Crash Course

As I work through laying the groundwork for this project, I found an exercise that I’m planning to undertake. It directly addresses my feeling that, while I have read a lot of fantasy novels of the sort that I intend to write, its been a while and I don’t feel like I love many.

Am I feeling like maybe I can do better?

Well, sure – in a sense, anyway. I feel like I have something to contribute that would be engaging and fun and all that stuff… but I’m also maybe not close enough to the genre right now to really do my story justice…?

I don’t know.

But here’s the exercise (from James Scott Bell):

1. Get a half-dozen books of the genre you intend to write
2. Read the first one (like an audience member)
3. Spend a day afterwards thinking about the book. Make some notes (Did you like it? Did it move you? Did you connect with the characters? Did it drag? Is it memorable? etc..)
4. Read the next books in the same fashion: read for pleasure, spend some time noting observations.
5. Go back to the first book. Using notecards, write the following for EACH SCENE: setting, POV character, two-line scene summary, scene type (action, setup, etc..) and whether it makes you want to read on – why or why not?
6. Repeat with other books
7. Read through the stacks
8. Spend some time laying them out, dividing them into three act structure
9. Be awesome at plot and celebrate.

I started the first book and am about halfway through. Here’s my selections:

A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. LeGuin (I’ve never read it, it’s a classic, I love many of her stories).

Sword of Shannara – Terry Brooks (also never read, also a classic. Wanted to hit some major genre milestones that I wasn’t familiar with).

The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss (seems to be extremely well regarded, especially from a writing standpoint. Relatively recent big hit).

Uprooted – Naomi Novik (the only one of these I’ve already read. Maybe my favorite book of hers – and she’s one of my top 10 authors. The tone and style here are targets for most of my writing).

Empire of Sand – Tasha Suri (I really have no idea here. Unfamiliar with the book and the author, but it’s well-regarded in the genre and published within the last decade).

In the Shadow of Lightning – Brian McClellan (another semi-blind buy. It’s a book one of an epic fantasy series published in the last five years. Seems to be well-regarded. I guess we’ll see).

If anyone has other/better ideas I’m open to adding another book or two. The goal here is to dig in and do some analysis on books that are:

• In the genre (Fantasy; specifically high fantasy and ideally human-centric. Think ASoIF rather than DnD novels)
• Well-regarded and well-written
• Not first person (ideally)
• Successful (recently)
• Second World and vaguely medieval setting

Anything important I’m missing?