My parents used to have this set and it got me through so many school projects. People don’t use physical encyclopedias these days thanks to Wikipedia. Then again, I’m thinking of another type of encyclopedia. We’ll get to the questions in a bit. First, I’m going to clarity a bit.
Many authors might not consider this because it doesn’t really work for stand-alone authors or some genres. You need to have a lot of material to make an encyclopedia that collects everything from your works. I could probably do one for Legends of Windemere or all of my books. In fact, I used to have a notebook that listed all of the people, places, and things from my books. This was back in high school and I thought making a big compendium would be cool. Now, it seems like a daunting task that I wouldn’t be able to tackle without giving up a year of my life. Searching through every book to make sure I don’t miss a single character, monster, location, spell, and relic would take months if not longer. So, this is really an idea that I’ve abandoned. That doesn’t mean I’m not curious.
So, here are the questions:
With me on the blog today is my good friend, the awe-inspiring Laura Sibson, who is here to talk about her debut young adult novel, The Art of Breaking Things. Laura is the first of two awesome Secret Gardener classmates from VCFA on the blog this week.
Laura is represented by Brianne Johnson. The Art of Breaking Things was published by Viking/Penguin on June 18. Click here to read the synopsis. After I talk with Laura, I’ll tell you about a giveaway of this very book.
El Space: Four quick facts about yourself?
Laura:
• When I was sorted as a Gryffindor on Pottermore, I was both surprised and slightly dismayed. I expected to be Hufflepuff, but also it seems to me that Gryffindor has fallen out of favor of late. When I asked my sons…
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The title says it all. Got some Fowl Language and Red Green Show in there too.
This might be short because nothing really happened beyond work and puzzles. By the time I get home, I’m exhausted. This week started the pool trips, but we had one rained out. There was also a trip to an amusement park. Geez, I’m having a lot of trouble being coherent and thinking clearly. Good thing I’m not trying to write any stories this summer like I’d planned. The puzzles are keeping my brain active and helping me relax from a busy day, but the heat and sun are brutal.
Okay, I think I’m ending this post fairly early. On the trip yesterday, I was one of the people waiting with the kids who didn’t want to go on the rides. Not much shade in some of the areas. I didn’t bring my water jug either because it’s kind of clunky to carry around and I didn’t know if I’d be going on rides until I got to work. So, I didn’t get much water and I realized that I’d reached a point where I couldn’t sweat. Hydrated as best as I could, but I came home to find that the freezer wasn’t working right and we lost all of our ice. My seltzers and the water bottles are kept in a room that gets really warm. So, I tried my best to gradually hydrate myself, but I was also dead on my feet. This morning I have a heavy head and my coordination is off. You have no idea how many typos I’ve done here and I kept dropping puzzle pieces last night. Looking at them now, my hands are still shaking a bit. This is the father/son outing day too, but I should be able to relax tomorrow since my parents might take my son to the pool.
Speaking of my son, he had his first (and hopefully last) cavity filling this week. He did great and he won a raffle at camp for an Icee gift certificate. He was a trooper through the week since it was hot for him too. I think there was more, but my head is starting to feel heavier. Think I’m out. Here’s the list:
P.S.- There is no way for me to get any writing done at work or even at home now. This is frustrating. I’m either too busy or too exhausted. Maybe I’ll do some notebook work tomorrow when I’m resting or next weekend. One plus side here is that my brain is so frazzled that I can start editing War of Nytefall: Eradication once camp ends and it’ll be like I’ve never seen it before. Maybe I’ll get lucky and be able to do a Christmas release?
I was going to talk about making words and phrases, but I realized that I haven’t done anything like that. In fact, most people don’t or won’t notice until they are long gone because you need time to see what sticks. Makes me wonder how many authors lived long enough to see some of their creations become permanent fixtures of the lexicon. Of course, this makes me think of Shakespeare.
I’ve always been surprised by how many phrases and words came from this man. I would have loved to be in the room when he came up with them. What did people think? We look at phrases like ‘green-eyed monster’ and ‘ break the ice’, but they are so common that they have no effect. Imagine hearing them for the first time though. It had to be confusing and require an explanation to some extent. Probably even ignored or mocked at first, but then these determined phrases managed to wriggle into permanency. Did Shakespeare ever expect this?
What do you think of this topic? Have you ever wondered about the origin of common phrases? Do you have a favorite?
As usual, here is your warning that this story has cursing, sex (not graphic), innuendo, and violence. It’s my Rated-R action adventure called Derailing Bedlam. This is the fourth outing (third official) for Cassidy and Lloyd, so feel free to click on one of the two covers to see how it started. Each one is 99 cents!
Cover by Jon Hunsinger
Cover Art by Jon Hunsinger
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Legolas and Gimli
Something that many consider a ‘staple’ of fantasy is conflict and tension between the various races. There’s this weird dislike that seems to appear among them, which is hateful globally and more mild bickering for those in the same party. Typically, it involves a pompous elf, a surly dwarf, or both. All of this makes me believe the ‘staple’ comes entirely from ‘Lord of the Rings’. It’s a constant attempt to replicate the Legolas/Gimli dislike to rivalry to friendship story arc. Never seems to work for me because of a few issues:
Now, this is all my own thoughts on it because I know people who are thrilled with fantasy bigotry. They love seeing it because they feel like it’s mirroring the real world. It does get weird when you see real world racism in fantasy though. Humans hating on each other for different skin color in a world with elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, dragons, gnomes, goblins, and other races comes off as evil. It makes it seem like even in a world with multiple civilized species, humans will still quarrel amongst themselves. This is a reason why I don’t do this in Windemere. I can’t see the humans of this world falling into our type of racism since they have other targets. Might be more wishful thinking on my part here.
In regards to Windemere, I did have a lot of trouble doing interspecies bigotry. I attempted it in Beginning of a Hero and I didn’t like it. This became an odd nod to LOTR since it was dwarves teasing about elves. The issues didn’t carry over because I couldn’t see it working. The next dwarf you meet is working for a half-elf and admits that his best friend is an elf. I had two half-elves in the main cast for the first book and a third joined in the sequel. The only races that were disliked were chaos elves, giltris (lizard people), goblins, and orc bandits. These were all aggressive groups too, so they earned that reputation. I simply couldn’t find a way to justify the other races hating on each other when I demonstrated that they were all living together. So, I threw the ‘staple’ away unless it fit a specific character.
It took a few years for me to see why it didn’t work for Windemere. I had already designed a few big events in the world’s history. Massive threats that forced the species to unite for survival. So, why would they splinter after having to join forces so often? That’s just asking for the next global catastrophe to wipe them out. So, it’s almost like large scale racism in Windemere was eliminated out of necessity and fear of extinction. At least it is in my mind. There are plenty of people who have messaged me over the years and mentioned that the lack of bigotry makes the world unrealistic. Amazing how the absence of such hate is seen as a negative. Probably says a lot more about the humanity of Earth than the races of Windemere.
So, what do you think about bigotry in fantasy?
Not the Egg Man
Hi gang, Craig here again with another Expansion Pack. These are designed to enhance the series I wrote about The Hero’s Journey, also known as the Writing Monomyth.
It’s worth repeating that none of the Expansion Pack material is required for your stories. These are just as advertised. If you want to get a bit deeper into the optional stuff, you might find them helpful.
There is an old writing rule, that I’m going to paraphrase. Every scene must do two of three things or it doesn’t belong in your story. These things are:
• Build or develop character.
• Develop setting.
• Advance the plot.
It’s actually damned good advice and should be followed. Think of this as a safe haven for your fiction. It doesn’t mean every word, or even paragraph, but scene. A scene might take a page or two, and if…
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Legends of Windemere 
