, we should have worried about might replace it. Where were the stories about post-Communist Russian and China? Apparently no one could imagine China become the real engine of the world economy or a Russia run by gangsters whose actions often make Stalin seem like a pussy cat. No one, except maybe L. Sprague deCamp, thought Brazil might become a major force in the world. And India? Americans, let alone sf writers, could only see the world of Gandhi (the movie, not the man) and maybe also Apu from the Simpsons.
Good near future science fiction, which I like, needs to get beyond the parochialism that characterizes most Americans. The Founders were cosmopolitans, men of the world, and not the narrow-minded localists the Tea Party imagine them to be. Writers have to be more cosmopolitan, to imagine things beyond the neighbor's yard. We like to imagine ourselves thinking of the cosmos, of the universe, yet our social ideas are retro. We can only imagine a world that's like an imaginary small town America of the some century that never happened. Social, political and economic conservatism and libertarianism need to be supplanted by examining the trends of the real world, rather than imagining and longing for a past that never was. Good science fiction has to breakdown barriers, to image societies that are familiar, but also very strange. For example, could we imagine a future society deriving more from Polynesian or Maori cultural traditions, a society where machines have reached the point of providing everything humans need so a free market economy is irrelevant and greed is pointless and even passe', where Western Samoa or Papua New Guinea is the real power in the world.
I'm not even sure I can write that world. But I can tell you about future society almost none of us can write about in fiction because it's all too apparent. It's the world we live in, a fool's paradise and an idiot's delight. And that's because not a one of us thinks about Robert Heinlein's most important warning: "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." Now there's a real source of ideas for science fiction. And all you have to do is look around, but you can't let it overwhelm you.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
My First Blog Entry
I've resisted starting a blog for a long time. But that was before I started having success with my writing. The recent release of my novel Ukishima, first as a Kindle e-book and soon as a paperback from Hydra Publishers has enrgized me. Of course, it didn't hurt that the day the ebook was release, I learned another novel of mine, The Gonaymne Weapon, had been accepted by Montag Press. I then had three short stories accepted in the same week.
I've been writing since elementary school, and even earned a bachelor's degree in professional writing at the University of Oklahoma, but I had horrible luck. One agent I had ended up eating some bad oysters and became ill, so he had to cut back on his clients. Me, not having sold anything, was one of those who had to be dropped, alas. Then again, I had an editor interested in Ukishima, a fantasy set in a medieval-esque Japan, but he was shoot down when higher ups said the imprint already had a work set in Japan. But I've persevered. I began both these books in one form or another twenty or thirty years ago. Ukishima I wrote while going though a marriage and divorce from my tragically bi-polar first wife, and while my father was dying. That my first wife's father and mother died around the same time just made matters worse.
Still, I stayed late at coffee shops, writing in long-handed in several journals until I finally got it completed. To see it finally in print has been incredible. I can hardly wait for the paperback.
The Gonaymne Weapon actually began as a short story I wrote in high school. It was quite different from the final version. I wrote the first draft of the novel in college (my first attempt at a novel) and kept peddling it around without a bit. Then I decided to start anew, moving the stotry off-Earth to a planet orbiting a different star. I got about halfway through the rewrite and I was going nowhere with it.
The third version, which completely reworked everything except the main character, benefited from ideas I'd had but done nothing with, a decision to make it a critique of libertarian ideas then prominent in science fiction and then I had that light bulb moment when I imagined an alien weapon that could make any star become a supernova and, it was the macguffin I needed. The final version is the one that's been accepted and to compare it to the original is learn about something else important for a writer. As you mature, you start to realize that you may have had great ideas when you were younger, but you were not old enough to write it properly.
In the interim between drafts, I got a degree in psychology, wewnt to grad school at UCLA and then back to OU, and soon realized I was not really suited for the world of experimental psych. So I got a journalism degree, wrote a master's thesis, and became a newspaper reporter and briefly a newspaper editor. This coincided with problems with first wife.
All of this is, of course, grist for the mill of future writings, and I'd love to eventually write about my first wife and her remarkable world-traipsing adventures. I think two decades after her death is probably about the right time to think about it.
So, this is my first blog. So, it's rambling. My thought processes are not really linear, but there you have it. Next time, maybe I be more coherent. And I'll include the links to buy my books.
I've been writing since elementary school, and even earned a bachelor's degree in professional writing at the University of Oklahoma, but I had horrible luck. One agent I had ended up eating some bad oysters and became ill, so he had to cut back on his clients. Me, not having sold anything, was one of those who had to be dropped, alas. Then again, I had an editor interested in Ukishima, a fantasy set in a medieval-esque Japan, but he was shoot down when higher ups said the imprint already had a work set in Japan. But I've persevered. I began both these books in one form or another twenty or thirty years ago. Ukishima I wrote while going though a marriage and divorce from my tragically bi-polar first wife, and while my father was dying. That my first wife's father and mother died around the same time just made matters worse.
Still, I stayed late at coffee shops, writing in long-handed in several journals until I finally got it completed. To see it finally in print has been incredible. I can hardly wait for the paperback.
The Gonaymne Weapon actually began as a short story I wrote in high school. It was quite different from the final version. I wrote the first draft of the novel in college (my first attempt at a novel) and kept peddling it around without a bit. Then I decided to start anew, moving the stotry off-Earth to a planet orbiting a different star. I got about halfway through the rewrite and I was going nowhere with it.
The third version, which completely reworked everything except the main character, benefited from ideas I'd had but done nothing with, a decision to make it a critique of libertarian ideas then prominent in science fiction and then I had that light bulb moment when I imagined an alien weapon that could make any star become a supernova and, it was the macguffin I needed. The final version is the one that's been accepted and to compare it to the original is learn about something else important for a writer. As you mature, you start to realize that you may have had great ideas when you were younger, but you were not old enough to write it properly.
In the interim between drafts, I got a degree in psychology, wewnt to grad school at UCLA and then back to OU, and soon realized I was not really suited for the world of experimental psych. So I got a journalism degree, wrote a master's thesis, and became a newspaper reporter and briefly a newspaper editor. This coincided with problems with first wife.
All of this is, of course, grist for the mill of future writings, and I'd love to eventually write about my first wife and her remarkable world-traipsing adventures. I think two decades after her death is probably about the right time to think about it.
So, this is my first blog. So, it's rambling. My thought processes are not really linear, but there you have it. Next time, maybe I be more coherent. And I'll include the links to buy my books.
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