I set aside the day to spend with Sarah and Oot. That was my Mother’s day present for Sarah. She decided what she’d like to do, and I’d clear my schedule for it.

The plans she chose weren’t elaborate. We were going to run a few errands, get some food, then go to the park to play.

As soon as I got into the car, Oot said, “Gandalf, I don’t want to go on an adventure.”

“Oh,” I said. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m a hobbit.”

“I think an adventure would be good for you, Bilbo. They can be a lot of fun. And you can find a lot of treasure.”

“No,” he said. “I’m too scared. I just want to stay home and smoke my smoker.”

We drove to Target, and since Sarah just had a few things to pick up, I offered to hang out in the car with Oot. Things are faster that way. Plus, we’re about to have an unexpected party, where all the dwarfs show up while Bilbo is fixing tea.

While Sarah is inside, I decide to be a good dad and coach Oot a little bit, like Sarah did for me on Father’s Day.

“Today is a special day,” I said. “Today is mother’s day. That means that you should tell your momma, “Happy Mother’s Day!”

“But I’m Bilbo Bagins!” he protests.

“Even Bilbo Bagins has a momma,” I say, thought I can’t remember who it is off the top of my head. “Everyone has a momma. My momma’s name was Marge. And she would have loved you so much.”

This might seem like it came out of nowhere, but the truth is, I think about my mom all the time. Especially around certain times of the year.  Especially when I’m with Oot. My mom died in February of 2007, just before the first book came out. Oot is only about two and a half, and that means she never got to meet my baby.

So at this point I’m crying, and trying not to make a big deal about it. Because Oot’s having a pretty good time, and beside, I’m sitting in the target parking lot.

“But I’m a hobbit,” Oot says again.

“She would have loved that you’re a hobbit too,” I say. And then I really start to lose it.

It’s a beautiful day out. I’m finally published and successful beyond my wildest dreams. I have a beautiful girlfriend who loves me beyond all sense. I have a delightful son who adores me. And I’m crying uncontrollably in the Target parking lot.

“Dad, why are you crying?” Oot asks. He’s not worried. Mostly he’s just curious, but there’s still some concern there.

“I’m sad,” I say. “I miss my mom.”

He reaches up and touches my face with the back of his hand. It’s the touch we’ve taught him to use on babies. His gentlest touch. “It’s okay dad,” he says.”It’s okay. You don’t have to cry.”

“You’re right,” I say. But I can’t stop, I’m a mess at this point.

“It’s okay dad,” he says. “I can kiss you.” And he does just that. Gives me a sweet, drooly little baby kiss on my face.

I try to clean myself up because I know Sarah is coming back soon. Oot continues to pet the side of my face. “It’s okay,” he says, again and again. “You don’t have to be sad. You can stay with me.”

Sarah and I managed to do something right over the years with him. I’ll tell you that for free. It was about the nicest thing he could have said to me. And I have no idea how he came up with it.

What’s the point of my story? Here’s my point.

I have a good friend who recently lost a loved one. Someone really important to her. A member of her family. She knew that things were getting close to the end. She’s known for ages. But it still knocked the stuffing out of her. I understand. Knowing ahead of time doesn’t really help.

A couple weeks ago I was on the phone with this friend. I was doing the useless thing you do when you want to comfort someone, but there really isn’t anything you can say.

“It’s like there’s just been a big hole ripped out of my life,” she said. “I can’t believe everyone goes through this.”

I told her that I thought the exact same thing after my mother died. That I couldn’t understand how the world could work with everyone constantly walking  around all the time feeling like they’ve been torn up inside.

What I didn’t tell her is the line from Shakespeare that kept running through my head after my mom died. It’s from Hamlet, when Polonius says, “Your father lost a father. That father lost, lost his.” You have to be a real twat to quote Shakespeare at someone. And you’re doubly a twat if you do it when they’re grieving.

“Does it get better?” she asked.

“Not soon.” I said. “But eventually. I don’t think about her for whole days sometimes. I don’t dream about her any more.”

“You dream about her?”

“I used to,” I said. “After she died. I always thought that was some bullshit literary device. Something hack writers put into stories. But it really happens, apparently. It happened a lot to me.”

There was a long pause on the phone.

“The worst part,” I said. “Was that in my dreams, she was always sick. It was just like before she died. And in my dreams we were doing everything we could to make things better for her. But you knew it was just a matter of time. They were horrible dreams.”

I’d never told anyone else this before.

“But the really bad part was when I woke up,” I said. “You know what it’s like when you wake up and you’re not sure if the dream is real or not?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Well I’d wake up, then have a panicked moment when I thought the dream was real. But then I’d realize that none of it was true. That my mom wasn’t sick. She was dead.” I paused. “And when I realized that, I felt this huge feeling of relief wash over me, because I know I don’t have to go through all of it again. All the hospitals and doctors and funerals.”

I waited for my friend to say something, but she didn’t.

“I mean, how fucked up is that?” I asked. “I wake up from a dream and think, ‘Oh thank god. My mom is dead.’ There’s probably something really wrong with me because of that.”

“I’ve been feeling that way too,” she said. “I’m sad and it’s horrible. But I’m so relieved its all over. And so I feel guilty for that on top of everything else.”

“Well,” I said. “At least we’re both the same flavor of fucked up.”

“I can’t believe nobody ever talks about this,” she said. “I mean people have bad breakups, and you know how to handle it because you’ve heard about their breakups. But nobody talks about people dying. There’s no script for something like this.”

“It’s a real taboo,” I said. “Not one of the silly little play taboos like sex, things we aren’t supposed to talk about and we do anyway. Real taboos are things nobody even thinks of talking about.”

“Somebody should talk about them,” she said.

“Somebody should,” I agreed.

*     *     *

So here we are.

Generally speaking, when I think about something a lot, I write about it on the blog. Its one of the ways I figure out how I really feel about things. It helps me keep my head screwed on straight.

But the one exception has always been my mom.

I think about her all the time, but I rarely ever tell stories about her.

And you know what? That’s a fucking shame. Because my mom was awesome.

So we’re fixing that. Soon.

pat

So instead of a great wordy blog you get a link to an article on Tor.com where they talk about assembling an avengers-style team out of fantasy characters. I was flattered to see that Kvothe got a spot on the team. That’s some rarified air he’s breathing up there with LOTR, Song of Ice and Fire, and the Princess Bride.

Quite aside from the obvious observation that Kvothe would have to be played by Robert Downy Jr. This list raises some interesting questions.

More to the point, a list like that is fanfic waiting to happen. And I personally wonder who Kvothe would:

1. Buddy up with.

2. End up Fighting in a Dark Knight Returns style grudge match.

(Yeah. Yeah. I know. That’s DC. Shut up.)

3. Rub the wrong way.

4. Rub the right way. (If you know what I mean.)

Feel free to speculate away in the comments below. I know I’m going to….

pat

We set out to talk about what makes for good, interesting characters, and the conversation spiraled pleasantly through all manner of interesting tangents after that. In addition to being a fun talk with some of the wittiest geeks around, I think we also ended up raising some interesting points about stories, writing, truth, beauty, etc.

Anyway, if you missed the live broadcast, you can stop weeping softly to yourself in the corner. They’ve just posted up the video over on youtube.

Here it is:

Man, I really need a haircut….

pat

I’ve been meaning to mention them for a while, but I’ve just never managed to get around to it.

But one of their recent videos made me realize that the time had come:

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you: Existential Crisis and Dragons:

and another of my favorites:

Honestly, I could link about twenty of their videos saying, “oooh oooh, this one too!” But I’ll let you explore on your own. I’m guessing y’all know how to browse youtube at this point in your lives.

Fair warning, a lot of these videos aren’t safe for work. Depending on where you work, of course.

If you worked for me, for example, you wouldn’t get in trouble for watching a video where somebody said a naughty cuss. No. You’d get in trouble for dicking around on the internet when you should be changing into your Emma Frost outfit and fanning me with a large palm leaf while I write.

Anyway, the folks at SMBC theater have about 150 of these little gems on subjects from caveman to Russian roulette to Batman. If you like irreverent humor, odds are you’ll probably dig their stuff….

Share and Enjoy,

pat

It’s flattering, because not only was Gemmell a great writer, but because whoever wins doesn’t just get a trophy or a certificate or something.

No. The winner of the David Gemmell legend award gets an axe.

Which you have to admit is pretty cool. It would certainly be a step up from my current writing axe.

The problem is this, when I wandered over to see who else was on the ballot, I saw that it was stacked with other really good books.

Most troubling for me, was the fact that it was up against Brandon Sanderson’s Alloy of Law.

When I saw that, I realized that I’d never actually gotten around to writing a review of Alloy, though I’d been meaning to for weeks and weeks.

I feel it’s my civic duty to talk spread the word about good books I’ve read. So I finally wrote it up and  posted it over on Goodreads.

For those of you who have some sort of odd, trauma-borne link-clicking phobia, here’s the jist of it:

“Sanderson has now been added to a very short list. Specifically, the list authors I wish to kill so that I might eat their livers and thereby gain their power.”

It’s a really good book. Not just because of the story. But because what he’s doing is really amazingly different. (Read the review if you want the details.)

So here’s the deal. One of the nice things bout the Gemmell Legend Award is that it’s decided by a popular vote. Y’all can go in and voice your opinions.

But the OTHER nice thing is that the voting goes until May 31st.

That means if I put up a link here, y’all have plenty of time to go out and read some of the other books on the list. Fairly assessing all the options and making an informed choice.

This is the thing you should do when you vote, you realize. Making informed choices is what gives you the right to call yourself a human being.

Consider this practice for other voting type things that might be looming on the horizon. When I put up the link, don’t just wander over there, bleating like a sheep, and click the name that looks most familiar to you. Don’t vote for the option all your friends have been talking about. Don’t vote for the person your parents trained you to vote for.

No. Look at your options. Gather data. Be a rational human and make a informed choice.

Trust me. It’s good practice. This is an important thing to practice.

And here’s your link.

pat

Today, helping me continue that fine tradition, is the inestimable Mary Robinette Kowal.

Heya Mary,

Well, hello there!

Thanks for agreeing to do this.

Problem is, I’m really bad at introductions. So let’s do it this way:

Let’s say you’re at a party and you end up mingling with people you wanted to impress. What sort of things about yourself would you casually drop into the conversation to prove that you’re awesome? They don’t all have to be true.

The fact that I’m a professional puppeteer is always a conversational cheat. If I really want to hold onto the conversation I’ll then follow up with working in Iceland, or a story of a show gone horribly, horribly wrong. The fact that I’m an author… I’m still not used to that.

It’s nice to hear I’m not the only one that’s still not used to it. I’ve always written, but I’ve only been an author, (that is to say a professional writer) for a comparatively short period of time.

Okay. My turn. You’re also Vice President of SFWA.

True, but there are two types of people to whom I would be chatting with at a party. People that would have no idea what SFWA is and people who DO know and want me to fix something. The last thing I want to do is to remind them that I’m the vice president. Besides, I’ll be out of office at the end of June.

You’re also a Hugo Award winner and a Nebula nominee.

Oh… yes. Those don’t seem real sometimes. I just… I wouldn’t bring them up at a party because they feel like bragging. I sort of feel like I didn’t have anything to do with being tapped for those, even though I know that it’s for my work. It’s just that they were such amazing surprises that I feel more like it’s a gift the fans gave me and that I shouldn’t take credit for it.

Although at panels at conventions I totally do, because it provides context. Just the party setting that feels awkward. I guess I should also mention that I won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2008 and my work has received two UNIMA-USA Citations for Excellence, which is the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve.

Also, I’ve met Sting. You did say it was a party, right?

Oooh. That’s definitely braggable. Was he cool?

He was very cool. I taught him the lyrics to a song, but to get that story, you’ll have to ask me at a party. A girl needs some mysteries left to talk about.

Lastly, but not leastly, I should mention that you’re the author of the recently published Glamor in Glass.

A book I enjoyed to a startling degree, despite the fact that it was well outside my usual reading habits. (For more details, you can read Pat’s review on Goodreads.)

Let’s start with an easy question. What Muppet do you feel the strongest emotional connection with?

Ernie.

At World Fantasy this year I saw someone stop in the hallways and thank you for “writing a regency novel that doesn’t suck.”

Do you think of yourself as a regency writer?

La! At this point, it would be hard not to but– and this is important – it is not the only genre or time period I write in. That’s something that my agent and I talked about at length when we were making career plans for me, in fact.

When I’m writing short form, I write all over the map. Science-fiction, horror, secondary world fantasy. It’s all fun. But in long form, we’re keeping me in the historical fantasy realm, and my first four novels will all be set in the Regency.

Assume that I’m an idiot and don’t know what Regency literature is.  Could you explain the genre to me?

This is basically work that is set loosely in the Regency period, although most people expand it to include the 1790s up through the end of the 1820s. That means that you are looking at stories influenced by Jane Austen and the Napoleonic Wars. So Georgette Heyer and Patrick O’Brien are both writing in the Regency but they write completely different books. I clearly am more on the Austen end of the spectrum.

Do you find it tricky to write in a well-defined historical time period?

Yes. Oh, heavens, yes. Part of the trouble, of course, is making sure that you get the details right but the larger challenge is making all of that accessible to a modern audience. Jane Austen could say that a room was done in the most fashionable style, but  my readers have no idea what the fashion of the day was– actually, let me rephrase that. SOME of my readers don’t. Others can tell you the exact thread count of the preferred muslin fabric. And that doesn’t even get into trying to explain that today’s muslin is NOT the same thing as muslin in Austen’s day. Ah… language.

How do you deal with that sort of thing? I mean, the language has changed in some pretty drastic ways over the last 200 years…

Most of it hasn’t, thank heavens, and is still recognizably modern English but where it did change, it was often a doozy of a shift. Like the word “knowledgeable” which used to mean famous and now means well-read or educated.

In Shades of Milk and Honey, I tried to get the feel right but didn’t worry overmuch about if a specific word was period-correct for 1814. Two days after the book came out, a fan called me to tell me that I’d misused the word “check.” It meant “to stop” so a line like, “I shall check on the strawberries” became unintentionally comic.

In an over-reaction, I created the Jane Austen spell-check dictionary for Glamour in Glass. Basically, I took the complete works of Jane Austen, ran it through an engine that created a list of unique words, which I then plugged in as a spell-check dictionary. It flag any word that she didn’t use. From there, I looked it up to see if the word a) existed in 1815 or b) had shifted meaning.

I did take pains to use words that were accessible to a modern reader, and even used a couple that didn’t exist because they were the right word. At the end of the day, authenticity is less important than the story. If it gets in the way of a reader understanding, then I’m doing it wrong. But since language reflects the culture that uses it, an attention to word choices can enhance the texture of the novel.

Can you give us another word or two you had to do without?

Leyline. I thought it was this ancient word, but it turns out that it was coined in the 1950s.

Wastepaper basket. Trashcans, wastepaper baskets, garbage cans… none of these exist even as a concept. Everything got reused, fed to the pigs, or burned in the fire.

I’ve actually got a list of the words I cut on my website.

If you had to pick your favorite story of all time, in any medium, what would it be?

You’re kidding, right? I mean. One story. Can you answer that question? The one I have reread the most frequently is Steven Brust’s The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars but my favorite changes by the hour. And seriously. What’s your favorite?

I am as constant as the moon. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle holds its place firmly in my heart.

That is a beautiful book. See, now I’m tempted to say The Princess Bride since I realized you said any medium.

Johnny Depp, or Brad Pitt?

Nathan Fillian.

Agreed. You’re the first one to realize that was a trick question.

What’s your revision process like?

I don’t revise. What you see is exactly the way I write it. It takes me about a month to write a novel.

Um. What?

I’m messing with you. I just wanted to see your face when I said that and totally should have asked for a camera.

God. Wow. Yeah. You got me.

I was really ready to hate you. Like, hate you forever and ever. Seriously.

Mwahahaha!

In truth I have a fairly fluid revision process. I put a lot of work into having an outline that is structurally sound so that I can put my writing effort into the emotion of the scenes. While that outline gets tweaked and adjusted as I go, it does mean that my revisions don’t usually involve major structural shifts.

I also write with alpha readers following along. They are seeing raw draft. I instruct them to just talk about how the story is playing and not to talk about sentence level issues. Generally, I stay about two chapters ahead of them, which I find is about the right spacing to be able to adjust to their reactions to the story and not need to ask them to re-read material that I’ve altered. Occasionally, I ret-con things for them. Having that give and take is helpful for me.

It also gives me the freedom to focus on the story and not the language. After I finish the story, I do a read-through to look at structure and pacing. Then my last pass is a language pass. I do a once over with the spell-check dictionary then read the entire thing aloud to adjust flow.

All told, I spend a couple of months in the outline/research phase, about two months to get the first draft, then another three months to revise and edit it.

Okay. That’s an acceptable timeline. We can still be friends.

Oh good. That would be awkward at parties otherwise.

You’re relatively new to the publishing world. How has getting your book published changed your life?

Well, I’m doing a heck of a lot less puppetry. I travel almost as much as when I was on tour. And no one tells you this, but writing is really hard on your body.

How do you mean, specifically?

I was in a really active profession and writing is so sedentary. I put on about fifteen pounds, just because I wasn’t moving around enough. My lower back hurts from sitting too much. As a species, we’re just not designed to sit all day.

Now, I’ve got a standing desk that I use at home. I walk at least a mile every day, and do push-ups and squats daily to try to stay at least a little fit. I’m back down to about five pounds over my performance weight and feel pretty okay with that.

How many copies of your own books do you currently own?

One and a half shelves. But that includes magazines and anthologies. Shades of Milk and Honey itself? Seven copies. We have a small apartment.

What’s the most shameful self-promotional thing you’ve ever done?

Worn a white spandex body-suit?

Don’t bother googling it folks. I just tried and came up dry….

It’s what we wore in the puppet show that my company performed at WorldCon in 2011. There is actually a photo out there someplace.

We’ll see if anyone can find it and post it in the comments below.

Do you have a particular piece of grammar that you screw up regularly?

Lie, lay, lain, laid…. I just avoid using the word.

God. I’m awful at that one too. It’s just wired into my head wrong.

It’s just mean is what it is.

If you could punch one literary figure in the face, who would it be?

Hm… Tricky. Someone living could fight back. Someone dead would be all icky plus the bother of digging them up.

Edith Sitwell used to lie in an open coffin before she began her day’s writing. Do you have any little rituals that help you write?

I set a timer or try to meet up with friends. I’m a natural procrastinator, so I have to create deadlines.

So you mean you actually meet up with friends to write?

I do. Usually at my local coffee shop – which contributed to the aforementioned weight gain – but that doesn’t always work out. What I’ve lately been doing are virtual hangouts via Google+. We do 45-minutes of writing, followed by 15 minutes of chat. It’s great because it allows each writer to retain control of her own space but also socialize. Plus, the power of peer pressure means that everyone winds up being productive. Laura Ann Gilman said, “It takes the lonely out of writing.” She’s totally right.

That’s something I’ve been struggling with for years. I have some pretty serious erimitic tendencies, but the solitary nature of the profession still gets to me.

Is the beard an outward representation of your erimitic aspirations? And really? Did you just really use erimitic in cold blood?

Yeah. That’s how I roll.

And that’s why I like you.

A while back, I made a joke about Transition Putty on my blog. That being, of course, the what we writers buy at Home Depot to smooth out our rough transitions.

If you could have some sort of handyman tool like that, something like Plot Spackle or a Character Level. What would it be?

Didn’t you get the toolbelt? I thought they assigned that to everyone when you sold your first short story. Oh… wait. You’re only a novelist. No wonder. Right… Sorry, dude. Anyway, out of that set, I find that I use the Handwavium pellets the most.

Ah, good old Handwavium, most unstable of the inner-transitional elements.

Thanks much for gracing us with your presence and indulging my curiosity, Mary.

Always a pleasure to chat with you, especially if you’re going to give me a chance to brag and play with your head.

*     *     *

As an added bonus, Mary has agreed to play with us here in the comments section of the blog for a couple of days. That means if you want to ask her a question, you can. And if she wants to answer it, she will.

This is the first time that I’ve done this sort of thing with another author, so I’m trusting y’all to be your regular genteel selves.

Which is to say that if you kids don’t behave yourselves, I swear I will turn this blog around.

Have fun,

pat

For those of you who might be interested, they’ve got an archive of that broadcast, as well as a few other things I’ve done with WPR over the years.

Or, if you’re looking for something a little more texty, here’s a sweet story of a young couple in love., and how they met, in part due to a certain book….

Lastly, I feel morally obliged to remind y’all that Joss Whedon Cabin in the Woods is coming out this weekend. Early reviews look good, plus, y’know JOSS WHEDON.

My plan is to go see it, preferably in the company of an attractive, easily startled young woman. That way, when the movie gets scary, she will cling to me desperately for comfort.

My plan is a good plan.

pat

On one hand, I know most of you stop by the blog to read stuff that I write. Whether it be idle musings, furious rages, or my occasional foray into scientific inquiry. You don’t stop by here hoping that I’ll put up a link to something else.

My thought is, if you wanted to go somewhere else, you’d already be there.

On the other hand, if something brings me joy, I want to share it with people.

On the other other hand, I don’t want this blog to become an endless series of links. As if I’d suddenly become that uncle of yours that won’t stop forwarding you dirty jokes and videos of cats.

On yet another hand in this increasingly unanthropomorphic  metaphor, it’s way easier for me to post up a few links, rather than, say, write a thousand word blog. And it has the chance to make folks happy.

And then I’m left back where I started, still not sure how much or so often I should link to other stuff I think is cool.

What I typically do is ride the brake. I don’t post stuff up on here unless it’s so good I just can’t help myself.

That’s what I’m doing today. I’m sharing something that’s so good I just can’t help but bring it to you attention.

Ladies, gentlemen, and those of unaffiliated gender: I give you Garfunkel and Oates.

How much do I love them?

I love them so much that I’ve had one of their songs stuck in my head for four days now, and I don’t even care.

Which song? This song.

(It’s not entirely safe for work, by the way.)

I stumbled onto their stuff a couple months ago, and after watching a couple dozen youtube videos, I wandered over to CD Baby and bought their CD, All Over Your Face.

Okay. I’ll be honest. I bought ten copies of their CD, because I wanted to share the love with my friends.

Luckily, the CD was even better than I expected. That’s not always the case with some of the music you hear live or on youtube first. For example, I actually like Johnathan Coulton’s acoustic stuff on youtube better than the more polished, produced versions I’ve bought. Same thing with about half the Flight of the Conchords CD’s I’ve picked up.

But this CD was better than the stuff I’d already heard. I would have bought a hundred copies and given them away as Worldbuilders prizes, except I know someone’s sweet old grandma who wanted to support Heifer would have ended up listening to “Sex With Ducks” and having a heart attack.

Yeah. They have a song called “Sex With Ducks.” It’s one of the many reasons I love them.

Okay. One more video and then I’ll stop.

This one is actually a good representation of the production quality of the music on the CD. In fact, I’m pretty sure this version of the song is the same as what’s on the CD.

Okay. That’s enough, you can hunt down their other videos on your own. (Like “Gay Boyfriend” and “Pregnant Women Are Smug”)

Or, if you are a sensible person who likes cool things and likes to support artists, you’ll go and buy some of their music.

Lastly, the the true believers that read all the way to the bottom of the blog, a reminder that I’m going to be at the Fox Valley Book Festival this Thursday (April 12th.) Details, as always, are on the tour page.

pat

I love your books, and I’ve been reading your blog for years, silently lurking. Not wanting to take up your time with a comment, let alone a letter.

But here’s the thing. After years of thinking about it. I’m actually starting to write.

Yeah. Surprise surprise. I’m looking for advice.

I know most of it I’ll have to learn on my own. And I know you don’t have time to tell me all the tricks of the trade you’ve learned over the years. But I was hoping you could tell me just one thing. Not something I should do. Something I should avoid. What’s the biggest mistake you see new writer’s make in fantasy?

If you can tell me what that mistake is, then hopefully I can skip that one and make other mistakes instead.

Love,

Jan

Awww…. free love.

Well Jan, the biggest mistake I see new writer’s make is the grocers’ apostrophe.

No, wait. Don’t cry. I’m just teasing a little. I mock because I love. I don’t hold minor grammatical goofs against people. I’m no Strongbad. Hell, I make the classic it’s/its mistake more than half the time.

Anyway, to the heart of the matter. Let me answer your question the way that I answer all questions, with a story.

Months ago, I was sitting around with Oot. He was just starting to get really verbal in those days. Whole sentences. Picking up words right and left.

More to the point of this story: he was just learning how to count.

So. We’re sitting around and I hold up a finger and say, “One….”

He knows where I’m going with this. Counting is a new thing, so he’s pretty exited about it.

“One…” I prompt him again.

He jumps on board this time. “…two. Three. Four! Five! SIX! EIGHT! TEN! SIX! THREE! SIX!”

He gets really worked up after three. He makes little fists and waves around his arms enthusiastically. On a good day he’ll get all the way up to nine before he falls apart.

It’s perfectly natural, really. When you have a cool new piece of information to show off, you’re bound to get excited.

Later on in the day I come in and he’s reading a book with Sarah. It’s the last page in a big Richard Scarry book, and it has groups of things lined up, just for counting. One picture of a whale. Two pictures of walruses. Three pigs.

You get the idea.

Mom is coaching him with ladybugs and buttons. There’s lots of those, way more than ten.

I tag Sarah out so she can go do some stuff on her own, then I sit down with Oot.

I point to the book. “How many walruses are there?”

He looks at the page. “One…. Two….” He looks at the book seriously.

There’s a pause. A long pause. He furrows his brow.

“Two,” he says.

“Good job!” I say, completely earnest. This is big stuff. Cutting edge. I’m proud of him. He really thought it out. Didn’t just make a guess.

I point one line down on the page. “How many pigs?”

He looks at the three pigs. “One… two…. Three.”

But he doesn’t stop there. He’s on a roll now. “Four! Five! Six! SEVEN! TEN! SEVEN! MANY!” He finishes by throwing his arms up over his head triumphantly.

It’s cute as hell, really. But the fact is, he’s wrong. He got carried away.

And this, Jan, is the biggest problem I see most new fantasy authors make.

* * *

(Yeah. That’s a scene break. I’ve decided I can put a scene break in my blog if I feel like it.)

You see, one of the hardest parts about writing fantasy novels is describing things.

Now this problem isn’t unique to fantasy novels. No matter what genre you’re writing in, you have to describe things. That’s a given.

The problem is that in fantasy, there’s so much you have to describe.

If you write a novel set in the real world, you can assume your reader will have a certain baseline knowledge. They will know about Seattle and Paris. They will know what the internet is. They will (almost certainly) know who Robin Hood is. They’ll (probably) know who Don Quixote is. They’ll (maybe) know who Cyrano De Bergerac is.

But when you’re writing fantasy, especially secondary-world fantasy (By which I mean fantasy where the story takes place in a world other than our own) the reader doesn’t know anything about your world. They don’t know the cultures, religions, magic, or cities. The reader doesn’t know anything about the myths and legends of the world.

Now a lot of times, this is one of the major selling points of the book. A big payoff of secondary-world fantasy is the thrill of exploration. We get to see new countries, fantastic creatures, odd cultures, curious magics, etc etc.

And, honestly, this is one of the big perks of being a fantasy writer. We get to build castles in the sky, then show them off to people.

So here’s how it goes wrong.

1. You create something for your fantasy world: a creature, a culture, a myth, whatever.

2. You’re proud of your creation. You’re excited about it. You love it with a fierce love.

3. You need to describe this thing to your reader, because if they don’t understand how it works, your story won’t make sense.

(3b. Remember, the story is the real reason people are there. Story is everything. Story is god.)

4. So you start to explain how folks in the the Shire celebrate their birthdays. (This is important because one of the first major events of the book is a birthday party.) You talk about how hobbits give presents away at their parties instead of receiving them. (This is important because it ties into why Bilbo is going to hand over the ring to Frodo.)

Then you start talking about how some of these presents get passed back and forth, party after party. And how those items are actually called mathoms, and how there’s actually a museum full of mathoms at Michel Delving, which is in the Westfarthing of the shire, since, as you know, the Shire is composed of four sections which take their names from prominent families in the area, such as Tookland being named after the Tooks, who are among the largest and oldest of the Shire families, and in fact still held the title of Thain, which had been passed to them from the Oldbucks, and while the title was largely ceremonial these days due to the lack of Shire-moot in recent, peaceful times…. Four! Five! Six! SEVEN! TEN! SEVEN! MANY!

You see what happens? It’s easy for an author to get so caught up in the details of the world they created, that they go off the rails and give us more than is really necessary for the story.

Now it might seem like I’m picking on Tolkien a little bit here. But again I say: I mock because I love. I grew up reading Tolkien, and I mean that quite literally. I read the lord of the rings at least once a year through all my teenage years.

To his credit, Tolkien gave us one of the best traditions of our genre, that of elaborate, realistic worldbuilding.

Unfortunately, he also gave us the tradition of providing *way* too much information at the beginning of the story.

Tolkien is the cornerstone of modern fantasy. His impact on the genre is immeasurable. His arm has grown long….

Again, I love Tolkien. But the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring is one of the most egregious instances of info-dumping in existence. At best, it resembles the dry essay it was intended to resemble. At worst, it’s like reading Leviticus.

(Okay. Fine. It’s really more like reading Numbers. But you know what I mean…)

And yeah, you can argue that Leviticus is a chapter in the best-selling book of all time. But the key is that the bible doesn’t *start* with that chapter. The bible starts out with action. Right out of the gate you get you have magic, “Let there be light.” You get conflict. You get character development. You get a good antagonist, drama, betrayal, exile from paradise. That’s exciting stuff. Genesis really gets the story going. It sets the hook.

That’s why the bible sells so well. Only after you get involved in the plot does Moses start giving you the heavy worldbuilding in Numbers and Deuteronomy. He did that for a reason. If he’d started the bible with the info-dump, it would have been *way* too boring. No publisher would have printed it.

So how do you avoid falling into the trap of telling too much?

I wish I could give you a simple answer to this, Jen. But the truth is, I could teach a week-long class on this seemingly simple question. There are dozens of tricks and cheats. There are hundreds of ways to do it well, and thousands of ways to do it badly.

What makes this such a horrible problem is that “too much” is largely a matter of taste. Some readers really *do* want to read all the details of the ancient Shi-Ang dynasty, and how their government relied upon the use of telepathy crystals. Other readers just want you to hurry up and get to the part where the Lesbian Unicorn Sisterhood initiates apprentice Ayllisia into the secrets of the Eternal Kiss.

It’s also a matter of style. Some writers are better at making exposition engaging than others. Some worlds are more alien than others, requiring more explanation.

My personal philosophy is to err on the side of caution. Given the choice, I’d prefer to give too little description and leave you wanting more, rather than give a lot and risk you being bored.

And yes, I’m aware of the irony of preaching “less is more” after writing a 400,000 word novel. Imagine how long it would have been if I hadn’t been consciously riding the brake.

In my opinion, Jen, the biggest thing is you can do to avoid this problem is to be aware that it *is* a problem.

Knowing is half the battle, and all that.

Verbosely yours,

pat

Later Edit: Yeah. I know the author of the e-mail was Jan, not Jen. I changed it as an oblique reference to the way that Strongbad would usually change/screw up the names of the people that wrote into him by the time he finished answering their questions.

See? That way we start and end the blog with a Strongbad reference, providing a sort of closure and narrative unity.

I can tell from the comments below that at least a few of you got it. But it’s clear the rest of you just thought I didn’t care enough to get her name right.

Just wanted to let you know that I’m not an insensitive asshole. No. I’m just prone to arcane referential douchery.

• A cool link to a website that shows real-time wind patterns all across the USA.

Warning, it will bog down your browser a bit.

• For those of you who like voting on books, Audible is running their 5th annual tournament of audiobooks.

Edit: Whoops. Turns out the voting on this round is over. I thought it went *through* the 2nd. Not *until* the 2nd.

• An interview I did with the LA times titled: “Fantasy Needs to Move Beyond Dragons and Dwarves.”

The title seems a little argumentative, but I didn’t mean it to come off that way. I’m also a little irritated that the pictures they used to punctuate the article are from The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, two series two authors who are delightfully NOT-guilty of following in the tired rut of fantasy cliche. (Tolkien because he wrote before these things were cliche, and Martin because he’s skilled at avoiding it.)

And yes, I’m aware that it’s a little hypocritical that I say people should avoid writing about dragons even though I include something very similar to a dragon in my book. We actually talked about that in the interview as well, but we had to cut that piece out because I’m a wordy bitch and the interview ran long….

• Lastly, there’s an article over on IGN that asks, “What’s the next Hunger Games?” A grammatically baffling title to an article that speculates as to what the next hot book-into-movie adaptation might be. Kingkiller gets a nice nod on there.

Normally I wouldn’t mock their title, but they took a dig at me for how long I take to write. So fair’s fair.

*     *     *

In related news, I actually got to watch Hunger Games in the theater. That’s not something I get to do very much these days.

I liked it a lot. It’s rare that I leave a movie without some fairly major gripes. Especially one based off a book that I enjoyed.

But Hunger Games was solid. Good casting. Good acting. Sensible changes to suit the adaptation into a different medium. And properly subversive. I love me some good subversive.

It was also nice to see the author of the books having a hand in the screenplay. Things like that tend to warm my bitter old heart.

Later,

pat