I’ve already had a few e-mails on the lines of “I see you have used that idea of mine, then,” when the idea in question was “Why doesn’t Terry Pratchett write a book about Australia/pirates/football?” (I once had one—and I’m sure I’ve not been the first—which quite frankly said, “I’ve got a great idea that will make us both a lot of money if you write the book, but obviously I can’t tell you about it until we’ve signed a contract.…”)
We all soon become aware that to many otherwise intelligent people “the Idea” is the heart, soul, and centre of a novel, and all that stuff about plot, point, character, dialogue, and 100,000 written words is a clerical detail. Get the Idea, and all you need then is someone to “write it down.”
I may be worrying too much, but there is something to worry about. It isn’t the law that worries me. Come to that, it isn’t 99.99 percent of fans on the Net. It’s simply that in every crowd there’s a twerp. All any twerp needs to do is protest loud and long, and he or she will get attention from other twerps who’ll go along for the ride—after all, if such people didn’t exist, the Ricki Lake Show wouldn’t have an audience. And then you just need a journalist who thinks it’d make a good story on the lines of “Famous Author Stole My Idea, Says Disappointed Fan,” and if you don’t think a journalist would run something like this, you haven’t been reading the papers. Even the participation of a journalist isn’t necessary. The Net itself is, as a publicity device, available to all.
Unfortunately, very little imagination is needed for this scenario. There have already been hints of it in the United States where, as we know, people sue as automatically as they breathe, and there’s soon to be a class action against God for making an imperfect world. It has certainly been enough, rumour says, to cause other authors to shun “their” newsgroups.
It’s a shame, but I think I’ve very publicly got to log off, too. I’ve got lots of ideas. Now, if only people would let me have some Time.
NOTES FROM A SUCCESSFUL FANTASY AUTHOR: KEEP IT REAL
Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, 2007
I’m always labelled as a fantasy author, but I’ve been heard to say that I’m mainstream, because the books that people read are surely the mainstream. The books in shops are mainstream. And now that includes fantasy. “Real” writers have been stealthy. They’ve taken the tropes of fantasy or science fiction and twisted them—but those books don’t get called science fiction or fantasy, because the people writing them don’t think of them like that.
Since a lot of fiction is in some way fantasy, can we narrow it down to “fiction that transcends the rules of the known world”? And it might help to add “and includes elements commonly classed as magical.” There are said to be about five subgenres, from contemporary to mythic, but they mix and merge and if the result is good, who cares?
If you want to write it, you’ve probably read a lot of it—in which case, stop (see below). If you haven’t read any, go and read lots. Genres are harsh on those who don’t know the history, don’t know the rules. Once you know them, you’ll know where they can be broken.
Genres are also—fantasy perhaps most of all—a big bulging pantry of plots, conceits, races, character types, myths, devices, and directions, most of them hallowed by history. You’re allowed to borrow, as many will have done before you; if this were not the case there would only ever have been one book about a time machine. To stay with the cookery metaphor, they’re all just ingredients. What matters is how you bake the cake; every decent author should have their own recipe, and the best find new things to add to the mix.
World building is an integral part of a lot of fantasy, and this applies even in a world that is superficially our own—apart from the fact that Nelson’s fleet at Trafalgar consisted of hydrogen-filled airships. It is said that, during the fantasy boom in the late eighties, publishers would maybe get a box containing two or three runic alphabets, four maps of the major areas covered by the sweep of the narrative, a pronunciation guide to the names of the main characters and, at the bottom of the box, the manuscript. Please … there is no need to go that far.
There is a term that readers have been known to apply to fantasy that is sometimes an unquestioning echo of better work gone before, with a static society, conveniently ugly “bad” races, magic that works like electricity, and horses that work like cars. It’s EFP, or Extruded Fantasy Product. It can be recognized by the fact that you can’t tell it apart from all the other EFP.
Do not write it, and try not to read it. Read widely outside the genre. Read about the Old West (a fantasy in itself) or Georgian London or how Nelson’s navy was victualled or the history of alchemy or clock making or the mail coach system. Read with the mind-set of a carpenter looking at trees.
Apply logic in places where it wasn’t intended to exist. If assured that the Queen of the Fairies has a necklace made of broken promises, ask yourself what it looks like. If there is magic, where does it come from? Why isn’t everyone using it? What rules will you have to give it to allow some tension in your story? How does society operate? Where does the food come from? You need to know how your world works.
I can’t stress that last point enough. Fantasy works best when you take it seriously (it can also become a lot funnier, but that’s another story). Taking it seriously means that there must be rules. If anything can happen, then there is no real suspense. You are allowed to make pigs fly, but you must take into account the depredations on the local birdlife and the need for people in heavily overflown areas to carry stout umbrellas at all times. Joking aside, that sort of thinking is the motor that has kept the Discworld series moving for twenty-two years.
Somehow, we’re trained in childhood not to ask questions of fantasy, like: How come only one foot in an entire kingdom fits the glass slipper? But look at the world with a questioning eye and inspiration will come. A vampire is repulsed by a crucifix? Then surely it can’t dare open its eyes, because everywhere it looks, in a world full of chairs, window frames, railings, and fences, it will see something holy. If werewolves as Hollywood presents them were real, how would they make certain that when they turned back into human shape they had a pair of pants to wear? And in Elidor, Alan Garner, a master at running a fantasy world alongside and entwined with our own, memorably asked the right questions and reminded us that a unicorn, whatever else it may be, is also a big and very dangerous horse. From simple questions, innocently asked, new characters arise and new twists are put on an old tale.