Fantasy Worlds

Laura Resnick is a relatively new author to the Fantasy genre though she has published in other genres. She became part of the genre with her first Epic Fantasy book In Legend Born. Daughter of science fiction author Mike Resnick, she has written many books in the romance genre under the pen name Laura Leone. Ms. Resnick has traveled all over the world, including a recent trip to Africa, and this experience she brings to her books. Many of her short stories have appeared in various anthologies. The second book of her Fantasy series will be split into two books: In Fire Forged: The White Dragon, which will be published May 2003, and In Fire Forged: The Destroyer Goddess. She has a new book called Dopplegangster coming out in Jan. 2010.

Debbie Ledesma: I read your biography on the Internet. What inspired you to start a writing career?

Laura Resnick: I was living and working in Sicily, and my salary wouldn’t stretch to pay off a bank loan I had in England. So I was searching for a second source of income, something that would fit into my schedule. A friend suggested I read Kathryn Falk’s How To Write A Romance and Get It Published. At my request, my parents sent me a copy of the book from the U.S. I read the book, and I thought this seemed like something I could do at my own pace and without spending money which I didn’t have. So I sat down and started writing books, and then started sending out queries. The following year, I made my first sale–to Silhouette Books.

At the time (15 years ago), Silhouette still had a publishing program which was growing faster than its stable of reliable writers. So when they found someone whose writing they liked, and who seemed capable of delivering 2-4 books per year to them, they worked on helping that writer develop. I sold them a dozen books in five years. Throughout those years, I got detailed editorial commentary from Silhouette on everything I wrote, including all the material they rejected. So, from my perspective, Silhouette spent five years paying me to learn my craft. That’s a rare opportunity for a young writer and was a huge asset in my development as a novelist.

DL: Did being the daughter of a SF author influence your writing?

LR: As a kid, I often heard my father say things about writing which I now know stuck with me–craft Äprinciples such eschewing self-indulgence and fulfilling your responsibility to engage and absorb the reader. When I was a teenager, my father paid me by-the-page to type the final drafts of his manuscripts. That’s how I learned to type, and also how I learned MS formatting. I probably unconsciously learned about the revision process, since I was typing from his line edits of his own work and thereby seeing the changes he made as he went along, and seeing how many changes a writer might make from initial draft to final version. I also developed an understanding of how polished a writer’s prose and how well-crafted his story should be before shipping a MS. Perhaps because of that, many editors have commented to me how clean and polished my work is upon delivery.

Growing up in my father’s house also influenced my approach to the
profession. For example, I knew from an early age that persistence and
endurance are essential qualities just for breaking into this profession, let
alone surviving or succeeding in it. So, when trying to break into publishing, it never even occurred to me to write just one book; when I sold my first book, I was already working on my fourth.

DL: What authors have inspired or influenced your writing besides your father?

LR: Pretty much everyone I’ve ever read. Whenever I read a book I don’t like, I analyze why it doesn’t work and what would work instead; this practice has formed a private mental university of self-education which has been an enormous influence on my work. I try to engage in a similar analysis of books which I love, figuring out why they work so well. This has been influential, too, though a much tougher exercise: A wel l-crafted novel often appears deceptively effortless and hides the seams of the writer’s painstaking work, making it difficult even for another writer to discover exactly what makes it so good.

DL: After writing many Romance novels under the pen name Laura Leone, why did you choose Fantasy to write your next novel?

LR: After I’d sold eight romance novels, Marty Greenberg and my father invited me to write a short story for an sf/f anthology they were doing. That went well, so they each invited me into more anthologies. (So I blame my entry into sf/f on Marty and Pop.) Then other sf/f pros started inviting me into their anthologies. I was just doing this for fun, as a relaxing change-of-pace from my full-time career as a romance novelist. Eventually, though, I’d sold over twenty sf/f ⁄ short stories, I’d won the John W. Campbell Award (best new sf/f writer), and sf/f types kept asking me, “When are you going to write a novel?” (I’d reply that I’d written thirteen novels for three publishers, but I’d done it under another name in another genre. I think some people thought I was just making a strange joke.)

Eventually, through a series of coincidences too complicated to explain
(though I blame Jennifer Roberson), I wound up with an agent who specialized in sf/f. After a while, it dawned on me that, considering all these combined circumstances, I should probably try writing an sf/f novel. And that was how it wound up happening.

DL: How is writing Fantasy fiction different than Romance fiction?

LR: Wow! There are so many ways, I can’t even begin to address them here–but here’s a basic summary:

Bottom line, for me, fantasy is about the struggle between good-and-evil,
with the epic external struggle leading us to the internal, personal struggle
whi Óch exists in each one of us. Whereas the romance genre is about two people pair-bonding. I’m always amazed at how often people from each genre seem to wholly misunderstand the other genre and define it by its window-dressing: “Fantasy is about magic and world-building,” or “Romance is about sex.” Understanding the heart of each genre shapes the whole approach to developing a novel there.

Also, for whatever reason, my story ideas and my personal sensibility tend to be much more marketable in fantasy than they are in romance. That makes a big difference in my artistic experiences (and commercial potential) in each genre. As a writer, I personally find the romance genre artistically restrictive, which in turn affects the quality of my work there. By contrast, I’ve found the fantasy genre artistically UNrestrictive, so I’ve grown by leaps and bounds as a writer during my sojourn here, and I also experience better career growth in fantasy.

DL: Where did you get your idea for In Legend Born?

I used to live in Sicily, and the original idea for In Legend Born arose out of Sicilian history. Anyone familiar with a famous 20th-century Sicilian peasant-turned-outlaw-turned-Separatist, Salvatore Giuliano (active 1943-1950), will recognize numerous similarities between his history and the story which occurs in this fantasy novel.

DL: Your Fantasy books are getting longer, how many books do you think it will be?

LR: My second fantasy novel is almost double the length of my first (which was a huge book), and so I’ve had to split into two volumes for publication: The White Dragon: In Fire Forged, Part One (May 2003) and The Destroyer Goddess: In Fire Forged, Part Two (December 2003). However, far from my “fantasy books getting longer,” my next two–Arena and The Palace of Heaven, both
stand-alone novels–will be no longer than the first one was, and perhaps
even shorter.

DL: Do you have a favorite character in your books? Which one and why?

LR: It changes from year to year, as new characters torment me and old characters slide off my radar. My personal favorites today are a couple of characters in my upcoming two-part fantasy novel (The White Dragon: In Fire Forged, Part One and The Destroyer Goddess: In Fire Forged, Part Two). Baran is an amoral, witty, and emotionally unstable sorcerer whose company makes everyone else jittery and bad-tempered. Ronall is a drunken, whoring, cowardly aristocrat who’s horribly out of Ò place and trying to find his place in a world of towering heroes and villains.

What draws me to these characters is their iconoclastic charm, the fresh
perspective they bring to the story by being so out of place in it, and the
mass of contradictions in their behavior which ensures that other characters (and, I hope, readers) are torn between affection and loathing, between empathy and revulsion when encountering them. I’m fascinated by the struggle of inconsistencies, contradictions, and extremes in people, and therefore I like to explore this in characters. Additionally, I love irreverence and have a huge fondness for characters who say what no one else will say.

DL: I’ve read some of your short stories, which form do you prefer, novels or short stories?

LR: I enjoy both. A 1,000-page manuscript (or, indeed, a 300-page manuscript) involves a lot more commitment, sustained effort, and passion than does a 16-page manuscript, so I am much more involved in my novels, they require far more of my focus and effort, and I care about them much more. However, although short fiction is not my primary passion as a writer, it’s been extremely important in my development because it’s afforded me so many opportunities to experiment with things which are uncommercial, odd, or which I’ve yet to learn to sustain over the course of 500 pages, in terms of structure, style, tone, format, voice, point-of-view, pace, etc.

DL: Do you draw from mythology for your themes and ideas?

I would say I draw from life for my themes and ideas. Although mythology is one of the many subjects that I include in my background reading for my work, it’s not a starting place for me, nor is it more important for me than other aspects of my research.

DL: Did your experience of the African trip find its way into your stories?

LR: Yes. I wrote a non-fiction book about the trip, A Blonde In Africa, as well as some articles. My experiences in Africa have worked their way into my fiction in any number of ways, most noticeably a romance novel called Fever Dreams (w/a Laura Leone), as well as several short stories, including, “Amandla!” I’ve written proposals for novels set in Africa but, unfortunately, no one’s wanted them so far. Above all, I’d say that my experiences in Africa changed my writing because they changed me as a person, in the way that all major life experiences change us and our work.

DL: Have current events such as 9/11 and the talk of war with Iraq found their way into your writing or influenced it?

LR: In terms of my plot choices, not yet. Thematically–yes, in the sense that
everything that affects me affects my work. I felt a kind of terrible innocence on 9/11. I watched those planes flying deliberately into the Twin Towers to murder thousands of civilians, and I realized that I have to start all over as a fantasy writer, because I don’t really know anything about evil yet.

DL: What do you think is the important function of Fantasy?

LR: What a loaded question! I was just saying to another writer the other day, “NEVER attempt to define your genre in interviews, because as soon as it’s published or aired, other writers in your genre will jump all over you to tell you you’re not just WRONG, you’re also insulting, simplifying, or
overlooking -their- work.”

So let’s be clear about this: I only speak for MY work. With that understood: I think fantasy’s function is to explore individual and societal moral struggles in a complex, dangerous, and ambivalent world; to explore the challenges of sacrifice in a naturally selfish world; and to do so in a format which respects and evinces the classic traditions of good storytelling–high adventure, high romance, fascinating characters, and
compelling plots.

DL: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

LR: The same advice I always give:

Persistence is the most important quality you’ll need, and probably the one
which you currently underestimate the most.

I’m always amazed at how many aspiring writers who complete one book don’t start writing another. As if (a) their first-ever attempt at a novel will
necessarily be publishable and (b) they have no idea that a writing career
entails writing book after book after book after book. I’m also always amazed at how many aspiring writers, after receiving a rejection or two, simply give up. The first dozen agents I ever queried all told me not only that they didn’t want to represent me, but also that (a) I had no talent and couldn’t write, and/or (b) I was writing the wrong thing and should stop. That was eighteen book sales ago.

DL: What books are you planning to write after this series?

LR: I never talk about any work in public except that which is already sold! This is not “someone will steal my idea” paranoia. This is “if I talk about it before selling it, I will be unable to sell it, and everyone I meet for the next five years will keep asking me about it.”

DL: Thank you very much for your time.

Sorry. A day late, but got it here.

New authors are adding their unique takes on Fantasy to the genre all of the time. Fiona McIntosh is a bestselling Fantasy author from Australia. Many of her excellent books have been published in the U.S. since 2005. I thought I would share this interview I did with her a few years ago with readers again.

Debbie Ledesma: First, for readers that might not be familiar with your books, could you tell us about your books?

Fiona McIntosh: I write “great, big, fat fantasies”. I’m about to commence my third series and my second series, The Quickening, will launch in the U.S. in early 2005.

My first trilogy is Trinity – an epic good vs bad tale where the lines get blurred at the close of the story with its bittersweet ending. It’s the tale of a man’s journey to discover his true identity and the reason for his strange, undetectable powers in a time when Inquisitors are roaming the land to stamp out all sentients. This series has many layers – it’s about friendship, loyalty, betrayal and redemption. Its brutal and filled with magic. There’s a wonderful villain to loathe passionately of course and at its core is a touching love story but the breakneck pace of the prose means readers agree that it is a “rattling good adventure which fulfills all the requirements of fantasy” as one reviewer put it. “Wow! Fiona McIntosh wastes neither time nor words in Betrayal. Not for the reader who wants a sedate, bed-time read – once they open this one up, they’ll be hanging onto their hats!” The books comprise: Betrayal, Revenge and Destiny.

The next series is The Quickening, a darker tale with a disturbing magical backdrop. General Wyl Thirsk’s life takes a frightening turn following an encounter with a witch at her trial and subsequent burning. Again the pace is relentless as Wyl’s woes intensify with the sinister nature of Myrren’s Gift. The books comprise: Myrren’s Gift, Blood and Memory, Bridge of Souls.

DL: How did you decide to become a writer?

FM: I had no conscious plans to be a writer and yet I learned from my mother just recently that at five years I announced I would write books one day – destiny maybe? Perhaps although I believe I’ve fallen into thi ¥s new line of work, it’s more likely that this has been a lifetime’s journey and that I’ve always been headed towards this goal. This is especially so if I look back over my career because everything I’ve done has always involved the written word from being PR manager for an international airline to publishing a travel magazine with my husband.

DL: Does writing a travel magazine help inspire your writing or change it in any way?

FM: Yes. I’ve been trained over 20 years to write short, punchy sentences and I notice that I often fall into this same style in my creative writing. Just habit probably and quite a good one to have. It makes the pace of the tale rattle along and prevents long, rambling prose. Also when you write for any publication which is going to be read by the public, you have to produce work which is not embellished with elaborate, florid language. It needs to be simple and convey quickly the gist of your story Æ, be it a cruise on the Mediterranean or exploring the Pyramids, walking down an avenue in Paris or taking tapas in Barcelona. Sights, sounds, smells, all come into it but user friendly language that everyone from a teenage travel consultant to an old experienced pro of 40 years in the business will understand and enjoy. The same goes for my books. I have readers who are 13 and I have readers who are 83 and they come from all walks of life and all levels of education. I approach my work as a journalist approaches their article in the daily newspaper – everyone must be able to understand it and read it with ease. It is important to me that language never gets in the way of the story. One other point I think which is not connected with the writing itself but the production of the novel. When you work for any periodical, you have been trained to having your work edited from very young editors. I’ve never been shocked by scr ¨awls in the margin or requests to shift around chapters or delete great chunks from the ms. And deadlines. I’m so used to working to a deadline in magazine publishing that I’m not daunted by the notion of having to create a first draft of a novel in 10 weeks or so. I prefer the pressure of a deadline or nothing gets written!

DL: What authors, Fantasy or otherwise, influence your writing?

FM: Guy Gavriel Kay is my great benchmark. His work can actually derail me as much as inspire. I read his work sometimes and wonder why I’m bothering to even try and follow this path and on other occasions I just flip through Tigana – my favourite book of all time – and it gives me this adrenalin rush and that I can produce books to charm a wide audience. His is great writing and I just want to keep reaching for a similar richness of world, language, characters and above all, storytelling. The other author who constantly inspires and influences me is Robin Hobb. I adore her work and her characters have kept me company for many years now in stories I’ve never wanted to end. She wrings out my emotions and the power in her stories just carry me away. Fitz and the Fool have to be two of the best characters in fantasy and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to getting a bigger kick out of seeing her name on my than my own. I should mention the work of Sharon Penman (historical fiction) who has brought medieval history alive for so many readers. She’s a great writer and storyteller so I just give myself over to her and she transports me back in time and I can learn plenty from her work.

DL: Why did you choose the Fantasy genre?

I was a fantasy lover anyway. I had read a lot of the other popular fantasy series available and with nothing grabbing my attention I decided that instead of looking for something worthy to read, I would write something I wante ≠d to read. Betrayal was the result. Even after six novels I still feel I have a long way to go to be anywhere near as good as my favourite books and writers but that’s what drives me to keep striving. To be honest though, I never really climbed back through the wardrobe in childhood – one I’d crossed into Narnia, I didn’t want to return. Fantasy is where I feel most comfortable and I thrive on the fact that I can just let loose with my imagination and make things up as I go along. I’m not constrained by real life. Plus, I can’t help but love the traditional European medieval setting and fantasy works so well in this structure.

FM: Are you planning to branch out into other genres?

Yes, but not yet. What would I write? I would love to write a psycho thriller or some crime but I just don’t think I’m wired correctly for these genres. I love to read them, of course and because I tend to write without a plan I think I’d be a woeful crime or thriller author. I’m sure you’d have to know the end and be able to work backwards. Most likely I’d tackle a saga of sorts – a bit like a huge family story.

DL: Do you use any mythology sources for your writing?

FM: Not deliberately although in The Quickening I have borrowed from a medieval Bestiary to capture the idea of creatures of myth. I’ve used them in a similar way to the signs of the zodiac or Chinese calendar. Everyone belongs to one of these creatures depending on when they are born. It’s a very small piece in book one but it certainly gives a wonderful insight into the culture of the region of Morgravia. I also definitely draw heavily on the good v evil concept which always form my favourite stories anyway but I’m teaching myself to blur the lines. Guy Gavriel Kay did it brilliantly in Tigana. Until you knew Brandin the wizard, he was a totally evil guy. Then when you met him he was charming and charismatic, he loved the heroine passionately and you felt his keen sorrow at the loss of his son. The magical element of mythology is also something most of us fantasy writers will lean on at some stage, as well as drawing on the stories of gods and mortals. Wonderful stuff.

DL: What do you think is the important function of Fantasy?

FM: Pure escape Ä would be my first thought. The world today often feels as though it’s falling apart – so much doom and gloom and now we live in an age of such terrorism, it’s even more frightening. I often want to hide from reality and I’m sure others agree. Where better to lose ourselves than in make believe lands where the violence might be there but we know it’s not real … and some hero, reluctant or otherwise, is going to find a solution and deal with the baddies. Why do we love Frodo, Aragorn, Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, even Arnie? The same reason a lot of us love fantasy – particularly the more traditional ones where the good guys, against extraordinary odds, win out in the end. From childhood we’ve all listened to fairy stories and this goes back to primitive times when people sat around a campfire and told old stories to keep the culture, language, etc alive. Our he Øarts respond to these tales of great adventure and magic.

DL: Which characters are harder to write, the heroes or the villains? Which of your characters is your favorite and why?

FM: I love villains. They’re always interesting and tend to be much easier to craft. You can let your imagintion run riot as to how far you’re prepared to let them go. It’s obviously important to build a picture for your reader as to what makes this villain tick. He or she can’t just be bad for cruelty’s sake or for a plot device. Readers like to know what motivates them.

Now it’s the heroes who are tricky because they need to be a bit larger than life anyway and they always seem to be doing “the right thing” even if they are a little flawed or dented. It’s trying to create a ‘real’ person who is that driven and that decent that they put their life on the line for others and/or for a cause. You don’t come across heroic people in everyday life (even though people like the Salvation Army, etc are!) so creating a hero takes a bit of a leap of faith for the writer and he/she needs to emerge slowly and build into this reliable person whom the reader is going to trust and really care about. Reluctant heroes are the most enjoyable for me to write. I like the fish out of water situation and having to discover what these people can achieve when they’re up against extraordinary odds and crisis points.

Favourite character is a hard one. In my first series it was Cloot. I liked his pithy humour, his incredible loyalty and love for Tor and his selflessness. He was the true hero for the trilogy.

In The Quickening, it’s very hard not to like Wyl. Of course he’s so many people but the person who is Wyl beneath the guises is a courageous, strong-willed young man who is required to live on his wits through terrible circumstances. He has to sacrifice so much. The character I can’t help but love a little is Romen Ko‘reldy – he’s a man to win women’s hearts. A laid back fellow with a sardonic manner. Very cool, quite fatalistic really. I hated him dying (oops that’s a spoiler isn’t it?).

DL: Do you attempt to influence the way people view society through
your writing, and if so do you believe Fantasy can have an impact?

FM: No, I definitely make no attempt to influence anyone. My books are just really good stories to get carried away on. No one could ever mistake them for driving a message. I do believe fantasy could be used to influence, though.

DL: Does living in Australia influence you in your writing?

FM: Not at all. I love Australia and being an Australian but I’ve got the colour green in my soul. I like muted, soft landscapes with drizzly weather and mist on lakes. I love meadows and alpine forests, rolling hills and peasanty villages and ale-swilling inns. I like Autumn and Winter, castles, sword fights, the clank of armour and medieval courts.

DL: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

FM: Stop talking about it and do it. There are no rules. Write instinctively.
Write everyday. Set an achievable daily word count which suits your lifestyle.You don’t HAVE to know your characters, how your story ends or even where it’s going. Just write – and see what happens. Read a lot-know your genre but also read widely outside of the genre you want to write in. You’ll learn heaps. Join a writing group/reading group and tune in to what people have to say. You will learn so much from listening to readers and what turns them on about certain books. Mix with fellow writers – published or otherwise – they will inspire and motivate you.
Invest in a really good dictionary and a thesaurus. Pay attention to world around you – notice how a tree bends in the wind or what a cloud really looks like; listen to how people speak and their mannerisms; watch animals, watch documentaries, meet lots of people.

DL: What books or stories are in your future?

FM: Well, my third series has a working title of Percheron and this will have a far more exotic setting than my previous two which I don’t doubt will be a challenge. Increasingly I find I want my fantasies to not be brimming with magic wielders (as in my first series) but to have a strong magical element and then rely on a good story of human struggle. Story ideas nag all the time. Percheron has come out the strongest but there’s another idea at the back of my mind and all I see is a single scene of a man in a dungeon. That’s it – that’s all I have and yet it persists and I suspect it will blossom and flourish over the next year or so. G

DL: Thank you very much Ms. McIntosh for this thoughtful interview.