When it comes to fantasy, there have only been a few I ever liked, both past and present. Why? Ahem, how about when half the heroes( not just side characters) die as in a certain popular series right now that is on HBO? Not for me. How about extremely wordy tomes where nothing happens for a hundred pages, literally( I’ m not kidding). How about an extremely popular movie series based on a book that was fantastic but the actual books, which I forced myself to read back in 1969, were awful to get through? I couldn’ t figure out why until now. They were omniscient! Then there were the character driven stories or intrigue stories that didn’ t have enough action.
There were a few exceptions like Andre Norton and a few other authors I can’ t remember, their names have faded with decades. I can’ t say I struck fantasy off my reading lists, but I was turned off enough by the genre that even though I loved the covers, I was quite often disappointed with the contents.
Then a weird game called D & D( Dungeons & Dragons) came along and things changed.
I rolled the dice and loved it! From there, a few authors came along with good plot-driven novels like R. A. Salvatore. However, I go back to the beginning of this section where I delved into the same old crap— the reason I still don’ t like most fantasy.
There was one other exception that I like to call a mashup, though it was actually termed urban fantasy. It was a series I read in the 90’ s about a guy who uses computers and computer logic to cross back and forth into a fantasy world. It wasn’ t half bad.
As a result, after a few decades of rolling dice, switching to single player computer games, then adding in my“ always an adventure” style, plus prodding from my wife to write fantasy, I started the Meleena’ s Adventures series. I emphasize adventures, of course.
SHORT CHAPTERS
Like a lot of new writers, I wrote long chapters with multiple scenes. Sometimes way too many scenes. About ten years ago, I learned some“ rule” at one of the Las Vegas Writer’ s Conferences that you should only have three to five scene changes per chapter. Why? It made the story too disjointed. However, over time, that reasoning has faded like a lot of other things. The same for head-hopping, which was given the goahead a few years ago at one of the Romance Writer’ s of America conferences. Once word got out about that, authors went nuts and every time I picked a book up, I saw head-hopping. It still drives me nuts. I hate it! Aaagh!
On to my point. I’ m a stickler for rhythm and flow. I don’ t like long paragraphs, long sentences or long chapters. I don’ t like to be tortured when I’ m reading and I also like to read during commercials.
Along came James Patterson. Unfortunately, despite being one publishing son-ofa-gun, he tends to write a lot in firstperson, which I hate. However, the one thing he does right is he doesn’ t write scenes. Instead, he makes every scene a chapter. As a result, his books might have
FALL 2018
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WRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE