Personal thoughts on writing fantasy?

[Arkose]

I tried to look for a thread that covered this but had no luck.


My highschool English teacher (close friend) opened the idea of writing to me. He has a Masters in creative writing and has had one horror type novel published. I asked him one day, why he didn't like to write fantasy if its one of his favorite genre. He responded by saying "Every time I start putting together Ideas I compare it to other stories I have read. I look at the plots and always find a connection to a story I really love, like Lord of the Rings, and I instantly think I am a hack. I put the idea away and move on." The reason I brought this up is that now I get the same feelings. I'll put down some ideas and I start just making the connections (this is from this book, this idea from this book, ect.ect.) and since I also have no writing background outside of highschool and college writing classes (the required ones, and scientific writing's since my major is Environmental Science) and feel that I am just an amature with no original thoughts. Any thoughts on the matter?


A side question: Are fiction writing courses worth a lick? The same teacher above said the worse thing he has done is taken college classes in fiction writing and he learned more from Stephen King on writing than he has from any class. I wouldn't major in writing but I could take a beginners fiction writing course.

Thanks for your help and thoughts.

 

[HareBrain]

If you were writing a crime novel, wouldn't you also be able to make connections between your story and other crime books you'd read? Wouldn't the same apply to a western, or a romance? Some literary fiction even plays on its connection with other stories. Maybe it's the curse of fantasy that because the author is allowed to go nuts with his imagination, he tasks himself with imagining up something never seen before. But that's not what most readers are primarily looking for. Write a story well, and make it your own, and as long as the similarities aren't obvious and deep, few will care if some elements have been used before. And even if you think you have no original thoughts now, I bet the process of writing a novel will generate some.

As for writing courses, I learned a lot from mine, but you need to do your research and work out which would suit you and how much you're likely to gain from it.

 

[chrispenycate]

Write.

By the time you've got a couple of solid characters, they won't care if it "shows similarity to". Actually, you're going to rewrite it at least once; when you've found out what its strengths and weaknesses are, you can quite likely prune out "derivative" and "imitation", with the main growth only the stronger for it.

Write for yourself. When it's finished, maybe you can convince other people to like it, but if you write to please everyone, and be totally original, and fit into the mould recommended for attracting agents and publishers, you're never going to produce something that satisfies you.

And that is important, for the effort you put in and your own conviction.

It will not all be straightforward and easy, so maximise the pleasure while you can.

 

[SleepyDormouse]

I have often wondered about this. When I look at my story outline I can see things that are similar to idea's in books, but I think that it is completely normal to be inspired by other books and events that happen around you.

For example musicians saying they were inspired by the beatles, or Jimi hendrix. They are not copying, but their musical ideas have a slight flavour of other past musicians and their ideas.

I also think that we pick up a lot of ideas subconciously and even if we and other people think they are completely original, the underlying struts are likely to have been influenced by something.

you can't spend time worrying if you are writing a book too much like someone elses, just let your idea's out and together all your past experiences (through life, books etc) and original idea's will hopefully congeal themselves into a good read.

(thats what I'm hoping anyway!)

 

[Ursa major]

Stravinsky is supposed to have said: "A good composer does not imitate; he steals."​

In your writing, do not feel constrained because others have written stories with similar ideas to yours. Instead, strive to make the story your own, including those seemingly** second-hand elements.

And let's face it: how many of us remember the sources from which William Shakespeare drew his plots and characters? What we remember is the magic with which Shakespeare imbued his work.



** - I'm not advocating plagiarism, in case you were worried.

 

[Arkose]

Thanks everyone. You all made some very solid points on the matter. I was just slightly worried that I just didn't understand, but now I understand its just the natural evolution of stories through time. I am going to look through some of my earlier ideas that I have moved on from and see what I have.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Creative writing course can be quite dismissive in their attitude toward fantasy. Not all, but the vast majority. Most of the time, they are there to teach you to write the kind of fiction that is fashionable in "literary" circles.

As somebody else said, only fantasy writers (and science fiction writers) feel they are somehow failing if they don't write something of startling originality. New writers are especially sensitive to this. If someone says, "That reminds me a little of [insert name of popular author]," they will take something meant for a compliment as a criticism.

When writers have been around a lot longer, they might ask, "In what way does it remind you of [insert name]?" The similarities might be superficial, just as so many romances resemble "Romeo and Juliet" in some way. If you had just read R & J and were still deeply affected by it, wouldn't any romance with young lovers and a sad ending remind you of that play? Yet every single detail might be different.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

I struggled with this for a while when I first decided that fantasy was what I wanted to write. But then I wondered where the line is drawn. Should I be concerned about people using swords? Riding horses? Using magic? I like to think of the fantasy author's toolkit. In this kit you find all the industry standards, but what you create using these tools will be different for everyone. There are thousands of types of chair, after all, but they were all made by carpenters, and all have the same purpose.

 

[Menion]

The Lord of the Rings got inspiration from Beowulf and the poem "Horatius" by Thomas Babington Macaulay.
I think it would be very hard to write somthing whitch hasn't got a slight similarity to another. I am writing out a civil war that turns into a near World War, how many stories like that are there? But I'm fine with it.

 

[Jon Sprunk]

Write.

By the time you've got a couple of solid characters, they won't care if it "shows similarity to". Actually, you're going to rewrite it at least once; when you've found out what its strengths and weaknesses are, you can quite likely prune out "derivative" and "imitation", with the main growth only the stronger for it.

Write for yourself. When it's finished, maybe you can convince other people to like it, but if you write to please everyone, and be totally original, and fit into the mould recommended for attracting agents and publishers, you're never going to produce something that satisfies you.

And that is important, for the effort you put in and your own conviction.

It will not all be straightforward and easy, so maximise the pleasure while you can.

This is excellent advice. Above all, please your inner reader.

About writing courses, some are helpful and others not. You probably won't know which until after it's over. But it can be insightful to meet other aspiring writers and see how they approach the craft. if nothing else, it should fire up your motivation to write.

 

[Malloriel]

In a hundred different ways, it has been said that every story there is to tell has already been told in some form, but what makes each retelling new and interesting is who tells it, and, I think more importantly, how. The superficial details are often the ones which get compared to other works. For instance, if I wanted to tell a story about a world which doesn't acknowledge the existence of magic, with a secretive school for witches and wizards, the comparison to Harry Potter would be made. That's not enough to stop me, however, since there is more to it, and any story, than any basic premise, so in addition to the distinct differences (such as a war against magic users for their lack of control, which resulted in the deaths of all known witches and a ban on magic, and the acknowledgment that magic is a genetic mutation and part of the natural evolution of mankind, among others) it's all about how I use the information. Then you have the grander ideas, such as the triumph of good over evil, or the Hero's Quest, or the Epic Love Story, or Love Conquers All, and I think that's where more often you find that "all the stories have been told". Just because it already exists is no reason not to take inspiration from it, use it as a framework, and build something beautiful.

As for courses, I've taken none on creative writing. I have, however, picked up the occasional book about writing and publishing to keep myself current with the trends and expectations as well as changing techniques and style definitions. I find that nothing has helped quite as much as this forum, though. There's experimentation, there are new people asking questions, and veterans offering advice. There are writers of every level mingling together, and if you sit back and observe, kick your feet in the river, and take the occasional dip, I find that you can walk away with more information, resources, and helpful techniques than any writing course or book can offer on its own.

 

[cornelius]

Write.

By the time you've got a couple of solid characters, they won't care if it "shows similarity to". Actually, you're going to rewrite it at least once; when you've found out what its strengths and weaknesses are, you can quite likely prune out "derivative" and "imitation", with the main growth only the stronger for it.

Write for yourself. When it's finished, maybe you can convince other people to like it, but if you write to please everyone, and be totally original, and fit into the mould recommended for attracting agents and publishers, you're never going to produce something that satisfies you.

And that is important, for the effort you put in and your own conviction.

It will not all be straightforward and easy, so maximise the pleasure while you can.

Again Chrispenycate puts my thoughts into words. To bring something more or less useful into my own post, I'll describe my "case" of writing.

I started writing about twelve years ago, I was 12 at the time and had this grand idea about writing my own story. At the age of 13, I picked up The Lord of the Rings, and I felt my "little story" would never be able to compete with a story like that. Moreover, I found that certain elements I used in my story (like Orcs, which I got from games like Warcraft, certain names, certain events,...) were already used in LOTR.

In the next couple of years, the LOTR films came out, and I noticed that I had filled in characters "differently". It made me start thinking about writing again. Unfortunatly I had thrown my first writings away, so i had to start things over. 8 years later, I have a 200.000 words- nearly finished work, a 60.000 words follow up and a whole score of "future storylines" mapped out. I've read more fantasy, from Feist and Hobb to Martin and Erikson. I no longer think in terms of "competing" or "copying", my book is, well, my book. I'm writing for FUN, which should be the prime motive for writing in the first place, in my opinion. I've had a couple of readers, but I stopped handing out my book because I kept rewriting it. I'm thinking about sending out copies again, just to get some feedback. One day I might even go to a publisher. But I'm still writing for fun. And having a blast at it.

 

[digs]

Write for yourself. When it's finished, maybe you can convince other people to like it, but if you write to please everyone, and be totally original, and fit into the mould recommended for attracting agents and publishers, you're never going to produce something that satisfies you.

In On Writing, Stephen King suggests a variation on this. He recommends writing to please your 'Ideal Reader', which for him is his wife. Whenever he's reading over a draft he periodically stops and thinks, 'What will my Ideal Reader think of this?' It also helps that his Ideal Reader is a real person who can give him independent commentary.

I don't do that nearly as much as I should (usually I don't even get to the reading-over-the-draft stage), but I do have a pretty clear image of my Ideal Reader. Mine's a hybrid of a few different people, but I think it still has a very clear voice. I know it'll be a big help next time I'm reviewing something I've written, especially when I'm feeling the pressure of being objective.

Oh, P.S. I considered doing a Masters in Writing instead of my current course (I went with Journalism in the end). The reason I decided against it was that, while I thought it would be great to do something that would force me to churn out a new piece every week or so, I didn't think I'd get anything out of it that I couldn't get somewhere else (i.e. from joining a Writing Society or something). This was a whole degree though rather than just a one-off course, which I would still consider doing. It's really a personal decision.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

I'm a firm believer that writing courses may augment your talent and clean up grammar, give you words that mean what you already know and so forth, but in my experience, completely honestly, in all things just write.

Too many times I see people having the idea that they want to write, and spend so much time getting their ducks in a row, worrying about details, endlessly procrastinating because they want to be an overnight success with their first novel, and all they're doing is wasting time.

In my mind, there is nothing that needs to be done before putting pen to paper other than focus on the story you want to tell. Cover art, word count, long or short chapters, all of these come later, once you've simply started writing. Don't worry about whether you know enough, don't worry about it being terrible and everyone laughing at you, just...start.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Fantasy is pretty much all I write and I do have to say, as I have taken two creative writing courses in my life, that it is not all that highly encouraged a genre.



But I wouldn't write such courses off as lost causes either. There are aspects to writing that improvement can benefit any genre, and if you get the right kind of instructor, such classes can be very entertaining.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Absolutely, especially things like Writing Excuses, which I find extremely useful. But I don't think anyone should be putting off writing because they want to do a course first. If they're not writing already because they love it, then they may not be going into it for the right reasons. Just saying.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think Creative Writing courses are fine, just so long as you remember that some of the "rules" they will teach you will not necessarily apply to SFF, which does have its own requirements. When the course is over, I think you need to look at a lot of stories in the genre, and see to what extent those rules are useful, and to what extent they are going to hamper you.

But also, keep in mind that just because the teacher has a degree in Creative Writing, it doesn't mean that they can actually write creatively themselves. Some are just teaching by rote what they themselves were taught. They can't think outside those narrow limits. Their own writing may consist of the kind of thing that gets published in small literary journals, often published by the school where they teach. Which means that your SFF is going to baffle and annoy them. This is not true of everyone who teaches these courses. Some do read widely, enjoy books in many different genres, and are talented writers themselves. But it will be useful to know before signing up, into which category the teacher falls.

But my advice, before taking such a course, is to ask the teacher if you can see some of his or her writing.

 

[Evelinn]

I am foremost an artist and the struggle for originality in the canvas world is the same. But the paintings I’m most happy with are the ones I have fun while painting.
I tried writing my first book over the course of ten years, the reason for the delay was that I believed I had stolen ideas from others.
After writing it four times I still found a lot of similarities to other sc-fi stories. But I noticed that most (epic) fantasy and science fiction books have a bit of everything (as in action, romance, war, horror, drama etc), and even they have taken their inspiration from somewhere, and with so many elements there is bound to be a thought of derivativeness.
I`ve never taken a writing course in my life (I hardly had English in school) though I might benefit from one. In the end I discovered this is what I want to do, and I’m having so much fun that I’m just not going to give up even on the down days when I look at my work and shout: “@#!!”

 

[Null_Zone]

Being original is incredibly difficult, hummanity has been doing the whole story thing for millenia. Being original and good, well some people can manage it but they are few and far between.

Better just go for good.

Name a successful artist in other genres that are completely original?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

The rule I have made for myself is to always try to write the kind of book that I would love if it had been written by somebody else. I tell myself, Nobody else is going to write this book if I don't, so if I want to read it, I'll have to be the one who writes it. Which means that I do write what I enjoy writing, but it also means that I shouldn't excuse anything in my own story that I would criticize in somebody else's. I have to hold myself to the same standard as the books I read and enjoy. Not that I will always succeed in achieving that same high standard, but I will do all that I can to reach that goal.

I think that anyone who writes for any reason (fame, wealth, admiration) other than because they enjoy it is heading for a life of dissatisfaction and disappointment. Because it can be very hard work (I can only imagine what drudgery it is if it isn't what you love doing) and for the vast majority of writers who even see their work published the pay is atrocious. So we have to love it, because sometimes that is just about our only reward.

But there are things that are merely derivative and then there are things that show a poverty of imagination. There are always going to be readers who take a quick glance at something, decide that they know what it is going to be about, don't finish it, and keep in their minds forever the impression of a plot that bears little or no resemblance to the one you actually wrote. (Unfortunately, some of these people are reviewers.) There is nothing we can do to please readers like that. Still, I want to be sure that however much inspiration I may take from other writers, my writing should always have something about it that is purely my own.

Sometimes our first ideas for a story are not our best, because they are so much like so many other people's first ideas. I'm not just talking about ideas that are consciously derivative. Spontaneously, it seems, we too often come up with the same thing. But that first idea can generate better ideas, ideas that develop in a direction so far from the original one that the original doesn't even apply any more, and can be completely discarded. When I look back on the things I have written, I can easily see where all the inspirations came from, but I always hope that there will be some things that readers have never seen before.