I have a confession to make: I’m not good at description. At least not in my first drafts. The movie-in-my-head plays an extreme close-up of the main characters. I get caught up in the dialogue and often end up with two talking heads in a white room.
And yet, I love reading fantasy. I love learning new magic systems and being transported to enchanting new places. Who can forget the haunted ruined city of Shadar Logoth in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, or the monstrous wall of ice in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones? Wouldn’t you love to vacation in Tolkien’s Shire?
When I started the second draft of Gate to Kandrith, I knew I had to add more description, but I found myself dragging my feet and, okay, whining about it. It had to be done, but it felt painful. Dull. Boring.
And if I, the writer, was bored, how was my poor reader going to feel?
Finally, I realized my setting felt tired because I’d read hundreds of novels with those same descriptions of grimy medieval taverns and giant golden gates. My solution? To really take advantage of writing about a fantasy world and devise settings that felt fresh and new. Instead of my heroine being chased down a clichéd alleyway, she’s pursued through a statuary mouth into the courtyard of the Temple of Malice, which oozes with black mud and is full of sharpened stakes to wound the unwary. Instead of being attacked on the road, Sara and Lance are standing on a stone slab in the middle of a waterfall when unfriendly Qiph tribesmen show up with swords. The Gate to Kandrith became a claustrophobic narrow gorge passing between two mountains. Even the inn they stayed at became a Temple of Jut, God of Travellers.
Sure, it was more work, but it was worth it.
What settings are you tired of? What fantasy novels have you read with great scenery?
Click here to buy Gate to Kandrith:
RT Book Reviews 4 1/2 stars: “Filled with plotlines that range from political to fantastical, the adventure is what truly keeps readers engrossed…”
Nicole Luiken wrote her first novel at age 13. She is the author of eight YA novels, this is her first adult fantasy. She is hard at work on the sequel to Gate to Kandrith.
Charlie Thorpe-Campbell is the greatest RAM-runner the world has ever seen–and he knows it. On the verge of retirement from the sport, he is defending his title as champion of the annual orbital race one final time when he’s suddenly hurtling away into deep space.
It was only supposed to be one night. One night to determine once and for all if he truly preferred men. But the last thing Lord Benjamin Parker expected to find in a questionable gambling hell is a gorgeous young man who steals his heart.
Considering she’s now a published author in the genre herself, I guess I didn’t scare her away. But the discussion got me thinking about firsts. Specifically, reading firsts. I’ve got a number of firsts that have led me to where I am, both as a reader and a writer.
What is it about a shy guy that’s so appealing? Maybe we empathize. Who among us hasn’t felt awkward, afraid, even terrified, in the presence of someone we’d like to impress? Maybe when we encounter shy guys, with their hemming and hawing and shuffling feet, the sweet way their eyes skitter across our face, it brings out our inner nurturer. Or perhaps we sense that shy souls are more interesting than their more gregarious counterparts.
