In Facebook groups, dozens of people post pieces of their fantasy works every day. Often, they ask for readers of their entire manuscripts. However, I, couldn’t possibly read all of them, even if I cared to. As a result, I’m become skilled at predicting the quality of the whole work. These are some of the warnings that the work is likely to have problems:
- Maps without any sense of geography: If continents are shown, do they look like continental drift occurs? Do cities occur at crossroads, or key points where a city would spring up? Is there a gradual transition from desert to forest?
- Dull or awkward names: Names should create a sense that the people or places that carry them might actually exist. On the map, the names should create a sense that people with different languages have crossed the map. They should not be full of apostrophes – those are for contractions, not just cheap atmosphere, or, in some cases, meant to indicate a particular sound. In addditon, they should be believable. Nobody is going to name an ocean The Silvery Depths or a wooded area the Forest of Fear. They’re just not.
- Use of anachronistic language like “Okay:” Unless the story takes place after about 1820 in our world, seeing “Okay”on the page is like grindng your teeth over tin-foil. It destroys the mood. In the same way, a character in medieval fantasy is not going to “change gears” – cars haven’t been invented yet. Nor are they likely to go for a workout or a date.
- Tolkien races: Like many would-be writers, I grew up on Tolkien. But unless I’m reading fanfic, where the rules are different, any variation of dwarfs, elves, or orcs is just plain lazy. More important, races defined by morality are so out of keeping with modern sensibilties that even Dungeons and Dragons is finally dropping the concept.
- Anime and Blockbuster Movies as Influences: I like animation and film as much as anybody. However, they are different media to the written word, with both advantages and limitations to it. You are unlikely to learn to write from anything except books. If you are more drawn to film than books, you really should consider writing screenplays.
- Making Social Awareness the Only Priority: Diversity and racial issues are a social priority, and the publishing world specifically needs change. However, while representation and writing the Other are skills that every writer should learn, they need to be developed hand in hand with learning writing skills. You can learn to balance them from dozens of books, like Nineteen Eighty-Four or The Dispossessed. And if you’re not equally interested, perhaps you should consider non-fiction?
- Commodified or Pseudo-Cultures: Is your China a place of tea-houses amid the rocks and the mist, with every second person a martial artist? Do your First Nations have a single culture across North America, with Sasquatches and dream-catchers? If so, then you haven’t done your research, and you need to live with the actual cultures.
- Self-Published Works Full of Typos: Nothing is wrong with self-publishing. It’s a legitimate way to present your work. However, if you’re going to self-published, take the time to do it right. Hold yourself to the same standards as traditional publishers – or even higher.
- The Writer Is Looking for Rules: Beware of writers who ask things like: how long should my chapters be? Am I allowed to delay the inciting incident to the fifth chapter? Such questions reveal a crippling inexperience. Worse, they show a desire for rigid rules that simply don’t exist. A writer who wants rules may outgrow their desire, but it’s not a promising start.
What these practices have in common is a lack of effort – a decision not to put in the research and practice that is needed for an original work of fiction. They steer me away from reading because they suggest that the writer is looking for shortcuts, a way to make writing easy. A writer may outgrow one of these warning signs, but the more they display, the less likely they are to produce anything worth reading.
Unfortunately, what I am discovering in my own efforts is that there are no shortcuts. And maybe that’s the way it should be. If writing wasn’t hard, then anybody could do it.
prenticepieces.com 