Silmarillion Syndrome or Hung up on Structure

I don’t talk a lot about my writing in specific because it’s not an easy thing to talk about. Other writers all seem to have a “WIP” or Work in Progress that they are focused on and can discuss in detail. For me its different. I believe I suffer from what I’m going to call “Silmarillion Syndrome”.

What is it?

Everyone knows Tolkien for his masterpieces The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but the work that Tolkien devoted his life to was the body of legends that would become The Silmarillion, only published after his death. Tolkien began the stories that comprised The Silmarillion in his youth and some of them went through dozens of permutations. From early on he had the idea of fitting them together into a mythology of the Elves. First there was The Book of Lost Tales, wherein the tales of the Elves were told to a mortal Man who had found his way to the Elves’ island home. Later versions removed the Man and the told story aspect and made them into straightforward mythological accounts collected in a body called the Quenta Silmarillion. Tolkien wrote several versions which he was never quite happy with which is why it later fell to his son to edit together the sometimes fragmented legends into a publishable volume. Tolkien never saw his beloved Elven history in print.

This desire for an overarching structure to the tales and need to have them fit together seamlessly into a single legendarium is all too familiar to me. As is the perfectionism that led to countless versions and revisions. I too want a comprehensive mythology for my world that was full of origin stories and heroic legends. For the past year I have been studying and ruminating and plotting and planning to come up with my own overarching structure for my fantasy stories. I have been obsessed with the Big Picture, trying to create a structure that every idea and every story element I have ever had and will ever have can easily fit into.

Wow, writing it out like that makes it sound stupidly ambitious. Which is, I think, a phrase that perfectly describes me when I start getting creative. Sarah McCabe: Stupidly Ambitious Fantasy Stories. It could work.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to work out this overarching narrative for some time now and I believe I’ve made a real breakthrough. Puzzle pieces are starting to fit together, the Big Picture is almost in view. It’s a dizzying feeling actually because I had begun to doubt whether or not I had the skill to formulate an overarching narrative that created the sort of depth you get from Tolkien’s work. Now I think maybe I can actually plan it out, but it still remains to be seen if I can turn it into a well told story. And whether I can manage to finish such an ambitious project in my lifetime.

The A to Z Fantastic: Elfland and Faerie

The first week of this year's A to Z Challenge coincided with spring break, which meant that all 5 of my kids were home all week. This on top of having a brand new baby and a sick two year old. So needless to say I've been having some trouble finding time for blogging and am already way behind. Rather than just picking up where the Challenge is now, I'd like to make up the letters I've missed. So I'll be blogging two letters per day this week until I'm caught up. So today will be E and F.

Today I'm going to kill two birds with one stone by using two words for the same idea. (Hahaha!)

I am currently reading the book The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany. In it, the people of the Vale of Erl desire to have a magic lord to make their lives more interesting. So the old lord of Erl sends his son, Alveric, into Elfland to marry the King of Elfland's Daughter. The story so far seems to me less about the characters and more about the relationship between the "Fields We Know", as Dunsany calls the mundane world where the Vale of Erl is, and the magical realm of Elfland. The story strongly stresses the differences between the two and indeed those differences are the major source of the conflict. The people of the Vale of Erl are drawn to the magic of Elfland and yet have trouble understanding and accepting it.

I don't know how this conflict will play out but I am eager to find out.

One of the pages above talks about Tolkien's brilliant essay On Fairy Stories. In it he talks about the nature of fantasy as rooted in Faerie. Not Fairies, but Faerie, or as Tolkien called it, the Perilous Realm. The place from whence the stories come.

Faërie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold. ... The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveler who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories

Tolkien goes out of his way not to define Faerie, saying that part of its nature is to be indescribable though not imperceptible. But one thing is for certain: whatever Faerie is, it is other. It is something that is at once wondrous and dangerous, compelling and repulsing, beyond us and yet a part of us. Faerie, or Elfland, is the essence of Fantasy, allowing us to pass beyond the Fields We Know and emerge again different, and hopefully better, people.

Courageous Authors of Fantasy

This post is both for the A to Z and for the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

Today I want to talk about Courage. But instead of talking about courage within Fantasy stories, I'm going to focus on the courage it takes to write Fantasy stories.

Fantasy has been a much maligned genre since its emergence in the 1800s. (Note: when I talk about Fantasy as a genre I mean modern fantasy beginning with such writers as George MacDonald and William Morris.) Often considered only good for children or as escapist fare for pathetic losers, everyone who doesn't enjoy it seems to look down on fantasy, even the people who publish it. In addition, "experts" were declaring traditional and epic fantasy dead not long ago. Tell someone you were working on a fantasy novel and you were likely to pitied more than praised.

In the face of all this, the last hundred years has been full of courageous writers defying the odds and proving the naysayers wrong with spectacular works of fantasy literature that expand reader horizons and add much beauty to the world. I'd like to take a moment to recognize some of the authors who I think have been particularly bright stars in the universe of fantasy fiction and salute their courage as artists and creators.

Robert E. Howard is remembered as the father of Sword and Sorcery due to his creation of the iconic Conan the Cimmerian character. Conan was the consummate adventurer and a perfect example of the courageous fantasy spirit.

Lord Dunsany (or Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany) was, I believe, the first great world builder. His stories were filled with exotic and wondrous locales with memorable names and fantastic atmosphere. He was also probably the first modern mythopoet, crafting a world of gods and their mythologies unlike anything before him.

It goes without saying that J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis belong on this list. For without their brilliant creations of Middle-earth and Narnia fantasy might never have gained the widespread popularity it achieved in the middle of the last century. Their works resonated with readers like none other before them gaining lasting status as classic that will surely be remembered for centuries to come.

One of the finest fantasy series I've ever read is the Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny. It's the perfect example of fantasy that transcends subgenres, brilliantly utilizing tropes from ever kind of fantasy fiction without ever being subject to them, it never feels cliche.

Lastly, I want to mention an author who is not a favorite of mine (though he is a favorite of my husband) but whose work and artistry I have profound respect for. Gene Wolfe is an author of all kinds of speculative fiction, not one of his stories being like any other. The depth, subtlety and originality of his work is sadly underrated by readers while being widely praised by authors of all kinds. Or, as my husband has said, "All Gene Wolfe and no Gene Wolfe makes Gene Wolfe, Gene Wolfe." (Don't ask me what that means.)

These shining stars of fantasy (and science fiction) paved the way for writers like me (and you!) with their courageous refusal to write anything but the best and their determination to see their work make its way to readers. They made it possible for the genre to grow and thrive, gathering new writers and new readers constantly, by digging deep and producing amazing works of art that no one else could. Looking to their example, we can do the same. We can persevere against all odds in the name of getting our own unique stories to readers and perhaps one day be remembered as they are. Artists and creators who add beauty and wonder to the world.

Who am I?

Last year I went through a period of hardcore writer's block lasting for most of the year. The main reason for this was personal life issues. The energy I had to invest in learning to be the mother of an Asperger's child left little creative energy. However, as I've been adjusting to my new reality, I've also been spending a lot of time pondering who I am, what I want and where I am going in the context of my creative urges.

(Kudos to anyone who gets the references in the images.)

My identity as a writer has always been strongly linked to my love of everything written by J.R.R. Tolkien. It was The Lord of the Rings that made me fall in love with the fantasy genre and long to tell stories as magical. Over the past year, I've made a serious effort to read some of the other foundational material of the fantasy genre and to educate myself about the authors and works that made the genre popular in the first place. I've discovered a lot of forgotten treasures and learned a lot about what elements of fantasy resound with me most strongly. It's been a fun learning experience.

What I've learned is that I'm decidedly old fashioned in my tastes and preferences. The more I read the older literature of fantasy, things like The Worm Ouroboros, Lord Dunsany's works, the Conan the Cimmerian stories and many others, the more I become disenchanted with the modern fantasy literature being published today. In my opinion, it tends to be far less imaginative than the fantasy of the earlier part of the 20th century and certainly far less magical.

Sometimes I become discouraged because everywhere I go on the internet I see people that disparage the fantasy of yesteryear and praise the strides taken by modern fantasy in the direction of "progress". People seem to want fantasy to reflect modern sensibilities and values. They want Strong Female Characters and racial equality and political correctness and whatnot. Personally, I just want strong characters, whether they are male or female is incidental to the story, and I don't think fantasy stories are the place to make political stands. I hate politics anyway. It takes the magic out of everything. So I worry that if I write the kind of stories that I would like, they won't find favor with modern audiences.

But then I think about how perpetually popular The Lord of the Rings is, despite being pretty much the antithesis of everything people claim to desire in their reading material these days. Something about the story still grabs them and draws them in, generation after generation. So maybe people don't really know what they want as well as they think they do. Perhaps there are universal themes and ideals that reach through to all of us no matter what age we live in. Perhaps there are more people in the world like me despite what it seems like on the internet.

Tolkien's writing style tended decidedly toward the mythological. Now, real myths are developed over thousands of years by hundreds of people within a distinct culture. (Those vague round numbers may be a huge understatement.) They were not authored by any one person and so they belong, if they can belong to anyone, to an entire people. For this reason they tend to reflect human truths better than any other form of art, so Tolkien believed. But Tolkien took it a step further when he decided to attempt, as one man, to create an entire mythology from his own imagination. He also coined the term "mythopoeia" which means "myth-making" to describe the art that he was engaged in. And unsurprisingly, as a life long lover of myths and a die hard fan of Tolkien, I too am drawn to this kind of sub-creation.

The main problem with this is just the epic scope one has to deal with if one seeks to be a mythopoet.  I love worldbuilding. I take great enjoyment from it. But worldbuilding is in the background. One still has to decide how exactly one wishes to structure and present their mythopoeia in story form if one wishes to be an author. And this is something I've been struggling with for some time now.

When Tolkien was young, he wrote The Book of Lost Tales, the original precursor to the posthumously published The Silmarillion. The Book of Lost Tales tells many of the same stories that appear in The Silmarillion (though obviously in much more primitive form) but begins with an interesting framing device wherein a human Mariner and explorer makes his way to the Isle where the Elves who once inhabited Middle-earth have withdrawn to. There he becomes part of an Elven household and is told many of their myths and tales of the world and their own history. The first time I read The Book of Lost Tales, this framing device really threw me off. I was used to The Silmarillion. But every time I return to those Tales and think about the framing device, I am really enchanted by it. I like the idea of meaningful tales being told from a future perspective.

Shortly after I began doing research for my worldbuilding, I came across a passage from one of Plato's books which described an encounter between an old Egyptian priest and the Athenian statesman and philosopher Solon. Solon sought to impress the priest with everything he knew about the ancient genealogies of Greece, but the priest merely laughed at him and called the Greeks "children". He proceeded to explain that the Egyptians had been and had watched for long ages while the other civilizations of the world rose and fell due to various natural disasters. It was for this reason that the Egyptians remembered more of the history of the lands of the Greeks than the Greeks did, including the war between the Atlantians and the people who then lived in the region of Athens, which resulted in the destruction of Atlantis.

And thus I was enchanted with another framing device wherein an ancient and knowledgeable storyteller conveys his knowledge of the past to a man from the modern age. That marvelous sense of history, of ancient things lost which may still have meaning for today, of the wise passing on that legacy to the young, is something I love. So I've been struggling with my desire to utilize such a framing device and my fears that this would alienate too many readers who don't like storytelling, only storyshowing. I love told stories and I think too much showing is more annoying than too much telling, but most people seem to disagree with me.

But if there are other people like me, even if we're only a fraction of the market, I believe that there should be stories out there for us. There should be stories for every kind of person. One of the things that has for a long time been frustrating me about traditional publishing (and drawing me to self publishing) is that trad publishers seem to only want to publish two kinds of books: 1. Books that will appeal on a mass scale to whichever type of buying readers is the largest and 2. Books that will appeal to practically no one, but might win an award from critics. This business plan leaves people like me who don't belong to the bestseller crowd in the dust. Trad pub doesn't care about the people who don't fit into their narrow view of readers and so we don't get books published for us.

There's a famous writing quote that says something to the effect of : If the book you want to read isn't written yet, you should write it yourself.

There are a lot of empty spaces out there in the regions of the fantasy genre where I think there might have been books I would have liked, if traditional publishing hadn't rejected or changed them. I really hope indie publishing will fill up those empty spaces. But I also don't want to just sit by and wait for that to happen. I'm only one person, but I want to do my part to fill up some of that empty space for people like me. I want to contribute my own story to the readers of the world that long for tales of beauty and magic and light and wonder rather than darkness and grit and so-called "realism". We all deserve to have the kinds of stories that will be the most compelling to us as individuals out there to read. No one should be excluded.

In the end all this angst leads me right back to where I started: as a person who loves stories and who has found stories within herself that must be told. And they can only be told in a way that I, the author, can be passionate about. It doesn't really matter if no one else will like them. I have to try, to make my contribution. And who knows? Perhaps like Tolkien I will find that my stories will attract a larger audience than I ever thought possible.

Euphoric Eucatastrophe

E is for Eucatastrophe.

Today I am going to talk about another wonderful word invention of J.R.R. Tolkien, the philologist. Eucatastrophe is a storytelling device that he identified as a fundamental part of the Fairy Story and thus also as part of Fantasy as its successor. It is essentially a joyous catastrophe, a major reversal at the climax of the story which leads to a happy ending rather than a tragedy. It gives to the reader a euphoric feeling of release and relief and, again, joy. The Eucatastrophe is all about joy.

Far more powerful and poignant is the effect in a serious tale of Faerie. In such stories, when the sudden turn comes, we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through. ~J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories

The fantasy genre, as the literary heir to the Fairy Story, is, I think, the best place to find such sudden joy. Life rarely offers this to us, and most other genres are meant to be more true to life than fantasy. Because in fantasy it is possible to raise the stakes far higher than any other genre, the resulting reversal and happy ending can be all the more powerful.

Think of the reversal in The Lord of the Rings, when the ragged armies of Rohan and Gondor stand outside the gates of Mordor prepared to give their lives to protect the Free People of Middle-earth... and then the sudden reversal. The thing we have been waiting for has come to pass. The Ring has been destroyed and the tower of Barad Dur is toppled. The armies of Sauron flee in fear, for the Men of Rohan and Gondor have gained renewed strength from this Eucatastrophe.

Think of Harry Potter. (Spoilers ahead if you haven't read it.) Hogwarts is under seige, all of Harry's friends and loved ones about to be destroyed by an army of Death Eaters. All he has to do to save them is surrender his life. Harry dies at the Dark Lord's hand. But then... the joyous reversal. Harry's sacrifice not only allows him to return, but gives protection to everyone he is fighting for. Voldemort, who fled from death, can no longer stand against him who was willing to die for love.

The Eucatastrophe lends tremendous emotional power to stories that employ it. It gives joy in the face of destruction and hope in the face of tragedy.

The Courage to Create

Apologies for not getting this entry up in time yesterday. Which means I'll be double posting today for C and D so let's get right to it.

C is for Creation.

The heart of man is not compound of lies,

but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,

and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,

man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,

and keeps the rags of lordship one he owned,

his world-dominion by creative act:

not his to worship the great Artefact,

man, sub-creator, the refracted light

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled

with elves and goblins, though we dared to build

gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sow the seed of dragons, 'twas our right

(used or misused). The right has not decayed.

We make still by the law in which we're made.

                                      ~J.R.R. Tolkien

You might guess from the name of my blog that creation through storytelling, or sub-creation as J.R.R. Tolkien put it, is a subject close to my heart. Perhaps above all others it is the real reason why I write: I am compelled to create.

Tolkien coined the term "sub-creation" to express the idea that we mere mortals have an intrinsic desire to create through our arts because we were made in the image of our creator. Like him, we want to bring things into being. Unlike him, it is only from our imaginations that we can do this. So we are not creators, since we have nothing to work with that was not created by God, but we are sub-creators.

Tolkien also saw fantasy as the best medium for sub-creation. Another term he developed was mythopoesis, by which he meant the creative act of inventing imaginary worlds with detailed mythologies. This is the closest, perhaps, that man can come to mimicking God's creative act. For though the things that we invent have no physical substance in the world, one only needs to look at the lasting impact that Middle-earth has had on millions of fans of Tolkien's stories (including me) to see that Tolkien's creations have achieved reality in the souls of those who love them.

This humble blogger hopes to one day become a true sub-creator and mythopoet in the same tradition that Tolkien began.

Ahoy, Adventure Approaches!

And.... go!

This year I've chosen to explore 26 aspects of the fantasy genre that make me a devoted reader and writer of it. Without further ado, our first topic is A for Adventure.

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. you step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~J.R.R. Tolkien

Adventure is defined as an undertaking that involves danger and unknown risks.

Think of poor Bilbo Baggins who was a simple Shire Hobbit until a strange old man showed up at his door with 13 Dwarves and an ancient map. Who would have predicted such a fellow would soon be dealing with a fire breathing dragon and not one, not two, but five armies all after the treasure of the mountain? Or little Lucy Pevensie who hid in a Wardrobe and found herself in an enchanted forest full fauns and talking animals... and a wicked queen who wanted her dead.

There is no better genre than fantasy for throwing us head first into the most wild, unpredictable, and gloriously fun adventures. We get to sit at ease in our homes all the while experiencing the desperate search of a unicorn for the rest of her people, or an orphan boy's noble sacrifice to rid the world of the most powerful Dark Lord, or an assistant pig-keeper's attempts to become a strong warrior like his hero Gwydion, or the fight between brothers and sisters for the vacant throne in the greatest city in the world. There's no where you can't go and nothing you can't do through the pages of a fantasy book.

Fantasy: the Greatest Adventure.

Worldbuilding A to Z: Values and Warfare

For the life of me I can't seem to manage a post everyday. Sigh. Another double post will have to suffice.

V is for Values

The Weighing of the Heart

I believe a culture is defined by what it values, what it holds sacred. And that is why the culture of Ancient Egypt is so vibrant and fascinating to us. The Egyptians, whom the Greeks called the most pious of peoples, knew what was sacred. This is one of the main aspects of their culture that I have, from the beginning, wanted to imitate in my fictional realm of Akhet.

So what did the Egyptians value? Family and friends. Egyptians believed that you could not be truly alive without relationships with others. If the social part of your self was not active, you might as well be physically dead because spiritually you already were. It was important to have a family unit: father, mother, children. Not only did this help you live in this world, but it helped you continue to live after death. Your family and friends could perpetuate your cult, tending your tomb and keeping your name alive after you were dead.

One lives, if his name is mentioned.
One lives, if another guides him.

Egyptians valued the concepts embodied in Maat: truth, balance, order, law, morality, and justice. They were called to live blameless lives because upon their deaths their heart would be weighed against the feather of Maat. If they were found worthy they could then journey to the Field of Reeds, if they were found wanting they would be eaten by the beast Ammit, "the gobbler", thus dying a second time, permanently. To avoid this fate, the deceased would have to make 42 Confessions that state they have done no wrong during life.

The people of Ahket will have similar values. My four MCs are orphans who have no family and thus their social self is not actualized in a healthy way. This is why they go on to cause the wrong that they do.

W is for Warfare

Epic fantasy is generally a breeding ground for large scale conflicts, or wars. Think of the centuries long campaign that the Elves perpetuated against the Dark Lord Morgoth in Tolkien's The Silmarillion. (One of my favoritest books ever.) Compared to that the wimpy little war in LOTR seems kind of pathetic. Tolkien manages to do warfare very well. Probably because he experienced it in real life during WWI and later saw his sons go off to WWII. The guy knew about war.

However, after reading several more modern pieces of epic fantasy dealing with war, I've discovered that I don't particularly like to read about it. Perhaps it's because some modern fantasy authors seem to think they're writing a textbook for West Point. Perhaps it's because some authors like to use warfare to go into a lot of grisly details about atrocities people commit upon one another thus highlighting how wretched people are in general.  These things, in my opinion, have no business in epic fantasy.

Warfare has its place, but I don't think it should ever be the main course of the fantasy banquet. That's where Tolkien got it right. There's a lot of war in his tales, but LOTR is still the story of Frodo's quest to destroy the Ring while the war goes on around him. The point of the story isn't the war, because the reader knows that the war can't be won. Only Frodo can destroy Sauron by destroying the Ring. The war against Morgoth in The Silmarillion is similarly hopeless for the Elves and the Men who join them. The reader knows that the war is a folly and it's not really what the story is about. The story is a tragedy about the Oath of Feanor and the very terrible and very glorious events that came from it. Tolkien uses war to great effect, but he knows there has to be more to the story. Because war is an ugly thing, and fantasy is ultimately about finding the good and true and beautiful.

I think that in my stories there will be only very minimal warfare. It's not something I want to write about, let alone revel in. In my WIP there is conflict and there is violence, but no war. Future stories may dip into the art of warfare a bit, but I doubt it will ever be a major aspect of any of my works.

How do you feel about warfare in fantasy? Do you like more or less?

Worldbuilding A to Z: R is for Religion

Yesterday I talked about politics and today I talk about religion. Are there any more controversial subjects in existence? I doubt it. Probably because there are no two subjects that people care about quite as passionately. Whether you believe in God or not, it is undeniable that religion is an important part of the human experience. It has been with us since the dawn of civilization and it plays a major part in every culture on the planet. Which leads us to the question, how large a role should religion and spirituality play in fantasy?

I confess that I am often very disappointed by portrayals of religion in fantasy. Too often authors resort to using caricatures of organized churches and representing members of such churches as either ignorant or malicious. There is no depth to it, only the author's personal bias. Why is it that some authors have no trouble exploring the magical realms of the imagination but utterly fail to understand the natural human inclination to seek the divine? I don't know. On the other end of the spectrum there is The Lord of the Rings, which for all its breadth of history and culture fails to explore religion at all. As much as I love Tolkien's work, I wish I could know more about what the peoples of Middle-earth believed and valued. Reading The Silmarillion will tell you about Eru, the creator, and the Valar, his servants, but it will not tell you much about the relationship of the Elves, Men, Dwarves and Hobbits of Middle-earth with them. 

As a reader, I long for a work of fantasy that is not afraid to explore religious themes without demonizing religion. This is something I hope to accomplish with my own writing and why I have chosen Ancient Egypt as my inspiration. Most people think of Egyptian religion as a basic pantheistic "god of this, god of that" formula. But, as I've said before, Egyptian philosophy and belief was infinitely more complex and meaningful than that. Egyptian thought was very different than modern thought (for the better in many cases, I think) but it was not primitive or barbaric as modern people like to think. (Modern people love to think that we know better than everyone else who lived a long time ago because we have better technology, but I would venture to suggest that the opposite is actually true for precisely that same reason. Humanity may, on the whole, have more information nowadays but we also, on the whole, think less. Who needs to think when you can Google everything? But I digress.) My goal with my fantasy world and my current WIP is to use Egyptian belief and philosophy (with some Greek philosophy thrown in for good measure) as a foundation for exploring some deeply religious and deeply human themes. 

I know that probably scares some people off. After all, many authors tend to becoming obnoxiously overbearing when they get up on their soapboxes and start putting messages in their characters' mouths. (I'm looking at you, Terry Goodkind.) That's certainly not what I want. I don't want to preach. I don't have a message for you. But I do want my characters to struggle with and explore such questions of life the universe and everything that are, inextricably, tied into religion. I want them to have morals and values that are not only based on what they want, but on what they believe is right and good. I want to write much more than a book about a quest. I want to write a book that deals with universal truths. I think you can only do that if you stop to ask, "Is there something outside of myself that is greater than I am?" And the followup question, "If so, what do I do about it?"

How do you feel about religious themes in the books you read? Does it turn you off? Interest you? Do you like exploring religious themes in your own writing?

In Which I Talk About My Writing

So I've got my shiny new blogsopt site and I've participated in my very first blogfest. A bunch of new people just signed up to follow my blog. (Yay!) So I figure I'd better make it clear what I'm doing here and why I feel I can call myself a writer.

I have since childhood loved fairy tales and myths and have always had stories with fantastical elements playing around in my head. (Though there was a brief phase where all of my stories involved me as a sort of female version of Indiana Jones. But I've got past that now.) While my mother encouraged me to write stories and assured me that I was a gifted writer, I shrugged her words off. She praised the Indiana Jones fanfics after all; I couldn't possibly trust her judgment. So I spent a lot of my teenage years writing stories about made up worlds that I did my best to keep private because it was just, I thought, a whim and I knew they weren't very good anyway.

Then I got married and started having kids and my writing completely fell by the wayside. I think I had always had a writing habit during my adolescence because I was one of those angsty teens (though only on the inside) who was never content with their life and so found escape in books and writing. Having a family changed that. I was no longer dissatisfied with my life and didn't need to escape, so I stopped writing. But I never lost my love for fantasy. If I wrote less then I began reading more, becoming more familiar with the genre as it is now. And this led to a new source of dissatisfaction.

I'm not happy with the fantasy genre today. I think in many ways it has fallen too far from its tree. Many fantasy authors go to extreme lengths to subvert the traditions of the genre because they think turning something that has become a cliche to its opposite extreme is clever and original. (Reality check: It's not.) Many fantasy authors are jumping on the "dark, gritty realism" bandwagon that seems to be sweeping our nation. These writers (who I don't mean to suggest are all fantasy authors) make me very sad. They've forgotten what the fantasy genre was all about, they've forgotten their roots. Because of these modern trends it has been increasingly difficult for me to find a nice, satisfying read among current fantasy fiction.

As my disappointment with recent fantasy offerings has increased over the past several years, the stories in my head have returned. But this time instead of Indiana Jones fanfic, I feel I might actually have something to offer the world. What I want is to create something in the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien. Now, by that I don't mean a Shannara-esque ripoff complete with Elves and black robed sinister creatures. I mean that I want to create a secondary world with its own mythology that draws from the real world mythologies that I love. I want my tales from that world to draw from the traditions of myths and fairy tales that explore and illuminate basic truths about the world and the human condition in subtle and thought provoking ways without sacrificing story or characters. And I want to worry not one whit about grittiness or realism.

For the first time in my life, I think I might be able to do those things.

So I have begun the delightful work of worldbuilding. Though I think of it more in some ways as "world revealing". It's not really a ordered, logical process. The ideas come in visions and flashes and slowly, slowly reveal themselves to me. I think it will be a unique and varied world rife with enchantment. I'm very excited about the possibilities.

The first story to be set in my new secondary world is in a land that I am modeling on Ancient Egypt in many ways. I am attempting to use Ancient Egyptian philosophy and beliefs as the foundation for the land. Most people learned at least a bit about Egyptian belief in school and know they had a polytheistic pantheon of gods. You might even remember some of the more prominent gods like Ra, Isis, Osiris, etc. But I have found that there is a much deeper and more complex aspect of Egyptian belief and the way they viewed the world that is absolutely fascinating and in many ways totally foreign to modern western thinking. I'll be exploring it in my first story, my first attempt at a complete novel. I'm hoping it will offer a unique experience.

I'll no doubt be talking a lot about my efforts on this first novel here. About my research, how I will be integrating what I learn about Ancient Egypt into a fantasy setting, about the story its self and what I learn as I write it, about the larger secondary world I am attempting to create bit by bit... I'm still at the beginning of my journey and I think it's going to be a fun ride.

Mythopoeia

J.R.R. Tolkien was a genius.

I know, I know. It's not "cool" nowadays to be unequivocally enthusiastic in one's admiration for anyone or anything. But I can't help it. I am a total Tolkien fangirl and I unabashedly love everything he wrote. And I'm not just talking about his absolutely brilliant stories. Tolkien was, of course, a tremendous scholar not just of language but of literature.

Tolkien coined a few new terms related to storytelling. The term "sub-creation" refers to the creation of a secondary world with its own rules and laws. The term "eucatrastrophe" is, in Tolkien's words, "the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears" (from On Fairy Stories). Tolkien felt this mechanism was the "highest function" of fairy stories. I had read and been familiar with these two terms before. But I finally came upon a third yesterday.

Mythopoeia. Literally, myth-making.

Tolkien used the term to describe what he did, crafting a mythology that draws from and uses the essential elements and truths found in real world mythologies and legends. It is meant to illuminate those fundamentals of our real world mythologies by exploring them in a created setting, a secondary world. The word has now come to be used to describe the genre of writers who attempt this feat.

And I, who have been wandering lost and confused amidst the modern fantasy genre, repulsed by much that I see, and wondering if this modern fantasy is truly what I am writing and if it is truly what I want to write, have seen the light of day. The answer is no, I am not a modern fantasy writer. Tolkien described what I want to do. My goal is mythopoeic sub-creation. I am writing mythopoeia, not fantasy.

Thank you, Tolkien, for having just the right words.

I found and read Tolkien's poem called Mythopoeia and, as usual, was amazed by Tolkien's genius with words. Tolkien was apparently responding to C.S. Lewis who felt that myths were lies and therefore useless even though "breathed through silver". Tolkien's return argument is indisputably elegant and lovely. Here's an excerpt from the poem, which I found online here:

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have tuned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.

I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

"Blessed are the legend makers"! Yes, sign me up for that! I think there is something fundamentally missing from much modern fantasy and I think it's tied to the loss of the genre's roots as myth and fairy tale and legend. I'll talk more about that in another post, but for now I am heartened and enthusiastic about digging back into those roots myself. And perhaps one day being an influence for bringing the genre back to its vibrant traditions. I love myth and fairy tale and legend and I think most fantasy readers do as well. I think there is a thirst for more offerings that draw from that tradition and that take on the task of mythopoeic sub-creation. I don't know if I'm up to the challenge, but I'm going to do my best.