Don't Barrage Your Readers With Fantasy Terminology (It Doesn't Help)

"My name is A'lashan Fai'r," the Dowindra said, smiling. "Welcome to Sar'boran."

I nodded, and adjusted the corfan at my side. I looked around the Fenuril, and saw other Redanda standing at their posts. Shu'fi moved among them, heads bowed as they attended to their tasks. I touched the dinfar just behind my ear, and felt more than heard the chirping affirmative it gave.

"Thank you," I said. "Please, take me to the Umbrine. I have news that will not wait."

What the shit did I just read?

If you've read your share of fantasy novels over the years, chances are good you've come across passages like this more than once. Ideally you'll only see nonsense like this later on in the novel (or hopefully down the line in the series) when the reader already knows what all these terms mean so they can properly picture a scene. Too often, though, authors will just dump barrels of fantasy terminology onto their readers' heads, forgetting that while they have lived in this made-up world for years, the reader just got here, and they have no clue what you're talking about.

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What The Hell is That?

If you review the paragraph I opened with, you realize that there's no context for almost any of the names and terms getting thrown around. What is a confar, for example? Is it a weapon? A badge of office? Both? Neither? And the person our protagonist is talking to is referred to as a Dowindra. Is that a profession? A species? A social position? What the hell is that thing behind his ear? Is it an actual cricket, like a magical creature, or some kind of bonded enchantment that connects to his brain?

You're introducing your reader to a world that's foreign to them. If you just dump them in the deep end, though, they're going to feel like they're reading an upper-level science textbook with absolutely zero foundational knowledge to understand what they're looking at.

And what the hell is this nonsense?

In order to ease the reader into your world you need to give them a sense of the familiar first. Allow them to get their bearings. For example, is your setting more urban, or agrarian? Cities and farms are concepts that readers can easily grasp, and it will give them some kind of context before you come down to more confusing details like the made up name of a city or country, districts, the ranks of the rulers, etc. Even with smaller elements, you get far more if you focus on descriptions before you assign names to things so that your reader actually knows what they're supposed to be envisioning later on when the name pops up again.

As an example, consider the following.

The stranger glanced around the room, his eyes taking in everything and everyone. His right hand never strayed far from the blade hanging from his hip. Short and curved, with a heavy guard, the steel practically hummed with power; a sleeping dragon waiting to roar into life. Though the stranger seemed a hard, dangerous man on his own, the confar announced that he was there on the orders of the guild.

This sort of thing gives your audience a much clearer image of what a confar is (a potent sidearm), and the sort of people who wield it (professional fighters in service to a particular guild). But before the item was named it was described, and given an association with an individual to help put what it is into context, and why seeing it might be kind of a big deal.

Once you've established what something is, you can just refer to it by name. Whether it's a particular fantasy species, an ethnicity, a magic item, a social rank, once you've given your audience a tutorial/introduction to it, you can cement it as part of the lexicon.

Easing The Reader In

Most folks who write genre fiction understand that they need to explain some things to readers. Common tropes and elements can usually be put in without much explanation (we get what a troll, or an orc, or a goblin is, so you only need to fill in the blanks if it differentiates from "standard" fantasy tropes), but anything that has an unfamiliar word attached to it needs an explanation to make it stick in the reader's minds.

There's another thing to remember, though... you need to pepper these things in here and there. Don't try to make your reader's do the cinnamon challenge to try to swallow everything at once.

Just three more schools of magic... you can do it!

If your readers get a lot of terms just thrown at their face right out of the gate, it becomes a distraction from the story you're actually trying to tell, and the world you're trying to build. Then instead of falling in love with your protagonist, or getting invested in the threat imperiling your setting, they're just trying to remember the difference between the Alfashni and Kekouri, and which ones have beaks, and why they're so sensitive about jokes regarding coconuts.

Space out how often you introduce new elements to the world, and try to feed them to your reader in some kind of sensical order. The easier it is to chew the lessons, the less they're going to distract or frustrate your audience as they try to get into your story.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Projects Take On Weight When You Have The Connections To Get Them Published

I remember when I was in my 20s that I could keep three dozen project ideas spinning in my head at any given time. From horror stories, to roleplaying games, to modern fantasy novels, they came out of my brain like cotton candy, and all I had to do to keep them in the air was lightly tap them every now and again to make sure they didn't fall out of place. It wasn't that they didn't have substance, or that it's somehow easier to create when you're young, either. Real talk, it was so easy to keep all those ideas in the air because there wasn't any immediacy to them. I'd work on them as I had time, polish them up, put them in a bottle, and toss it out into the world. They were a gamble that might pay off, but it was equally possible I'd just get another rejection letter to add to my growing pile.

Now that I have a publishing history, industry contacts, and the ability to skip the queue in a lot of circumstances, it's another story entirely. It's not that I don't generate fresh ideas with nearly every breath I take (it's a stress response, and 2020 has been nothing if not stressful). Rather, it's that those ideas are no longer maybe-one-day potentials; they are real seeds I have to make a decision on right now. Because now I can send a few emails, make a pitch, and get these things out of my head and into the hands of an editor as fast as I can commit them to a word document... and that immediately raises the stakes.

Brain to inbox is now a pipeline.

On the one hand, that is an amazingly freeing, powerful feeling. On the other hand it means all those ideas that were just so much fluff in the wind are now lead balls... and I have to throw them extra hard to keep them in the air.

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When It's Time To Put Up, Or Shut Up

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of writing, as a profession, is playing around in the imagination sandbox. It's freeing to make worlds, create characters, map story arcs, and just do whatever strikes your fancy. And when getting those ideas published is still theoretical instead of practical, there isn't really any weight to them. Because the supply chain from your mind to the hands of your readers hasn't been created, so there's no real pressure on your follow-through just yet.

When it does exist, though, suddenly those ideas aren't just whimsical musings; they're raw gemstones. And you have the responsibility of figuring out which ones are good quality before you cut, polish, and put them out for people to ooh and ah over as fast as you can get the tumbler to tumble.

Space opera with a wild West twist? Sure, people seem to like that. When can I have it?

To be clear, I'm not asking for sympathy here. I'm also not trying to pull the whole, "Woe unto the creative genius, for he has universes within his mind, but can only reveal them one galaxy at a time," nonsense. This is more of a tradesman's warning for folks out there who haven't experienced this shift in thinking/fortunes yet.

Because when you're just starting out, you're free to make basically whatever you want, as you want. And when you're wildly successful you can do basically the same thing, except now there's probably a big, fat check attached to it. It's when you're established enough that you can get your projects reliably green lit, but you don't yet have the audience, clout, or sheer volume of past work to coast on, that you find yourself deciding which seeds to plant now rather than later in order to get your garden growing.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Only You Can Prevent Passive Protagonists!

Protagonists are the engine that drives your story. They may not be the character the fans love the best, and they may not be the most interesting aspect of the story you're telling, but your protagonist (or protagonists if you prefer ensemble casts) are the vehicles that let your readers move through the story, explore the world, and they are often the lens that sets the tone for the tale you're telling.

However, when it comes to your protagonists, it's generally better to have them do than to be done unto.

 

Well, I'm here. May as well get this over with!

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Be A Subject, Not An Object

This is a mistake that a lot of writers (myself included) tend to fall into at some point in our careers. We focus more on the world, events, and characters around the protagonists, instead of on the protagonists themselves, and as a result the story kind of stops being about them. They're present for it, and they may even be necessary in some way, but they're not really doing anything. They're in the passenger seat, rather than behind the wheel.

And that can have a really negative effect on the overall narrative.

Einar... where the hell are we going?

This might seem sort of confusing, but it's a lot like the difference between active and passive language. In active language your subject is in control, taking the action, and doing things. Consider, "Einar slammed his fist into Valgard's face," versus, "Valgard was punched in the face by Einar." Even accounting for the slightly more explosive language of the first example, the second just lacks energy. It's disengaged from the action.

Passive protagonists have the same issue, and they can just suck the energy out of a story.

To be clear, this is not saying that your story has to be solely concerned with characters pursuing their own wants and goals. However, the characters do have to be active participants in the story you're telling, and their reactions, plans, and contributions should be the gas in the story's tank.

I didn't ask to be here... but I've got a job to do.

Consider a detective story. Your protagonist gets up in the morning, gets dressed, puts on their badge, and goes to work. The issues they deal with on the job may not be personal, and they may not even have a choice in the matter, as it's the superiors in the department who assigns the case load to detectives. But how the protagonist approaches the case, who they talk to, what risks they do or don't take, and what drives them on should all be elements of the story. The through line needs to be a product of their actions, rather than a path they're just walking down.

A detective merely going through the motions, walking along the trail of bread crumbs while tracking down a serial killer, ends up making the serial killer the most interesting character in the story. This is what I call the Hannibal Lecter problem, where the antagonist seems to be who the story is really about, and they are who commands the audience's attention and imagination even though they're not supposed to be the protagonist.

To prevent that, ask what your protagonist is doing in the narrative. What is their contribution, and how does it affect the actions they take, or the options they pursue? Do they walk that thin line where they get weird, gut feelings about the killer's motives and intentions, making them obsessed with catching the murderer so the detective can quiet the part of their mind that whispers they aren't all that different from the killers they catch? Are they dedicated to the job, facing down horrors, driven to seek justice, thinking of themselves as something akin to an old-fashioned knight? Do they take a cynical kind of pleasure in it, with killers like this representing the most dangerous beasts one can chase in the wilds of the concrete jungle? Do they do everything strictly by the book? Do they dip into the shady area of the law where their methods are questionable? Do they work until the case is done, or can they leave it at the office when the work day is over?

All of these things play into the struggle of the protagonist through the situation they're in.

The Lead Needs To Be More Than a Lamp

There's a test for several books regarding female characters and representation, asking if the story would be altered in a meaningful way if they were replaced with attractive lamps. The same thing can often be said of your protagonist. If they're nothing more than a lamp that gets carted around from scene to scene where other people ask questions, or make observations, then why is this our protagonist? What are they contributing to this narrative?

If everything in your story seems to be happening to someone, then you might need to step back and ask why. Because for every action there needs to be a reaction, and if the plot hits your protagonist, but they don't swing back at the plot when that happens, you might actually be carting around a lamp in a hat and jacket.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Nobody Gets Audience Attention Like a Heel!

A lot of writers out there focus on being liked. Often this leads to them trying to keep their actual thoughts and opinions behind the curtain, always presenting a pleasant, positive face to the audience. Other times it means writers just ignore negative elements that come their way, hoping that the trolls will stay silent if they don't feed them, and just keep on walking.

This led to an interesting comparison from a friend with a good sense of marketing. Writers who focus on being the good guy, taking the high road, etc., are a lot like the Faces in professional wrestling. Short for "Babyface," the term refers to the obvious heroes that the audience is supposed to root for.

Then there's the heels... which are basically the opposite of that.

Oh shit... who just dropped the bass?

It's a rough gig being a heel. Your persona is often abrasive, or at the very least doesn't give much of a damn whether the audience likes them or not. A lot of hate gets thrown your way, because after all, you're a contrast to the good guys. But there's a weird phenomenon there, too. Because a lot of people actively support heels. And even the people who absolutely hate them often end up boosting their earnings and signal in unintended ways.

 

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Rage Shares Still Put Money in Your Pocket

I had a recent incident involving this, so I thought I'd share it as an example.

About a month ago I wrote an article titled Captain America is Chaotic Good. It received the editor's pick when it first went up on Vocal, and as soon as I got some space in my promotions calendar I shared it around in all my usual groups for tabletop gaming and assorted geekery. I knew two things going in. First, that Cap is a very popular character thanks to the wide spread of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Second, I knew that discussions on pop culture characters through the lens of the alignment system used in tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons often leads to pretty divisive conversations... which makes them fertile ground for an article that pays me based on how many people read it.

Brace yourself... the flame wars are coming!

It definitely got noticed. It didn't go viral by any stretch of the imagination, but there were quite a lot of reactions and comments, and more than a handful of shares to help drive up engagement. While I generally try to avoid stirring the pot personally as long as other people are taking care of the interacting, there was one person in particular whose behavior basically sums up exactly the sort of energy you can capture as a heel.

To paraphrase his opinion, he felt that opinion articles from random nobodies on the Internet discussing pop culture characters through the lens of gaming are a huge waste of time. However, stating this opinion in the comments section just meant there was more attention on the post. And then, just to prove how much he didn't care, he shared the link to his own Facebook wall to rant about it to his friends list about how useless he felt this sort of content was.

 

This is sort of like when conservatives, so outraged that Nike had partnered with an outspoken critic of police violence, bought new shoes for the express purpose of burning them in protest. It sends the opposite message you're intending if your protest actually increases the company's bottom line... but they didn't seem to realize that.

And if you find yourself in a situation like this, where someone absolutely rages against a thing you've written? Perhaps the best thing you can do is to simply tell them that if they don't like this kind of content, then maybe they should just scroll on by so that someone who is actually interested in it can take a look. Or, if you really want to shine them on, drop them a heart react and tell them thanks for the comment/share, because every little bit of attention really helps!

There Are Risks, Of Course

Before you go out there and start strutting around, loudly telling people booing you that you can't hear them so they increase their negative reactions to boost your signal, I'd like to add some caveats to this marketing strategy.

Firstly, unlike an actual wrestling heel, you're probably going to do more damage to yourself if you're legitimately rude and confrontational. Group mods don't care for it, and you can find yourself losing favor relatively quickly. Hence my suggestion of thanking folks slinging hate your way, because that will only increase the amount of attention they're giving you while you haven't said anything rude or insulting to them in the process. Sort of lets you have your dessert, and eat it too.

Not sure what else you do with a dessert, but whatever.

The other concern is that this strategy works better in some circumstances than in others. With the article I used as an example, it's perfect because the site only cares how many reads/views it gets when calculating my pay. There's no down vote on it, no place to leave angry comments or a 1-star review. If this same reaction was being had to my novel Marked Territory, then it's entirely possible that a lot of people would just leave it poor reviews to try to tank my score. Ideally they'd at least have to buy a copy to do that, but there's plenty of ways around that requirement as well.

Put simply, the more options the angry readers have to retaliate, the bigger the chance there is this could blow up in your face.

Additionally, I feel I should mention the simple caveat that I am not in the categories of folks who are most at risk from online harassment. I'm a big, white dude, so I don't present the same target as female-identifying individuals, creators of color, etc., etc. This is the sort of risk-reward proposal that I stand pretty good odds of coming out ahead on. So, before following in my footsteps on this one, make sure you're not putting yourself at serious risk in the hopes of earning a few extra bucks.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Readers Are Going To Make Assumptions About Your Book (So Feel Free To Play With Them!)

We always say not to judge a book by its cover. If you've been in the game for a while, though, you know that readers are going to do just that. They make judgments based on you as the author, your name, your genre, your cover art, and a thousand other little details that get calculated in the first few seconds of exposure. The same thing happens as soon as someone hears your sales pitch. No matter how fine-tuned you've got it, they're going to have reached certain conclusions before you get even halfway through it.

It does you no good to ignore this, or to wish that it didn't happen. The human mind forms judgments and separates things into categories. However, with a little bit of strategy, you can actually hack this tendency in order to surprise your readers and catch them off guard.

 

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Speaking of My Latest Book...

My latest release is a perfect example of reader assumptions in action, and before I even typed the first word of the first chapter I could already hear readers dismissing it as a cozy mystery or a YA novel because my main character was a cat, and the cast was made up of street-level animals. As most folks who've read Marked Territory already know, however, this book does not pull punches when it comes time for the cast to throw down... and alley cats are nasty, vicious creatures when the claws come out.

Seriously, go get your copy today if you don't believe me!

For some readers (judging from the comments I got on social media) this was pretty jarring. They saw there was a cat on the cover, and read the blurb about him helping out a bunch of strays on the south side, and assumed this was gonna be a bloodless tale of a bruiser with a heart of gold. The book is far more similar to stuff you'd see from Dashiell Hammett or Robert B. Parker in terms of content, though, and tends to focus a lot more on underworld figures and solving the central mystery. When violence breaks out, though, it's short, nasty, and brutal.

Using Their Assumptions To Your Advantage

Some people will argue that if your book runs counter to what someone thought it would be, then it's your fault for not putting some sort of indicator on it. On the other hand, some people believe that it's the consumers job to check what they're purchasing, such as how parents who took their kids to see Watchmen in theaters had only themselves to blame for ignoring the R rating because it was, "just a superhero movie," and should have been safe for the little ones' eyes.

I tend to fall into the latter category, for those who are curious.

On the one hand, I can confirm that you're going to have to field questions from people who want to check their own assumptions. And if you answer honestly, you very well might lose a sale or two (I've run into this with people looking to buy a book for a particularly young reader, and that is definitely not my audience). You're also going to receive at least a few strident comments from people if they bought a book expecting it to be one thing, and it turned out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

With that said, anything that makes you stand out from the rest of the field (and which gets people talking) isn't something you should avoid!

I've had conversations with several authors, especially newer ones, who worry that stepping too far outside of genre conventions and reader expectations will mean their stories aren't as widely read or accepted. However, I'd venture that if everybody else is trying to fit in, and you're willing to stand out, then people are going to notice you a lot more often than they will your peers.

If you're worried about not fitting a formula or confounding expectations, don't worry. That might just be what you need to get people to sit up and take notice!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!