First off, let me apologize to the people who have actually clicked on my blog and found nothing but my introduction. As these things go, I have been busy with life, and busy with writing. Since the inception of this blog I’ve actually come up with ideas for several different books, some of which are complete garbage, some I would like to revisit later down the line. But one has really stuck and is the one I’m currently writing (more on that later).
I recently befriended someone on Twitter who seemed to be interested in the same sort of creative ideas as myself, someone who was interested in writing epic fictional pieces. Immediately I asked him if he had ever read David and Leigh Eddings, which unsurprisingly he had not. After furiously spamming his twitter telling him why he should remedy this, I came up with the idea of writing this blog post.
Lucky you.
For those who are unfamiliar, I will give a brief summary before getting into the meat and potatoes of the post. The Belgariad (Part 1 and Part 2) and Malloreon (Part 1 and Part 2) series is a 10 book series, with two prequel books, and an additional book of all the extra background information which went into the development of the series. The last book is called The Rivan Codex.
In it is a treasure trove of information Eddings came up with in the 20 years he took to develop the entire series and world. Yes, 20 years.
I obviously don’t plan on waiting until I’m in my 50′s to finish my first book, however the principles are all great to keep in mind if you’re trying to emulate creating a world and piece of work as incredible as this series. What follows is a series of quotes from The Rivan Codex from David Eddings explaining his processes. I’ve found them quite useful in developing my own ideas.
“…The first decision the aspiring fantasist must make is theological. King Arthur and Charlemagne were Christians. Siegfried and Sigurd the Volsung were pagans. My personal view is that pagans write better stories.
… All right, then, for item number one, I chose paganism. (Note that Papa Tolkien, a devout Anglo-Catholic, took the same route.)
Item number two on our interim list is ‘The Quest’. If you don’t have a quest, you don’t have a story. The quest gives you an excuse to dash around and meet new people. Otherwise, you stay home and grow turnips or something.
Item number three is ‘The Magic Thingamajig’—The Holy Grail, the Ring of Power, the Magic Sword, the Sacred Book, or (surprise, surprise) THE JEWEL. Everybody knows where I came down on that one. The Magic Thingamajig is usually, though not always, the object of the quest.
Item four is ‘Our Hero’—Sir Galahad, Sir Gawaine, Sir Launcelot, or Sir Perceval. Galahad is saintly; Gawaine is loyal; Launcelot is the heavyweight champion of the world; and Perceval is dumb—at least right at first…
Item number five is the resident ‘Wizard’—Merlin, usually, or Gandalf—mighty, powerful, and mysterious….
Item six is our heroine—usually a wispy blonde girl who spends most of her time mooning around in a tower. I chose not to go that route, obviously…
Item seven is a villain with diabolical connections…
Item eight is the obligatory group of ‘companions’, that supporting cast of assorted muscular types from various cultures who handle most of the killing and mayhem until the hero grows up to the point where he can do his own violence on the bad guys.
Item nine is the group of ladies who are attached to the bully-boys in item eight. Each of these ladies also needs to be well-defined, with idiosyncrasies and passions of her own.
And finally we come to item ten. Those are the kings, queens, emperors, courtiers, bureaucrats, et al who are the governments of the kingdoms of the world. OK. End of list. If you’ve got those ten items, you’re on your way toward a contemporary fantasy. (You’re also on your way to a cast of thousands.) …”
Obviously this isn’t a universal outline for every fantasy book out there. Off the top of my head, my current project excludes points 1, 3, and 5. However, it is a good example of what to map out, how to flesh out your ideas, and how thoroughly to invest into your world. You are creating not just for yourself, but for your audience to become immersed in as well.
He goes on:
“I realized that since I’d created this world, I was going to have to populate it, and that meant that I’d have to create the assorted ‘ologies’ as well before I could even begin to put together an outline. The Rivan Codex was the result. I reasoned that each culture had to have a different class-structure, a different mythology, a different theology, different costumes, different forms of address, different national character, and even different coinage and slightly different weights and measures. I might never come right out and use them in the books, but they had to be there.”
I’ve found this extremely fun, though a bit time consuming. It is well worth the effort. Your world feels created in a less hodge podge fashion, and more like it has been established and running for ages before the reader cracks open page 1.
“The first thing a fantasist needs to do is to invent a world and draw a map. Do the map first. If you don’t, you’ll get lost, and picky readers with nothing better to do will gleefully point out your blunders. Then do your preliminary studies and character sketches in great detail…”
This is not usually the first thing I tend to do, albeit one of the first few things. In my current notebook for my story, the map was created on page 5, precisely.
“If something doesn’t work, dump it—even if it means that you have to rip up several hundred pages and a half-year’s work. More stories are ruined by the writer’s stubborn attachment to his own overwrought prose than by almost anything else. Let your stuff cool off for a month and then read it critically. Forget that you wrote it, and read it as if you didn’t really like the guy who put it down in the first place. Then take a meat-axe to it. Let it cool down some more, and then read it again. If it still doesn’t work, get rid of it. Revision is the soul of good writing. It’s the story that counts, not your fondness for your own gushy prose. Accept your losses and move on. “
Some of the wisest words I’ve yet to hear about writing.
“One of the dangers of epic fantasy lies in its proclivity to wander off into the bushes. We have what appears to be the gabbiest of all possible fiction forms, but it requires iron discipline. The writer absolutely must stick to the story-line and deviate only when an idea or character will improve the overall product. “
The above seems difficult to hold to, especially if you’re creating such an extensive world and history. However it is a must, otherwise your book will be chopped to pieces during editing.
“One of the items ticked off by Horace in his Ars Poetica was that an epic (or a drama) should begin in medias res, (in the middle of the story). Translation: ‘Start with a big bang to grab attention.’ Fantasists tend to ignore grandfather Horace’s advice and take the Bildungsroman approach instead. This German term can be translated as ‘Building (or growing up) romance’. (Note that most European languages don’t use the word ‘Novel’; they still call these things ‘romances’.) The ‘growing up’ approach is extremely practical for a fantasist, since all of our inventions have to be explained to our ‘dumb kid’ hero, and this is the easiest approach to exposition. ”
“Next, learn how to compress time gracefully. You can’t record your hero’s every breath. ‘Several days later it started to snow’ is good. It skips time and gives a weather report simultaneously. ‘The following spring’ isn’t bad. ‘Ten years later’ is OK if you’re not right in the middle of something important. ‘After several generations’ or ‘About the middle of the next century’ skip over big chunks of time. I’ve devised a personal approach which I call ‘authorial distance’. I use it to describe just how close I am to what’s happening. ‘Long distance’ is when I’m standing back quite a ways. ‘After Charlie got out of prison, he moved to Chicago and joined the Mafia’, suggests that I’m not standing in Charlie’s hip pocket. ‘Middle distance’, obviously, is closer. ‘The doors of Sing-Sing prison clanged shut behind Charlie, and a great wave of exultation ran through him. He was free!’ That’s sort of ‘middle’, wouldn’t you say? I refer to the last distance as ‘in your face’. ‘Charlie spit on the closing gate. “All right, you dirty rats, you’d better watch out now,” he muttered under his breath. “
Good advice for pieces that take the reader through extensive periods of time.
“I try, not always successfully, to keep chapters within certain parameters as to length—no less than fourteen pages, or more than twenty-two—in typescript. I try to maintain this particular length largely because I think that’s about the right length for a chapter. It feels right. Trust your gut-feel. Your guts know what they’re doing even if you don’t. “
And lastly:
“But egomania is a requirement for any writer. You have to believe that you’re good and that people will want to read your stuff. Otherwise, you’ll give it up after your first rejection slip.“
I hope you found this as entertaining as it was for me to read and reproduce for all you aspiring authors. These are words I am consistently challenging myself to live by while developing and writing, even if applying relevant parts to my work.
I also encourage any fans of fantasy epics to pick up this series by David and Leigh Eddings. Although the series is 10 books long in both parts (not including the prequels), I find myself re-reading them at least twice a year. I have yet to get to a point where I find myself tired of reading them. They truly are a masterpiece, and these quotes are a keen insight into the artist who molded it.
Please note I own none of the quoted materials. They are all property of David and Leigh Eddings (2007). The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON. Del Rey.
