I am overjoyed this morning, feeling that I have rediscovered something that has been missing from my life: First-person meaty fantasy. Yes, I love a good first-person story and one long enough to sink my teeth deep into, stay there for a while, and long to return once I have left. I’ve also felt that this has been missing in my own writing. In fact, it has been a while since I have truly enjoyed the writing process. I’ve been in a funk, one that I believe some may call writer’s block, but one that I’m beginning to feel was self-induced.
Feedback
As a writer, I take feedback. I crave it, and I thrive upon it. I have strong feelings about both giving and receiving feedback as an author.
Feedback is great for authors.
Feedback helps you understand where your work needs to improve.
Feedback teaches you all the standard dos and don’ts in writing.
Feedback lets you know when you haven’t shown a character well enough.
Feedback reveals plot holes in your story.
Feedback…feedback…feedback…
Yes, I agree with all of this. Despite what I am about to say, I agree with all of this whole-heartedly.
What I wanted…
I took too much feedback.
I wanted to be doing it right.
I wanted people to like it.
I wanted people to understand and identify with my characters.
I wanted to please.
Unfortunately, in my desire to please, I lost sight of telling the story I really wanted to tell. I lost sight of sticking to my vision. Does this sound familiar to anyone but me?
Now, before some of you put forward the question as to if I am railing against some negative feedback, the answer is NO. I have done that too, and this is definitely NOT that. I maintain my point:
Feedback is healthy!
What is not healthy is going to an extreme of changing everything you envision to meet exactly what editors and agents consider the accepted parameters of a novel or a series. Writing to market is important when your focus is writing as a business. I have worked in Corporate America for years, and I have a strong business mind. It is easy for me to view writing as a business, but the fact remains that I have a career. Writing is a passion. Do I want my work to sell? Absolutely! Do I want to make a million? Hell yeah!
But…what I have discovered is this:
Writing (for me) is an art, is a passion, has a voice, and has a personality. I find that the flavor of this that suits me best is first-person meaty fantasy, both in reading and writing.
I choose to write, to be an author, and to network with other authors and the community. As of yesterday, I hadn’t written anything new in a few weeks, probably a month. I had ideas, created outlines, thought about it, but I just didn’t have the juices flowing over anything I’d put down on paper. Maybe one day, I will revisit some of those. But also as of yesterday, I completed an outline that is sparking a fire inside. And as of the time I went to work this morning, I had written the first scene.
In my first series, I didn’t plan to write a series. I planned for a single volume epic fantasy. This is not to say that I am disappointed with The Caeteran Tales, but it landed somewhere very different than I had envisioned.
In my new outline, I am also planning to write a single volume epic fantasy. This time, I will stick to that plan. Also this time, I will tell my story in first-person. And this time, my target word count is roughly 180K words.
On Meaty Stories
Some of the most enjoyable stories I have devoured have been meaty. Below is a short list.
| Book | Author | Word Count | Narrator |
| Kushiel’s Dart | Jacqueline Carey | 276,706 | First Person (Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève) |
| Assassin’s Apprentice | Robin Hobb | 112,000 | First Person (Fitz) |
| Name of the Wind | Patrick Rothfuss | 256,000 | Third Person |
| Mistborn | Brandon Sanderson | 213,348 | Third Person |
| A Discovery of Witches | Deborah Harkness | 208,655 | First Person (Diana Bishop) |
| Eragon | Christopher Paolini | 157,000 | Third Person |
| Prince of Thorns* | Mark Lawrence | 82,000 | First Person (Jorg Ancrath) |
All-in-all, Jacqueline Carey is my favorite when it comes to first-person meaty fantasy. Each of her trilogies that revolve around Terre d’Ange run around 750,000. I’d say that these are the most thoroughly satisfying sets of books I’ve sunk my teeth into in…well…ever.
Given that my exploration seemed to be divided by gender, I went on a mission to find a male fantasy author who wrote a story in the first person. Since I did, and I claim to love First Person narrative, I feel like I need to read his work. Mark Lawrence has just made his way close to the top of my TBR list. And although the book mentioned is a scant 82K words, I would offer a link to his website where he discusses word count. I particularly liked his last statement:
“…the length of a book is primarily an indication of how much story the author has to tell rather than an indication of how wordy they’ve been in telling it.”
http://mark—lawrence.blogspot.com/2015/07/words-count.html
Here is one infographic, also from Mark Lawrence’s site that outlines his books as compared to a few tomes:
I do note that Mr. Lawrence has “more to say” in his more recent books. I do hope I enjoy Prince of Thorns and wish to continue to explore his journey a little more. I’ll definitely let everyone know.
Regarding my love for first-person
I have grabbed some first lines or paragraphs from the works mentioned above. For me, these are just powerful and force me to connect with the main character on a level that I don’t find possible in third person narration.
Now, please tell me that you are unable to make an immediate connection with these protagonists…
Circling back to the topic of FEEDBACK
When I seek feedback on my first-person writing, I frequently receive the statement, “I don’t know how she feels about what was just said, and I want to know that since you’re writing in first-person.”
To answer this ever-present question…
I do not want to communicate something the character DOES NOT feel, but I also do not want to TELL you EVERYTHING that the character might feel. So, in providing feedback to me, I really prefer that the reader tells me how he or she believes the character feels during the scene. Going forward, as I begin to seek feedback on my newest and current work, I will include the following prompt to the reader:
“Please don’t tell me that I have not told you what the character feels. Instead, tell me what you believe the character feels during this scene.”
I really, really like the first scene of the book I am currently calling Nentai. I do believe that this work will meet my definition of first-person meaty fantasy, and maybe I will share it on my site one day, but for now, I’m holding this epic story close to my heart. I will say that it’s for my son who has had a deep love for dragons from the very first time he encountered a story about them.
Come discuss first-person meaty fantasy with me…
Do you agree?
Do you disagree?
Do you like your fantasy meaty or scant? Why or why not?
Give me more examples! Build my reading list (not that it’s not already long)!
I can discuss this for a long time. Join the discussion in the comments below!
Many thanks…
In addition to the article cited above, I would like to thank Rachel Neumeier for her wonderful article Fat Fantasy Wordcounts: A second look. Much of my information on wordcounts stems from here, and there is much more than I cover.