The Architecture of Fantasy

What do you imagine when you think of your favourite fantasy world?

Growing up, my favourite was Lord of the Rings, and my imagination was helped along by the beautiful illustrations in my Mother's copy of the book. Tolkein did these illustrations himself, and they are beautiful and distinctive. I always quite fancied Rivendell, even though I think I knew even then that I was probably more of Dwarf stock than Elvish.

Of course by the time I started university, Peter Jackson had created his own vision, often using Tolkein's drawings to fantastic effect. And it was then that I realised my actual place of abode in Middle Earth was probably most likely to be Mordor. Black goes with everything.

Incredibly, in the course of my work, I do come across some real places that just make me fell fantasy worlds have crossed over into ours. Real-life buildings and places (and events sometimes, suitably described) are often an inspiration to me.

So here are some of my favourites:

1) Calascibetta, Sicily

I love a hilltop town, and Italy/Sicily definitely have the best I've come across. Some I've visited cannot be adapted for cars, and so people still us donkeys to carry goods up and down the lateral stairs which stand in for towns. Towns were of course built on hilltops mainly for defence (see also: castles), but there were added benefits near flood plains. Also, good views. I can see Calascibetta featuring as either a target or a place of refuge in some of my writing.

Excuse me, but your town appears to be leaning somewhat.

2) Rila Monastery, Bulgaria

The Bulgarian painted monasteries are incredible treasures, every one, and Rila may just have the best setting. Surrounded by verdent mountains and the towering legends of vampires and conquerers. Bulgaria, like its neighbour Romania, is steeped in myth and tradition, and even now is not visited as much as it should be by those seeking new wonders.

One story of colennade is not enough. Rila has FOUR. Practical and decorative.

3) Sky Caves, Mustang, Nepal

I just love the name of these - Sky Caves. They are carved into the crumbling yellow mountain cliffs of Mustang, symbols of a long-departed world which we now know almost nothing about. Many of the caves are tombs, but others show that people lived there seven hundred years ago. A mysterious people who live their lives in inaccessible caves? Sounds made up, may just be true.

4) Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany

THIS IS A REAL PLACE. Every time I see one of these Bavarian Castles I am convinced they are some sort of joke, photoshopped in to fool tourists. These confectionary castles would not hold you well if someone really wanted to lay siege, but that was never the point. Neuschwanstein was built on the ruins of a much earlier fortification, in the 1850s.

Captive prince/princess in tower optional

5) Machu Picchu, Peru

An obvious choice, perhpas, but when I visited there earlier this year I was amazed at the structures. The walls are famous for having no mortar, just incredibly finely cut stones which fit together without a single gap. We still don't know how the Inca's did it. People have suggested mirrors to focus the sun's rays into a cutting beam. Probably it was just a phenomenal amount of hard work with other stones, smoothing out appropriate grooves and notches. But I like the idea of some sort of pre-mechanical laser beam too.

The Sun Temple shows the incredible shaped stones, built into the bedrock

I'm not suggesting that fanasty writing is all about the places, but a big part of it is creating a world people can imagine for themselves. Often the places I come up with are influenced by places I've seen, or been, or researched for work. The real world can be a great starting point for a fantasty world, and you can bring things from all across the globe, and all through time, into the place you are creating.

The sky's the limit!

Men at work

Today's debate will be on the role of women in the fantasy workplace.

Here are the things I learned about being a woman from reading high fantasy:

• I should wear long dresses at all times, even when harvesting a field or birthing a pig (helping a pig give birth, not literally birthing a pig. I don't read those sorts of books)
• I will, at least once but probably more, need to be rescued by a man
• If I don't need to be rescued then I am probably one of those kind of women who wear leather corsets and knee-high boots
• I will be in love with one of the lead characters in my life. It will be either unrequited, leading me to do something silly which he then rescues me from (see above), or so passionate that he will do something silly in defence of me and need rescuing himself

Honourable mention: Eowyn in Lord of the Rings. She kills the Witch King of Agmar. So kudos for that. But the unrequited love bit is still true even there.

My lead character is a woman who leads an army and rescues herself. This is not because I hate men, the partiarchy, and the fact that trageted advertising online keeps trying to sell me a pink i-Pad, but because I wanted to see if there was a reason for the male-centric focus of the fantasty genre.

Turns out there really isn't.

I hope I have wirtten a strong and interesting character who just happens to be female, rather than 'a strong female lead'. Similarly, it doesn't twist the human language too much to refer to her army as 'troops' instead of 'men'. In fact I only use gender-specific terms (witch, bitch etc.) as a form of insult, because really indicating that someone's gender is the only way of identifying them is an insult. In my novel there are no gender roles and the work people do is based on their abilities, not two of their chromosomes.

I've kept gender-specific pronouns though. I'm a fantasy writer, not a linguist with an inventive turn of mind.

I'd love to know who else is writing in this way in the fantasy and sci-fi genres? Or in any genre? Just think, if everyone did it then we could have twice as many interesting characters to read about!

I Did Not Have a Dream

I've been away in Peru and the US the past three weeks, pursuing my other great love (apart from writing), which is heritage and archaeology. I studied archaeology and have worked in the UK heritage sector since leaving university, so it was a great and really edifying experience to go and see five world heritage sites in the incredible terrain of Peru. I experienced everything from desert to jungle, sea level to 5000m, and it was frenetic but incredibly refreshing at the same time.

When I got back I started thinking again about my writing. Partly I was inspired by my brother, Simon P. Clark, whose much more advanced and fascinating blog you can read here: http://www.simonpclark.com/. He has been writing fiction almost as long as he could actually write, and has always dreamed of being a published author. And sometimes a fireman. But mainly an author. It's inspiring to see him now properly represented and ready to start submitting his first MS to publishers both here and in the US.

Unlike him, I did not have a childhood dream of being a writer. I really really wanted to be a vulcanologist, or at least a geologist. This somehow got transmogrified into archaeology, which I have been passionate about since school. So writing came a) relatively late (26, gasp) and b) as something of a surprise. I only started writing as a sort of joke/experiment, after a friend and I were bemoaning the predictability of some traditional fantasy. But now I have just turned 29 (I know) and am becoming steadily more serious about it.

Luckily I know people who might at some point have met people, possibly at a party, possibly whilst drunk. These people may or may not wish to look at my work. One of them, my fantastic friend/editor Liza Jane Thompson, is working hard on improving my distinctly unpolished style. Stuff may happen. I'd like if it did.

So, whilst I admire the determination and commitment of those who have always known their writing dream, I really raise a flag for those of us who just wrote something and then kind of thought about it afterwards. It feels sort of flimsy to say that, but perhaps passion can grow in both directions, before and after the fact. Right now I would say I have definitely caught the writing bug. But I'll keep the archaeology in reserve.

Just in case.

Epic

Game of Thrones has brought fantasy into the general consciousness in a new way recently. The hype around the casting and filming of The Hobbit has been the tail end of the general enthusiasm for the genre that has hung on since the LOTR films came out in the early 2000s. But Game of Thrones is quite a different beast, and has achieved quite a different audience.

Perhaps it's the fact it's a TV series, with weekly cliffhangers that make it addictive. Perhaps it's Sean Bean meeting ANOTHER untimely end. Perhaps it's all the nudity. But George R. R. Martin's series has been a worldwide success.

A column in the Evening Standard magazine on 13 April gave the headline news:

• The TV series is airing in 150 countries;
• 522 000 people in the UK watched the first episode of series two. Only 98 000 tuned in for the fifth season premier of Mad Men.
• Each TV series costs £38m to make.

Pretty impressive. The books continue to appear and continue to be popular too, although I have to admit, not with me.

I personally dislike the format of telling a story through individual characters having their own distinct storyline. Although I hugely admire the planning and forethought that goes into it, I get irritated by an author of such omniscience that they seem to be weaving you into some great tapestry, with only them knowing what the eventual design will be. I think that for some people this is the appeal - there is no chance of guessing the ending. Martin's characters are interesting too - not as delineated between good and evil as many fantasy novels, LOTR included.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the success of the series. Despite the obvious fantastical world, there is something 'real' about the scenarios. This may be something that appeals to those who usually dismiss fantasy as too simplistic. But as my post below says, one of the reasons I love the genre is exactly this simplicity.

Telling a story through alternating characters will never be a device I employ. Apart from anything else, I don't plan stories like that - I write chronologically and only know what's coming next after I've written the previous bit. I'm willing to admit that is potentially a limit on the scope of my writing. I will never devise an entire language for my worlds, as Martin has in creating Dothraki. And I will never write a series of eleventy-billion books. I just don't have the scale of ambition. But I will write the sort of books that I would like to read. And which author can do more than that?

Is this wise?

A couple of weeks ago I started jotting down a couple of ideas for a story.

As with most fantasy writers, my stories take place in a world created especially for them. A whole world demands more than just one story, and I've always planned that my original story be the first in a three-part featuring the same characters.

This new story was set in the same world, but in an entirely different place and with completely different characters. I've so far written just over 7000 words, just to see if the original idea actually works on paper (screen). I think it does. But then I would say that. I have sent said words to my sister for an objective opinion.

Is it wise to start another story before the previous one is completely finished?

On a lighter note, I bought some reduced-price garlic prawns in M&S earlier and am planning a posh stir fry. This can only end in wonderful deliciousness and no food poisoning at all in any way.

This year the world ends

Hundreds of disappointed readers will have noticed that I have not put up a new post in well over a year. The initial clamour was hard to deal with, but the news of the impending Mayan Death Ray destroying the world this December made it worth focusing on other things. On the off chance that the world does NOT end, I have decided to get back to it.

Other things that have happened this year:

• I moved house. Not far, but it took a long time. A bit like the final push to Mount Doom.
• I changed jobs. Again, not a big move, but it means I work in an office rather than at home. This may affect future writing operations...
• My brother got married to a lovely lady from New Jersey, and we all went out there for the wedding.
• I bought a new pair of boots and wore them all winter.

But perhaps most pertinently:

My MS now stands at almost 80 000 words and the story is complete, but the editing is only just beginning. It is hard to edit your own story (and wise people don't go it alone, as my brother can tell you: http://plottypus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/on-vital-importance-of-not-editing-your.html). Luckily my great friend and professional editor *extraordinaire*, Ms Elizabeth Thompson, is also doing a great job.

Followers of my brother's blog, Plottypus, will also see that he is currently at 'beta-rader' stage (who knew that was a stage?). His book is fantastic, so imaginative and with real pace. It's been a privilege to read it in an early stage, and make some comments. When he's done with this re-write, he's on my list of people to get to read mine.

While all this is going on, I am really enjoying Twitter for the writer's communities on there. It's a great use of social networking to connect with people who are involved in the same sort of things as me. When I've delved a bit further I'll post about some of my favourite follows.

In the meantime, duck and cover everyone.