Wednesday 21 March 2018

Writing the Heavy Metal way

Warning - This post started as a self-indulgent attempt to remake the wheel when it comes to three act stories. It has since transmogrified into more of looking at how to populate said three acts, but this post still might be a self-indulgent attempt to remake the wheel. Caveat emptor.

Still, part of writing is looking for new twists, new ways to make old stories and ideas fresh and enthralling again, right? Right? 

Well it is for me. I like looking at how art is created and stories told in other artforms and wondering if there's anything that can be stolen. And there's no other art that I think about more than Metal, so here's some ideas I sorta cribbed from Metal songs.

1) Intros as simple statements of theme

A lot of metal songs start with a single instrument playing one of the song's main riffs. Obvious advantages are that it gets right to the point and creates a strong cohesiveness. It can be used to provide instant energy while still allowing things to scale up in intensity - see At The Gates' Slaughter of the Soul - or it can be used to provide instant contrast while still being recognizably part of the whole - Dark Tranquillity's Freecard is a great example of that.

I think this is an idea that definitely can be used in writing books. Having a scene that really hits at the book's theme/main ideas/main source of entertainment in a simple and non-over the top way does the same thing. And I think it's a good thing. It goes a bit counter to the oft-given advice to start the character in their normal world before causing mayhem, but not if you're clever with it. The beginning of Game of Thrones both shows the Starks' normal world and starts asking questions about the use of power right away. I'd argue that it contains one of the series' iconic moments.

This one might seem obvious, but I can't think of too many books that I'd say do it. Too often books start at the logical beginning, or lose cohesion between the start and middle. And how many other books start with iconic moments? I get that we're dealing with very different art forms and this might be one of them, but I think going straight for a big thematically resonant oomph at the beginning rather than setting the scene might get more mileage at least some of the time.

2) Accentuating the theme and main characters through pace of events and secondary cast

I've come to see the theme, tone and main characters of a book as being akin to the lead melodies and frontman in a song, and the plot, structure and secondary characters as the rhythm section. The former is that which entertains and is remembered most; the latter is what gives the former the context needed to work. A lot of metal songs like to use the same riff over and over, but with the rhythm section giving it a different texture. 

You see something akin to this in fiction already. The Dresden Files are very much the same riff over and over, just using different foes and buddies to provide a different backing track. And I'm sure we've all heard the advice to use shorter sentences to convey quicker scenes i.e. action scenes or having some comic relief to lighten things up. But it's something that I think authors could maybe concentrate on more, particularly when it comes to the structure and tempo of a book, and is often something I feel is the difference between great and good. 

I also think playing with the pace of events could be a way of making things even more Epic. Would A Song of Ice and Fire be even better if GRRM had taken that chronological gap to allow the characters to grow up? Adrian Selby's Snakewood benefits heavily from its frequent historical recountings to build up the legend of the Twenty. I enjoy a good simple narrative arc as the character goes from 16 to 18 as much as the next person, but sometimes it's better to mix it up.

3) Putting the star centre stage

Think metal, think guitar solos. The idea that you want to hear the star attraction bust out all their moves is embedded deep in the heart of metal. It is one with a very clear literary equivalent too; the aristeia of Homer's heroes. And if Homer's doing it, it has to be worthy of consideration for Fantasy, right? Certainly a lot of authors feel that way when it comes to gigantic casts clashing in battles that reshape the world.

When fans start listing their favourite Epic Fantasy moments, they're usually the moments when characters slough off their failures and achieve brilliant redemptive victories by being the people the readers wished them to be. In other words, the characters' aristeia -their solos. Yet many authors skimp on this; either not allowing enough characters their moment, or not allowing characters to emerge from the collective, or simply not treating the decisive moment with enough gravity. Sometimes they go the other way and try to have too many such moments; but there is limited appetite for a song entirely of guitar solos.

It's not just the lead instruments that get solos either. Giving relatively minor support characters their moment in the sun not only keeps proceedings fresh through variety, but can give readers deep satisfaction. Snape's contribution to the Pensieve might be judged such a moment. 



In conclusion, this blog post did feel something of a wheel reinvention exercise due to the many fictional examples I could think of to back up the relevance of these concepts to fantasy. These are things that great authors do. But there’s many good authors that don’t seem to. I just finished Joseph Brassey’s Skyfarer. He definitely executed number 3; I think he tried to execute number 2 but didn’t use the supporting cast enough; I think the book would have really benefited from a different opening that felt more cohesive with a book of derring-do so I think he could have done 1 better (although it was a statement of theme alright). And identifying tricks that make great authors great is never a total waste of time. I’ll probably re-do this blog post sometime, with the ideas more polished and fiction-centric - but this is how it started. And hopefully its worth something.

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