Are You Writing Serious Fantasy? II

[Nurumaiel]

Well, I'll just say that you might want to try to avoid using any modern religions unless you are writing about the past history of our world (which I can tell you are probably not).

And here's where the problem lies... in short, it's because I believe the Catholic Faith to be the Faith. I don't want to make up a religion that can't be better. It's because I'm a Catholic that I don't want them to be non-Catholics... it's horribly difficult to explain. I've decided the best thing to do would be just to leave it rather vague and never actually say one way or another, but let their actions and words give the readers a little idea of what they might be. Besides, I don't want to go too far on this subject, considering not everyone on the 'Downs are Catholics.

Lhundulinwen mentioned very briefly drafts in her post, which brings me to ask a question to you all. How do you do second drafts? In all my past works I've only had first drafts. I'm the type of person who is inspired, writes it out, and then loves it too much to change it in anyway, regardless of whether it would be made better or not. I feel more in that case like my story is a well-rehearsed play rather than something actually happening. Aside from that, I also simply do not know how to do a second and third (and however many more one wants) draft... if anyone could give any simple guidelines and suggestions I would be most grateful. Most books around the house tell 'how to write a novel' and never say anything about numerous drafts... There, I've admitted one of my faults in writing.

[mark12_30]

Nuru,

I felt the same as you, til I had people I really, really respected review my work. When lindil questioned my use of a dragon, for instance, and suggested a troll would make more sense, I knew I had believability issues. And I didn't want to give up the dragon! So-- I had to lay a lot more groundwork, and show that the dragon had been around, before he showed up and wreaked his havoc. I had to make the presence of the dragon plausible.

Without lindil's advice I wouldn't have made those changes. But with lindil's changes it is a much better story.

Now, it doesn't work *at all* with someone you don't respect. (Don't bother.)

So-- my advice would be, put a copy of your original story in a very safe place. Then make another copy and hand it to someone you really respect who has a Big Red Pen-- littlemanpoet, at FWW, has a large team of people with Big Red Pens-- and watch them wreak havoc with it. It's a little horrifying-- because you love it so-- and that's why I say put a copy in a safe place so you always have the original.

lmp is on chapter 18 of The Fairy Wife. He's bled all over it! AAAUGH!!! But it is all good. When he is all done, I will "publish" a second edition (the first edtion will not completely disappear.) And it will be much more believable, more bulletproof, tighter, more believable.

Beievability is key to enchantment, which is key to eucatastrophe. So believability is important-- to me, to the reader.

How's that for a ramble? (...join FWW...)

[Imladris]

Nuru, on religion, this is my advice: Keep it vague, don't name the religion as that will probably be a turn off. I don't know much about the Catholic religion, but keep their customs in the story and if a Catholic comes upon your story, he can mentally smile as he recognizes them. And if one isn't a Catholic, one can look at the story and appreciate how noble, etc, the characters are.

As for second drafts, I read a rule once: Second draft = first draft minus ten percent . I've found that this is extremely easy to do and the best part is that you don't even loose a bunch of the core important stuff or the stuff that you've come to love. After you do your own editing of the ten percent, then have an editor read it and then you'll cut off even more fat from the flavourful meat.

Also, before any editing takes place, put the manuscript in a drawer and just let it rest for a few weeks. That way it will be fresh and you can easily see parts that won't flow, etc.

[Eowyn Skywalker]

Ooooh... I've finally found a thread like this. Very helpful indeed, as I have been working on some fantasy and sci-fi stuff for quite a while in my spare time.

In my main story, and by which I mean it has an awful lot of stories built off of it, the main characters are female, with very interesting pasts, and futures. My problem with this story is it works in the "Three Worlds", and I'm not sure whether the heavy fantasy base works with the other two worlds, of Terra/Earth, and the future, which is very Star Wars like. Does anyone have any good tips on combining fantasy with sci-fi, and not giving the sci-fi characters a heck of an edge, even though their technology is actually a form of magic? Yeah, it's very confusing. But at least there are a few male character to balance the two main lightsideish females, and the one darkside female character.

In the other one, it's straight out fantasy, and the main character's parents die very early on. I mean like chapter two. But I'm not exactly a great writer in that genre, and she hardly reacts, even though another character appears in to destract her awfully fast. I need to expand the scene, and could use tips on reacting to death of her entire family. I suppose the best way for you to understand what I mean by lack of reaction, you'd have to read the story. (PG13 for violence)

If anyone's interested in reviewing, I'm on fictionpress as Elf with a lightsaber.

I quite like this thread, lot's of good advice. Please help me here!

-Eowyn Skywalker

[Olorin_TLA]

For myself, I write...and as I write, I'll cross out, edit, insert, 3the text. If I readit orcomeback to it later, that'll ahppen again...sometimes I might redo a paragraph, but usually only if I knew I was unhappy with it at the time of writing.

There have been occasions, however, when I've done a section anew (not having the original on me at the mo) and it usually ends up quite different, (eg: more detail & indpeth, as opposed to a semi-summary one time). But generally, I don't have drafts - I have writing, with each line of paper sprouting notes and changes, and sentences and parapgrahs living in the margins with convoluted arrows directing them to their new homes.

[Olorin_TLA]

Well, Éowyn, it might not sink in for her that quick, and might take a whule, as it can in real life. Perhaps soon after something could happen, (or even a moment of silence could happen) which causes it to all sink i for her. Also, having her sometimes act as if her parents were still around could be one thing, sometimes - I know when my granny died I had dreams where she was still around, and asked if she was coming to visit once at lunch because I'd forgotten. And someone I knew mum died and the nedxt day he was wondering why she hadn't prepared his breakfast, when he remembered and it all sank in.

[Saraphim]

I'm going to comment on something that you guys were talking about waaaaay up at the top of the page: gender in writing.

When I was a bit younger and first beginning to write, all my main characters were female. This isn't surprising, considering that I'm female. Anyway, lately, I've been trying out male MC's. The story I'm working the most on has six (or seven, haven't decided yet ) MC's and around half of them are male. The "ringleader", I suppose, evolved from a female to a male.

At any rate, I found that my male characters are more believable than my female ones. My female ones either turn out Mary-Sueish, or wimpy, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.

Does anyone have any good tips on combining fantasy with sci-fi

Well, it looks like you're off to a good start, with your magic-technology relationship. That sounds quite interesting. I suppose something I could say is not to overload the story with complicated things of either type. This might confuse people who are fans of one and not of the other. Perhaps you might have a character who is illiterate to both technology and magic to sort of introduce things to the reader in a more subtle way.

Hope this helps. If not, then sorry for the time waste. You'll never get it back. Mwahahaha...

[Olorin_TLA]

I'd actually say not to care whether people "get it" at all, because tthey will - iut's only when people start worrying that they dumb down, and then they do it to a ridiculous level. If you don't want them to have some kind of huge advantage in a fight over the fantasy people, itcould be aharsh future where mostpeople are dirt poor with only poor qwuality black-marketweaposn or somehting like that.

[Lhundulinwen]

As for drafts, I generally edit as I go along, as far as grammar and sentence structure. But when I get done with a piece, I set down and read the entire thing out loud. I ask myself a few questions as I go- Would this character say that? What is his dialect and accent? Can a reader 'hear' my character's way of speaking? Is there clues along the way about the outcome of the story? Are they spaced out? Does the plot have a climax? Is the conflict strong enough?
It takes a while to rewrite the whole project usually, and your project should shrink. I allways take out the irrelevent descriptions, the overwriting, etc. For every ten pages you may end up with 5 - 9 pages. But then again, you may find the need for an entire new character (it has happened before) and your story may grow.
I generally end up doing three to four drafts. It helps to work on something else for a week or two between edits. Some people have more drafts, and others can't bear to cut anything. Its best to find a happy median in between those extremes. You'll know when your on your last draft. It'll just seem as if you won't ever do better, or that the characters have reached "ripeness". Then its time to think about publishing, or not. It all depends on you.
If you want more information on publishing and writing in general, try The Writer magazine, and a book with the dragon from the Hobbit (I think it is anyway) called Writing Sci-Fi and Fantasy. (Please correct me if that's not the whole title!). And two good books on general writing is Escape into the Open by Elizabeth Berg and a book that's shaped like a block, The Writer's Block.