I adore your writing anecdotes. I find your videos and interviews infinitely more valuable than channels that are actually dedicated to writing advice! So thank you!
👍 👍for being conscientious about editing your work. Editing is becoming a lost art. “Books shouldn’t be any longer than they need to be.” Exactly. I compulsively edit books in my head while reading that are bloated. That distracts from my enjoyment.😉
Love these updates and would understand if they need to be put on the back burner to focus on the home stretch! I hope you know how truly inspiring the stories you’ve written for us are. Top 3 SF/F on my list, and #7 may just put it in the lead. I love all the callbacks and finding new historical, philosophical and fictional Easter eggs on re-reads. I’m so thankful to Mike for introducing his audience to the Sollan Empire as I wouldn’t have known what I was missing (and now I can’t imagine the horror of having lived a life without your stories {dramatic, yes. True? Also yes}). Please take good care of yourself - I hope to be reading any and everything you write for decades to come!
I didn't really think about it until you said it, but most writing advice or instruction is all big picture, not nuts & bolts of actually writing sentences
Some thoughts on hard magic vs. soft magic: you brought up on Aaron's podcast how 'real life' magic is often hard magic in the sense that it has very specific, ritualistic instructions in how to accomplish it. But I think the difference is that real magic is intended to invoke a spiritual being to produce an effect on the physical world, usually through some object or combination of objects or whatever. But these beings have a will, and you can control that will to an extent, but not totally. Whereas fantasy hard magic is essentially just a law of physics that has been invented for the world, and contains no spiritual element and definitely no will beyond the user's. There's nothing spiritual about certain wavelengths of photons coming into contact with other wavelengths of photons and creating a reaction, or whatever the hell a 'color-based magic system' is. An example of the former type of hard magic can be found in Tobit where the archangel Raphael gives Tobias a certain ritual to perform to thwart a demon, or the apocryphal Testament of Solomon where Saint Michael gives Solomon a magic ring to bind demons, which he commands to build his temple.
This applies to "casting fireball" type of magic too- there's nothing spiritual involved. In LOTR, Gandalf can perform magic because he IS the spiritual being in question. He's the Raphael of the story. He's not a human being casting fireball. I'm just rambling now.
So it's interesting that Tolkien's wizards are actually angels, as Steven says, that's a whole thing there on its own. I'm still evolving my thinking on this subject, but I like the direction we were moving in on that podcast: that the logic of fairy tales is essentially analogic--that is, that in a fairy tale, the magic conveys the meaning of the story in some sense (ie. the light of a candle represents the princess's life, and to extinguish the candle is to kill her). There's a symbolic logic there, rather than the magics of modern fantasy writers, who essentially are concerned with questions of energy. Crass Newtonianism, as I said in the podcast. I basically think modern fantasy writers mostly think their characters need mana bars, which they do not.
A little late to the party but I watched your (now very old) livestream about outlining -- do you outline the entire book before you begin writing? Or do you outline as much as you can ahead and then add to it later?
Wait wait wait so if I say apple you can't see an apple? Taste the apple? Hear the crunch of biting into one? That's why I love reading in the first place its better than any movie ever. :D
I cannot. I know what all these words mean and can describe the sights and sounds, but those descriptions come from out of a black box. I obviously know what an apple looks like, and I know what the sound and taste are like, but I do not at all re-experience the sensations. Everything in my head is encoded linguistically.
Love your office. Dark wood walls are classy. Thanks for the update and can’t wait to read the final story. Any plans for trips/signings in Louisiana in the future?
No plans for travel beyond Utah next month and Virginia in January, but I would love to! And thank you. My father and I built the office. He did the carpentry, and I did all the finishing work myself.
I adore your writing anecdotes. I find your videos and interviews infinitely more valuable than channels that are actually dedicated to writing advice! So thank you!
Great stream thanks for sharing. With God all things are possible you have a great final book in the series
👍 👍for being conscientious about editing your work. Editing is becoming a lost art. “Books shouldn’t be any longer than they need to be.” Exactly.
I compulsively edit books in my head while reading that are bloated. That distracts from my enjoyment.😉
Love these updates and would understand if they need to be put on the back burner to focus on the home stretch!
I hope you know how truly inspiring the stories you’ve written for us are. Top 3 SF/F on my list, and #7 may just put it in the lead. I love all the callbacks and finding new historical, philosophical and fictional Easter eggs on re-reads. I’m so thankful to Mike for introducing his audience to the Sollan Empire as I wouldn’t have known what I was missing (and now I can’t imagine the horror of having lived a life without your stories {dramatic, yes. True? Also yes}).
Please take good care of yourself - I hope to be reading any and everything you write for decades to come!
I didn't really think about it until you said it, but most writing advice or instruction is all big picture, not nuts & bolts of actually writing sentences
Yeah, and unfortunately, I find most of that advice to be so case-by-case and taste-driven it's mostly unhelpful, I feel.
Some thoughts on hard magic vs. soft magic: you brought up on Aaron's podcast how 'real life' magic is often hard magic in the sense that it has very specific, ritualistic instructions in how to accomplish it. But I think the difference is that real magic is intended to invoke a spiritual being to produce an effect on the physical world, usually through some object or combination of objects or whatever. But these beings have a will, and you can control that will to an extent, but not totally. Whereas fantasy hard magic is essentially just a law of physics that has been invented for the world, and contains no spiritual element and definitely no will beyond the user's. There's nothing spiritual about certain wavelengths of photons coming into contact with other wavelengths of photons and creating a reaction, or whatever the hell a 'color-based magic system' is.
An example of the former type of hard magic can be found in Tobit where the archangel Raphael gives Tobias a certain ritual to perform to thwart a demon, or the apocryphal Testament of Solomon where Saint Michael gives Solomon a magic ring to bind demons, which he commands to build his temple.
This applies to "casting fireball" type of magic too- there's nothing spiritual involved. In LOTR, Gandalf can perform magic because he IS the spiritual being in question. He's the Raphael of the story. He's not a human being casting fireball. I'm just rambling now.
So it's interesting that Tolkien's wizards are actually angels, as Steven says, that's a whole thing there on its own.
I'm still evolving my thinking on this subject, but I like the direction we were moving in on that podcast: that the logic of fairy tales is essentially analogic--that is, that in a fairy tale, the magic conveys the meaning of the story in some sense (ie. the light of a candle represents the princess's life, and to extinguish the candle is to kill her). There's a symbolic logic there, rather than the magics of modern fantasy writers, who essentially are concerned with questions of energy. Crass Newtonianism, as I said in the podcast.
I basically think modern fantasy writers mostly think their characters need mana bars, which they do not.
A little late to the party but I watched your (now very old) livestream about outlining -- do you outline the entire book before you begin writing? Or do you outline as much as you can ahead and then add to it later?
I always add stuff, but I outline the whole book in advance.
Wait wait wait so if I say apple you can't see an apple? Taste the apple? Hear the crunch of biting into one? That's why I love reading in the first place its better than any movie ever. :D
I cannot. I know what all these words mean and can describe the sights and sounds, but those descriptions come from out of a black box. I obviously know what an apple looks like, and I know what the sound and taste are like, but I do not at all re-experience the sensations. Everything in my head is encoded linguistically.
Love your office. Dark wood walls are classy. Thanks for the update and can’t wait to read the final story.
Any plans for trips/signings in Louisiana in the future?
No plans for travel beyond Utah next month and Virginia in January, but I would love to!
And thank you. My father and I built the office. He did the carpentry, and I did all the finishing work myself.