Reader Question Day #39 – criticisms of THE GHOSTS and the cosmology of DEMONSOULED
NRachel322 writes with some questions and comments about THE GHOSTS. Spoiler warning!
Questions below:
In Ghost in the Flames, why didn’t Caina work with Ephaeron? She hated mages, and he hates spies, but I think they would have put aside their differences to fight Kalastus.
The problem was that Ephaeron believed that the Ghosts were behind everything that had happened in Rasadda, as part of a plot to discredit the Magisterium. So anything that Caina said he would discount as part of the plot.
Additionally, Ephaeron hates the Ghosts, and Caina really hates the magi. Sometimes mortal enemies manage to put aside their differences to face a common foe…but sometimes they do not. In fact, frequently they do not.
In Ghost Dagger there is a serious typo. In chapter two Caina says she hopes Ark will find his missing wife someday, but Ark finds her in Ghost in the Blood, two books earlier.
That’s because GHOST DAGGER takes place after GHOST IN THE FLAMES but before GHOST IN THE BLOOD. Caina doesn’t meet Tanya (Ark’s wife) for the first time until halfway through GHOST IN THE BLOOD.
And why does Caina want children so badly? Both I and lots of other women don’t need children to make them fulfilled and happy.
This is true. That said, a very large percentage of women do, in fact, want children. Even in the United States or the UK, countries where childbirth is frequently a choice and not a method of providing for one’s old age (until Social Security runs out of money, anyway), women frequently want children. So it’s not at all unrealistic that Caina would want children.
Additionally, she was a born of a noblewoman of the Nighmarian Empire, and in the Empire it is commonly understood that noblewomen will marry and have children. Caina never questioned that assumption, and if she had questioned it, would have decided that she still wanted children. The fact that the life she wants is very different than the life she has drives a good deal of her inner conflict and motivations.
Seraph316 asks:
This is probably the wrong place to put this but I don’t know how else to contact you. I just started the book and so far so good, but I would like to know more about the series before going any deeper. From your site I was able to gather much information about the demonsouled world, all except it’s cosmology. I love mythology, and I always like to know the setup behind a fantasy world before I get into it. What is the cosmological setup behind the demonsouled world? It’s Gods, it’s creation myth, and the like.
Basically, the cosmology of the DEMONSOULED books is fairly loose. The humans have their own gods, as do the Elderborn. However, there’s some crossover – groups of humans worship the Elderborn gods (specifically, the humans of the Old Kingdoms south of Mastaria in SOUL OF TYRANTS). Additionally, not all the worshipers of a group of gods agree on how to worship those gods or even if they exist at all. The western and eastern groups of the San-keth (the serpent people) have very sharp disagreements on the nature of their god. (This will be a major plot point in the sixth book, SOUL OF SKULLS.)
I left it loose on purpose for two reasons. First, it reflects the diversity of real-world religion. Like, 90% of Christians will agree that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but will disagree on what that means and what to do about it. Second, it provides an excellent driver of the plot. A group of people who worship the same set of gods but disagree on the nature of those gods provides a fertile field for conflict, which is ripe to be used in a story.
Danny asks:
I like to write myself but always run into the same problem I start by doing a brief outline of what happens in the book. like a couple lines per chapter but then when I try to expand on it I seem to have trouble getting beyond 6 pages or so per chapter. I try to add descriptions and details etc to make it bigger but then always seem to get stuck. Do you do it similar or do you just write a chapter and then go onto the next and put in all the details as you go? What is the easiest and best way to do it? Thanks for any help you can give.
I do outline all my books thoroughly before I begin writing. I find this is helpful, since it provides a roadmap of where I want to go with the book. It prevents the sort of writers’ block that occurs when you get halfway through the book and don’t know where to go next.
As for getting bogged down on the details, I have found that action, not description or details, needs to drive the plot. Like, a classic mistake is starting out a book with a detailed description of the weather, or a description of what the main character looks like or is wearing (better by far to start out a book with dramatic action of some sort, like someone walks into the room and shoots a gun). A book needs to be built around actions that the protagonist or protagonists take to resolve their dilemma, whatever that may be.
In my case, the actions come first, and then the details. When I outline a book, I’ll note that in Chapter 12 “Mazael fights these people in this place”, or “Molly does this.” Then when I actually write the chapter, I will flesh it out. If in Chapter 12 Mazael is supposed to fight a dozen Malrags in a ruined castle, I can flesh it out with additional detail – one of the Malrags is a shaman, the castle’s walls are covered with lichen and it smells like mildew, the swordfight starts in the courtyard and ends upon the ramparts – that kind of thing.
I wouldn’t worry about the chapters being too short. People sometimes wonder how long a book should be, or how long a chapter should be, and the answer is always “as long as it needs to be.” It shouldn’t be any longer than that, though. Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said that key to effective public speaking was to “be sincere, be brief, be seated”, and I think that applies to writing as well.
-JM
“That said, a very large percentage of women do, in fact, want children.”
Well gee, I hope so! If not I’d think the human race would be in deep trouble. 😀 Actually, many nations across the world are in trouble, or will be within a century thanks to their populations bottoming out, in part thanks to attitudes like what NRachel expressed. Russia, Japan, etc, these nations will have major problems in the furture, they are not reproducing enough. The truth is that many first world nations will be going through a crisis thanks to underpopulation, overpopulation is a myth.
As for the children=natural social security argument, I’d think that even if this were not the case, most women would still have children.
As for the cosmology of DS, I wish I would have asked about that! I too really like learning about the cosmology behind sub-created worlds! Actually I wish you’d do a piece on this, the Gods and beliefs of the people in the DS world, I think that would be great fun, and informative (not to mention a good reminder, which I could always use)! You could even enlighten us on any real world mythological connections to your DS gods (Amatheon, Amater, Serpheva…um, er, you know the devil figure 😉 )!
“This will be a major plot point in the sixth book, SOUL OF SKULLS”
Oooh, sounds like an interesting plot point, but I wonder which side the san-keth worshipping vikings will fall on? 😀
“Like, 90% of Christians will agree that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,”
Geez I hope it’s more than 90%! That is the basic tenent of Christian belief, I don’t think a person who did not believe that would be considered a Christian in any real sense. Unless your including heretics in the mix, was that statement even framed right? Shouldn’t it read “Like, 90% of Christians will agree that Jesus Christ is God”? That is the basic tenent of orthodox Christianity at least.
Regarding the whole loose vs strict cosmology in a story: when reading a book, which do you prefer? Would you rather the Gods be set in stone as it were, the author knows it, the reader knows it, the characters know it, etc, or would you prefer a story where the heavens are a big question mark, and nobody really agrees on this or that, including even the author himself!?
“I start by doing a brief outline of what happens in the book.”
Back when I used to write, I always did that too, sometimes months/years before I even bothered to try and write the story itself! I still do outlines now, but they are all mental, never written down, mostly because I don’t write anymore. But now thanks to the success of ebook publishing, maybe I will! After all, I do have the rest of my life ahead of me, so I’ve got plenty of time to decide! 🙂
“I have found that action, not description or details, needs to drive the plot.”
I think that is where we disagree a bit. Action is great of course, but I want more than just action spectacles when I read a story, I want to feel like I’m immersed in the world, that it is a living, breathing thing. Middle-earth is an excellent example of this. Too much description can indeed be cumbersome and boring, but not enough just makes the whole thing seem vague.
Take your stuff for example, I’ve said numerous times I really enjoy them, and I mean it, they’re very fun reads! But I think one of the valid criticisms of your work is that, to me at least, it seems that world immersion is sacrificed in favor of action. Don’t get me wrong, I love action, and you do pretty darn good action sequences, but there are many times during your stuff that I wish some of the characters would just sit down and have a nice talk, have things fleshed out more for their own sakes, rather than wrapped around action sequences. Mazael and Gerald just spouting off about this or that, the good ol’ days or what may be or not be, for example (yes they do this sometimes, but it always seems to be in brief, rather than lenghty, in-depth converations). Like building the world for the reader before we ever get there, rather then right when it’s important and only then. I guess that is why I ask alot of these big questions of you. You build interesting worlds, but it feels like you like hoarding information about them, lol. In that you are very much like some of your forebearers, David Gemmell comes to mine. He was one of the best S&S authors out there, a grand pulp writer, but he did the same thing in all his stuff-action first, world second. Maybe that’s it in a nutshell, your both pulp writers, maybe this is in the nature of pulp writing itself? I don’t know. I just feel like I’d like to explore the worlds you’ve created more, but I feel restricted in that exploration, in a sense you only allow so much.
But that seems to be the way you like writing, and there is nothing wrong with that I suppose, maybe it’s not a valid criticism after all? I guess I’m just more of a tolkien/high fantasy/mythopia type fan than I am sword&sorcery (though I still do really like S&S), maybe that is key here, what I’m missing. I don’t know if you can dive into a S&S world the same way you can a high fantasy?
“Regarding the whole loose vs strict cosmology in a story: when reading a book, which do you prefer? Would you rather the Gods be set in stone as it were, the author knows it, the reader knows it, the characters know it, etc, or would you prefer a story where the heavens are a big question mark, and nobody really agrees on this or that, including even the author himself!?”
I don’t prefer it either way, but I do think they’re a different kind of story. Like, a story where the gods physically manifest and chat with their worshipers is one where the adherents don’t have to take the gods on faith, because the gods are right there. Or in D&D, where a cleric prays to Pelor or Nerull or whatever every day, and then receives spells – no faith necessary. In that case the relationship between a god and his followers is really more of an employer/employee one or a suzerain/vassal. The adherent doesn’t need to take anything on faith, because the god is right there, or the god is giving him level one healing spells.
“It feels like you like hoarding information about them, lol.”
Yup. Economy of detail! 🙂
“But that seems to be the way you like writing, and there is nothing wrong with that I suppose, maybe it’s not a valid criticism after all? I guess I’m just more of a tolkien/high fantasy/mythopia type fan than I am sword&sorcery (though I still do really like S&S), maybe that is key here, what I’m missing. I don’t know if you can dive into a S&S world the same way you can a high fantasy?”
I think there are writers who spend a lot more time worldbuilding than I do. Like, I know for Tolkien’s case, he constructed this huge, elaborately imagined world for decades, and only then attempted to put stories in it. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is really the prologue of his efforts to build Arda and Middle-Earth. For me, the story comes first, and the world is a place to put it. The world has to be interesting, of course, but I wouldn’t build the world for the sake of simply building the world.
“but I do think they’re a different kind of story.”
They would be, something like D&D gets a mythical flare thanks to their gods walking amongst man, intruding in his affairs, etc, kind of like greek mythology. But I don’t know if that woould take away the faith aspect, maybe just faith without seeing, but I’m pretty sure that is only one aspect of faith in general, and a rather subjective one at that. A man does not need to have faith in God to know he exists, he can come to that conclusion through his reason, putting his faith in God would mean putting his trust in him, and with that in mind, I don’t see why a D&D scenario would take away from a faith aspect.
“Yup. Economy of detail!”
Nuts. I guess that means I can count out that essay on the gods of DS. 🙁 😉
“THE LORD OF THE RINGS is really the prologue of his efforts to build Arda and Middle-Earth.”
Haha, sort of, yeah. It was only one part of much bigger thing. I try to tell people (that have only read LOTR) that all the time, but some just don’t get it. If they’d read the other stuff (Hobbit, Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Children of Hurin, etc), I think they would understand.
“For me, the story comes first, and the world is a place to put it. The world has to be interesting, of course, but I wouldn’t build the world for the sake of simply building the world.”
That’s fine, it’s how you write, and you write well, so it’s all good. 😀
The mistake was on my part, I thought you were just holding back, when in reality you were writing a very different way than what I assumed. My apologies!
I hope you’ll still be willing to take my world building questions though! 😉
“The mistake was on my part, I thought you were just holding back, when in reality you were writing a very different way than what I assumed. My apologies!”
Oh, no worries. Fiction is a bit like cooking – there’s no single right way to go about it. Just so long as the end result is delicious (and botulism-free).
For world-building, I don’t like to get too detailed early on because (at least for me) it inhibits later creativity and turns into a straitjacket. Like, I first wrote DEMONSOULED in 2001. I did not even think of the Tervingi until I was halfway through writing SOUL OF DRAGONS in 2011, and the idea for the Malrags first began percolating in 2005 and 2006. If I had done super-detailed worldbuilding (complete with an elaborate map), I would have had to ditch a lot of it, or retcon it somehow.
“(and botulism-free)” 😀
Hey, however you build your worlds, however you tell your stories, however you write….just keep up the good work! 🙂
I’ll miss the DS saga once it’s over, but it will be interesting to see what you do afterwards (including what you’ll do when you return to the DS universe)!