How to write a best-selling fantasy novel

[replicant2]

Sorry for the hijack, but i feel I need to comment on this. I don't think the other things JRRT did that you mentioned were not hard. But IMO, JRRT skipping the battles is one of the weak points points of LOTR. JRRT's story deals with a war, and the battles needed to be described just as much as the other parts of the story. JRRT does not do this, he skips over major battles and plot points by not describing the battles. End of hijack.

That's hardly a hijack, it's a valid, on-topic comment.

Personally, I think Tolkien spends enough time on the battles. Do they compare to the graphic scenes in "A Song of Ice and Fire?" Hardly. But for me there's more plenty of description given in, for example, the Battle of the Pelennor fields.

Others don't think so. Maybe there could have been more detail (and I personally love the battle scenes in the movies). But I don't think writing battles is necessarily "hard", either. Certainly its easier than portraying human emotions, or creating an internally consistent, believable world populated with memorable characters and places like Middle-Earth (IMO).

 

[MaxKaladin]

I find it interesting that the author of this article equates "Rural" with being a loser. Especially given how he goes on and on about the supposed prejudice in fantasy novels.

 

[jasper]

GEE if JRRT could do battles would the description remain in the book once the editors go a hold of iT? GoOD example in the 80's I pick up a book on Bluebeard. Not black beard the pirate but the guy who was seed for bluebeard fable blood on black key story.
The book was interesting so I decide to do an article on him. So I found other books mentioning him. He was Joan of Arc general. After she left the scene he ran rough shot over the local clergy and merchants, and was into alchemy and black arts.
Thing is even all the books before the 1980 use the same documents as the 1980 one. NONE of the books before 1980 one mention he was a child molester and child murder or mention he killed about 200 kids.
Some authors were restricited by the time frame in which they published. Look at Podkayne of Mars by RAH. Originally he killed her off. But 1962 it wasn't going to fly so he rewrote so she lived. Wasn't after he died and it was the 1990's was the book republish with his first ending.

 

[Umbran]

JRRT's story deals with a war, and the battles needed to be described just as much as the other parts of the story.

I think that skipping the battles is a major strength of the books. Because while the story goes on during the war, the story really isn't about the war itself. The story is about the people. When the war impinges very directly upon those people, events are clearly described. But when being in the middle of a battle isn't the character's problem, the battle is left out. That makes pretty good sense, to me.

 

[Rackhir]

His complaints aren't really valid in a sense with Tolkien. They weren't cliche's when he wrote them, they were fresh, new, original and the source of modern fantasy. It's the hordes of marginally competent writers since then who have built them into agonizingly repetitive plot elements.

Since Terry Brooks has been mentioned, as an example his first book "The Sword of Shannara" was an exact rip-off of the Lord of the Rings. He sat down made an outline of the important events in LotR and then wrote his own dialogue for thinly veiled clones of the LotR characters.

 

[takyris]

I was at a writing workshop a few weeks back, and the teacher got pretty irked about this stuff. His rant, paraphrased, was:

"Fantasy gets a bad rap because it's associated with Science Fiction, which uses completely different tropes. Nobody ever says, 'Oh, it's another mystery that uses the old cliche of having a murder and it being unclear who did it and then the hero figures it out in the end after some twists and turns.' Ninety-nine out of a hundred mystery novels use the same basic plot, and so do ninety-nine out of a hundred romance novels. It's only Science Fiction that goes on about having to have new ideas in order to be valid -- and it dumps on Fantasy for being more like mysteries or romances."

That's the much less eloquent version of it, anyway.

Many fantasy novels are like that because after a long day at work or taking care of the kids, that's what the average fantasy reader wants. It's possible for that stuff to be done badly, and it's possible for it to be done well.

I did chuckle while reading through it, thinking of some of the bad ones I'd read recently, but I'd rather see one that's more over the top.

 

[ShadowX]

Let's start with section 8, "Skip the hard parts." So Tolkien doesn't spend pages of exposition describing battles, and that's "skipping the hard part?" Tolkien spent YEARS creating entire languages, a rich history, a pantheon of gods, a myth of creation, all BEFORE he began the story. That's skipping the "hard parts?" Wow.

Thats not skipping the hard parts, that is just crazy.