Fast-paced epic fantasy is an oxymoron. I’ve been thinking about this over my break, when I finally got into the Witcher franchise after 8 years of trying.
I think I can safely say at this point in my career that I know how to write plots. I slow them down for a number of reasons–mainly, we have to get to know the characters first. It’s nothing without the characters.
But also because arguably, epic fantasy was never one for complex, fast-paced plotting. It is rooted in slow build and rather simple plots that is all about getting lost in a world while you go at it. Lord of the Rings began with a really long birthday party that got you into the minds of hobbits, which provided a great contrast as the story built up in layers. In my mind, epic fantasy was always about taking your time, getting to know people and the world as events larger than life unfolded in the background so that you had a reason to care when the epic shenanigans happened.
I believe that today’s world makes that tradition very difficult to follow now. Streaming services with every movie imaginable and video games all in the click of a button…books have to compete with these things as well as its own ebook formats. People want to be grabbed by page one. And as creators, you have to understand the need to do this, because of all the background noise that makes it much more difficult to capture people’s attentions now. Compelling, edge-by-your-seat-adventure…these are all very good words that sometimes goes against the grain of what I’ve always loved about fantasy. Epic fantasy, to me, was always about getting lost in a world and a sea of people and so many events that can’t be summed up in one or two paragraphs. It’s about going on adventures with multiple side quests and plots–meeting people, fixing problems, sometimes making them worse–all to build up to larger conflicts with earth-shattering consequences. They’re not supposed to be thrillers. To me, it’s supposed to make me want to go deeper, to go through the little details and see how they’re all connected…a character aging, their children, how those children deal with mentors they’ve met years ago, and so on.
And you know, this sucks for BIPOC creators, for so many reasons already. We often work with material already unfamiliar to the default. We want to get people into our worlds and characters, too, but we need the time and space to do it–the time and space which often isn’t accorded to us. I’ve spent chapters at times outlining a character’s thought process, just to make it easier to see why they would make the decisions they do–even though it’s already pretty clear to someone from the same cultural background. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’m writing fast books at a pace that may very well kill me (I have high blood pressure that seems to be resistant to meds, and I’ve spent all the last few weeks wrestling with both my poor health and this inevitability). It’s not because I want to. But you know, every book I finish is a chance to prolong my family’s finances by a couple of months, or another book I can hopefully self-publish to the tune of a few hundred bucks every month. Trying to eke out a writing career in today’s world is insanity. I don’t see a way out any time soon, and to be honest, I don’t want to–I do love this. I just wish I could take my time sometimes. Time to build up to the big things. Time to build up an audience and help them become familiar with my worlds. Time to grow my characters from quiet, unassuming, and maybe even dead-inside people to fierce warriors and heroes this genre demands. Time I may very well not get.
What I’ve shown in CHRONICLES OF THE BITCH QUEEN is only a tiny fraction of the world I’ve painstakingly built in nearly two decades. This isn’t unique in the epic fantasy business by any means, but there is so much story yet to tell in this world that I’m trying very hard to carve out with today’s reality. Fast-paced, page-turning epics is an irony, one that I’m aware of with every sentence I write. All I can do is try not to sacrifice the heart and soul of this genre while I do it.
