We requested Nicole Peeler to share her ideas on fantasy writing.
Dr. Peeler is the creator of the Jane True sequence of city fantasy novels, together with Tempest Rising, Tracking the Tempest, and Tempest’s Legacy. She teaches artistic writing at Seton Hill’s MFA Program in Popular Fiction.
A Conversation with Nicole Peeler
Q: How would you outline the style of city fantasy fiction?
A: The factor that’s nice about city fantasy is it’s actually a “create-your-own-genre.” Obviously, the linking issue have to be a grounding in paranormal shenanigans, however aside from that, it’s a little bit of a pick-n-mix. I knew I wished to jot down one thing that mixed a heavy dose of thriller with an equally heavy dose of intercourse and humor. I additionally know I wished some satire, slightly motion, and a few mythology. Mix all of it collectively, and also you get my Jane True sequence.
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Q: When writing about legendary creatures akin to selkies or vampires, how a lot analysis do you do into the folklore surrounding them? Do you analysis their potrayal by different modern authors? How a lot license do you’re feeling in your fantasy writing to change or add to the folkloric traditions?
A: I’ve accomplished a lot of analysis through the years into these creatures, and my complete universe relies on a joke on Carl Jung. Jung tried to elucidate the thought of archetypes—or the same mythological creatures which have sprung up in completely completely different cultures—by claiming that such creatures are created from humanity’s shared collective unconscious, or the primordial soup buried deep inside our brains all of us share. But my joke is that each one these myths are actual, and people caught completely different glimpses, in other places, at completely different occasions in historical past, and that’s how our similar-yet-different mythologies had been born. So I really feel that I can completely riff on portrayals of mythological creatures, whether or not they’re from historic folklore or the newest bestsellers. After all, our present revealed books will develop into our great-great-great-grandchildren’s folktales.
Q: What are a number of the keys to profitable fantasy writing?
A: I feel some of the vital keys to writing profitable fantasy is rarely to neglect you’re writing tales about individuals, in the beginning. It doesn’t matter in case your characters are owls, or historic warriors, or zombies: your readers need to care about them. So irrespective of how fantastical you get, it’s a must to root your tales within the feelings—the wishes, fears, and drives—that all of us share.
Q: What are some widespread pitfalls that may result in actually dangerous fantasy writing?
A: When I flip off on a fantasy ebook is the place I flip off on any ebook: the purpose the place one thing occurs that’s so unbelievable I can’t recover from it. Whether or not it’s a plot gap, or character motivation, or no matter it’s. Fantasy, similar to in any style, has to make logical sense, even when your logic is utilizing completely different “rules” than our world’s guidelines. So go forward and make individuals be capable of fly, however don’t have a personality who’s in a position to fly be unable to flee a personality who can’t, with out explaining why that occurred. Everything must be logical and make sense, so it’s a must to know your world’s guidelines and your character’s motivations very, very properly.
Q: You train on the Seton Hill MFA program, which makes a speciality of common, or style, fiction. How do you see the craft of writing common fiction as being completely different from writing literary fiction?
A: I’ve a really, very lengthy reply for this query that goes into the historical past of the novel, the thought of storytelling, the rise of the modernist experiment that led to postmodernism, and a bunch of different issues. But that’s extra acceptable for a journal-length article than an interview, so I gained’t get into these points, right here. That mentioned, I do have a “short-answer” model to that questions, and it’s all about storytelling. I feel one might argue that pop-fiction and literary fiction are on a spectrum, with pop-fiction placing extra emphasis on telling a rousing good story, whereas literary fiction places extra emphasis on making the reader have interaction with the concepts buried within the textual content. That’s to not say that pop-fiction can’t make you assume, or that literary fiction can’t be gratifying. It’s only a matter of emphasis, in my thoughts. So my final objective after I write a ebook is to inform a narrative that retains a reader riveted. I like nothing greater than to listen to, “Your book kept me up all night!” Yes, I laced my books with concepts which are vital to me, however disseminating my social theories is just not my first precedence in my Jane True books. To entertain is my final objective.
Q: The vital reception to Jonathan Franzen’s novel, Freedom, has set off a literary debate about whether or not novels by girls, and novels in sure genres, are routinely underrated by the literary institution. What are your ideas on this?
A: Unfortunately, this can be a very outdated debate. The irony is that the novel has all the time been carefully linked to girls: girls have traditionally learn extra and written greater than males, on the subject of the novel. And but girls are frequently slighted, and nothing says that higher, to me, than the “genre” previously referred to as “women’s fiction.” That mentioned, I don’t actually become involved in such debates. There’s no reply for them, in that they invoke a complete slew of advanced, undefined, and deeply-entrenched philosophies concerning the function of artwork and the artist in our society. As somebody who straddles that line between the Academy and the favored fiction world, nonetheless, I might argue that the literary world is oftentimes the one lacking out. People are performing some superb issues on the planet of common fiction, and a few modern literary fiction writers ought to rethink the usage of storytelling (or the shortage thereof) of their style. I like the “modernist experiment”; it’s what I train, what I like. But it was simply that: an experiment. Let’s study from it, however not stay submissive to its calls for.
Visit Nicole Peeler’s Amazon page to study extra about her fantasy writing and the Jane True sequence.
Fantasy Writing – Next Steps
Did you get pleasure from this interview about fantasy writing? You may also like our interview with Meredith Sue Willis onnovel writing methods.
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