Babel Clash

Why do I write in two different genres?  It was an accident.  But, wait!  I can explain.

Seanan did a great job starting us off on the topic of why we write in multiple genres.  I agree that the concept of genre is rigidly defined and controlled, and there’s a good reason for that.  The good reason?  Readers.

We readers are looking for specific experiences when we pick up a book.  If we like horror, we want to be cowering under the covers.  Mystery?  Give us clues until our brains hurt.  Romance?  Love, baby, in all its frustrating, funny, heartbreaking goodness.  
   
As readers, we gravitate toward wanting to explore certain experiences when we crack open those covers.  And to make those experiences easy to find, books–heck, even  movies and songs–are sorted into genres.

But here’s a little secret: a lot of the things those genres contain can be found in other genres.  No really, it’s true.  Because no matter how we sort and separate, books are about human experiences, human emotions, human everythignness.  Cue my best Charlton Heston voice:  Books are made of people!

So when I started writing books, I didn’t give a lot of thought about which genre it would be categorized into.  Well, I knew there was magic in it, so it would fall somewhere under the fantasy umbrella, but really, I was focused on this woman who had been betrayed by her powerful father, and then blamed for his murder.  I was focused on loss, and love, and hatred.  I was focused on self-doubt and survival and humor while all the world, and magic was falling down around her.  It turned out to be an urban fantasy. 

Then I had this other story.  This one had magic in it too, so naturally, I thought it might be a fantasy of some sort.  But it also had these wondrous steam-powered machines, and was set in the 1800s with mad-scientist devisers.  To me, it was a story about a man grieving a past he could never recover, and fighting for a future he never dreamed of.  It was about a woman who wouldn’t follow the rules, and it was about the price of undying love.  That one turned out to be a steampunk novel.

Which is what I mean by I write in two different genres by accident.  For me–and I daresay, for most readers–genre is a nice way to clue us in to what we’re going to experience. Wise writers understand what those expectations are and willingly provide it.

But really, at the end of the day, we’re all looking for ripping good stories about people.  About us.  About human experiences, whether those experiences are set in a close facsimile to the real world with folks who remind us too much of our family and friends, or if they take place in extraordinary locals where the main characters aren’t even human–and still remind us of our family and friends.
   
So maybe I should restate my original answer.  I write in different genres by accident because hey, I’m only human.

Well, for my books. Well, mostly.

(I’m jumping back a couple of posts here–but both Brandon and I have been traveling on and off during this Babel Clash, so apologies on some non-linearity.)

From a storytelling standpoint, the more magic you have in a world, the more problems you create, so I’ve dealt with magic differently in my two series. In the Night Angel books, I wanted to start with magic users being incredibly rare. The paradigm was that magic users were like professional athletes–the average person would go their whole life without ever seeing one in person, though they would hear about them. Of course, if you’re in the right circles, you might know or see a lot of pro athletes. But, like pro athletes (depending on the sport), the average person might walk right past one of them on the street and never know it.

That built in some mystery from the start. Then I did something that seemed to hit different reviewers differently. I had a magic system that I understood, that had scientific limits, and costs and clear delineations–but then I filtered that through a medieval, pre-scientific worldview. Then, I figured that each culture is going to have different views of magic: even if magic works the same physically everywhere, a culture is going to affect how people use their magic or understand it. Then I layered in the fact that my main character is an ignorant kid, and some people lie to him about how magic works. And then I put in–for one culture–a parasite that would feed on magic, making those infected more powerful in the short run, but ultimately destroying them.

Sound complex? It was, but I had a handle on it. It had costs and limits–they just weren’t what the main character always thought they were. That preserved some of the mystery, made things fun as they unfolded, and makes re-reads of the books fun. (Wait, you’re telling me Durzo lied?! Um, yep, Durzo lies.)

But the complexity comes at a cost. And this is why I was asking Brandon earlier about how he thinks outside perceptions of a book or its author affect how you read a book. I think Brandon can get away with explaining little about his magic system (systems?) in The Way of Kings precisely because he’s known as a magic system guy–his magic is always well thought out. Because I was a new guy with The Way of Shadows and because there are contradictory statements made about magic and no Irving the Explainer to say How Things Are, you could see the magic as just a mess. Contradictory. Contrived. Deus ex machina stuff.

I don’t know if there’s a way around that except having your reputation grow. It’s like when you show an awkward teen romance: Is this dialogue awkward because the characters are tongue-tied, or because the writer sucks at dialogue?

Regardless, I decided to go the opposite way with The Lightbringer Trilogy, to take on something harder, and juggle the problems having lots of magic creates. This world has a proto-scientific understanding of magic. They’re disciplined in their study, and they get most things right. (It helps that I’m using light as the basis for the magic, and light is innately funky and mind-boggling and cool and mysterious.) I also have the kid taught stuff that is (mostly) true. The fun comes from me making solid rules and making each magic obey the laws of physics: you want to throw a fireball the size of a house? Fine, can you lift a house?

Each color of magic has its own attributes: red is sticky and flammable, blue is hard and smooth, and so forth. Then I gave each drafter a finite amount of magic they can use in their life–use it fast and you’re hastening your own death. Then I gave each color a metaphysical effect on the drafter who uses it: using lots of blue makes a person more orderly, etc. Then I–well, there’s more.

But the rules are simple and analogous to those from real systems. I think this does strip away mystery, but adds wonder. It’s like a physician who comes to understand many processes of the human body, but becomes more and more awed by life itself.

To use a less grandiose metaphor, I see this magic as a box of toys. I hope people will play with them and put them together in ingenious ways. Indeed, the enjoyment and the terror for me as a writer is feeling like I’m in a footrace with my own fans. Who’s going to come up with the coolest uses of these luxins? Them, or me?

It’s an experiment, and I think that’s one of the greatest things about fantasy. We get to play. And if we keep that sense of play, of fun, then the magic–and the stories themselves–will be wondrous.

So on that note, Dane, thank you for having me on to talk about some of the things that I love. And Brandon, thanks for sharing your thoughts–and for swatting aside a few hand grenades. It’s been a real pleasure talking with you. And to my fans out there, if you haven’t already, Check this guy out. His books are great.

Brandon,

I’d love to agree with you–but I think you’re wrong. Readers say that the following books in a series are worse because they have been worse. I can’t think of any epic fantasy that’s gone beyond a trilogy that has gotten better. (Doubtless, there must be some, because I don’t think that the structure problems are insurmountable, and I absolutely expect you to give me a big counterexample with your forthcoming work.)*

But I think the reasons for the slumps are simple–and they aren’t because readers are impatient or misunderstand stories. I think it’s because the longer the series, the more a writer’s limitations show and the more the novelty of a world wears off.

If you have a character tugging their ear to express frustration every five pages, no one will notice it in a ten page short story. But in 5,000 pages, there are going to be a thousand ear tugs. Pretty soon, any time someone tugs her ear, readers cringe. And they should:  it’s bad writing. It’s just bad writing that you don’t notice in a short span.

If a writer’s greatest skill is exploring new worlds and by book 5 they’ve explored everything, book 6 is going to have to rely on different skills that the writer isn’t as good at.

I also see lots of reasons why book 8 could sell better than–but not be as good as–book 1: the cumulative effect of eight marketing campaigns, eight years of those first awesome books gaining new readers, and eight more years of people hearing about a writer over and over and finally giving him a try.

But maybe we’ll have to agree to disagree, and I don’t want to tear anyone down; I’ve just been curious to explore the structures of our genre and the challenges inherent in it.

So let’s talk about magic. How do you keep magic, well, magical over multiple books? How do you balance the rationalist impulse of “I need to explain how it works so it seems well thought out and balanced” with some of that Harry Potter-esque sense of wonder? How do you balance the ability to surprise your readers with being careful not to make the magic feel like a deus ex machina? Is the presence of magic in fantasy about more than adolescent power trips? Must the functions of magic be analogous to other technologies or physical processes, or can it be truly alien?

To paraphrase one of the commenters, if you dissect the magic too much, do you risk it dying on the table?

*Maybe I’d put JK Rowling as an exception, arguing that eventually what she was writing was epic fantasy. And it did get better. Mostly.

Batman IS NOT magic.  Batman IS fantasy, however.

Lee & I seem to be working with two very different definitions of magic.  In Lee’s definition, magic is synonymous with fantasy and the words can be used interchangeably.  This definition leads inexorably to the conclusion that Batman is magic because a) superheroes are magic and b) Batman is a superhero, therefore c) Batman is magic.  But, in my humble opinion, it is a sweeping generalisation to assume that all superheroes are magic.

In my definition, magic is a subset of fantasy.  To use the language of deductive reasoning, all magic is fantasy, but not all fantasy is magic.  I’m not disputing the fact that Batman is fantastic.  Batman is wicked fantastic.  Some of the stuff he can do is pretty darn unlikely.  But the fact remains that it is unlikely, not impossible.  Yes, it is very, very unlikely that one person could be the best at everything - detecting, disguising, super-sciencing, athleticism, you name it - but it is not impossible.  Yes, it would be bizarre for “real” people to run around dressed like bats, but it is not impossible.  Yes, it is unusual for real people to keep a Rogues’ Gallery, but Allan Pinkerton did and he was a real dude.  If it’s at all possible, no matter what the odds are against or how unlikely or remote, in my definition, it is fantasy not magic. 

Magic is the impossible.  It’s controlling wind (like Shannon Hale’s Goose Girl and Patrick Rothfuss’ Name of the Wind), it’s the ability to fly/levitate (like Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn), it’s shooting bolts of fire (like Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files).  It’s the stuff that us mere mortals constrained by the laws of physics just couldn’t possibly do.

In conclusion, I would like to offer this Venn diagram as irrefutable proof that Batman, while he is fantasy, is most decidedly not magic.

You’re absolutely right, Lee.  It’s not that I don’t like magic in my stories.  I just don’t like ill-defined magic.  I rebel against the use of magic as deus ex machina, but at the same time, I dislike book that provide a litany of rules and regulations regarding the uses of magic.  I want something that strikes a balance between magical free-for-all and plot-stopping thirty thousand commandments  governing the capabilities of and uses for magic in any particular world.  I don’t need to know that Superman can’t peel a cellophane S off his chest (because in my world he can’t.  Period.) unless it’s critical to the plot.  As a reader, I want to be able to assume that if you’re telling me magic can’t raise people from the dead, it’s because it has bearing on the plot somewhere down the line.  And if it doesn’t, I’m gonna be frustrated.

What I want is a book that convinces me that, while the author may not see the need to give out every detail & bit of minutiae about the rules governing magic, she or he knows what they are & is committed to playing by them.

There are two things I have to disagree with, though.  1) Batman is not magic.  I think Sheldon put it quite admirably.  The Green Lantern is magic.  Batman is a deep voice, a fortune that could rival Bill Gates’, and a crap ton of training.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Dark Knight, but he’s not magic.  2) VCRs are totally obsolete.

As sort of an aside and since Lee brought up weird things going on with the magic of Superman . . . Does anyone out there watch Smallville?  Can someone explain to me what on earth wish-fulfilling kryptonite is?

What is the # 1 fantasy game?  If you had to pick, what gets the nod?  Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering?  Is there a dark horse candidate?  I’m taking Magic.  It is a game in constant evolution and incorporating vast #s of possible variations.  It has puzzle solving and logic and even some poker-like bluffing.  Plus, it features  iconic fantasy images and concepts.

For best Science Fiction game, I’m tempted to take Halo, but I’m going with a board game instead.  Have you played Starfarers of Catan?  That’s a fun game that captures the feeling of racing through space on a voyage of discovery, and it’s perfect for parties.