For today’s stop on the blog tour, I have two different blogs run by C. Penticoff. Out of Your Write Mind is a blog with writing advice and various writers’ services. The guest post here is about a new approach to dealing with writer’s block and the reasons it occurs. Read the guest post here.The second blog, cpenticoff is Cassandra’s personal blog. Here, she did a character interview with Kaidan. Check that out here.
Tag: fantasy authors
Ariel Paiement and The Bane of Ashkarith – An Interview with Joanna White
Hey everyone, sorry this is so behind on updates for the blog tour! The last few days have been chaotic for me. So I’ll be posting up the blog posts done in the last few days tonight so you can all see where I’ve been hosted and what’s been going on.
This one was for yesterday, and Joanna White, a good author friend of mine, hosted me for an interview. She had some really great (and challenging) questions for me, and I loved working through them. Go check it out and take a look at her books. She’s a fantasy author, and her book Hunter released about a month ago while her second book, Shifter, released at the beginning of this month.
Sunday Sub-Genres: Mythic Fantasy
Introduction
This week on Sunday Sub-Genres, we’re taking a look at mythic fantasy. This is the sub-genre of fantasy that most pulls on fantasy’s mythological origins, though it isn’t always in the way that people would expect. The genre is as likely to use obvious mythological origins like Robin Hood or King Arthur as it is to create something completely new. The sub-genre has a lot going for it if you like works with strong magical elements and lots of mythical creatures. So, let’s take a look!
Defining Mythic Fantasy
Mythic fantasy is defined as fantasy that deals with the same themes as traditional myths but with (potentially) different names and powers of gods or mythological creatures that differ in some way from their traditional counterparts.
That’s a bit of a mouthful, I know. Basically, the extent to which mythic fantasy veers away from traditional mythology is up to the author, but it almost always contains some clash of the gods with the fate of the world in the balance. How this works out is also subject to a lot of interpretation. Some authors choose to pit gods from two differing cultures against each other, while others may choose to have gods from the same culture clash. Heroes may even line up behind the warring factions to add to the chaos further.
Writing Mythic Fantasy
Writing mythic fantasy gives individuals a large degree of space to build their world and setting in a variety of ways. If you like to create cultures that are built entirely around a deity or pantheon, this is a great option because mythic fantasy definitely requires that.
Let’s take a look at some of the unique parts of writing mythic fantasy.
Magic
The level of magic in mythic fantasy is very high. If the character isn’t human, it will have magic or some other fantastical trait. It just will. This means that if you aren’t going to use the traditional mythological creatures, you’ve got some serious world-building ahead of you.
This sounds fun to some people, but I know at least a few who read this are cringing. If you don’t like world-building, you can make your life easier on this front by using the traditional mythological creatures. But you won’t entirely get out of world-building because there’s your pantheon to consider if you choose to use new gods or goddesses.
Character Complexity
This is an area where things really can swing to some extremes. No matter what you do, characters will be complex. The question is just which ones will be. In mythic fantasy, there’s two options. Either the gods are highly complex, fleshed-out characters and the humans are basically non-complex pawns… Or the humans are so complex that they can drive the movements of the gods themselves. How you play it is really up to you and how you want to tell the story. Either leads to some interesting results.
Plot Complexity
If you’re looking for something that’s easy or middle-of-the-road, mythic fantasy isn’t your cup of tea. Plot lines in mythic fantasy can often be obscure or extremely tangled right up to the end, and like the myths they hark back to, every thread of the plot contains meaning.
Those who really enjoy mythology are the ones most likely to enjoy this genre both as readers and writers, though others who like complexity in plot may also like this type of fantasy. If you don’t like any of these things, chances are pretty high that mythic fantasy won’t be your thing.
Violence
This is a fairly significant point because mythic fantasy is different from a lot of other fantasy sub-genres. The violence here isn’t going to be overly gory or descriptive in most cases. You’re going to get some drownings at sea and a few lightning bolts tossed, but it won’t be cutthroat. It’ll be like the myths are. Sure, there’s violence. But it’s not described in gory detail.
Conclusion
Those are the key points of writing mythic fantasy. This can be a really fun genre to write if you enjoy complexity and world-building. If you enjoy neither, you probably won’t have much fun reading or writing this sub-genre. I’ve included some examples of mythic fantasy below. As always, I’ve marked books I haven’t read with two stars if I’m unsure of the reading level and one star if it isn’t appropriate for children and younger teens.
Further Reading
Rick Riordan’s The Red Pyramid and The Lost Hero
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion
**Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon
*Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy (best for ages 13+)
*Terry Brooks’ Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold (ages 13+)
*Tad Williams’ Shadowmarch
Richard Adams’ Watership Down
Work-In-Progress Wednesdays #10
For this week’s Work-In-Progress Wednesday, I’ve got an excerpt from On Anarchy’s Wings. In this section, Awnia has confronted Dabhan about Iradia’s refusal to help them and has asked him to help convince Iradia to stop rebelling against the King.
~~~
Awnia rose, turning to face Dabhan. He leaned against the door-frame of the mansion’s drawing room, his long legs crossed. “How good of you to visit, Nia.”
She lowered her head. How dare he behave this way after all he’d done? “I should have you arrested. But I’m going to give you one more chance to be the man you once were.”
“Are you, now?” Dabhan pushed away from the door and strode into the room. He knelt in front of her and reached out to brush a stray curl away from her face. “Fascinating. Just how do you plan on doing that?”
She smacked his hand away from her face. “Keep your hands off me.”
“Why?” Dabhan rose and ambled to the fireplace, picking up the fire poker to stoke the burning coals.
Why? Because his touch made her skin crawl. Because she wasn’t his. Because she was someone else’s. Just like she had been back when he’d first touched her. “You have no right to. That’s why.”
He stiffened. “I have as much right as—”
“No.” She straightened, her fingers clenching into fists in her lap. “You do not. I don’t belong to you. I never have. I never will.”
“Then it seems our interests do not cross, my lady.” Dabhan clenched the poker tighter and turned to her with a sly smile. “What do you want of me?”
“What I’ve wanted since I first came here to parlay. I want you to convince Iradia to join forces with Gabriel. Eclesia is facing the largest threat in her history. We have to be united.”
“No.”
“No?” Awnia rose from her chair, her nails digging into her palms. “I don’t think you understand, Dabhan. If you help, I can get you pardoned for your part in this. You can claim she made you do it.” She narrowed her eyes. Surely he wouldn’t refuse knowing his life was on the line. “But if you won’t help, then you’re going to be executed for treason. No questions asked.”
He shrugged and turned back to the fire. “How is our beloved King, anyway?”
“Fine, no thanks to you.”
Dabhan snorted. “The poison isn’t through with him yet. They’ve only burned out the plant-based portion.”
Icy fingers crept down Awnia’s back. “What did you just say?”
“They’ve only burned out the plant-based portion.” Dabhan placed the poker back in the rack beside the fireplace and turned to face her. “The magic-based portion will begin to work in a few days when he’s beginning to recover fully.”
Her chest tightened. They hadn’t saved him at all. He was still dying. They just hadn’t known it. Her fists trembled against her sides. “How do I reverse it?”
“Reverse it?” Dabhan tapped his chin with a sly grin. “You don’t. Maybe I will.”
She searched his face. What was his game? Was this another clever ploy to force them to cave to Iradia’s demands? “What do you want?”
He strode closer.
Awnia backed up, tipping her chin higher. Her heart raced in her breast, but she held her poise. He wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing her fear. Men like Dabhan thrived on fear and control. She’d seen it plenty of times. And she wouldn’t fall prey to his trap. “What. Do. You. Want?” Each word burst from her like a bullet from one of Earth’s machine guns. Sharp. Quick.
Dabhan took another step forward.
She took one back. Two could play at this game. She’d wait him out until he saw the game was pointless and told her his price for fixing his mess.
Her back hit the wall. When had their drawing room become so tiny? It hadn’t been this small when she’d received her late husband’s guests here. Had it?
Dabhan pressed close until she could feel every hard plane of his muscular body. He lowered his head close to her ear, his nose brushing the rim. “Simple. I want you. Marry me.”
~~~
That’s all for this week, everyone. What are you all working on? Feel free to share it in the comments below! Have feedback to share on my work or someone else’s? You can leave that in the comments too. Just remember to keep everything polite and constructive!
Until next time, everybody!
Bane of Ashkarith Blog Tour – The System of Deities
I know this has been a subject of particular interest for several Christian authors who are friends of mine. The biggest question has been, how do you handle God and deities in your books since you’re a Christian? That’s then followed up with where I draw lines with it since I am a Christian. So, we’re going to talk about the system of deities for Bane of Ashkarith as well as a little about how I usually handle the idea of other gods in my writing.
Deities in Alcardia and Bane of Ashkarith
To begin with, Bane of Ashkarith is not a Christian fantasy novel. It is written with Christian values embedded into it in many ways because no writer ever separates their beliefs entirely from their writing. My Christian worldview definitely shapes and constrains my writing differently than other worldviews would have.
But because it isn’t a Christian fantasy novel, I ran into a decision. What did I do with the idea of deities and gods in the world. After all, fantasy often involves some sort of pantheon or belief system. I could’ve left it out, but this would’ve made the world of Alcardia seem less realistic because what people group doesn’t have beliefs?
So, I chose to create religions and gods for them to worship. However, Alcardia is a bit different from the norm when it comes to its gods. Many of them never existed. People created them to explain natural phenomena, much like people have in Earth’s past when they worshiped the god of the Nile or the sun god. It allowed them a way to explain what they otherwise couldn’t.
For those that did exist, they weren’t actually gods in the first place. The lore surrounding them got started because these other beings were far more powerful than anyone could conceive of, so it was assumed they were gods. In that way, then, Alcardia really doesn’t have any gods at all. Not ones that exist or still live, anyway.
That’s how I’ve chosen to handle the situation of other gods in the various Alcardia novels. There is a One God that some of the people on Alcardia do worship, but since the planet was populated by a woman who believed she was a god, the information the people have on that god is minimal at best. This God is meant to represent the God of the Bible but isn’t referred to often because so few believe in Him or even know about Him.
General Rules of Thumb for Fantasy
But what about other novels and answering the question of dealing with pantheons when I’m a Christian? For me, I usually follow a few simple rules.
First, if the planet is entirely unconnected to Earth with Earth not even being an existing thing for the universe, I’m okay with the creation of deities. There’s no reason that this other universe wouldn’t have its own beliefs and even a creator because things don’t just start from nothing.
The second rule I follow is for those worlds that connect with Earth. If that’s the case, again, creation of a pantheon is okay, but here I don’t ever show interference or confirmation of those pantheon members’ existence. Basically, they’re just religious fabrications or people who were given more status than they should’ve been.
If there is a deity that actually interferes, then there will only be one, and that deity is meant to represent God. He may go by a different name in the world if it isn’t Earth, but it will be clear that it’s the Christian God being represented.
Usually, though, I just choose to go with bringing deities in as little as possible. They’re there to give a sense of realism and life to the world and to provide interesting cultural references or curses if needed. They may also be woven into the culture, but I never give reason to believe they’re real, as I mentioned earlier.
The final rule is for stories that take place solely on Earth. For these, I don’t create deities. First of all, there’s not much reason to because we have plenty of them to choose from already. Second, if it’s based on Earth mainly and that’s where the people are from, the only deity I’m going to show as being truly a god is the Christian God. That’s just how I do things because I’m a Christian.
Honestly, though, I haven’t really run into this one much because I rarely write fantasy that takes place on Earth. Earth may be a feature, but it usually isn’t the main setting, so the books all fall into either the first or second category.
Conclusion
So, that’s how I deal with the creation of gods and goddesses both in general and in the Alcardian universe. I’m happy to discuss this with people further if anyone has more specific questions. This is, as I mentioned earlier, just how I do things. I read a lot of fantasy that doesn’t adhere to these rules, but I prefer to keep things black and white morally and religiously in these ways so that no one can get confused about my worldview or what I believe.
I feel it’s the fairest representation of myself and the fairest way to be honest with readers. The goal is that no one has to wonder what the worldview or message is of the book.
I’m not trying to shove any of my beliefs down a reader’s throat, and I’m also not going to try to hide it in the story so that people swallow it without realizing they did. It is what it is, and my hope is that it’s clear and un-hidden while still allowing for the reader to enjoy the story.
At the end of the day, my goal is to write something that can be enjoyed by lovers of fantasy everywhere regardless of their beliefs. I know I can’t be all things to everyone, but I want to craft something that many people can enjoy, not just a narrow band of people.
Bane of Ashkarith Blog Tour Kickoff
This is a bit of a special post, but I wanted to let all of you know more about the launch for Bane of Ashkarith. As the title of this post indicates, I’m doing a blog tour! I’ve got lots of great authors who have graciously allowed me to do author and character interviews, Q&A’s, and other guest posts. The tour starts today and will go through to the 30th, the day right before the book launches.
I’ll be sharing the guest posts throughout the tour via my Facebook author’s page. Additionally, beginning the 29th and running through the 31st, I have a launch party going on through Facebook. There’s a great line up of authors on the schedule to share about themselves and their books, and we’re going to be having fun games with prizes at the end. So if you like reading, particularly fantasy, then head over to the event and check it out!
There will be more information about Bane of Ashkarith and the characters in upcoming posts, so keep an eye out for those during the blog tour. With that said, tomorrow I’ll be interviewing with Katie Jenkins. Be on the look out for that link and the info about it on my Facebook page and on my other writing sites. I’ll also post the link and information up here on the Fantasy Nook.
Sunday Sub-Genres: Superhero Fantasy
This week, we’re back with another fantasy sub-genre post! As a quick update, the plan is to move posts on this topic to Sundays as part of a new Sunday Sub-genres blog section. The posts will be every other week, just as they had been when they were on Fridays. This post is the first in that set of posts.
As I build up content, there will be some other new blog sections as well that will be posted on other days of the week. So, keep an eye out for those.
With that announcement out of the way, this week’s fantasy sub-genre is Superhero Fantasy. Most people might not think that superhero stories are fantasy, but given the elements they possess, almost all superhero stories are considered fantasy. Let’s take a look at the sub-genre.
Defining Superhero Fantasy
As mentioned earlier, most superhero stories are fantasy. However, let’s discuss a little more of what this sub-genre’s definition entails. Superhero fantasy usually involves a main character with some sort of super human ability, a strong sense of morality, and a hidden identity. Usually, the genre centers on fighting crime because, after all, that is what a superhero does.
Typically, superhero fantasy also involves villains that are unforgivably flawed. They must be stopped at all costs because they won’t stop unless someone makes them. There is no redeeming quality about the villains of superhero fantasy. Often, the villains also have a super human quality to them in superhero fantasy. Whether or not it’s an actual superpower may depend on the story.
Now, that’s all well and good, but what makes a superhero story truly a superhero fantasy? Well, the biggest thing that makes it fantasy is the presence of strong fantastical elements. Does the superhero have their abilities because they come from another planet like Superman? Or do they gain the abilities because of some strange, mystical (and definitely non-scientific) circumstance? If they do, chances are your superhero story is considered fantasy.
On the other hand, if your story has superheros with powers because of special suits or science experiments gone wrong, it’s more likely that your superhero story would be closer to the sci-fi side than fantasy. And if that’s the sort of story you’re writing, that’s okay. It’s just not the focus of this post. (Though some of the elements for writing it may end up being the same regardless.)
Writing Superhero Fantasy
With the definition of superhero fantasy clear in our minds, let’s take a look at writing it. These elements can actually be used to write any superhero story. The way you use them is what will determine whether it’s fantasy or sci-fi.
Superhero
It goes without saying that a superhero fantasy needs a superhero. The trouble is that superhero fantasy and heroic fantasy can get their lines crossed a bit here, so some discussion of what a main character should and should not be in a superhero fantasy is needed.
First off, a heroic fantasy usually involves one or more heroes, and those heroes may or may not have special abilities. That’s pretty straightforward, mostly. If they don’t have powers or it’s not one main character with the powers, chances are, you’re not writing about a superhero.
The more subtle difference in superhero fantasy versus heroic fantasy is in the character of the characters. Heroic fantasy’s characters are almost always going to be flawed. Sometimes even fatally so. Morality can be a bit of a gray area for these characters.
Not so with superhero fantasy. If you watch even a little bit of the superhero genre on TV or read comics, you’ll quickly notice that the main characters of these stories don’t have any gray areas with their morality (for the most part). They know right is right and wrong is wrong.
The bad guys aren’t going to get away on their watch if they have anything to say about it. Don’t bother trying to bribe these guys or throw them off the scent because they’re not going to give up until the villain is behind bars (or subjected to some form of justice).
This is an important part of crafting a superhero. The powers have to go hand-in-hand with a strong moral compass and unwillingness to compromise with evil, whatever that may be in a given story.
Despite their high moral code and strict adherence to it, superheros still have struggles. Often, superhero fantasy will go into the psychological struggles of the characters and will show why they ultimately choose good over evil. Or don’t if the goal of the story is to have a superhero gone bad.
Either way, superhero fantasy is going to explore who the superheros really are and what made them that way. The genre is heavy on characterization, so good characterization absolutely cannot be ignored.
Supervillains
This was mentioned earlier, but one of the defining traits of the antagonist for a superhero fantasy is that they’re a supervillain. Like the superhero, they have some sort of special power, but they’re using it for evil. Whatever their motivations, they won’t stop until the superhero puts an end to it.
Also mentioned above was the note that the supervillains have no redeeming traits. This is the biggest difference between heroic fantasy and superhero fantasy. Heroic fantasy might afford the villain some quarter by way of a redeeming quality or saving grace. Superhero fantasy doesn’t. After all, you have to balance out the unflinching, morally pure hero somehow. And what better way to do that than to have an utterly despicable antagonist?
But just because the supervillains are entirely evil doesn’t mean they’re flat. Superhero fantasy thrives on deep characterization, so if you’re going to write this genre, your readers are going to expect you to get deep into the psychological and emotional aspects of the villain. Why are they doing this? What’s their intention? What drove them to do what they are? All of those questions are ones superhero fantasy often explores.
Crime
Usually, superhero fantasy deals with crime. The superhero needs somewhere to turn his mind when he has such a hatred for evil. This comes out in fighting crime.
Fighting crime could occur in a number of ways. First, the character may be a vigilante, working without sanction or help from the local authorities. Arrow and his gang are a good example of this. Second, they might be working independently of law enforcement but with full support from the local authorities despite that. This would include heroes like Superman.
The final category is the superhero that works with law enforcement, even if law enforcement may not know about their two identities. For example, Barry Allen works for the police department in Central City, but he’s also the Flash. Not many of the cops he works with know this, but even as the Flash, he has the goodwill (if not the support) of the police department. A twist on this one that does seem more popular is to have superheros who worked with the government or in the military at some point or another. Quite a few popular superheros have done this, with Captain America being one of the better known heroes.
Conclusion
These are only the main things that make superhero fantasy what it is. There’s certainly more that can be learned about the genre. This should help you as you get your feet wet in the genre, but it should only be the starting point. I’ve added some additional resources and some examples of superhero fantasy below to help you as you do further research.
If you enjoy reading in the superhero fantasy sub-genre, what books do you recommend? You can put them in the comments. Just please ensure that you make a note in your comment if the book isn’t clean and appropriate for children since I do have some younger readers who may be reading through the comments too.
Further Reading and Resources:
Blogs:
Best Fantasy Books (This blog has a bit about the genre, but it also has a fair number of suggestions for books in the genre.)
Books:
*= Not for children
**= Unsure of reading level; exercise caution
Brandon Sanderson’s Steelheart
Jeremy Kraatz’s The Cloak Society
**Tracy Hickman’s Wayne of Gotham
**Marissa Meyer’s Renegades