Post #3: Past Failures

Failure. It sucks…. like, really sucks. This shouldn’t be new information to any of you out there. Writing seems to be the one thing that I repeatedly fail at no matter how many times I try. It is really easy to say that you want to write a book, in fact every retired person I’ve ever spoken to has said they want to write one in the future. However, actually executing this thought is not as easy as it seems. That’s because, like me, they like the idea of coming up with stories, but have no idea how to go about the actual craft of writing. Every piece of literature I’ve read on the topic, and there has been a lot, has been completely different. So… why do so many people fail?

Attempt #1

The first time I failed at finishing a piece of creative writing that I had started was when I was twelve. I was completely engrossed in the ‘Eragon’ series by Christopher Paolini at the time and learned that he had started writing the series when he was just eighteen. I don’t know why, but this inspired me to start writing my own book. Now, how young I was may impress you… but it really shouldn’t. What I ended up writing was basically an alternative story line for my favourite Gameboy Advance game called ‘Golden Sun’.

I ended up getting bored with this project after writing only a few pages. Writing was hard, and at the time I was more interested in reading, watching, and playing the stories invented by others than I was in coming up with my own. Looking back at the plan I had for that fantasy series, it seems it would have been incredibly repetitive. If anyone remembers the series ‘Deltora Quest’ by Emily Rodda, mine would have been very similar. I’m not saying that those books were bad, in fact my mother frequently reminds me of how obsessed I was with the series, but they were children’s books. By that I mean that they had a very repetitive and easy to understand story line, and I didn’t. and don’t, want to write a children’s book.

Now, you might be wondering what the point of talking about these failures of mine is. And the simplest answer is, so that I don’t fail again in the exact same way. So, what have I learned from this failure? I suppose the answer to this would be to come up with a story that can actually retain my interest while I’m writing it. In other words, to not simply write about my fleeting fancy. I need to write about something that will hold my attention for the long haul… because this is not going to be a short process.

Attempt #2

The second time I tried to write a book was when I was twenty. I was in university and had obtained a friend who was just as much of a fantasy nerd as I was, and am. This was the first time I really put thought into making the story as original as I possibly could. I was constantly thinking of ways to make my story different from anything I had ever read before. Unfortunately, every time I thought I had succeeded, my friends would inform me of a story that was almost exactly the same. I must admit… it was infuriating.

The result was, that no matter how many different fantasy worlds I came up with, I never actually started writing the book. I drew rough sketches of really badly designed maps, but as soon as I realized that it had been done before, I quit. Not proud to admit it, but I quit a lot when it comes to writing. It actually seems to be the only pattern in my writing when looking at everything I’ve done.

The fix for this problem is simple… don’t quit. At this point, so much has been written in the fantasy genre that its actually really hard to be completely original anymore. In reality, the story I end up writing will probably be an amalgamation of every story I’ve ever read. And that’s okay. That’s the important thing to remember. Its more productive to think of the story you want to write and then put your individual spin on it, no matter how original it is. Just persevere with your story until it’s been written in a way that you’re happy with.

Attempt #3

This particular failure I’m going to blame on the internet and people who give advice on how to write a book. Now, this is advice that you are going to hear quite often when talking to others about your writing efforts. And this is, “just write”. I have found this to be the absolute worse advice when it comes to writing a fantasy novel. Another version of this is, “writers just write”. And this infuriates me. Anyone who wants to sit me down, and say that Tolkien sat down one day and just started writing and out popped fifteen languages and the ring of power, deserves a slap. Now, yes, I did quit this time to… but I’m gonna blame other people because this is my blog and I can do what I want.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t practice writing as much as possible, but don’t expect this method to produce an adequate fantasy novel. No matter what you do, you’re going to end up with things that don’t make sense in your book since you don’t write a novel in one day. You need to plan out your fantasy world, decide on the rules and quirks that make your world different from reality. When I tried to, “just write”, my fantasy world ended up being an exact replica of ancient Greece with no discernible story line.

I had tried to write about what I know. But what I know is history, meaning that it has already occurred. While it’s always fun to take inspiration from the legends of the past… it also happens to be rather predictable. Fantasy is fun because it deals with events that could never happen in real life, otherwise… what is the point.

Attempt #4

My most recent failure was probably the most frustrating experience of my life. Now, I need to explain one thing before I get into this. When I write, I like to have a map in front of me so that I can track my characters journey. I like this to be a fairly accurate map in terms of distances so I can estimate how long it would take to travel from place to place. However, I also happen to be really bad at drawing… like, terrible.

These two facts ended up resulting in the most frustrating cycle I have ever been stuck in in my entire life. I would draw a map, then decide the map wasn’t good enough, which then meant that I would draw another map, which also ended up not being good enough. The result was that I never actually ended up writing anything… which is problematic when writing a novel. I would quite often draw a map which ended up looking like an actual place in the world, like Europe. I was obsessed with trying to make something that was completely original and that I had never seen before, which seems to be a contradiction. I should also mention that when I don’t like something I’ve done; I usually just delete it from the face of the planet. This, in retrospect, is quite an obvious reason for why I seem to make the same mistake… repeatedly.

I then committed the unspeakable millennial evil… I googled it. I first tried the method of throwing uncooked butter beans at a piece of paper and tracing around them in order to create land masses. This method just resulted in a map that made no sense when paired with the story. Next, I tried just drawing a map from scratch. It should be fairly obvious where this method got me since I can’t draw. Lastly, I downloaded a map making program called AutoREALM. This was by far the best method as I was able to effortlessly create entire worlds without having to rely on my nonexistent artistic abilities. However, I went too big too quick. The maps I made were for entire planets when my story didn’t even require an entire continent.

Conclusion (#5?)

Drawing maps is hard. Having everything make sense is a difficult feat to accomplish. After all, a fantasy world needs to be somewhat believable otherwise it’s hard for the reader to truly immerse themselves in the story. Having a border with snow on one side and desert on the other makes zero sense. You also need to have a map that supports the story. Having your protagonist start directly next to their objective would make for a rather short adventure novel. It’s important to get each step of the process done correctly so that nothing holds you back when you begin writing, but you should always feel comfortable enough to go back and change things that don’t end up working. And also… don’t quit.

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