[juzzza]

Hi Gary,

I hope you don't mind me posting this in your forum.

Let me say upfront, that I am a fan of the Gemquest series, and as you know, you are getting VERY positive reviews for your books. But, as a writer of EPIC FANTASY and one who is proud to do so, you are of course going to face critiscism from tough crowds, I am thinking of readers who frequent places like Dead Cities for example and fans of the New Weird, who seemingly hate elves, dark lords and quests of the epic kind.

I read an old interview with Matt Stover today and he said the following:

The black-and-white approach of most fantasy is bull***t. It’s laziness. By positing a Force of Supernatural Evil, the writer is relieved of the necessity of motivating his antagonists. “The Devil made me do it!” Or his protagonists, for that matter. “Of course they must be destroyed! They’re EEEEEvil!”

Now I have my own views of course, just why the above does not apply to your novels, but what is your take?

I will also state upfront that I am not trying to stir up trouble, the above is of course, a tiny portion of the complete interview and shouldn't be read out of context, also, Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle sit right next to The Twins, The Awakening and The Shards on my shelves quite happily.

[Gary Wassner]

I don't mind in the slightest. I think it's a great question.

I post on Deadcities and they are a tough crowd. Many there are very opinionated and some are just plain nasty, but hey, I am a New Yorker! Opinionated? Tough? Elitist? That doesn't bother me. Exclusionary? That would bother me. Closeminded? That would bother me. Simplistic? That would bother me. I wouldn't post there at all if I didn't feel it was worthwhile in some ways to do so. Many of the conversations are intelligent and interesting, and after all, it's just another venue where people who love to read and write gather.

I have not read that interview with MWS. I also have not read his books, so I really know very little about what and how he writes. Maybe he had some authors specifically in mind whom he doesn't like and whose books are not very good. There is a lot of bad stuff on the market, and when you browse the shelves at B & N and look at how some imprints represent their authors in such a juvenile fashion just by virtue of the cover art alone, it does make you wonder sometimes about the entire fantasy genre. I am sure though that MWS has to deal with critics as well, for obvious reasons, regarding some of his own books, and I am condident that he does so with his usual aplomb and soft-spoken, gentle touch that he exhibits on the boards.

I am not sure I understand why anyone without an agenda would bother to criticize or call into question the props that another author chooses to use. I can see someone criticizing if the style is weak or the grammar is awful, or if story makes no sense and is boring and repetetive, or simplistic and poorly written. But it really comes down to what you say and how well you say it, not what clothing your characters wear or how they furnish their homes or landscape their yards, or who their neighbors are.

I am not lazy, either philosophically or physically. In fact, I am so the opposite of a lazy thinker that I don't even identify with that analysis. No one else could ever know what another author might worry about in the middle of the night -what thoughts and issues might haunt him or plague him or cause him joy and relief. How could you classify with any accuracy someone's else's motivation? And how could you call all of these disparate authors 'lazy' because they choose to write using props that they find best express their talents?

But I have never felt as if I had to run after a trend in order to please anyone. I don't write for the purpose of selling books. I write what appeals to me and what I am most comfortable writing. My voice is an honest one, a heartfelt one, and it speaks through characters and environments that I can envision, identify with, and enter easily when I write. I feel a strong affinity with the world I have created and the conflict that overshadows it. I could just as easily have written this story in a modern world - the conflict is not specific to a world populated by elves and dwarves and Dark Lords - but I would not have enjoyed doing that half as much. Stylistically, I would have been smothered by the restrictions. The flights of my imagination would have constantly been undermined by reality, and I probably would have crashed and burned early on in the attempt.

My characters are anything but black and white. They may begin that way, but as things evolve, the lines blur around them all. Sometimes someone's vision may require that he define his parameters in one way first in order to emphasize the transition more poignantly later. Props are props. They have meaning in context, and it's up to the author to define them and endow them with his or her own personal significance. If you can do that well and tell an interesting, stimulating, intelligent and entertaining story, then how could the choice of worlds ever undermine your efforts?

[juzzza]

:eek: There needs to be an applause smiley here.

Fantastic answer Gary.

[Sammie]

Agreed! Well said, Gary.

[Gary Wassner]

From one natural blonde to another, Sammie?

[JRMurdock]

I think you're just stirring up trouble, Juzz. :)

And as always, Gar, great response.

My own opinion is this: If anyone writes a story and thinks the idea it honestly 'unique' must remember that all stories have been written. We're just re-writing them in a better fashion. Or as Gary said, using our own voice.

Just because a person writes a story doesn't make it unique and it also doesn't mean that someone writing in a classic format with a classic plotline is doing anything wrong. Matt was just voicing an 'opinion' and we all know the saying about opinions. Everyone's is wrong but mine.

[Gary Wassner]

That's the thing, isn't it? If you strike the right chords and touch your reader in some wonderful or profound way, or if you write in a way that people just identify with the emotion and the sensibility, then you've done a superb job. It's the reaction that should be the determinant here, not what I utilize to generate that reaction.

To assume that you are writing something totally unique and unheard of is simply to delude yourself. Criticize my talent, not my clothing.

[JRMurdock]

What do you say to those wo don't even try to disguise their storyline as something unique nor any of the characters in it?

In this case I'm referring to Rowlings who flatly admits everything in her books is taken from other books out there. Nothing is original. And to argue the point further, she's not even that good, at least in her early writing. Yet she now sits on top of the heap of Fantasy writers for creating something 'original'.

[Gary Wassner]

I don't care much for the appelation 'original'. It never mattered to me. What matters is that I write something that you can relate to and that you are affected by. Are there original emotions out there that we haven't discovered yet? Have we found new words for sorrow and joy? Yet no one criticizes me for using them, these old, unoriginal words and concepts. It's the combinations and the symmetry that you create in your own unique way that matters. I can change the placement of a word and change an entire meaning. But we are limited by our language nonetheless.

Rowling struck a chord in kids today. As fantasy authors, we should all be grateful to her for making the kids of the world aware of the genre. They are growing up on fantasy and they will most likely read it when they are grown. What defines greatness anway?

[KatG]

Actually, IMO, Rowling is quite original, to the degree that anyone is. (For me, at this point, there is no such thing as a truly original writer, though there are creative and innovative writers.) She is using traditional elements -- a wizard school, centaurs, etc. -- especially the British, sort of J.M. Barrie traditions, but she's combining them in new ways and she has a modern edge that really holds her whole fictional universe together. Her writing does speak to kids and to many adults, and she juggles the balance between dark, serious themes with kid fun very well, I think. Her books are very layered and complex with rich emotional themes, but plenty of slapstick humor too, which I think is why many people don't take her seriously. The drama behind humor often gets overlooked.

I think that Matt was voicing a frustration that some fans have with a lot of the epic fantasy out there, and that's okay. But I don't think it's laziness that makes authors tackle the idea of a big evil as much as it is interest in that particular subject. By having the big bad, as they used to call it on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," you personify something you want to deal with. In Gary's case, he's being quite the environmentalist with it. Tolkein was looking at the horror of war, something that Jackson really picked up and emphasized in the movie versions. Free will versus destiny is usually a conflict in there somewhere.

I think it will be good for fantasy and particularly epic fantasy to spread out more, and authors can be true to what feels right for them, but I would love to see fans and detractors of what they see as best or worst in epic fantasy, ease up on dismissing each other so often.