Okay, I'm currently five chapters deep into writing a high fantasy novel. I want to make this story as engaging and well written as possible, but this is my first time writing high fantasy, and this book is intended to be the first of a series. I don't want to mess this up, and I want this story to be successful enough to warrant sequels.
A poorly written story will kill all of that. And some of the more hated MTG novels came to mind for some reason.
So I want to know, from the guys who read books like Prophecy (ugh), Legions (double ugh), Scourge (triple ugh), Search for Karn (ugh squared), and any other reviled Magic Novel, what exactly made you think these stories were poorly written? was it bad worldbuilding? poor character development? nonsensical plot? or was it in the writer's writing styles - their use of description, or handling dialogue?
Can you guys pinpoint and articulate what exactly made these stories so sucky? It would really help me know what NOT to do when writing my story. Thanks!
Quest for Karn was very repetitive and boring. And illogical - from the top of my head, in one scene Elspeth refuses to lop a head off Shattered Angel when it is not facing her, so she taps in on shoulder, waits for it to face her, and THEN she lops its head off. But in other scene, she just unleashes a "thousandfold" strike with her sword and slaughters a room full of Phyrexians, looking at her or not. And the permanent travelling from place to place for no reason. Also, abysmal dialogue, illogical behavior, bad handling of characters, no growth except Venser being more and more ill. And do not get me started at the ridiculous ending topped by the very final paragraph, that was probably intended to be funny (Karn making an oath he will honor Venser's sacrifice and purge what he contaminated, only to realize that the others left when he was talking...)
The problem of Prophecy was that is was absolutely tangential and irrelevant to the main story, the only important thing was that Rayne died and Barrin had lost another reason to live for. Uninteresting characters, bad pacing, basically not anything you cared about as reader.
Teeth of Akoum was similar to Quest for Karn. Lots of travelling, random redshirts dying, basically no character development, irrelevant dialogue, weird things happening (Sorin's vertigo, his song-magic, etc.), some hints never developed further, everything important happening in last 3 pages, and basically the whole book taking place just BEFORE RoE, not during it.
The only way you can know how to not make a bad story is writing one. And you can bet whatever you want: your first story will look terrible. Trust me. It will. No matter how good a writer you might become in the future or how many stories you've read, writing requires practice. You can't just think of making a good story right out of the bat. You have to find your style, the tone in which you like to craft dialogue, how you deal with descriptions when it comes to the characters and the world around them, how you deal with action scenes, etc. etc. etc.
I've started writing a book when I was younger, and I rewrote the damn thing at least 4 or 5 times (one of them the book had reached 148 pages on a word document when I decided it looked terrible). Writing good stories is pretty difficult, especially if they are suppose to be big stories with lots of characters and sequels and etc. I strongly suggest you start with tales. If you crafted your world, write tales about it, don't write a whole high-fantasy novel right from the start, I assure there is a huge chance it will not look good. Or you may do as I did and keep rewriting the same story over and over until you feel you've learned something from the experience. I certainly learned a lot, but I don't have a lot of time to write these days, so if I wanted to invest in writing I would start small.
In any case, I read just one magic novel I believe, but if you want to know what can help you from the start, I'm gonna leave some tips:
- If you have an action scene in your mind and you're trying to describe it as if in a movie, you're doing it wrong. Action scenes have to feel dynamic, if you spend too much time describing how "the knight changed his grip on the sword and made a cut from top to bottom while also moving his shield up in a defensive fashion" you're just boring your readers. Give them feeling, not plain description. "The knight made a quick cut and raised his shield as a reflex, the effort making his arms burn" reads much more fluidly and looks better because I skipped most of the boring specific details and focused on the feeling of the character and the overall scene itself.
- Don't just say that a character is sad, or happy, or angry. Show that through his actions and thoughts. "Unk was infuriated, they had killed his family, he was boiling with anger and revenge" is a very cliche phrase, associated with poor writing. "Unk knelt before the dead corpses of his wife and children, his eyes burning with tears while he dragged their bodies to the closest open grave he could find. He started pouring the dirt over the grave with bloodshot eyes, clenching his fists in fury, thinking only on the fate of the man who murdered his family". That sounds better. Or if you want to stay focused on the character: "Unk stared at the body of his wife and children, motionless. He couldn't speak, he could barely think. And the only thought that crossed his mind was the burning feeling of revenge. That would have to keep him alive."
- This might be a personal preference of mine, but I think it is much better to fit the description of a place while the character is moving along through it, mixing this description with some thoughts and actions, rather than just stopping the narration every time there is a change of scene to describe the new place in the first three or four paragraphs. That is really boring.
If you want to see what I mean by that, read my story on Innistrad that is in my sig, where I describe the forest while the Tracker walks through it.
- Don't overuse in 'fancy dialogue', but don't make people who are suppose to be wise wizards look like children when talking. Give every character their own way of speech, their way of articulating words, but don't overuse that, lest it will make your characters look like parodies of real life people.
- Accept that you will have to rewrite a lot. Also accept that your story will not please everyone. If you like something that you wrote and someone doesn't, just for a matter of personal taste, stick with what you wrote. If you're happy with your writing (as long as you have a decent level of self-criticism) then that is what matters, because you can't possibly please everyone. But remember to take suggestions.
Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
The only way you can know how to not make a bad story is writing one. And you can bet whatever you want: your first story will look terrible. Trust me. It will. No matter how good a writer you might become in the future or how many stories you've read, writing requires practice. You can't just think of making a good story right out of the bat. You have to find your style, the tone in which you like to craft dialogue, how you deal with descriptions when it comes to the characters and the world around them, how you deal with action scenes, etc. etc. etc.
Good tips, Ashiok. I've gotten a few novels published before, but they were spanning a bunch of other genres (sci-fi, horror, romance, YA, literary. I've been all over the place). I had never done high fantasy before, and I was wondering if writing that was any different that writing in other genres. I'm about 5 chapters in, and I'm starting to get a feel for the story and characters. I just didn't want my writing to suffer the same pitfalls that other bad high fantasy stories (re: the bad MTG books) suffered.
Good tips, Ashiok. I've gotten a few novels published before, but they were spanning a bunch of other genres (sci-fi, horror, romance, YA, literary. I've been all over the place). I had never done high fantasy before, and I was wondering if writing that was any different that writing in other genres. I'm about 5 chapters in, and I'm starting to get a feel for the story and characters. I just didn't want my writing to suffer the same pitfalls that other bad high fantasy stories (re: the bad MTG books) suffered.
Hah! Then the path ahead is considerably smoother, it is a matter of adapting the writing style. Of course, there is always the chance you are better in horror than high fantasy, or vice-versa. The only way to know is to keep writing I suppose! The tips I gave are more general things since I thought you were starting to write, but since you're already 'in the business', I would suggest three things mainly:
- Create your world before anything else, you don't need to go deep into detail, but if you just write out of the blue and move along it is going to be fairly hard to keep adapting the story as you create background.
- Create a timeline of events. Events that happened before the story took place, and maybe some events of the story itself. That will help you when making references and keep tracking of things. Once again, no need to be anything too detailed.
- Keep a document with the character physical description, when he/she first showed up, what does he/she usually wears/carries along and a general personality description and relationship description that he/she has with other characters. It is much easier than keep backtracking thousands of pages once you forgot these sort of details in the middle of the narrative and needs to reference them.
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Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
From what I remember of the Onslaught trilogy books:
- The whole mess with the Numena, which apparently predated the Thran, but were then never mentioned ever again. Basically the author deciding there was a whole civilization before the Thran, which was previously the first human civilization and the start of the main story arc from Antiquities to Apocalypse.
- The even more convoluted circumstances of Karona's 'rebirth'.
- Karona's Magical Mystery Tour featuring Serra, Teferi, Yawgmoth and Multani.
- Karona then getting killed by Sash and Waistcoat, a bumbling comedy duo that was never actually funny, in a ridiculous deus ex machina to cap off a trilogy that was already full of them.
- The Cabal Patriarch going from immortal necromancer mob boss to lovesick teenager.
- Lazy naming (Topos and Locus spring to mind (just Greek and Latin for 'place'), but I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty of others. One that specifically comes to mind is Karn's pseudonym of 'Lord Macht'. Karn's name has previously been established as meaning 'Strength' in Thran, 'Macht' is Dutch for might.)
Basically the Onslaught trilogy comes off as one of the most lazily (or hurriedly) written trilogy within the official Magic novels. It's a mess of mythology being pulled out of nowhere, a series of convoluted events and previously awesome characters being completely ruined.
One thing I realized while writing this post is that I don't think there's ever been such a strong disconnect between the storylines depicted on the cards and those in the novels that tie into the set. I don't think any locations from the book other than the ones introduced in the Odyssey cycle are mentioned on the cards. There's no mention of the Riptide project or the slivers. I don't think the elves and goblins that are featured heavily in the sets are mentioned at all in the books. There's locations and organizations mentioned in the books that have no representation on cardboard and vice versa. Now I'm really curious how these books came about.
If you're writing, think about all the things you skipped while reading, and keep it out of your work. That's my approach. Try to keep the dialogue so that it sounds like real folks talking. Go to the park, the mall, the store, the bar, wherever, sit and listen.
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A poorly written story will kill all of that. And some of the more hated MTG novels came to mind for some reason.
So I want to know, from the guys who read books like Prophecy (ugh), Legions (double ugh), Scourge (triple ugh), Search for Karn (ugh squared), and any other reviled Magic Novel, what exactly made you think these stories were poorly written? was it bad worldbuilding? poor character development? nonsensical plot? or was it in the writer's writing styles - their use of description, or handling dialogue?
Can you guys pinpoint and articulate what exactly made these stories so sucky? It would really help me know what NOT to do when writing my story. Thanks!
Click the pic for more info.
The problem of Prophecy was that is was absolutely tangential and irrelevant to the main story, the only important thing was that Rayne died and Barrin had lost another reason to live for. Uninteresting characters, bad pacing, basically not anything you cared about as reader.
Teeth of Akoum was similar to Quest for Karn. Lots of travelling, random redshirts dying, basically no character development, irrelevant dialogue, weird things happening (Sorin's vertigo, his song-magic, etc.), some hints never developed further, everything important happening in last 3 pages, and basically the whole book taking place just BEFORE RoE, not during it.
I have not read Legions or Scourge.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
I've started writing a book when I was younger, and I rewrote the damn thing at least 4 or 5 times (one of them the book had reached 148 pages on a word document when I decided it looked terrible). Writing good stories is pretty difficult, especially if they are suppose to be big stories with lots of characters and sequels and etc. I strongly suggest you start with tales. If you crafted your world, write tales about it, don't write a whole high-fantasy novel right from the start, I assure there is a huge chance it will not look good. Or you may do as I did and keep rewriting the same story over and over until you feel you've learned something from the experience. I certainly learned a lot, but I don't have a lot of time to write these days, so if I wanted to invest in writing I would start small.
In any case, I read just one magic novel I believe, but if you want to know what can help you from the start, I'm gonna leave some tips:
- If you have an action scene in your mind and you're trying to describe it as if in a movie, you're doing it wrong. Action scenes have to feel dynamic, if you spend too much time describing how "the knight changed his grip on the sword and made a cut from top to bottom while also moving his shield up in a defensive fashion" you're just boring your readers. Give them feeling, not plain description. "The knight made a quick cut and raised his shield as a reflex, the effort making his arms burn" reads much more fluidly and looks better because I skipped most of the boring specific details and focused on the feeling of the character and the overall scene itself.
- Don't just say that a character is sad, or happy, or angry. Show that through his actions and thoughts. "Unk was infuriated, they had killed his family, he was boiling with anger and revenge" is a very cliche phrase, associated with poor writing. "Unk knelt before the dead corpses of his wife and children, his eyes burning with tears while he dragged their bodies to the closest open grave he could find. He started pouring the dirt over the grave with bloodshot eyes, clenching his fists in fury, thinking only on the fate of the man who murdered his family". That sounds better. Or if you want to stay focused on the character: "Unk stared at the body of his wife and children, motionless. He couldn't speak, he could barely think. And the only thought that crossed his mind was the burning feeling of revenge. That would have to keep him alive."
- This might be a personal preference of mine, but I think it is much better to fit the description of a place while the character is moving along through it, mixing this description with some thoughts and actions, rather than just stopping the narration every time there is a change of scene to describe the new place in the first three or four paragraphs. That is really boring.
If you want to see what I mean by that, read my story on Innistrad that is in my sig, where I describe the forest while the Tracker walks through it.
- Don't overuse in 'fancy dialogue', but don't make people who are suppose to be wise wizards look like children when talking. Give every character their own way of speech, their way of articulating words, but don't overuse that, lest it will make your characters look like parodies of real life people.
- Accept that you will have to rewrite a lot. Also accept that your story will not please everyone. If you like something that you wrote and someone doesn't, just for a matter of personal taste, stick with what you wrote. If you're happy with your writing (as long as you have a decent level of self-criticism) then that is what matters, because you can't possibly please everyone. But remember to take suggestions.
I guess that is it, good luck.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
Play Fire Emblem? Like pirates? Think Fargus is manly? Join the project today!
Good tips, Ashiok. I've gotten a few novels published before, but they were spanning a bunch of other genres (sci-fi, horror, romance, YA, literary. I've been all over the place). I had never done high fantasy before, and I was wondering if writing that was any different that writing in other genres. I'm about 5 chapters in, and I'm starting to get a feel for the story and characters. I just didn't want my writing to suffer the same pitfalls that other bad high fantasy stories (re: the bad MTG books) suffered.
Click the pic for more info.
- Create your world before anything else, you don't need to go deep into detail, but if you just write out of the blue and move along it is going to be fairly hard to keep adapting the story as you create background.
- Create a timeline of events. Events that happened before the story took place, and maybe some events of the story itself. That will help you when making references and keep tracking of things. Once again, no need to be anything too detailed.
- Keep a document with the character physical description, when he/she first showed up, what does he/she usually wears/carries along and a general personality description and relationship description that he/she has with other characters. It is much easier than keep backtracking thousands of pages once you forgot these sort of details in the middle of the narrative and needs to reference them.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
- The whole mess with the Numena, which apparently predated the Thran, but were then never mentioned ever again. Basically the author deciding there was a whole civilization before the Thran, which was previously the first human civilization and the start of the main story arc from Antiquities to Apocalypse.
- The even more convoluted circumstances of Karona's 'rebirth'.
- Karona's Magical Mystery Tour featuring Serra, Teferi, Yawgmoth and Multani.
- Karona then getting killed by Sash and Waistcoat, a bumbling comedy duo that was never actually funny, in a ridiculous deus ex machina to cap off a trilogy that was already full of them.
- The Cabal Patriarch going from immortal necromancer mob boss to lovesick teenager.
- Lazy naming (Topos and Locus spring to mind (just Greek and Latin for 'place'), but I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty of others. One that specifically comes to mind is Karn's pseudonym of 'Lord Macht'. Karn's name has previously been established as meaning 'Strength' in Thran, 'Macht' is Dutch for might.)
Basically the Onslaught trilogy comes off as one of the most lazily (or hurriedly) written trilogy within the official Magic novels. It's a mess of mythology being pulled out of nowhere, a series of convoluted events and previously awesome characters being completely ruined.
One thing I realized while writing this post is that I don't think there's ever been such a strong disconnect between the storylines depicted on the cards and those in the novels that tie into the set. I don't think any locations from the book other than the ones introduced in the Odyssey cycle are mentioned on the cards. There's no mention of the Riptide project or the slivers. I don't think the elves and goblins that are featured heavily in the sets are mentioned at all in the books. There's locations and organizations mentioned in the books that have no representation on cardboard and vice versa. Now I'm really curious how these books came about.