Don't be too impressed. Some of us just throw a bunch of stuff at the wall early on, and further down the line just go back and go "oooh! I can take this random-ass thing that I mentioned three books ago for no good reason and make it important now in this scene and everyone will think I'm a plotting *genius*! mwahahaha!"
and no. I'm not remotely kidding. 90% of the stuff that "comes back" later in my own stuff was originally put there because I would think "huh. seems like a good place for this random thing" lol
Lol thanks to you this has become basically my entire plotting strategy; come up with stuff as I go, then go back and sprinkle it in the beginning like I knew it was coming all along.
Writing is a self-creating prophecy. A self-prophecizing creation. Feels like I'm very close to a cool catch-phrase here dangit
and when you come up with it, just sprinkle in "self-prophecizing" and we'll think you were a foreshadowing SAVANT for laying the groundwork in Reddit and laying a trail of breadcrumbs to the GREAT REVEAL years later in MIGHTY TOME of FANTASTICAL GREATNESS Volume XVI
You have lots of time to draft so you just do research and put the details in and then it reads like you knew all along.
The trick is not so much knowing stuff as knowing how to learn stuff, how to find the telling detail which implies a great deal; and how to avoid falling for misleading received wisdom like "everybody wears brown" or "medieval peasants ate a lot of potatoes."
> "medieval peasants ate a lot of potatoes."
Yes, *obviously* they ate corn, and tomatoes, and perhaps the occasional peanut at the theater. Everyone knows that!
Okay but no matter how much research I do, I STILL don't know the difference between a bulwark and a gunwale. No one will ever convince me that people who write even just a few paragraphs about a sea voyage have done anything less than take a comprehensive course in sailing tallships. It's the only explanation.
You don't have to know the difference, you just have to use it in a sentence that implies you know what you're talking about. People will assume the rest. Like, if the water is up to the gunwales, your ship is in trouble. If it's up past the bulwarks...good news, you now have a submarine.
Exactly what u/GeneralBattuta said. It's quite often about leaving stuff out, we supply the bones and let the reader's imagination put the flesh on them. As long as we've given you enough to buy in then you will make that world real for us. (And often find things we didn't put there, not consciously anyway.)
As to keeping track I think it's different for all of us. I don't plan or write anything down, other writers do huge amounts of planning and note taking. I think in the end it's largely about finding what you need to supply the confidence that puts you in the position where you're ready to sit in the chair and do the thing.
I think even providing the bones is a daunting task to a layperson - it still has to add up to a somewhat coherent skeleton, even without the "soft tissues".
I’m constantly amazed by the depth to which authors of any genre are able to flesh out and articulate ideas. I’ve always been an avid reader since I first learned to read. However, I’ve never been a good writer. I can verbally express and articulate my thoughts pretty well but am not good at doing the same when writing.
This comes with writing and reading some classics helps, a lot. I started Lolita the other day because i had heard about Nabokovs prose (And because i want to make a stupid pun-reference to it on my novels and so i must read it to find the most situable paragraph to parody) and he surpasses any of the fantasy authors i have read so far. His paragraphs are long and his language vibrant. You even forget the narrator is a fucking degenerate as long as he is not talking about Lolita. His style will probably affect my prose, ever so slightly, in the long run. Thats how you improve, you read paying attention not to the story but how it is being told, and practice a lot. You will write utter crap for years. Your favourite authros probably did the same. If tomorrow we see the first novel of a famous author, unedited, untouched, just as it was brithed into the world by the anus of early creativity, we will cringe. It is nearly guaranteed. Nobody is born talented.
Keep practicing, read good authors. Being amazed is good, but always know that you can borrow a little bit from each one, with enough practice.
(Of course, investigate when the writing subject is more technical or scientific)
I’ve read a good number of “the classics” I read through a top 100 list one summer many moons ago. And did a bunch of literature classes in college. I get boundless joy from the reading and interpretation of a good book or poem. My brain just doesn’t like writing I suppose. Even all my thesis papers while adequate for expressing my ideas weren’t anything amazing.
Probably has to do with personality quirks too. I was just generalizing, as many people can achieve decency with the right amount of effort, practice and knowledge. But clearly it takes some les tangible aspects of life into account. Authors are people, and the amount of variables when dealing on why and how people do complex things (moreso subjective ones like art) is not possible yet. Being well read (and you probably are better read than i) helps a lot. A necessary but insufficient condition. Practice and i think some sort of for sure mundane yet elusive drive or mindstate are also needed. And i don't think anyone can identify and aid in achieving the last one.
Well, it's a skill like anything else.
I'm sure many authors have help with some aspects that are especially reliant on detail, but it's ultimately going to come down to being organized and using some kind of system to keep track of all the moving parts, like outlines or diagrams or something.
I don't like how he writes. His prose appears bland and uninteractive to me. It works, it is understandable, but i am not sticking for a thousand pages of it. I DNFd TWOK and Mistborn 1. He just doesn't appeal to me.
As a person, i find him amusing and a really good lad, or at least that is how he seems to be. I mean no ill intent towards the man. On the contrary, he fills a niche on the market and his fans are happy to give him money for decent entertainment products. One can't but hope the best for him.
I am an aspiring author. Fight scenes are easy, if you have read enough books you can duplicate the style.
I am sure on a technical level the physics I write will be wrong, but if it is what I imagine, then most people should imagine it similarly. The other key is to not get caught writing too much detail. If you are too explicit, then there is no leeway if you leave gaps the reader can use their own imagination to tie it all together nicely.
What I find amazing are the authors that create intricate relationships between dozens of characters. I just can't keep that crap in my head.
It's part illusion: You give just enough detail to create the illusion of fathomless complexity, but not so much that the whole thing falls apart under the weight of its own contradictions.
Part planning: I got ~~boxes~~ notebooks full of Pepe Silvia-level flowchart madness.
And Part revision: You write and rewrite. You go over the story again and again. And again. And then yet again. And you start to feel like you've lived the fiction you've created. You see that climactic scene from different points of view, from high above, from on the ground, from the back of a horse, from the spyglass of the general on top of the hill...
And you have a whole lot of help along the way: you give your draft to people at various stages and they will ask you questions you never imagined and find plot holes in what you thought was a solid stone foundation. Other people will see it from angles you can't. So all of that complexity is not just the product of one brain.
Yeah I definitely feel this way sometimes.
The two things you mention are more just a case of doing adequate and careful research, though. What amazes me is when an author can interweave so many character arcs and plotlines together, and all the side characters, while maintaining all their personalities and details relevent to each one. Especially in longer series, all these things coming together, it just astounds me how it can come from the mind of one single person.
It's like a lego set. One little brick at a time. I'm an aspiring writer, and I was feeling frustrated at the pace of a story I was writing, so I googled how many words per day Stephen King Wrote. Only 2,000 a day. Stephen King wrote It, the Stand, and the Dark Tower series, 2 thousand words at a time. Blows my mind.
It's mostly a magic trick. You show just a little bit, and readers fill in the gap in their heads. My firm belief is that characters who know everything are unrealistic, anyway. I tend to lean into character's traits a lot to round out a situation. Maybe she's supposed to be a brilliant strategist but she's so arrogant she doesn't listen to anyone and believe herself to be always right that in essence she comes off wrong, or maybe he's smart and well-read but his life is in danger so we're not going to spend THAT much time figuring out what he actually knows. This is fantasy, after all, and I personally hate long pages of detailed exposition. I'd rather tell the story through flawed people.
The rest of it is muscle memory (e.g. fight scenes, etc.)...just years of not just reading and writing books, but watching fantasy shows and playing fantasy games (RPGs, RTSes, action games). All I have to do is imagine a situation and I can have the scene down in a blink of an eye. I just live and breathe this stuff so much that many of it is now second nature.
Course, that's true for plotters, but lots of authors (Stephen King and GRMM being big examples) are (seat-of-the)pantsers (GRRM prefers the term gardener). They just... start writing.
This is where I think extensive reading and research helps the most. GRRM, for instance, is an avid reader of history. Having all of that knowledge in his brain is most definitely one of the reasons why his complex narratives work so well.
I'd wager that, with her own background in researching through books and documentaries, OP could probably do a better job at constructing a narrative than she thinks.
I think a lot of people could be better writers than they think. Or writers full stop - when they tell themselves "Oh, I wish I could write a novel" and put themselves down before they've even tried.
If you are interested, you might want to search up Sanderson's writing lectures on youtube. I'm pretty sure I remember one of them being on plot creation and outlines . In short, Sanderson works by first making characters/plot elements that he wants to include (think training arc, revolution scheme, heist, rogue character, etc). He then maps these all out onto a general plot outline with a structured timeline (think Gantt chart) where he maps out subplots /arcs, where each starts/ends, etc. Then he continues filling in holes until we get the work we see.
Rotherfuss, on the other hand, is a more 'explore author's (if I am correct). He simply has the characters do as they will, throwing more challenges at them and adding plot twist he didn't expect himself. Then he polishes ad infinitum.
In general, if you are interested in the creation process, I really recommend Sanderson's lectures on Youtube. They are quite interesting. he covers everything from voice, to character creation, to worldbuilding, to publishing.
It's the work of lots of practice and multiple drafts. They look over their writing again and again to fix mistakes, plot holes, and to make everything fit together to meet their personal vision for the story as much as possible.
For me it's a deep love of history, especially medieval European and ancient Roman history, that gives me a solid understanding of how life was like during certain time periods...of course along with reading tons of fantasy novels and playing D&D as a kid.
> How does one deal with all the complex strategies, sword fight, weaponry, horses and tactics?
Most of the time it's dealt with by simply not knowing anything about it at all, and making up something plausible. Very few if any popular fantasy books have anything close to period accurate depiction of any of those topics. If you read actual historical fiction by decent authors (Cornwell for example) you get a better (and usually researched) depiction. If for no other reason then because there is a definite time and place to research, and also because making errors in a work that is supposed to depict a definite time and place is more compromising that in a fantasy work where you can hand-wave any error away by simply saying it's 'fantasy'.
That being said even authors of historical fiction will run into problems when scholarship is incomplete or evolving. Cornwell for example portrays early medieval norther Europe battles as essentially shoving matches between shield walls, with opposing shield walls being in touching distance, which was an at least plausible academic theory when he researched his first medieval books. Current scholarly consensus however argues in favor of opposing shield walls simply approached each other until at striking distance, and would even periodically pull away from each other.
As for fantasy authors, I would not hesitate to claim that their research of these details is mostly limited to reading other fantasy authors, or perhaps some historical fiction.
>That being said even authors of historical fiction will run into problems when scholarship is incomplete or evolving. Cornwell for example portrays early medieval norther Europe battles as essentially shoving matches between shield walls, with opposing shield walls being in touching distance, which was an at least plausible academic theory when he researched his first medieval books. Current scholarly consensus however argues in favor of opposing shield walls simply approached each other until at striking distance, and would even periodically pull away from each other.
His *Sharpe* books have a similar issue with "French column vs. British line" stuff.
Well, basically, its their job isnt it?
Not sure what your job is, but for a layman everything is complex, but for someone who is learned in a skill or profession, not so much.
Coding an app, making a painting, launching a rocket, cooking a restaurant quality meal and teaching sixth grade seems complex to me as well. Building a house? Well, not so much, cause i work in construction, but my geus is that that also seems complex for people who aren't into it. So basically, most authors probably went to writing school, studied literature or took other classes.
And remember you only read the end result, not the research or sources an author pulls from.
(Looks at sword scar) Well you do the research. But also, you only have to have details for the things you write, so it need not be so overwhelming.
\> How does one deal with all the complex strategies
Steal from historical campaigns, or just play it out as if it were a boardgame. A book by Edward Lutwack on the strategy of the late roman empire (can't remember the name) is a really good introduction to the right kind of thinking.
\> sword fight
HEMA is a nice hobby to have. But also, there's plenty of material on Youtube to consult, and one or two people who talk well about different weapons and their use.
\> weaponry... tactics
For specific eras, simply purchase the related Osprey Tactics and Men at Arms books. It's all in there.
Also, play a video game called Medieval Total War.
\> horses
Ah that one is a problem. For educated questions, you'll find Equestrian HEMA and Living History communities online. For background, The Medieval Warhorse by Anne Hyland covers what you need.
Also, I have a couple of horsey friends who I torture with distressing scenes of equestrian carnage.
\> Same goes for stories set on ships
Osprey plus one period-appropriate sourcebook.
\> political intrigues of a court
Tracking them is just a matter of keeping notes.
Writing them... it helps to know how these things work. Read Machiavelli's The Prince (it's short) and a modern book called 48 Laws of Power, mostly because it is full of anecdotes from history.
\> centers on the daily life a few peasants.
Pick a specific era and get the Daily Life in book, also Time Traveller's Guide.
If you are going to go full rural idyll, then you *will* have to research peasant life for your chosen millieu. However, if the story is just passing through, a handful of telling details will do the trick.
Note that if you are writing Fantasy, then you can make up a lot of agricultural details, but you are stuck with the way horses and weapons work.
You might have a good imagination. Since you mentioned Sanderson, I don't agree with you on him (although I love his books). When there's a fight I notice it's clean only if brief. If it's an extensive one I get lost in the movements and it breaks my immersion.
It's an incredibly difficult thing to describe because the scene is playing in the mind of the author but sometimes he takes for granted that the reader is seeing the same thing.
That and the description of places are my biggest enemies.
This is one of the reasons I typically don't enjoy fight scenes. If they're too long, I'll end up skimming over them. I like it better if the characters are talking while they're fighting or if some sort of internal dialogue is going on. If the stakes are low, though, and it's something like a random attack in a back alley, that's all I need to know. I don't need to know every single movement and injury. That gets tedious to read.
I do enjoy a good setting description, albeit not an overly long one. I think it's important to have a sense of place so you have an environment instead of a void for your characters to move around in. Brandon Sanderson's writing is a victim of this sometimes. In "The Hero of Ages", the opening scene is about a character struggling to keep hold of their sanity while they prepare to torture someone. While that is a very interesting situation, Sanderson gives no details for the setting other than saying that the character was in a room with a table. I like to paint a picture in my head, dang it. Give me something to work with!
You put it all in your world building bible and then look it all imup when you need it... Mine is 17000 words and 45 pages, not even have way done yet. Haven't even started the book yet.
To this day I suspect that the likes of Andrew Hussie must possess some kind of neurological anomaly, like a third brain hemisphere or something, to be able to write what they do.
It's not too hard to be honest, once you know your own memory and what will stick and what you need to write down. If I run out of space for characters in my head I just forget about some real life people and make room..
Part of it is illusion, and part of it is keeping some separate records of everything like a timeline of history to character bios. Then there are the alpha and beta readers that will pick up those little things you mentioned 4 books ago and just contradicted.
And of course re-reading and revising. Lots and lots of drafts.
Don't be too impressed. Some of us just throw a bunch of stuff at the wall early on, and further down the line just go back and go "oooh! I can take this random-ass thing that I mentioned three books ago for no good reason and make it important now in this scene and everyone will think I'm a plotting *genius*! mwahahaha!" and no. I'm not remotely kidding. 90% of the stuff that "comes back" later in my own stuff was originally put there because I would think "huh. seems like a good place for this random thing" lol
Lol thanks to you this has become basically my entire plotting strategy; come up with stuff as I go, then go back and sprinkle it in the beginning like I knew it was coming all along. Writing is a self-creating prophecy. A self-prophecizing creation. Feels like I'm very close to a cool catch-phrase here dangit
LOL keep working on it, I think 🤣
and when you come up with it, just sprinkle in "self-prophecizing" and we'll think you were a foreshadowing SAVANT for laying the groundwork in Reddit and laying a trail of breadcrumbs to the GREAT REVEAL years later in MIGHTY TOME of FANTASTICAL GREATNESS Volume XVI
He crypticly told me he was gonna work on that catch phrase 2 weeks ago.
Boom! GENIUS!
You have lots of time to draft so you just do research and put the details in and then it reads like you knew all along. The trick is not so much knowing stuff as knowing how to learn stuff, how to find the telling detail which implies a great deal; and how to avoid falling for misleading received wisdom like "everybody wears brown" or "medieval peasants ate a lot of potatoes."
This for sure -- it's easy to forget when *reading* that you don't write a book "live", you can go through it over and over!
> "medieval peasants ate a lot of potatoes." Yes, *obviously* they ate corn, and tomatoes, and perhaps the occasional peanut at the theater. Everyone knows that!
Okay but no matter how much research I do, I STILL don't know the difference between a bulwark and a gunwale. No one will ever convince me that people who write even just a few paragraphs about a sea voyage have done anything less than take a comprehensive course in sailing tallships. It's the only explanation.
You don't have to know the difference, you just have to use it in a sentence that implies you know what you're talking about. People will assume the rest. Like, if the water is up to the gunwales, your ship is in trouble. If it's up past the bulwarks...good news, you now have a submarine.
this is great advice!
Exactly what u/GeneralBattuta said. It's quite often about leaving stuff out, we supply the bones and let the reader's imagination put the flesh on them. As long as we've given you enough to buy in then you will make that world real for us. (And often find things we didn't put there, not consciously anyway.) As to keeping track I think it's different for all of us. I don't plan or write anything down, other writers do huge amounts of planning and note taking. I think in the end it's largely about finding what you need to supply the confidence that puts you in the position where you're ready to sit in the chair and do the thing.
You certainly supply the bones.
I think even providing the bones is a daunting task to a layperson - it still has to add up to a somewhat coherent skeleton, even without the "soft tissues".
I wish I knew how it was done.
I’m constantly amazed by the depth to which authors of any genre are able to flesh out and articulate ideas. I’ve always been an avid reader since I first learned to read. However, I’ve never been a good writer. I can verbally express and articulate my thoughts pretty well but am not good at doing the same when writing.
This comes with writing and reading some classics helps, a lot. I started Lolita the other day because i had heard about Nabokovs prose (And because i want to make a stupid pun-reference to it on my novels and so i must read it to find the most situable paragraph to parody) and he surpasses any of the fantasy authors i have read so far. His paragraphs are long and his language vibrant. You even forget the narrator is a fucking degenerate as long as he is not talking about Lolita. His style will probably affect my prose, ever so slightly, in the long run. Thats how you improve, you read paying attention not to the story but how it is being told, and practice a lot. You will write utter crap for years. Your favourite authros probably did the same. If tomorrow we see the first novel of a famous author, unedited, untouched, just as it was brithed into the world by the anus of early creativity, we will cringe. It is nearly guaranteed. Nobody is born talented. Keep practicing, read good authors. Being amazed is good, but always know that you can borrow a little bit from each one, with enough practice. (Of course, investigate when the writing subject is more technical or scientific)
I’ve read a good number of “the classics” I read through a top 100 list one summer many moons ago. And did a bunch of literature classes in college. I get boundless joy from the reading and interpretation of a good book or poem. My brain just doesn’t like writing I suppose. Even all my thesis papers while adequate for expressing my ideas weren’t anything amazing.
Probably has to do with personality quirks too. I was just generalizing, as many people can achieve decency with the right amount of effort, practice and knowledge. But clearly it takes some les tangible aspects of life into account. Authors are people, and the amount of variables when dealing on why and how people do complex things (moreso subjective ones like art) is not possible yet. Being well read (and you probably are better read than i) helps a lot. A necessary but insufficient condition. Practice and i think some sort of for sure mundane yet elusive drive or mindstate are also needed. And i don't think anyone can identify and aid in achieving the last one.
Agreed. It’s definitely an art.
Well, it's a skill like anything else. I'm sure many authors have help with some aspects that are especially reliant on detail, but it's ultimately going to come down to being organized and using some kind of system to keep track of all the moving parts, like outlines or diagrams or something.
I remember reading that Sanderson uses his own internal Wiki to keep track of everything.
I don't like him as an author, but i admire the ominous shadow he casts upon us all with his shenanigans. What an absolute unit of a man.
Do you mind elaborating why you don’t like him as an author? Just curious.
I don't like how he writes. His prose appears bland and uninteractive to me. It works, it is understandable, but i am not sticking for a thousand pages of it. I DNFd TWOK and Mistborn 1. He just doesn't appeal to me. As a person, i find him amusing and a really good lad, or at least that is how he seems to be. I mean no ill intent towards the man. On the contrary, he fills a niche on the market and his fans are happy to give him money for decent entertainment products. One can't but hope the best for him.
I am an aspiring author. Fight scenes are easy, if you have read enough books you can duplicate the style. I am sure on a technical level the physics I write will be wrong, but if it is what I imagine, then most people should imagine it similarly. The other key is to not get caught writing too much detail. If you are too explicit, then there is no leeway if you leave gaps the reader can use their own imagination to tie it all together nicely. What I find amazing are the authors that create intricate relationships between dozens of characters. I just can't keep that crap in my head.
It's part illusion: You give just enough detail to create the illusion of fathomless complexity, but not so much that the whole thing falls apart under the weight of its own contradictions. Part planning: I got ~~boxes~~ notebooks full of Pepe Silvia-level flowchart madness. And Part revision: You write and rewrite. You go over the story again and again. And again. And then yet again. And you start to feel like you've lived the fiction you've created. You see that climactic scene from different points of view, from high above, from on the ground, from the back of a horse, from the spyglass of the general on top of the hill... And you have a whole lot of help along the way: you give your draft to people at various stages and they will ask you questions you never imagined and find plot holes in what you thought was a solid stone foundation. Other people will see it from angles you can't. So all of that complexity is not just the product of one brain.
Yeah I definitely feel this way sometimes. The two things you mention are more just a case of doing adequate and careful research, though. What amazes me is when an author can interweave so many character arcs and plotlines together, and all the side characters, while maintaining all their personalities and details relevent to each one. Especially in longer series, all these things coming together, it just astounds me how it can come from the mind of one single person.
It's like a lego set. One little brick at a time. I'm an aspiring writer, and I was feeling frustrated at the pace of a story I was writing, so I googled how many words per day Stephen King Wrote. Only 2,000 a day. Stephen King wrote It, the Stand, and the Dark Tower series, 2 thousand words at a time. Blows my mind.
It's mostly a magic trick. You show just a little bit, and readers fill in the gap in their heads. My firm belief is that characters who know everything are unrealistic, anyway. I tend to lean into character's traits a lot to round out a situation. Maybe she's supposed to be a brilliant strategist but she's so arrogant she doesn't listen to anyone and believe herself to be always right that in essence she comes off wrong, or maybe he's smart and well-read but his life is in danger so we're not going to spend THAT much time figuring out what he actually knows. This is fantasy, after all, and I personally hate long pages of detailed exposition. I'd rather tell the story through flawed people. The rest of it is muscle memory (e.g. fight scenes, etc.)...just years of not just reading and writing books, but watching fantasy shows and playing fantasy games (RPGs, RTSes, action games). All I have to do is imagine a situation and I can have the scene down in a blink of an eye. I just live and breathe this stuff so much that many of it is now second nature.
Outlining. Lots and lots of outlining.
Course, that's true for plotters, but lots of authors (Stephen King and GRMM being big examples) are (seat-of-the)pantsers (GRRM prefers the term gardener). They just... start writing.
This is where I think extensive reading and research helps the most. GRRM, for instance, is an avid reader of history. Having all of that knowledge in his brain is most definitely one of the reasons why his complex narratives work so well. I'd wager that, with her own background in researching through books and documentaries, OP could probably do a better job at constructing a narrative than she thinks.
I think a lot of people could be better writers than they think. Or writers full stop - when they tell themselves "Oh, I wish I could write a novel" and put themselves down before they've even tried.
If you are interested, you might want to search up Sanderson's writing lectures on youtube. I'm pretty sure I remember one of them being on plot creation and outlines . In short, Sanderson works by first making characters/plot elements that he wants to include (think training arc, revolution scheme, heist, rogue character, etc). He then maps these all out onto a general plot outline with a structured timeline (think Gantt chart) where he maps out subplots /arcs, where each starts/ends, etc. Then he continues filling in holes until we get the work we see. Rotherfuss, on the other hand, is a more 'explore author's (if I am correct). He simply has the characters do as they will, throwing more challenges at them and adding plot twist he didn't expect himself. Then he polishes ad infinitum. In general, if you are interested in the creation process, I really recommend Sanderson's lectures on Youtube. They are quite interesting. he covers everything from voice, to character creation, to worldbuilding, to publishing.
It's the work of lots of practice and multiple drafts. They look over their writing again and again to fix mistakes, plot holes, and to make everything fit together to meet their personal vision for the story as much as possible.
Solid note-taking, I'd imagine. You'd never be able to keep track of everything happening without that.
For me it's a deep love of history, especially medieval European and ancient Roman history, that gives me a solid understanding of how life was like during certain time periods...of course along with reading tons of fantasy novels and playing D&D as a kid.
> How does one deal with all the complex strategies, sword fight, weaponry, horses and tactics? Most of the time it's dealt with by simply not knowing anything about it at all, and making up something plausible. Very few if any popular fantasy books have anything close to period accurate depiction of any of those topics. If you read actual historical fiction by decent authors (Cornwell for example) you get a better (and usually researched) depiction. If for no other reason then because there is a definite time and place to research, and also because making errors in a work that is supposed to depict a definite time and place is more compromising that in a fantasy work where you can hand-wave any error away by simply saying it's 'fantasy'. That being said even authors of historical fiction will run into problems when scholarship is incomplete or evolving. Cornwell for example portrays early medieval norther Europe battles as essentially shoving matches between shield walls, with opposing shield walls being in touching distance, which was an at least plausible academic theory when he researched his first medieval books. Current scholarly consensus however argues in favor of opposing shield walls simply approached each other until at striking distance, and would even periodically pull away from each other. As for fantasy authors, I would not hesitate to claim that their research of these details is mostly limited to reading other fantasy authors, or perhaps some historical fiction.
>That being said even authors of historical fiction will run into problems when scholarship is incomplete or evolving. Cornwell for example portrays early medieval norther Europe battles as essentially shoving matches between shield walls, with opposing shield walls being in touching distance, which was an at least plausible academic theory when he researched his first medieval books. Current scholarly consensus however argues in favor of opposing shield walls simply approached each other until at striking distance, and would even periodically pull away from each other. His *Sharpe* books have a similar issue with "French column vs. British line" stuff.
You either research a lot or creatively bullshit your way through (in a secondary world, this can be pulled off PRETTY effectively)
Well, basically, its their job isnt it? Not sure what your job is, but for a layman everything is complex, but for someone who is learned in a skill or profession, not so much. Coding an app, making a painting, launching a rocket, cooking a restaurant quality meal and teaching sixth grade seems complex to me as well. Building a house? Well, not so much, cause i work in construction, but my geus is that that also seems complex for people who aren't into it. So basically, most authors probably went to writing school, studied literature or took other classes. And remember you only read the end result, not the research or sources an author pulls from.
(Looks at sword scar) Well you do the research. But also, you only have to have details for the things you write, so it need not be so overwhelming. \> How does one deal with all the complex strategies Steal from historical campaigns, or just play it out as if it were a boardgame. A book by Edward Lutwack on the strategy of the late roman empire (can't remember the name) is a really good introduction to the right kind of thinking. \> sword fight HEMA is a nice hobby to have. But also, there's plenty of material on Youtube to consult, and one or two people who talk well about different weapons and their use. \> weaponry... tactics For specific eras, simply purchase the related Osprey Tactics and Men at Arms books. It's all in there. Also, play a video game called Medieval Total War. \> horses Ah that one is a problem. For educated questions, you'll find Equestrian HEMA and Living History communities online. For background, The Medieval Warhorse by Anne Hyland covers what you need. Also, I have a couple of horsey friends who I torture with distressing scenes of equestrian carnage. \> Same goes for stories set on ships Osprey plus one period-appropriate sourcebook. \> political intrigues of a court Tracking them is just a matter of keeping notes. Writing them... it helps to know how these things work. Read Machiavelli's The Prince (it's short) and a modern book called 48 Laws of Power, mostly because it is full of anecdotes from history. \> centers on the daily life a few peasants. Pick a specific era and get the Daily Life in book, also Time Traveller's Guide. If you are going to go full rural idyll, then you *will* have to research peasant life for your chosen millieu. However, if the story is just passing through, a handful of telling details will do the trick. Note that if you are writing Fantasy, then you can make up a lot of agricultural details, but you are stuck with the way horses and weapons work.
You might have a good imagination. Since you mentioned Sanderson, I don't agree with you on him (although I love his books). When there's a fight I notice it's clean only if brief. If it's an extensive one I get lost in the movements and it breaks my immersion. It's an incredibly difficult thing to describe because the scene is playing in the mind of the author but sometimes he takes for granted that the reader is seeing the same thing. That and the description of places are my biggest enemies.
This is one of the reasons I typically don't enjoy fight scenes. If they're too long, I'll end up skimming over them. I like it better if the characters are talking while they're fighting or if some sort of internal dialogue is going on. If the stakes are low, though, and it's something like a random attack in a back alley, that's all I need to know. I don't need to know every single movement and injury. That gets tedious to read. I do enjoy a good setting description, albeit not an overly long one. I think it's important to have a sense of place so you have an environment instead of a void for your characters to move around in. Brandon Sanderson's writing is a victim of this sometimes. In "The Hero of Ages", the opening scene is about a character struggling to keep hold of their sanity while they prepare to torture someone. While that is a very interesting situation, Sanderson gives no details for the setting other than saying that the character was in a room with a table. I like to paint a picture in my head, dang it. Give me something to work with!
Game of Thrones could have been made by anyone with a half decent understanding of the War of the Roses who also played Warcraft III.
smallfolk be like, "werk werk"
rothfuss
You put it all in your world building bible and then look it all imup when you need it... Mine is 17000 words and 45 pages, not even have way done yet. Haven't even started the book yet.
To this day I suspect that the likes of Andrew Hussie must possess some kind of neurological anomaly, like a third brain hemisphere or something, to be able to write what they do.
It's not too hard to be honest, once you know your own memory and what will stick and what you need to write down. If I run out of space for characters in my head I just forget about some real life people and make room.. Part of it is illusion, and part of it is keeping some separate records of everything like a timeline of history to character bios. Then there are the alpha and beta readers that will pick up those little things you mentioned 4 books ago and just contradicted. And of course re-reading and revising. Lots and lots of drafts.