Conflux Part 3: Where do you get your ideas?

THIS panel saw many audience members bring along notepads, ready to take down advice from myself, moderator Richard Harland, Sabrina de Souza and star panellist and Voyager author Jack Dann.
My take on it was two-pronged. First you need your characters, and finding them in everyday life is certainly one way. You need characters that interest you, and sometimes that even comes just from a feeling. TWG’s Martil was inspired by thoughts of redemption, of a man coming back from a dark place because of a child’s love.
Perhaps my most useful statement was my belief that human history is rife with fantastic stories, tales of extraordinary heroism and hope, many of which can be adapted to a fantasy setting.
One of the principle inspirations for TWG (although it does not take place until Risen Queen) was the battle of Pilleth, when Owain Glyndwr defeated the English. Look it up on Google - it is an extraordinary tale.
But in the trilogy are such things as the massacre of Srebrenica, the atrocity at My Lai in Vietnam, the taking of Babylon by King Darius, the Zulu victory at Isandhlwana, the taking of Tenochtitlan and Mayan sacrifice rites.
Richard and Jack both often use dreams for ideas, while I also take feelings and impressions from music - some lyrics can really strike a note with me.
Probably the thing I took from this panel, although we did not really sum it up for the people there, was that ideas are everywhere.
One idea will not make a book, let alone a trilogy. You need many ideas - ideas for plot, ideas for characters, ideas about the lands they are in, ideas about what happens to them.
Write ideas down, keep a pad by your bed to record dreams and thoughts there - and be prepared to let stories percolate around in the back of your head for a while. Sometimes thinking, not writing, can be just as productive.
Jack had the classic line that a fellow writer was once asked where he gets his ideas from and replied: “ I send $5 a month to a little old lady in Albuquerque and she sends me five ideas back”.
But when the writer tried this joke at a US convention, there was a massive line of people wanting the lady’s address!
If only it were that easy!
I get ideas from the Australian countryside, from everything I see, from people I meet, from dreams, feelings and impressions gained from music and movies.
The trick is turning them into something a publisher is willing to pay for!

Conflux Part 2: Fantasy literature

THE second panel I appeared on at Conflux was a tricky one, to say the least. With a rather nebulous title - fantasy as literature, moderator Jenny Blackford, myself and Sabrina de Souza attempted to tackle something that had little to grasp hold of!
Beyond suggesting that fantasy is, in fact, the bedrock of Anglo-Saxon literature, using as my supporting evidence the epic poem Beowulf and the tradition of bards and skalds, we were fighting to come up with anything controversial. Sadly that (my effort) did not stir the passions of the audience, given they were almost all fantasy fans and quite happy to agree!
Jenny, a judge on the World Fantasy Awards, had kept us going with some discussion but we were running out of steam.
Luckily for us, panellist and fellow Voyager author KJ (Katie) Taylor (The Dark Griffin) arrived. Her entrance was a little late due to Daylight Savings but was perfectly timed. Her energy and outspoken enthusiasm rescued a panel that was threatening to struggle.
We also all agreed with KJ, when she said fantasy is unfairly maligned and that fantasy was a genre of almost unlimited possibilities (although it has plenty of bad fantasy efforts).
But we were also saved with the best question from the audience I heard all weekend (admittedly there were many panels I missed).
Christian Tambling, self-published author of Dragon Moon, asked if there were any boundaries you could not cross in fantasy.
This had us all thinking hard.
My take came back to my favourite saying - get the characters right and people will be more inclined to follow them on the journey you are writing, no matter how extraordinary it grows to be.
The only barrier I like to avoid is the limit of normal human ability. If you have heroes slaughtering hundreds of soldiers, or able to far surpass normal physical efforts, then you may well have a problem.
Readers will check their disbelief at the door when they crack the cover of a fantasy book, allowing you to indulge the fantasy of magic, mythical creatures and the like - but having people do the impossible without even an attempt at a logical explanation is what gives the genre a bad name.
What do you think?

Conflux: Part 1

My first panel at Conflux was the Secret Of Writing Humour - and I feared it was to be no laughing matter. Humour is such a subjective business, I was worried what would be said and if I would end up looking like the joke.
After all, The Wounded Guardian has a fair bit of humour (at least, it was intended to do so, and plenty of people have said they found it funny) and it is something I enjoy having in my writing. I find it breaks the mood if things are getting too heavy and can have multiple benefits.
But I needn’t have worried too much. Moderator Richard Harland (who’s funny in the nicest possible sense) and fellow panellist Val Toh made it easy for us to relax.
My theory (as I told the audience) is humour flows from the characters. Get the characters right, get them real enough that people can visualise them and then put them into situations where humour can arise. You don’t need snappy one-liners, which, after all, often fall flat!
The perfect example, of course, is Fawlty Towers, where such “unfunny” lines as “Don’t mention the war” are almost guaranteed to have people in stitches, even though on paper they don’t look like much. It is the character that gives life to the words so, if you have strong characters, you can have them generating plenty of humour.
In-jokes and pop culture references, we all agreed, are not easy to make funny - and can easily date, so should be stayed away from.
My thought was to have no more than 10 per cent of the book as humour, to use it sparingly - unless of course you aspire to be the next Terry Pratchett, in which case you either need no advice from me or are doomed to failure. (Sadly the latter is probably more likely).
Another little trick is to have “sidekick” characters, whose purpose, at least initially, seems to be to provide light relief - but if then they get swept up into the action (and, hopefully, tragedy) it has even more of an impact.
One thing both Richard and I felt very strongly about was the need to assess your characters as you write - if someone placed for humour then turns out to be particularly interesting, then give them more. Keep going with them, because sometimes they can take your story in new directions and give it an extra dimension. Sometimes characters demand to be given more of the story - and you should give it to them!
TWG, with a peerless warrior forced to look after a small girl and an ex-bandit without a filter between brain and mouth, was designed to have humour breaking up the action.
So, for me, the secret of writing humour is giving your story strong characters and putting them into incongruous situations.
Feel free to tell me I am wrong!

Store appearances

Earlier this month I appeared at Angus and Robertson Erina, for a book signing/selling afternoon.
Back in July, I did a few of these around the coast, with mixed results, but I think I have the formula right now.
Instead of sitting at a table at the back of a store, waiting and hoping for someone to come over, I was out the front, talking to anyone who came past!
It worked so well that we sold 17 copies in about two hours - and the A&R stores at Maitland and Kotara have booked me in for similar appearances on October 11 and 18 respectively!
Now, normally I don't like cold callers. And I hate being accosted in a shopping centre by someone trying to sell me something.
But, in the pursuit of spreading the word about my book (and making a few sales!) I became what I normally despise!
It's an interesting exercise, trying to hit up people for a chat as they walk past.
For a start, people don't wear shirts proclaiming they like fantasy books. Although I did meet one guy with a really cool Stormtrooper T-shirt on, which was a bit of a giveaway. And yes, he bought my book!
But what about the others? Some young, muscly, tattooed blokes just laughed at me. Others were willing to talk. A pair of old ladies bought a copy, while Goth-looking teenagers turned up their (pierced) noses!
As time went on, I began to refine my technique. There were some people who were walking just too fast to bother about. Others caught my eye or glanced in the direction of the posters.
I began by saying: " Do you like reading?''
Quite a few replied: "Not today thanks!" which begged the question, would they like reading tomorrow?
But if they stopped, I asked if they liked fantasy and then talked about my book.
I probably spoke to more than 50 people - some claimed to come back later (perhaps they did)others that they had no money that day.
It was an extraordinary experience to speak to so many people about my book.
And I learned that you can sell something if you truly believe in it.
So watch out for me around Christmas, when book two is out!

Your personal zombie attack plan

Like millions of people who live in/around Sydney, I ``enjoyed'' waking up to a post-apocalyptic red dawn last week, as well as a slightly brown dawn on the weekend.
Amid all the excitement, and coughing, I was chatting with a few mates and we naturally ended up discussing our personal survival plans in case of zombie attack in the event of an apocalyptic event.
Now most people I know (perhaps a comment on the people I know!) seem to have some form of plan to help them survive a massive zombie onslaught.
My basic theory is, you never go into the heavily-fortified compound, because there is always a traitor/fool/fatal flaw that will expose it to zombie infiltration. And once the zombies are in, there's no escape.
Naturally I think it's best to head for wide-open, isolated spaces where you can see them coming (and keep on running) and Australia is brilliant for this.
Of course, it does depend a little on the type of zombie. If it is a viral, rage-frenzied zombie type from 28 Days Later, then obviously you would just have to survive for a couple of months, until they die of hunger.
If it is the mutated, I Am Legend-type zombies, it's even easier. Firstly, they are all CGI and, without powerful computers, wouldn't exist to bother you. Second, all you'd have to do is find a spot where there's no shade (easy enough in Oz) for further than a zombie can walk at night, as they cannot survive UV rays.
Now, if we're talking old-school Dawn Of The Dead zombies who survive on human flesh and can only be killed by having their brains wrecked, then you need to be able to see the slow-moving suckers coming.
If they're the REALLY dumb types, from Shaun Of The Dead, then all the better. If they ever arrive that far west, they'll also be a source of amusement as you watch them bumble around. Sort of like seeing strange tourists trying to find their way around, or the token dumb American couple on The Amazing Race.
Whatever, a large cattle station out in the middle of Australia sounds perfect for all types, giving you self-sufficiency, space to see them coming - and many already have CCTV to allow the farmers to check on stock.
Of course, getting there safely is another matter!
But a mate thinks you need to find an abandoned underground bunker (well, there's surely a few secret US bases around in the outback), while others say cave systems are the go.
Anyway, if the next red dawn brings out the zombies, I'll be ready.
The only flaw in my plan is if someone reads this, gets zombified, then decides to come looking for me ...

Villains too evil?

The Wounded Guardian was reviewed by The Adelaide Advertiser recently, which was a pretty complimentary review (four stars out of five) - although it threw in the comment that the villains were too evil.
That got me thinking - how evil should fantasy villains be? I mean, I don't remember anyone saying Sauron was a bit too nasty in The Lord Of The Rings, or that the Ringwraiths weren't cuddly enough.
There are few fantasy books where the villains are quite nice people really, just a little misunderstood.
Are we willing to accept that orcs/goblins/trolls/whatever are all utterly evil but that humans cannot be that bad?
If so, where do the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot come?
When writing The Wounded Guardian, I had the difficulty of beginning with a compromised hero. Martil is derided as the Butcher of Bellic, a man with evil deeds to his name.
So if you imagine a scale between good and evil, he's kind of sitting in the middle. That meant any villains had to begin further down the scale than Martil - and keep going!
But I don't know if I'd class them as "totally'' evil, although I wanted the like of Duke Gello and the Fearpriest Onzalez to be very dark - they are men who are not bothered by conscience or morality. History is littered with such men.
But what do you think?
Can we believe in utterly evil non-human villains but human villains need to have some sort of redeeming feature?

The DVD extras of The Wounded Guardian

When you buy a DVD, these days you expect to get a few extras ... a bit of commentary and most certainly some deleted scenes.
I always enjoy watching the deleted scenes, seeing how it may have changed the story and if it improved/detracted from the flow.
So why not get those with a book?
If you've read a few of my earlier posts, you'll be aware I had to slice about 30,000 words out of The Wounded Guardian to make the 180,000 word count that is the upper limit for a Harper Voyager book.
Now that wasn't a bad thing. In fact it meant I tightened up some rather flabby scenes and cut back excess that didn't need to be there. But there were a few things that it was a bit of a wrench to leave out.
One of the problems I faced with the book was giving the main characters time to develop a relationship. Martil and Karia needed time to get to know each other at the start, while in the second half, Merren and Karia needed time to develop a relationship - for events in the next two books would swiftly overtake them.
This meant I had Martil spend time training the Norstalines and then undertake quite a detailed campaign against Havrick and his soldiers - and this area took quite a trim when it came to making the cuts.
There were also some other scenes, such as Martil and Karia meeting a rude wizard's assistant in the town of Wollin (a wizard who plays a part in book three), which also had to go.
So, in the spirit of DVD extras, I'll be posting some of these scenes on the blog over the next few weeks - and would like to know if you feel their removal from the final manuscript made it better/worse.
But the order in which they appear will be by request.
So, out of the following:
a) Martil and Karia try to talk to a wizard in Wollin
b) Martil trains the Norstalines
c) Ambush in the forest
d) Defeating a cavalry charge
e) Fooling Havrick's forest search
What would you like to read (if any!)
Add your thoughts here or on Facebook and I'll post the first next week!