It’s Not the Action! What makes a great fantasy epic?

AuthorAppleton on February 3, 2020

Bold heroes, wise heroines, terrible beasts, and insurmountable odds. What could be better than a fantasy epic that embraces good versus evil? For me, what makes a fantasy great versus mediocre is a little more precise.

When I was growing up the stories that grabbed my attention were the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable, and those similar. Brave knights battling dark magicians to rescue beautiful maidens . . . To my thinking, this is the epitome of a great story, and it is missing in a lot of the politically-charged stories that make it into publication today.

I am all for strong female characters. Just look at my second novel for an example of that, my heroine is the lead in that story. But what I don’t appreciate is the reducing of the masculine and the destruction of the feminine.

The stories that stick with me are the ones that esteem beauty, even physical beauty, but they also place hard consequences on those that commit crimes. And that includes crimes of passion, crimes of physical violence, anarchy, and crimes against God.

I find it fascinating to look at the works of authors whose worldviews are very different from my own. Let’s take for example Terry Goodkind and his series The Sword of Truth. I have read and absolutely adored the story and the characters in several of his novels. I think it is the values that he and I share that make me connect with him as a reader. His hero finds a beautiful woman and of course falls in love with her, but they are unable to fulfill the desires toward one another without releasing her destructive power. Monstrous creatures fill his pages and the hero surmounts incredible odds to defeat both them and the most vile villains.

To name off some other examples: RA Salvatore and J. K. Rowling. Both excellent writers with vastly different worldviews to my own.

Could it be that all of these stories share western ideals that were born out of Judeo-Christian and Arthurian values? I think there is definitely an argument to be made for that.

Over the Christmas season this year I went out to see the latest Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker. I am a Star Wars nut, and I greatly enjoyed the wrap to the Skywalker saga. I am not going to give any spoilers here, just in case you haven’t seen it yet. But, while I did enjoy The Last Jedi, it missed the mark for me in many respects. Looking back at it, the story does not have the same coherence of good versus evil that the George Lucas films did. There was very little heart in it. Lots of forced humor, and big explosions. The Rise of Skywalker attempted to fix some of the last film’s mistakes, and I think it effectively did so. We went back to having faith in our heroes, instead of dragging them through the muck of regret.

So let me say that I am unabashedly a fan of classic good versus evil, and of knights rescuing fair maidens. I don’t think we have enough of those kinds of stories being produced today. And there are so many of those stories that we can tell. I want my children to aspire to be the best of themselves.

I will be the first to admit that the Arthurian legends or not the factual events but are vastly romanticized. But isn’t that the beauty of it? It is a fictional world where we can pit our darkest desires against the consequences of our actions. It is a recognition of the reward of a good soul and the quest for great beauty. It is the desire, nay! the intention, to fight with our last breath against tyrants and monsters.

So be unabashed in your quest for authentic knighthood, and the winning of a great love. If you’re a man, enjoy the fact! If you are a woman, throw in the world’s face the fact that you enjoy your feminine characteristics.

Great heroes and heroines come from the battle because they do not back down from cultural expectations. They stay true to their God and their convictions, all the while exercising grace and forgiveness to those around them.

Q: How is your cultural background affecting how you perceive the stories you read?

Why passion drives better stories (as Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

AuthorAppleton on December 28, 2015

There is a vast difference between a storyteller who is passionate for the story they are telling, and a writer who is simply creating something of interest to them. The case seems to be aptly demonstrated with J.J. Abrams who is famous for rebooting film franchises. Not long ago he recreated Star Trek and recently his Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters with a thunderous response from critics and viewers. After watching the film myself I realized that the love of the story made a huge difference here.

Long-time Star Trek fans, almost as a whole, did not care for and some even despised Abrams’ remake. Vulcans lost their emotional control to a level not hereto seen, big bad villains ruled the screen, and action packed the screen time instead of relationships and good ol’ theoretical science. Transformers had met Star Trek. Many people speculated that the cause of this failure to catch the loyalty of long-time Trek fans was due to Abrams’ personal admittance that he was never a Trek fan himself. In addition to that it turned out that much of the cast had not even watched Star Trek, with the exception being Karl Urban who beautifully embodied the beloved Leonard McCoy also affectionately called “Bones.” Urban was himself a Trek fan and it showed in his part. The consequence was a movie that did not leave die hard Trek fans thrilled, instead it left them asking for a return to the old style of storytelling. The fans’ passion for the Star Trek universe has now successfully launched a rather impressive series called Renegades and other fan-funded projects are well on their way to success as well.

The point in all of this is that good storytelling requires a passion for the material.

As a long-time Star Wars fan Abrams’ approach to The Force Awakens has paid off. Rather than changing everything that we know and love about the Star Wars universe he has taken the look, feel, and the light and the dark again into familiar territory. While there was much good action throughout The Force Awakens, it never feels forced but rather melds with the drama each character is experiencing. Old characters are treated like old friends, with numerous hat-tipping to the original Star Wars trilogy. Quite unexpectedly (even though Disney officially declared the Expanded Universe of novels and video games irrelevant to this movie) there were several blatant steals from the EU… and they were good ones. They pulled a few choice elements that I was hoping to see carried into the new movies, though they did change it up a bit.

Writers need to be passionate for the stories they are creating, otherwise the effort leaves no lasting impact. Abrams demonstrated with this film that he truly is passionate for the Star Wars universe. What a difference it makes when a creative individual works at something because they love it!

Q: How do you see passion driving better storytelling?

How Star Wars impacted my thinking on stories

AuthorAppleton on September 7, 2015

I was probably around nine years old. I remember sitting in my grandfather’s living room, my eyes glued to his television. He had an extensive collection of VHS tapes and he was fond of science fiction. That day he played Star Wars: A New Hope… and with a few swings of his lightsaber Alec Guiness convinced me that Ben Kenobi was the coolest sort of hero.

Yep, I’ve been a fan ever since! I love looking back at that moment when I saw Star Wars for the first time. I can recapture that sense of amazement experienced only in that first moment of discovery. I already loved stories. I read extensively and wrote quite a few of my own fictional pieces, yet up to that point I think space opera and fantasy had not entered my realm of creative thinking. My first brush with anything close to it had been Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory of the Christian life that feels fantasy-ish.

In Star Wars I recognized the value of different strong personalities in story. Han Solo of course would not let anything water down his swashbuckling attitude. He opposed everyone on his team and loved everyone at the same time. Ben Kenobi took every perilous encounter in sober stride, wisely weighing the consequences of his actions and of those around him. He was feeble yet in his eyes was a playful, indomitable will. He would not be denied. Even R2D2 and C3PO possessed unique personalities that made them generationally memorable.

To my young mind these characters were the catalyst for an amazing array of story possibilities. I remember staying up late at night telling my own Star Wars spinoff stories to my brother and sister. In childish fun these spinoffs often degenerated into silliness. (I remember one particular tale where Princess Leia met up with Emperor Palpatine and turned her own powers on him, thoroughly decimating him).

Looking back I realize that all of those silly spinoffs were the continued growth of my creativity.

Star Wars stories helped me realize that storytelling has no limits except those that we place upon it. What you imagine, you can create. What you fear, you can face. What you aspire to be, you can become. Strange places that don’t even exist, you can visit.

The imagination is limitless and its power is exploration to reveal to us the elements of story that matter to us. The elements of story that define the choices we make. The characters whose interactions help us understand how we want to interact with people in real life. The characters that help us understand why we find certain people more interesting than others.

Q: How did the stories you enjoyed as a child impact the person you are today?

 

How to Create Memorable Villains

AuthorAppleton on July 13, 2015

Most good stories that stand out in my mind as extremely memorable involve an extraordinary villain. One of my favorite films is The Black Hole, an old Disney science-fiction film. All of the characters in that movie are dramatic actors and the villain (as played by Maximilian Schell) is extremely memorable. He is a brilliant scientist and brooding. Every moment on screen he manages to drive deeper into your mind the threat he poses.

I remember when I was a kid sitting at my grandfather’s house and watching Star Wars: A New Hope for the first time (back then it was on VHS tape). The duel between Vader and Ben Kenobi fixated my attention like nothing else. I was intrigued. Who was this Vader? Why had he changed into a “master of evil” as Kenobi put it? These questions are the type that any good villain will raise in the mind of a book reader or a movie viewer.

Often a fiction writer focuses on finding ways to make the reader relate to the hero in the story. They show the character’s weaknesses and show how he/she overcame them in order to mature into the protagonist you’ll love. But too often the antagonist is a “cookie cutter villain.”

In the Harry Potter books Voldemort was glimpsed from his youth and shown as a ruthless man. In Tolkien’s The Silmarillion Melkor was revealed as being a corrupter of all good things… My point? There are many ways to approach villain creation as long as you take the time to develop that villain’s history.

When approaching the villains in my stories I try to remember that the characters’ histories will enable the reader to care about what happens to them. For example, when I wrote the opening for Swords of the Six I had to make the reader care about the villains so that they would want those villains to pay for their crimes, but I wanted the reader to be intrigued and ask questions as to why and how the villains had become the characters seen in the story.

It is imperative that you ask yourself:

  1. What kind of childhood did this villain have? An orphan, an only child, or one of many children. A happy home or a depressed one. All of these considerations make us care about the villain even if we are rooting for their destruction.
  2. Who mentored this villain, or whom do they look up to? Parents or the lack thereof and the mentors they look up to will shape the person you become. Understand how your villain thinks by understanding what mindset those around him have encouraged.
  3. What motivates them in their villainous deeds? Often the motivation is power, yet the quest for supremacy is not motivation enough. There is an ideology behind each villain and reasons that they have forsaken a moral code. Know what motivates them and you will understand how they can change through the story in their encounters with other characters.

In The Black Hole the villain is an insane but genius scientist. He is both indispensable to the protagonists and at the same time they cannot allow him to continue.

In writing a villain we need to understand the personality’s impact on the fictional world and also what drives that personality. Adding depth to the character enables greater risk and greater reward when said villain is defeated or converted. Creating memorable villains is hard, but oh so worth it! In Swords of the Six I had the opportunity to show several types of villains, each with different motives, and the result was a story that leaves me the writer eager to explore the villains in depth and be more creative in determining their demises.

Q: Which villains stand out to you and why? 

3 Interesting Ways for a Villain to Die!

AuthorAppleton on November 10, 2014

In most contemporary fantasy fiction there is a primary villain, and by some means the hero must kill that villain. The beauty of fiction, however, is the ability to take inspiration from historical events to produce an unexpected plot. Like when I was writing my first novel Swords of the Six… I wanted something different for the villain’s end.

Here are three ways for a villain to die!

  1. Killed by the hero
  2. Betrayal
  3. Suicide

A great example of the first option would be Narnia where Aslan slays the White Witch. The second option was very effectively portrayed in one of my favorite novels Star Wars: The Last Command when Grand Admiral Thrawn is killed by his trusted Nogri bodyguard. And as for suicide I found it to be a powerful way to show how remorseful Kesla was for his sins in Swords of the Six. I derived the idea for Kesla’s end from how King Saul of Israel fell on his own sword when he knew that the Philistines had overcome him.

Question: What are some of your favorite examples of how villains died in fiction?