Is It Done Yet?

Today was one of those days I can relate with J.R.R. Tolkien. I rearranged my room to take advantage of the air flow and do a 'spring' cleaning. It also afforded me a chance to attack the very growing pile of research notes I have for Tangled Threads.

In some of my previous posts, I have mentioned this ever-growing, neverending project I started back in 1996. It had started innocently as 10 pages of prose I saw as a potential short story. I brought the pages and a growing timeline of my world to work on when I went on a three week vacation in Ireland. When I came back, I had 70 pages of prose. I tapped into something but I didn't know what.

To be blunt, it was quite scary. Up to this point in my writing career, I had just written short stories. Back in the 80s, I started on a story, My Dearest, which grew out of control. After about 60 typewritten pages, I put it aside. I wasn't ready to tackle a novel. The same feeling surfaced in September 1996 with all that I had written for Bitter Drops, as it was called then.

One thing many people do not realize how difficult it is to write good science fiction or fantasy. When writing fiction, the reader already has the requisite anchors, land & time marks. If in my story, I write about the day JFK was killed, even if you are 18, you have a vague idea what I am talking about. But if I write about the day Gwefldn died, all there is a huh?

It becomes more complex because in a sci-fi or fantasy realm, aspects like social mores, laws, religion, etc. need to be 'invented'. A good example is Dune. Frank Herbert developed a desert planet and needed to conceive the ecology of the planet and the social mores of the native Fremen. It is the same for Lord of the Rings. Tolkien had to create a time and 'world' that was consistent. A place that felt real yet different.

A sci-fi or fantasy writer has the advantage the reader is willing to put up with more 'explanations' than an average fiction reader. To get the know the new world, some history has to be given. Some explanation on things like magic is necessary. But the writer has to walk a fine line not to make things dry and boring.

So to create a classic like Dune or Lord of the Rings, it takes time and hard work. People do not realize how long it can take. Tolkien started the mythology of Middle Earth that was eventually published as The Silmarillion in 1917. In 1937, after the publication of The Hobbit, he started on a sequel which evolved into Lord of the Rings. By spring 1953, he completed the final revision of The Fellowship of the Ring. It took him sixteen years to get his opus completed.

I have read the original drafts of the first chapters of the Fellowship. Save the names of the hobbits are different, there is no Strider. Their guide is a hobbit named Trotter who wears wooden shoes. Be it notes or comments to people around him, Tolkien always claimed he had no idea who this character was or what his purpose was in the story. Yet in time, Trotter evolved into Strider and a critical part of Lord of the Rings was set.

For most people who have read Lord of the Rings, they don't see the work that went into produce this classic. I find myself on the same journey. As Tolkien wrote his opus, he had people around like C. S. Lewis who saw the epic evolve. And most likely asked the same question I get every so often: "Is it finished yet?"

Unlike Tolkien, I see more stories and novels for the world I am creating. Tolkien's main interest was always The Silmarillion. And writing a good long story. With Tangled Threads, there is the Elegy Series, The Nordst Quest plus some ancillary stories on the backburner. This puts me a different position than Tolkien.

In some ways, I am embarking on the same task Robert Jordan has done with his World of Time series. The big difference is things are not going to burificate with my series. But like Jordan, I need a consistent framework with things like religions, philosphical schools of thought, laws, constitutions, social details like birth & death rites.

Some people have said I am going overboard. But when writing fiction, if I have a Jewish character, things like bar mitzvahs do not have to be explained. An Irish wake is well known. But an elvish wake, or caoine is not known because I am creating it. But when it comes into the story, I had better have a good understanding of it so the reader will also quickly understand the ritual.

Yet all the research I have done into ancient Celtic and Amerindian rites, folklore, etc. etc. hasn't helped me with brick walls and cul de sacs I have gone down the past ten years. When the first two volumes were finished in 2001, I could sense there was a problem with the story. It didn't have a good hook. It didn't have a sense of danger or threat that you need in fantasy. And, no, not some evil dark lord out to destroy civilization as we know it!

And there were a couple of characters like Brân or Máth who were not revealing to me who they were and why they were there. And for some reason, one character Dalldav kept haunting me. It wouldn't be until January 2002, when I was living on the streets of Montreal, things started to click. I saw the threat, dark and evil, and I had my hook.

The next draft of the first two volumes were written and I was much happier. But during the summer of 2005, as I reread the pieces and listened to peoples' reviews, I could see it was still not working. The style I was using wasn't working. Some of the main characters were starting to sound the same. I had not captured their voices.

So the last half of 2005 was experimenting with ideas on how to play with the style to let each character's voice come out. And now I feel I have found it. Which has meant a massive re-edit which I am currently doing.

What is the point of this babbling? Well, when you pick up a book like Lord of the Rings or the Wheel of Time series and marvel what you are reading, don't forget what you are holding took years to create. Many ideas were thought up and discarded. Whole sequences were written to be thrown out. Characters evolve. Things change as brick walls come up and need to be torn down. You have the finished product. Yet the writers of these books had to deal with the constant question: "Is it done yet?"