For those interested in the how and a little behind the why
I wrote Flame and Crimson the following
is a look behind the curtain.
I started giving serious thought to writing a book about the
sword-and-sorcery subgenre in late 2012/early 2013. I love sword-and-sorcery
fiction, and wanted to add a chapter of my own. I realized long ago after
trying my hand at some short stories that shall never see the light of day that
I’m not a fiction writer. I enjoy writing, but had not written anything book
length and took that as a personal challenge. I also recognized there was a
sizable hole in the critical literature: There hasn’t been any formal,
book-length works analyzing or surveying on the genre itself.
I started with a brain-dump on paper of everything I would
like to see in a non-fiction study of sword-and-sorcery. I still have this
document; it’s basically nine pages of single-spaced list of bullet points. I canned
many of these early ideas. For example, initially I thought I would include reviews
of some of the best stories in the genre, but I came to realize that I myself
don’t enjoy reading plot summaries. There is of course some of this in Flame and Crimson, but I don’t spend
much space recapping individual stories. The focus instead is on its principal authors
and their individual thematic and stylistic contributions to the genre.
I then began to cluster these ideas into a chronological narrative,
then broke this up into a table of contents, with detailed bullet points under
each chapter of what I needed to cover. Eventually, I put together a comprehensive
but not sprawling outline that I could live with.
Then came the actual butt in seat writing, which started
somewhere in late 2014. I had some weeks where I fit in 2-3 one-hour writing
sessions or longer, followed by some weeks where I only managed a single
pathetic hour, or none at all. But I persisted. I realized that if I wanted to
increase my frequency of writing sessions and word count output that sacrifices
elsewhere were necessary. So I stopped blogging (hence, the absence of posts on
the Silver Key from 2013-2019). I stopped gaming. I stopped reading, for the
most part, outside of sword-and-sorcery.
Basically I put on a football helmet and went to work.
As is the case with most middle-aged adults I have many competing obligations
that are non-negotiable. I have a family, including two teenage daughters (who
were not teens when I started, and needed to be driven to dance classes, soccer
games, playdates, you name it. The older now has driver’s license). I have a
full-time, 40+ hour a week job that includes some business travel. I lift
weights four days a week in the early mornings prior to work. I cover high
school football in the fall. In short, my writing time is limited, and for me
is mostly an evening activity.
About eight months after I began work on Flame and Crimson
we decided to sell our house, and that pretty much put the work on hold for several
months. But it had a benefit: We moved across town to a home with a full sized unfinished
basement that became my crude man cave, complete with a kick-ass bar I
inherited from my sister. My cellar became my writer’s retreat. Typically I worked
in one hour writing sessions from 7-8 p.m. or thereabouts. By 8:30 my fatigue
was sufficient that thoughtful, creative writing became difficult to manage. I
wrote on some weekend mornings, prior to all the usual obligations to home and family.
But yeah, most of the writing was done at a bar. Often
standing. Occasionally with a beer.
Some days the writing was great, and flowed like wine at a
wedding reception, and on other days it was an utter slog, producing 200 words
of drek. Writing at this length was difficult, as most of what I had written
prior were essays, white papers, or newspaper articles, ranging anywhere from
800 to perhaps 4,000 words. The chapters I had outlined required double and sometimes
triple that latter figure.
Soon I found a helpful tool, which I called the rule of
three—three main topics per chapter. Why three? Three has a natural rhythm. So for
example in chapter 4, Weird Tales: Howard’s
sword-and-sorcery contemporaries, I cover Clark Ashton Smith, C.L. Moore,
and Henry Kuttner. In chapter 5, I principally cover Fritz Leiber, Michael
Moorcock, and the Lancer Conan Saga. And so on. Is this rule of three arbitrary?
Yeah, a little bit. Did I follow it slavishly? No. But I needed to do something
to prevent a sprawling, too long book.
As I wrote, I found myself revising my outline. I collapsed
two chapters into one, and removed one chapter altogether. I threw out big
chunks of text that weren’t bad but were not the story I wanted to tell.
Here is the final Table of Contents:
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Let me tell you of the days of high adventure...
- Chapter 1: What is sword-and-sorcery?
- Chapter 2: Origins
- Chapter 3: Robert E. Howard and the birth of sword-and-sorcery
- Chapter 4: Weird Tales: Howard's sword-and-sorcery contemporaries
- Chapter 5: A new Saga begins: Sword-and-sorcery's revival
- Chapter 6: Sword-and-sorcery's renaissance
- Chapter 7: The decline and fall of sword-and-sorcery
- Chapter 8: Underground, resurgence, and new directions
- Chapter 9: The cultural impact of sword-and-sorcery
- Chapter 10: Why sword-and-sorcery?
- A probable timeline of sword-and-sorcery
- Works Cited
- About the author and artist
What really slowed down the writing was not a lack of time,
or competing responsibilities, or even rewriting (thought this is partially
responsible), but the research. I’m not blessed with a great memory, and many
books that I had read years ago required re-reading. I re-read most of the
Conan and Kull stories. All of Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Moorcock’s
principal Elric series, and Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. I re-read the Flashing
Swords anthologies, L. Sprague de Camp’s four volume Pyramid sword-and-sorcery
anthologies, and many, many other books.
I realized I had numerous holes in my reading, too. I
ordered dozens of books missing from my library—various Thongor and Kothar and Brak
titles, one-off anthologies, Hippocampus Press publications of letters by H.P.
Lovecraft to the likes of Fritz Leiber and C.L. Moore. Lee Breakiron got me
access to a digital version of the entire run of Amra, which I skim-read in its entirety and read and re-read many
of its letters and essays. Issues of Weird
Tales, mainly for access to its invaluable letters column, The Eyrie. I tracked down and watched/rewatched
a lot of bad sword-and-sorcery movies. I dug out my old D&D books and Dragon magazines. I listened to
sword-and-sorcery inspired heavy metal bands. And so on. During all this time I
was not writing, but formulating and taking notes that eventually needed to be
turned into prose.
Flame and Crimson’s
Works Cited is some 20 pages long.
I then went back and edited the hell out of what I had
written. I wound up cutting somewhere around 12,000 words—the length of an
entire chapter and then some—from the draft. I found that in places it was too
wordy, too pedantic. Cluttered with unclear thoughts and sloppy thinking. Sometimes
too much unsupported opinion, sometimes too much bile.
Then came another edit, for polish rather than wholesale revision.
This third edit really improved the writing, in my humble opinion. I think it’s
got a nice cadence, and is a balance of readability and completeness. I wanted
this book to tell a story, and entertain as well as inform. I was not
interested in a dry critical study.
When I finally felt like I had a solid draft, I then I had
to go back and add the in-text citations and works cited. This took me a couple
months to complete, mainly because I made the mistake of not properly documenting
my sources as I worked. This was painful and pain-staking to do in reverse, and
is a mistake I won’t make again if ever write another book.
Looking back, I’m not in love with chapter 1—it feels a
little workmanlike and paint by numbers, and possibly paints a too restrictive
frame around sword-and-sorcery. But in the end I decided that the genre is still
sufficiently misunderstood that I was obligated to offer a coherent definition,
with examples from the literature. I personally believe the book begins to sing
in chapter 5, peaking in chapter 7.
Chapter 10 is the most subjective and opinion-based in the work.
Should I have included the “why” of sword-and-sorcery? Isn’t its existence
enough justification? I’m still not sure, but from a very early stage I knew it
was a chapter I deeply wanted to write. It’s the culmination of my years of
ruminating on why I like this type of fiction, how it speaks to me, and the
important aesthetic it offers fantasy fiction that high fantasy does not.
So, all told more than six years, from conception to
completion. That’s a long time, even taking out a couple of months long
stretches with little to no progress.
I am told from my publisher at Pulp Hero Press that I will
be seeing a proof copy likely by this coming weekend. This will be the first
time I’ve read the manuscript in nearly two months, and I’m sure the critical
distance will reveal some flaws. I will be able to make a final round of edits at
this stage. I’m still awaiting the cover as well, of
which I’ve previously revealed the awesome art by Tom Barber. I have not
seen the completed image with the superimposed title.
I hope the final product does not suck. It represents a lot
of work, and the best I could do in my present circumstances. Flame and Crimson: The rise, fall, and
rebirth of sword-and-sorcery should be published next month.
11 comments:
Sounds fantastic, Brian!
Excellent!
Looks good. I missed the blog, but it's cool that you were writing this. I'm looking forward to reading it.
Looking forward to reading the book.
Thanks for the interest men.
Brian, if Bob at Pulp Hero Press is bringing this out, it will be a handsome publication, no doubt about that. And congratulations on getting a Tom Barber cover. My own next s&s book is coming out from Pulp Hero Press and has a Tom Barber cover, as well, which thrills me. Don't know if you mention me in your book or if you have much to say about my stuff, but no matter. It is *excellent* that those of us who appreciate this genre will have something solid to turn to in our desire to clarify that s&s as a genre is not necessarily junk food, which remains the common perception, I suspect.
Wow, a visit from David C. Smith! I’m glad you found this bit of cyberspace David. I do mention Oron as well as your Red Sonja series with Richard Tierney. Not as much ink as I’d like perhaps but they’re in there. Thanks for adding your important verse to the story.
I do hope Flame and Crimson offers a counterweight to the perception that S&S is “sword and sinew”/Barbarians in loincloths. Certainly it has its share of that, but name me a genre that doesn’t have its share of dross.
There's a smell on the air. It's been there for a few years, but it seems to be getting stronger. The smell of a resurgence of Sword & Sorcery.
Many people fondly entertain the thought, and I'm seeing more and more people putting serious thought into making it happen.
I feel it's not long before the stars will be right.
I hope so Martin! We need it, desperately. I can't handle "Chronicles of X" published over seven volumes. No patience for that anymore. Give me lean and mean S&S.
This is a great article and I look forward to reading your book. David C. Smith just told me about it. I just had my first novel republished by Pulp Hero Press, and its sequel will be out this year. My collaboration with Dave Smith, Waters of Darkness, is also coming out in a second edition from PHP. So welcome to the club!
Hi Joe, just stumbled across your comment... thank you Sir! Pulp Hero Press gang reporting for duty:) I do need to check out your work.
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