Close character studies or sweeping epics

[allmywires]

Now I've dusted off the old word docs and am trying to make sense of my rambling worldbuilding notes and character name changes from two years ago, I've started thinking about the difference in my ideas and my abilities to execute them.

I've always thought I wanted to write a true epic fantasy novel, with all the tedious geography/politics/worldbuilding involved, but I think actually now I sit down and think about it...I'm just no good at it. I can't spread myself across that many characters and make them interesting, thinking about all the wordly minutiae gives me a headache, and I end up giving up before I've even begun - not to mention the fact I also really struggle with giving a Big Bad believable motivation.

What I am good at, I think, is close-POV, intense character studies that revolve less around outside influences of plot and more on internal drivers. So now I'm trying to figure out how that gels with my original sweeping fantasy epic idea, and it's a blimmin' headache, but a much better one now I've come to terms with my weaknesses.

So my question to you all is - do you prefer a tighter, closer story focussed more on a handful of characters in one place, or a world-spanning epic with a cast of hundreds? Are you better at one or the other, or just prefer one? And are they actually mutually exclusive?

 

[hopewrites]

I always say "why have 'or' when you can have 'and'"
As a reader I love when epic fantasy does close character studies. It shows the interconnectedness of overlapping realities and just how differences of perspective can change worlds.

Everyone lives in their own hand crafted reality. The wonderful thing about reading about someone else's reality is that it allows one to examine one's own. The delightful thing about interconnected story lines, is that it allows the author and reader to examine each reality in detail, and contrast it against the realities going on around it.

If I were doing it, I'd start with the character(s) I like best. And then expand on the characters closes to them, then those closest to them, and so on and so on out until I had more than I wanted. Then it would be a mater of layering those stories together in a delicious parfait of one total story. Let it take as many books/ series as it wants.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

A really fine writer can create an "intimate epic" which combines the best of both types of story. One example might be The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber. The main plot is vast enough in scope -- what seems to be a new planet appears near the Moon, causing the havoc you might expect from such a cosmic event -- but the novel really focuses on a handful of characters effected by this.

Given a choice between the two, I lean to smaller scale stories.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm of the same concensus - why does it have to be one or other? You can show a big world through limited characters. Look at Name of the Wind. One pov character (mostly), huge world. Intimate but with big scope.

To answer the rest of your post - casts of thousands don't work for me, and I tend to work with limited numbers of point of views, except in Abendau when I have something like 15 across the 3 books.

 

[Glitch]

I do tend to lean to a smaller cast list in a handful of locations.

That's not to say you can't have a world spanning epic with a small cast.

Do you have a motivation for your bad guy when you're thinking on a small scale?

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

I have something like 15 across the 3 books.

go away,you silly.That not writing,that's juggling

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

Speaking strictly for myself:i like fractal storytelling structures, showing how the small impacts the large,and vice versa.
There's a dearth of small scale interactions in most SF.
Most people don't wonder about large scale planetary changes,but more about developing allergies in their children,where to put the parsley
in their crowded spices cupboard,and how come the Lidl Cashier looked at them all funny when you dropped a quarter

 

[Brian G Turner]

The better stories IMO are character-driven. The world-building is simply the backdrop - which can be as simple or as lush as you like.

If you look at the big names in epic fantasy, they are filled with interesting characters. But they take different approaches to world-building. Fiest, Hobb, Weiss/Hickman, Abercrombie, Martin, Jordan, Goodkind, Lynch, Weeks, Sanderson, all set up their worlds very differently, with different levels of detail.

From a writing point of view, though, the more characters you write in, the more complicated and frustrating the piece will be to write.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

go away,you silly.That not writing,that's juggling

Hee. But it is over something like a quarter of a million words and, this is the key (because I am a close character writer) there are a lot of worries about how children are doing, and the small things in life. The world is shown through their eyes - it just happens to be a big, big world.

For some reason, it's not massively complicated to write because the story, once it gets started, is in a linear fashion. There is the odd bit where I scratch my head over which pov fits where, but mostly it's fine. But it does help that I have a strong central protagonist around whom the story revolves - without that, I think it would be easy to lose the threads. But when I do I'm able to look at his time line and remind myself where I'm going (although, really, by book three there are five separate, strong povs who each carry their own storyline and then it is a little more complicated.)

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

I think you should work with spreadsheets.And you know what:that might not be such a ludricous idea.I find myself increasingly thinking in storyboard-like scenes.Then I try to find the appropriate language to depict the scene,e.g. metaphors as shortcuts for more longwinded descriptions, i'll even go for typography experiments.Yikes,he must be a nutter.Writing POV is very hard,I find,because you have to match the viewpoint,the knowledge,the feelings with the plotline.If your main character needs to find out more,more needs to happen to him or her,or else you (have to )/might as well switch to omniscient(Warning:my semantics).More stuff happening to your protagonist,means increasing awareness of what the building blocks of your character are.I find writing a incremental task,with all the concomitant problems:you find yourself in a labyrinth with previous pathways redrawn or erased.
My respect for writers has increased exponentially.And that's just the protagonist,never mind the rest

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Writing pov is definitely an acquired skill - writing several believable ones is a challenge further.

I use Gantt charts a lot to keep timelines in check and I have a list of who is who and where is where, sort of.