Assalamu Alaikum,
I hear from readers occasionally who want to try the sword & sorcery genre. They do the logical thing: they go straight to the old-school “canon.” And then they quit a few pages in because they feel like nothing has actually happened yet.
I’m one of those readers, by the way. Recently, I picked up a Conan story written by Howard himself. Initially, it was interesting, but so much of the early story is dialogue and info-dumping, especially between the villains, and at a certain point I was just like, “come on, just get to it, man”! Howard might have revealed character motivation, including the villains’, more through action than back-and-forth argumentation. But I also understand prose can lean on dialogue more than visual media can. It made me take a break from the book before picking it up again.
It got me thinking about how these stories actually work. I lean toward the character-driven side. If you’re reading a story and you find yourself really caring about the characters, the story is doing its job under the hood. A character isn’t made interesting by piling on childhood trauma or superficial quirks or super detailed biographies. What makes them compelling has almost nothing to do with who they are as a person or their random RPG stats, and everything to do with what they want and why they can’t have it.
If a character doesn’t have a specific measurable goal with a deadline and consequences (e.g. take the Ring to Mount Doom and throw it in the lava before the Dark Lord gets his hands on it), they act like furniture. And then you’re going to want a lot of atmosphere, because the atmosphere is a crutch . You don’t have the foundational structure, so you need some other crutch. Character is revealed under pressure and through the choices they make in the present (not through backstory dumps or explanatory dialogue).
Environmental details do build atmosphere, and as long as it doesn’t stall the story’s momentum, that’s fine. Atmosphere-first books aren’t bad at all, and some readers are into that sort of thing. The danger is picking up a book, expecting a driving character arc and getting an atmospheric “sauna” instead.
If you are looking for that driving, character-first momentum in fantasy, I have a couple of recommendations. Joe Abercrombie is aces for this. And if you want to look at classic sword & sorcery, try Michael Moorcock’s Elric stories.
I will be sending another note your way next week with a few more thoughts.
Wes
P.S. We have a new book out called The Hierophant’s Game. I will say a little more about it later, inshAllah.