Writing a fantasy book series

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Writing a fantasy book series

Hello, so i guess the title says it all...you probably not interested because i'm not a professional write like the witcher series writer, but i found it interesting to try, i already had several ideas, which is why i said "series" on the title, currently i have planned a trilogy, but i probably will have more later on in the progress, anyway already begun writing it all, trying to put mature, choices in it, consequences etc...
I already made a huge progress and i boosted it so i could finish the first one before the end of the summer.

I'm probably boring you all, and you're not interested in the whole written above. :sad:

The community here is huge i must say, and i wanted to share this for a bit, maybe someone will be interested in this. :hmm:

Just a little note, i don't know why i'm writing this right now, i posted a thread about this on AJSA, some people seemed to be thrilled with my ideas and the whole book thing, the idea became a little popular and they wanted to help me, which is why i'm able now to boost this book so quick that after few full days i may even finish it, or at least the draft version of it.
I hope the community is approving this whole thread, because it doesn't really relate to the witcher although it inspired me a bit, but i hope the community is very welcoming.
Thank you for reading and your time, if you have any questions about this project, let me know, and i'll do my best to answer them.
 
Can't find anything wrong with expressing yourself, so go ahead. Maybe give us a synopsis and some insight into your motivations so we know what to expect. And post a link to your story when it's finished, preferably in a platform independent format like PDF.

Just a quick advice: write in your native language (don't know if it is English). If your writing is good someone will translate it, but you need deep mastery of a language in order to convey the subtleties of literature.
 
anyway already begun writing it all, trying to put mature, choices in it, consequences etc...
I already made a huge progress and i boosted it so i could finish the first one before the end of the summer.

So it is an interactive e-book? I haven't read it so I dont wanna judge, but a piece of advice, dont try to go for quantity for the sake of a "trilogy" and dont make deadlines for yourself because it wont end up well. Let it grow organically. For example when I think something is an amazing idea, one month later I start to dislike it and I change it a lot.
But it would be good to put a piece of your work here if you want feedback :).
 
If i wrote it in my native language it may come out horrible, i was thinking about it at first but it sounded so bad and read horribly that i just i couldn't do it, so i switched to English, i represented few chapters that i already wrote to my classmates, they claimed it's like a professional wrote it.
It may not be perfect, but i'm trying my best to write every detail possible, and make it as good as it can be.
I may not be that successful, and may not put all the right keys of literature in it, but to tell the truth, it may look like a fine RPG...
 
Success and failure is just an illusion :). If you write something good a certain group of people will always enjoy it.
 
but a piece of advice, dont try to go for quantity for the sake of a "trilogy" and dont make deadlines for yourself because it wont end up well. Let it grow organically. For example when I think something is an amazing idea, one month later I start to dislike it and I change it a lot.
But it would be good to put a piece of your work here if you want feedback :).


I'm not going for quantity, everyday i'm coming up with a new idea that fits to the storyline, and i forgot to mention the protagonists change each book. I started writing it around a month ago and i already made huge changes, i made the story more developed, made more ideas for the future that could actually make a trilogy. And then again, everyday something changes, like yesterday i just wrote a whole new chapter that did cross my mind, that actually made the next chapter more reasonable to begin with...

I would put a piece of the work, but i'm not sure what to put really, to tell the truth the last chapter was my favorite, but then again each chapter i'm growing so you may see this chapter as meh...and the next one may seem much better.
 
Yeah you seem to know exactly what Im talking about :).
Different protagonists for each book sounds cool. Will sure check it out when it comes out, but like I said, if you want some serious opinions it would be good if you could make a some description or linking a few pages from some arcade would be best.
 
Yeah you seem to know exactly what Im talking about :).
Different protagonists for each book sounds cool. Will sure check it out when it comes out, but like I said, if you want some serious opinions it would be good if you could make a some description or linking a few pages from some arcade would be best.

I don't know why, but i have this some sort of fear would want to steal the idea and claim this as their own.
in short (really short) it contains: lessons, vengeance, greed, love, hate, death, twins, brothers, prison, powers (not the usual magic stuff, something different - no fireballs coming from people hands), war, invasion, rebels, revolution, order, betrayal, choices and consequences.
And alot of cities...that i came in mind few days ago, again the fact that something always changes...
 
I don't know why, but i have this some sort of fear would want to steal the idea and claim this as their own.

That is a common paranoya among people who spend too much time alone working on their project :).
You really dont have to fear anything from linking a few pages to showcase your style.
Besides, how can you stir up interest in anything if you dont show what it is?
 
That is a common paranoya among people who spend too much time alone working on their project :).
You really dont have to fear anything from linking a few pages to showcase your style.
Besides, how can you stir up interest in anything if you dont show what it is?

I made a PDF of my latest chapter, where i could put it so people may view it?
Although it may not put the general\main idea of the book or what it's all about it's just like a side quest that needed to be done so i could continue the story, to give reason for the next chapters.
I could give other chapters to view, but they are still in "Draft mode" because i haven't touched them since i started it, which means the changes that were made aren't in these chapters yet.

The characters in this chapter may appear in the second book.
 
@TheWhiteBleidd: I don't really want to dissuade you from writing, but as someone who was somewhat involved in the literary society, I feel honest critique is the only way to support a beginning writer. If you'd want to continue writing not just as a profession, but even as a hobby, you must be prepared to face critique, which is especially daunting if administered by strangers that are interested in using your works to boost their own egos. Might as well start in a friendly environment, like this forum ;)

First and foremost what strikes me in your posts is that you don't have the conviction. You don't know what piece of your story you'd like to share with us, meaning you don't really want to tell a story; remember that if you write something, you usually write it for someone. If you don't like your story enough to share it with others, then it's probably not good enough anyway. Either scrap it and move on to something else, or polish it so that you'd start to like it. Or share your unfinished story with someone, wait for his critique, then use it to improve your work.

Make no mistake, writing only seems easy, but it's not. From what you wrote, even though you intend to write whole three books (a common beginner's idea, myself included :p) you don't have your story planned, even though you are already writing it. For you right now it may seem like a good idea, but for anyone who'll be reading it, and who'd have done some serious reading before, it will be immediately apparent - and hard to bear.

In reality, writing a novel is a rather mundane process that usually looks somewhat like this:
1. You have an idea for a story. Good for you!
2. You spend couple of months planning your story. How to write it? Who will be the narrator? What characters will be involved? Who are they? Why are they in the story at all? What are relations between them? What is their background, how do they feel, how do they think? What will be the outline of the story? What main events will be taking place and why? What smaller events will be taking place and why? In what locations? In what time span? And so on, with hundreds of various questions. Some people end up doodling hundreds of pages in dozens of notebooks, or have sheets of paper covering the floor, or (like Sapkowski) have their walls covered with post-it notes. On many occasions the notebooks contain more information than the final book.
3. During the planning phase you also do research: about the times, about the history, about the beliefs, geography, weaponry, specific scientific theories, castle siege tactics, horse breeding, cheese making, kamasutra, various other things you'd want to include in your story. Research is important. Especially since there will always be the one guy who knows nothing besides the single thing you did not research, and he will bring you down so hard you'll cry for the next two weeks :p
4. Once you have everything set, start writing.
5. Writing is about filling standard pages with text. A standard page is 1800 characters, spaces included. Two hours of work on one such page is considered a reasonably fast pace.
6. During writing some changes to various aspects of the story are inevitable. Hence good planning is paramount. Remember: reader will spend far less time reading your book than you writing it. This means that even finishing your book he will remember facts from its beginning, many of which you'd have forgotten somewhere in the middle of your writing. And he will sneer on you. Good planning will help to minimize the sneering occasions.
7. Once you complete your story, put it away for at least couple of weeks, preferably couple of months. Best would be couple of years, but only rarely writers can afford that. The time is for you to get detached from your story, to the point where you'd be able to enter the role of the reader.
8. Read the story. Deal with the "WTF!?!" and "did I really write that?" moments you'll experience at least 5 times on each page.
9. Make necessary changes and corrections. Re-read the story, make even more changes and corrections.
10. After several iterations command someone to be your proof-reader.
11. Think hard on your proof-reader's opinions, some of them will surely be of merit, but some may want to point your story in a different direction than you intended. You're the author, you must decide.
12. After that you (or preferably someone else) do editing. It's a wonder how many broken sentences and stupid mistakes one can make while changing things in his text.
13. Hooray! The story is finished. Go eat some ice cream.
14. Face the torrents of critique going your way on the Internets.

Having said that, I do encourage you to write! Most of professional writers started similar way. And I do like the fact that you're interested enough in books to give writing a try. Just be prepared that your first creations will suck (I know, done that myself), and if you'd want to improve, there's a lot of work to be done. If I may, I'd suggest two things: do not try to write a book (or a trilogy!) at your first try. Start with a short story. Or a couple. They may be about the more interesting events you wanted to put in your books, but shown as distinct episodes rather than parts of a larger story. Short story is far easier to master than a long one. And the second advice: write in your own language. Writing in a language that is not your native makes it way harder to judge whether what you're writing sounds good or not.
 
@TheWhiteBleidd: I don't really want to dissuade you from writing, but as someone who was somewhat involved in the literary society, I feel honest critique is the only way to support a beginning writer. If you'd want to continue writing not just as a profession, but even as a hobby, you must be prepared to face critique, which is especially daunting if administered by strangers that are interested in using your works to boost their own egos. Might as well start in a friendly environment, like this forum ;)

First and foremost what strikes me in your posts is that you don't have the conviction. You don't know what piece of your story you'd like to share with us, meaning you don't really want to tell a story; remember that if you write something, you usually write it for someone. If you don't like your story enough to share it with others, then it's probably not good enough anyway. Either scrap it and move on to something else, or polish it so that you'd start to like it. Or share your unfinished story with someone, wait for his critique, then use it to improve your work.

Make no mistake, writing only seems easy, but it's not. From what you wrote, even though you intend to write whole three books (a common beginner's idea, myself included :p) you don't have your story planned, even though you are already writing it. For you right now it may seem like a good idea, but for anyone who'll be reading it, and who'd have done some serious reading before, it will be immediately apparent - and hard to bear.

In reality, writing a novel is a rather mundane process that usually looks somewhat like this:
1. You have an idea for a story. Good for you!
2. You spend couple of months planning your story. How to write it? Who will be the narrator? What characters will be involved? Who are they? Why are they in the story at all? What are relations between them? What is their background, how do they feel, how do they think? What will be the outline of the story? What main events will be taking place and why? What smaller events will be taking place and why? In what locations? In what time span? And so on, with hundreds of various questions. Some people end up doodling hundreds of pages in dozens of notebooks, or have sheets of paper covering the floor, or (like Sapkowski) have their walls covered with post-it notes. On many occasions the notebooks contain more information than the final book.
3. During the planning phase you also do research: about the times, about the history, about the beliefs, geography, weaponry, specific scientific theories, castle siege tactics, horse breeding, cheese making, kamasutra, various other things you'd want to include in your story. Research is important. Especially since there will always be the one guy who knows nothing besides the single thing you did not research, and he will bring you down so hard you'll cry for the next two weeks :p
4. Once you have everything set, start writing.
5. Writing is about filling standard pages with text. A standard page is 1800 characters, spaces included. Two hours of work on one such page is considered a reasonably fast pace.
6. During writing some changes to various aspects of the story are inevitable. Hence good planning is paramount. Remember: reader will spend far less time reading your book than you writing it. This means that even finishing your book he will remember facts from its beginning, many of which you'd have forgotten somewhere in the middle of your writing. And he will sneer on you. Good planning will help to minimize the sneering occasions.
7. Once you complete your story, put it away for at least couple of weeks, preferably couple of months. Best would be couple of years, but only rarely writers can afford that. The time is for you to get detached from your story, to the point where you'd be able to enter the role of the reader.
8. Read the story. Deal with the "WTF!?!" and "did I really write that?" moments you'll experience at least 5 times on each page.
9. Make necessary changes and corrections. Re-read the story, make even more changes and corrections.
10. After several iterations command someone to be your proof-reader.
11. Think hard on your proof-reader's opinions, some of them will surely be of merit, but some may want to point your story in a different direction than you intended. You're the author, you must decide.
12. After that you (or preferably someone else) do editing. It's a wonder how many broken sentences and stupid mistakes one can make while changing things in his text.
13. Hooray! The story is finished. Go eat some ice cream.
14. Face the torrents of critique going your way on the Internets.

Having said that, I do encourage you to write! Most of professional writers started similar way. And I do like the fact that you're interested enough in books to give writing a try. Just be prepared that your first creations will suck (I know, done that myself), and if you'd want to improve, there's a lot of work to be done. If I may, I'd suggest two things: do not try to write a book (or a trilogy!) at your first try. Start with a short story. Or a couple. They may be about the more interesting events you wanted to put in your books, but shown as distinct episodes rather than parts of a larger story. Short story is far easier to master than a long one. And the second advice: write in your own language. Writing in a language that is not your native makes it way harder to judge whether what you're writing sounds good or not.

Few problems, i will have to join the forces next year so i won't be able to wait *moths\years* before i'll start reading it.
I do already have someone who will perfect the book after it's done...
I consider the story to be beautiful and quite interesting, but i have to make changes in the first few chapters before representing them because after the changes that were made later i need to create one whole story and it will look hollow.
I do appreciate your opinion and i will accept any critique that will come, but from each chapter to the next i feel a progress of growing which is why showing the lack of skill that i had in the first few chapters may be unreasonable, or at least after i'll put the changes that were made and then accept the critique.
I do seem to lack research that needed, but it is also a fantasy book, but it is correct that comment was reasonable and i should do more of that.
If considering that a page ( i researched it) contains around 250-350 words, each chapter i write goes around 15-25 pages per chapter. (just pointing that out...)
Believe me, i do have those WTF moments when i review what i wrote, i had many broken sentences, contradiction etc...
The problem is my native language is poor, lacking many words, we don't even have the word "honor", i can't see this kind of book to be written in that language, i have read books in my native language before and they all were boring, lack of character description, but when i read books in english it felt differently, better.

Last but not least, i do appreciate all your notes that you mentioned, even though it may seem like a hard work, i'm not going to back down, i'm going till the end with this project, and i hope to finish it.
And if people want me to tell the plot of the first, second, third book be my guest, you actually encouraged me to feel more free about telling them...so thank you again.
 
Few problems, i will have to join the forces next year so i won't be able to wait *moths\years* before i'll start reading it.
I do already have someone who will perfect the book after it's done...
I consider the story to be beautiful and quite interesting, but i have to make changes in the first few chapters before representing them because after the changes that were made later i need to create one whole story and it will look hollow.
I do appreciate your opinion and i will accept any critique that will come, but from each chapter to the next i feel a progress of growing which is why showing the lack of skill that i had in the first few chapters may be unreasonable, or at least after i'll put the changes that were made and then accept the critique.
I do seem to lack research that needed, but it is also a fantasy book, but it is correct that comment was reasonable and i should do more of that.
If considering that a page ( i researched it) contains around 250-350 words, each chapter i write goes around 15-25 pages per chapter. (just pointing that out...)
Believe me, i do have those WTF moments when i review what i wrote, i had many broken sentences, contradiction etc...
Just to be safe: you don't have to explain yourself to me :) Everyone is constrained or limited in this way or the other, and writing is not science; there are no strict rules, only guidelines one can choose to follow or not. In the end only the final result is what matters - and that's for you to decide. I was aiming to guide your expectations in a certain direction, as it's veeeery common for people to just take the pen (figuratively or literally), open a new page and start their story there and then, charging head on and ending up disappointed with the results, and ultimately with themselves, more often than not giving up writing altogether. Best to know from the start what you're dealing with. Story can grow organically, the writing can not.

Obviously what I wrote in the somewhat longer-than-expected post above is but a tip on an iceberg. The writing craft is far more complex on many different levels. There are writers that can spend whole day getting one single sentence flow precisely how they want it.

Some stories are told to provoke thoughts, others to evoke emotions. Fantasy is more about the latter than the former, and simplicity can achieve it, no problem. Better to have a smaller, simpler story that realizes its goal, than to have more ambitious huge story that ultimately fails. Just sayin' ;)

The problem is my native language is poor, lacking many words, we don't even have the word "honor", i can't see this kind of book to be written in that language, i have read books in my native language before and they all were boring, lack of character description, but when i read books in english it felt differently, better.
Actually you touched an interesting subject. The medium determines to a certain extent the story you can told, and how you can tell it. And trust me, the lack of appropriate words is something writers have to struggle with all the time. How do you convincingly convey what the character is feeling, how he is feeling? How to describe the vista you have in your mind so that it will really have the shape, the colors, the light and ambiance in the mind of the other people? If your language lacks the word for honor, then you'd need to convey the concept in some other way. You can think on how would you do that, even experiment. Write a short, two-page long story around the concept, try to make it so that the reader will intuitively understand the idea, even if he wouldn't have the proper word for it. Such 'concept-conveying' thingies are actually valid writing exercises, as they require hell of imagination and trial and error to get the desired result.
 
Write every day, at least a little. Really do give yourself time to come back and read it much later, as darcler says.

If you get some solid few chapters going, consider submitting them to an agent, see if you can find some early interest out there.

Accept rejection in your heart. It'll happen a lot until you are successful.
 
Draw close and listen to the wisdom I shall impart...are you ready?

Good then listen closely, the secret of good prose is to include as many sexual metaphors and filthy imagery as possible.

Phal L'Us the Purple drew his mighty weapon and held it proudly between his stout thighs, the enchanted blade shivered with bloodlust, its steel veins engorged with spilt blood and fervour. In moments the mighty armies of Thy would part to his rabid thrusts, revealing the flower of their proud youth, and Phal's blade would gorge itself. A familiar tale, Phal had led his diseased band across the fertile crescent, and forced his opponents to open their gates or turn tail.

Only the Chastite of Thy remained, and today Phal would slake his thirst in this bosom of civilisation, so he had sworn and so it would be. Only the cursed plague priests of Venerea could stop him now, for they had the power to steal his blade of all potency, but they remained allies for Phal truly did their work.

Holding his fearsome blade Crabringer aloft with his right hand, and the shining shield of Prophyliac with his left Phal heeled his battle ass into the charge, and his salty brethren followed.
 
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The best way to become an excellent writer is to start out as a voracious reader. I think I understand and agree with your decision to write in English, even though it is your second language. But if the mechanics of literary English are something you don't quite have yet, the easy way to acquire them is, well, read good English writers.

I don't think it would be too specific a recommendation to start with Ursula K. LeGuin. There are few, if any, more stylish writers in English-language fantasy. You might as well dive right in and start with The Left Hand of Darkness. Once you have read some of her stories, go for Steering the Craft, her textbook on English writing. All along, remember this: you're not trying to sound like her or write like her; you're trying to learn from her so you can make your own style. But you must learn from a good teacher, and there is none better.

(Don't let anyone tell you Martin is any good -- he isn't; or that you should emulate Tolkien -- you can't.)
 
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@eliharel

I'll take the easy one first. Even if Tolkien were not a genius, he devoted his life as totally as anyone ever could to the study of languages and early English literature. He wrote with a high purpose and great plan. Learn from him, then do not imitate him. If you are not the next Tolkien, attempting to write like he did will merely show that you are not.

OK, my opinion of G. R. R. Martin is controversial and probably not welcome here. But my opinion is that he is not merely not a good writer; he is a truly bad one. He embarked on A Song of Ice and Fire without any idea how to sustain a work of significant scope and length. He has no ability to work with editors or edit his own work. His work has no foundation in any theory of dramatic literature, nor does he write to make any kind of point. Criticisms that he makes a fetish of violence and violent sex are misplaced: the truth is he has no ability to do that well enough to be criticized for it; he has no real ability to characterize or portray the thoughts or passions of real people. They are only little clockworks, like the intro to HBO's Game of Thrones. There is nothing about his work that anybody should seek to read with the intention of learning from or following.

All this is by now far off topic, except as it may serve as advice not to start one's literary career by attempting to compose an epic. There is much of the writer's craft and trade to learn before doing so.
 
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