Friday, 31 May 2013

Stop, Exposition Time?

Fairly recently, I read a chapter in a book (not going to name it here) that quite literally consisted entirely of exposition delivered by a character in direct speech; it was not very short either, but rather trailed on an on page after page. Although it made sense for the character to be doing this, the whole thing felt dull and artificial, interrupting the action (which, up to that point, had been building up to something a lot more exciting) in favour of a monologue. But how does one handle such a situation properly anyway? Is there even a way to do that? Opinions likely differ, as on all story-telling devices, and I won't consider myself an "expert" on them, but here's what I feel is some decent advice about exposition.

As the old writing advice goes, "show, don't tell". Evidently, the most obvious way to handle exposition well is to not have it. If there is any way to demonstrate the information through events and "natural" dialogue instead of just blatantly spelling it out, then that usually works a whole lot better, as it does not interrupt the flow and leaves something for the reader to figure out and "work" to comprehend as a whole. "Time skips" to the past can be useful for this if the important event happened prior to the story's present, but care must be taken not to confuse the reader (unless you are deliberately trying to do so, which is rarely a good idea unless there's a very good reason for it); containing the past sequence within its own chapter may help, as it clearly separates it as a self-contained instance

Sometimes, however, there's just no practical way to show all the information that the reader requires. What is to be done when something absolutely needs to be delivered by a character? The most important thing to remember here is that such a segment is not you (the author) explaining things to the reader. What you have on your hands is a character who is talking in-story, likely to other characters. Let them talk as the character they are and let others react to what they are saying where applicable. Make sure lengthy exposition does not interrupt the flow of the story. No monologue is important enough to stop time, and if something else should be going on during it, make sure it does go on! Having the exposition interrupt an interesting scene completely is a surefire way of making the reader wish it were finally over or, in the worst cases, just skim through it in order to return to the action.

In monologues, do not forget to take advantage of the speaker's personality (if possible) to make what they are saying entertaining to read. Some people are good at semi-improvised story-telling; perhaps your character can wrap the information in an exciting tale in its own right (if they cannot do it by themselves, maybe they can read from a book-within-your-book that does a better job at dramatising the events in question), perhaps they can spice it up with their own remarks and humour. Whatever they do to make the explanations more bearable, make sure it fits the character and "sounds" like something that would realistically come out of their mouth. Never talk through your character as if you were mind-controlling them.

All in all, exposition is a tricky thing to do. However you decide to handle it, don't forget its primary purpose of helping the reader understand your story better; do not let boatloads of background knowledge overtake said story.

Thursday, 23 May 2013

Ssalia and the Trailer of Avienot

As one might figure from the title, I made a trailer for Ssalia and the Dragons of Avienot! This has actually been sitting on a shelf for a while, but I finally finished it up and uploaded it today. Pictures say more than a thousand words and videos consist of a lot of pictures, so without further ado, here it is:

This is a YouTube short url. No, really.

Almost every part of it was made by me, though some public domain samples were also used. Hope everyone enjoys, and if you'd like to support me and/or the book, please consider sharing the video!

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Book Review: "Campaign of the Gods" by Mike Evers

I somewhat recently finished reading The Hopfield Tales: Campaign of the Gods by Mike Evers, having picked it up alongside several other (digital) books during a SmashWords promotion, so I thought I'd use the opportunity to write a quick review of it to share on my blog (in its core, I also put it on the book's SW page; this one is a bit more elaborate, but may contain minor spoilers). Though listed as children's Fantasy, the book promises time-travelling vikings and a battle against the forces of Hel, but can it live up to the expectations inspired by such concepts?

To a degree, it certainly can. While perhaps not the most epic of Fantasy stories, Campaign of the Gods is definitely one of a kind. Using wit, humour and action (as far as one can get away with it in a children's book and perhaps a little bit further), the author forges a unique blend of a viking myth and mundane modern Britain that does not take itself too seriously. The characters are likable enough and opportunities for portraying the absurdity of vikings in the modern day "Kingdom of York" are cheerfully seized, and the interactions of the Norse deities in the frame story were a welcome addition (but could have come into play a bit more). Sadly, I felt that the initially very promising plot began to stagger towards the end - not to the point of becoming entirely unenjoyable, but a slight decline in quality was apparent and the action seemed to lose focus a bit. Once the premise is set up, the book does not offer many new surprises, further hampered by an ending that feels like not much was really accomplished. Another thing that bothers me is the wolf Fenrir, who, after his dramatic introduction, seems to spend the entirety of the book not really doing much. More could and should have been done with the setup at the end, but I felt that the book ran out of steam towards the climax, which is a shame.

Something to be noted is the book's educational aspect; every chapter begins with one or two appropriately concise paragraphs about a historical or mythical concept or personage related to vikings, and a few other things are explained in the text itself. While there isn't much new to learn for someone moderately versed in viking lore and some liberties were taken with the in-story norsemen (notably the infamous horned helmets, which are popularly connected with vikings, but were probably never worn by them; it's a shame because the book could have taken the opportunity to clear up this common misconception), it does make for an interesting gateway to the viking world.

(If you missed the initial link and don't want to scroll up, this book can be found on SmashWords here.)

Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Lanschilandia comic page: A Spoony Experience, pg. 13

I finally had the chance to update my webcomic, Tails of Lanschilandia, again. I don't know if this marks a return to somewhat more frequent updates, but probably not. There's a lot of other things I need to waste spend my time on, and I am not exceptionally motivated to work on the comic at this time.

Here's the page!

I am contemplating if I should announce all future updates to the comic on this blog (in addition to my Google+ and the webcomic's Twitter account). It gives me the ability to say stuff about each page, but I may not always have anything relevant to say and people may not care much either, especially if they come to this blog for my indie Fantasy writing.

I had some trouble with this page for some reason and it took way more effort than it should have. I like most of the line art here, though, so I'm thinking it may have been worth it. I don't enjoy drawing line art at such a low resolution very much and will probably switch to a better method once this story is done (I would have done so mid-story, but the difference in art may be too jarring). I am enjoying the exaggerated expressions and emotions on this page and how Kakralomino defies the panel border in panel six. The second-to-last panel had to be mirrored because I drew Bad Bat's scar on the wrong side of his head and didn't want to redraw it, as it was already coloured by the point I noticed it. The inside of Kakra's chamber has inexplicably changed after page 11, but background consistency is for... people who pay more attention to it.

Enjoy the comic page!

Thursday, 9 May 2013

Terran Creatures in Alien Worlds

No matter how fantastical and strange a work is, Earth's creatures, real and mythical, somehow tend to find their way into many, many Fantasy worlds. From mundane animals like horses to the mythical "classics" like dragons, they all pop up ever so often in universes otherwise very much unlike ours. So how can terran species and mythical creatures exist in such worlds?

Suspension of disbelief may be required, though worlds may also be able to get away with it by picking up on the theory of alternate Earths or just explaining it away with magic. The approach I have taken with my Pelsatia universe is mainly a linguistic one: I identify my creatures with similar, but not identical, beings known (to some degree) on earth (the snakes, dragons, katoblepa, etc. in my works all are identified as such for this reason). The idea is to give readers a basic concept of the creature in question or aspects of it, perhaps even a clear mental image, without even having to describe it, as well as preventing having to use a potentially clunky name from one of Pelsatia's languages. In a way, such identification can even be considered a translation; in absence of a word for the exact thing or concept in question, the closest term is used instead (which is a lot less strange than it sounds, as even on Earth, not everything has a direct equivalent in every language and translations may need to rely on this (or keep the original word intact, which would not really translate it at all)). It does not always work, but when it does, I believe it tends to work really well, and maybe other works can benefit from a similar approach.

Wednesday, 1 May 2013

Inspiring Music for Fantasy

To me, there's nothing more inspiring when writing Fantasy, painting or drawing Fantasy-type scenes or doing anything else related to Fantasy than Celtic or Celtic-style folk music. Ever since I discovered it (and amplified by an obscure fan-made RPG adaption of Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three that I remember playing, which used this kind of music as its soundtrack; Bast knows where I found that game or who made it), it has been inspiring the way I think and feel about Fantasy. There is something about it that just embodies the kinds of Fantasy worlds I love and all that I like about them.

So, as I currently don't have anything else to post, I am sharing with you a well-tried but not necessarily well-known source of Celtic MIDIs (which I discovered many years ago via a MIDI search engine) and the source of at least 90% of the folk MIDIs I like to listen to when in need of inspiration, Ron Clarke's website on his "Tadpole Tunes" and other Celtic MIDIs:

Click me, I'm a link!

For those too spoilt by better quality audio, there's a nice free program called JetAudio to enhance the sound of MIDIs (with some options for customisation), which also works as a general audio (and some formats of video) player and converter and is highly recommended. (Tadpole Tunes provides some songs in other audio formats, but from what I can tell, they don't use real instruments and may not sound very different from MIDI playback.) Maybe some other Fantasy authors (or artists, role players, or whoever else may be inspired by Celtic folk) can benefit from this little treasure trove.