Please come and talk to me. Just for some general writing chat and support...

[BiglyBadgers]

I am about a third of the way through editing my stupidly long book (this'll teach me for writing epic fantasy) and need some chat!

I really loved the chat and support on the nano thread, but now novel writing month is long gone and I am alone! There must be other people out there bumbling along needing a friend to chat to...surely....I can provide coffee, cake and excellent free WiFi

Some people do use it interchangeably, but I am of the school of thought that see them as different. Or rather epic is a sub-genre of high. Here is a good post on it:

fantasy-faction.com/2013/what-makes-epic-fantasy-epic

In short, high fantasy is any fantasy set in a different world to our own (as opposed to low fantasy or fantasy set in our world, but with magic). Epic fantasy is specifically one that is epic in nature. It deals with a serious threat to the world or at least a whole country rather than a smaller personal issue. It uses multiple viewpoints to cover the big theme from different angles and weaves together multiple storylines. It is almost certainly going to be multiple books because you don't deal with a threat to the entire world in one sitting.

I don't think I've read those Eddings books (he doesn't really do it for me), but LOTR is the classic epic fantasy. It ticks the boxes in that it deals with an overwhelmingly threat that wants to destroy the world and covers it by using multiple POV across multiple books.

I don't think you can have too much plot, in that it is too big or complex, I flipping love big and complex, but you can have it done badly so it is hard to follow or tedious. I see this as bad writing rather than a rule about how much plot you should have.

Tippety I think the most helpful feedback I got on Scrib was where I could cut backstory or excessive world building. It sounds to me like this isn't a plot issue with your book, but an editing one. You just need to chuck it in front of someone who's reads the genre and give them a red pen to mark the bits you got carried away with. I thought it was all vital until someone went "do I really need to know this right this moment?" And then I often realised that they didn't or I could simplify it down to the stuff they really needed to know in a much slicker way. It's actually very liberating.

I've currently got 7 POV characters, though I am considering losing the POV for 1 of them and agonising over another, but I think I need him for at least one of the chapters even though he overlaps in some other places.

so my novel, to come, in planning stages only is a going back in the past 2000 odd years, with some contemporary and lots of historical action. Luckily its located where I live so that makes it easier!!!???!!!

so far, I have character studies for 3 main characters, a family tree (because it will be a series -ha!) and a beginning and an end. Sort of.

Dear god, what am I thinking? Will be around 90k I think. That's the target.

Using the standard questing framework, although what the quest is depends on which character you are talking to of course, and I do have my crisis's etc plotted out, and a MacGuffin. Just need to get the whole writing a sentence thing sorted...

it won't be high, it won't be epic.

Bigly, 7 is quite a lot, are they really distinctively different in tone and feel?

Yes Tippety, my 'first' novel must be written, it will haunt me until it's finished although it very likely won't be the first to finish.

at one point I was getting worried that my vegetation biomes weren't correct for the described geology

I love this level of detail. I'm forever having conversations about minor things that are relevant for a single sentence I do think it's important though, even if it seems insignificant. People pick up on this stuff.

Thanks for the explanation Bigly think I understand a bit better now.

A lot of it is that they are in different places moving different parts of the plot. Part of me wants to cut them back a bit, but then part of me thinks Song of Ice and Fire has tons of POV characters, so really is 7 so many. One of them I think I will lose as I think she will work better without the POV, though it is an interesting one in a lot of ways. There are a few others I am keeping an open mind about getting rid off as I edit.

A lot of it is that they are in different places moving different parts of the plot. Part of me wants to cut them back a bit, but then part of me thinks Song of Ice and Fire has tons of POV characters, so really is 7 so many. One of them I think I will lose as I think she will work better without the POV, though it is an interesting one in a lot of ways. There are a few others I am keeping an open mind about getting rid off as I edit.

I love this level of detail. I'm forever having conversations about minor things that are relevant for a single sentence grin I do think it's important though, even if it seems insignificant. People pick up on this stuff

I'm writing smutty star wars space ginger fic and have bought two visual dictionaries so that I can use the right names for things and bit characters. Loving learning about canon and funny space drinks.

Bigly, 7 is quite a lot, are they really distinctively different in tone and feel?

Most of them are in different places moving different parts of the plot at different times. I have a couple I am thinking seriously about losing as there is overlap and a couple more I am open minded about. Its one of the things I am reviewing as I edit. Game of Thrones (just the book not the series) has 9 POV characters in just that first book. There are around 30 in the whole series, so I'm not stressing about it too much if I really think they are needed and add to the story.

at one point I was getting worried that my vegetation biomes weren't correct for the described geology
I am sure I remember reading or hearing that Tolkien was really into ecology and that is why he spends so much time telling us all about the moss growing in the backs of caves.

I remember reading GoT waiting to see if the next POV was less depressing than the current one. Often they weren't.

I've totally posted the same thing loads of times. Sorry! I thought it had all crashed and been lost. Stupid tech

I'm having issues too Bigly, it's been odd all day. My last message hadn't even posted last time I checked.

so my novel, to come, in planning stages only is a going back in the past 2000 odd years, with some contemporary and lots of historical action. Luckily its located where I live so that makes it easier!!!???!!!

I am intrigued by your 2000 year timescales. That is some serious backstory. Sounds like fun to me!

While editing I have realised I have lots of chapters at the start of people talking to each other. Tension abounds, but possibly lacking in actual action. Can I be arsed to worry about this, I wonder?

I'm now going to have to reread LotR for the moss references...

Trudi Canavan often has POV characters she only uses for one scene (very minor characters who often end up dead...). To be honest I think her books are ones that could do with having some irrelevant details removed. There's a lot of people opening doors and walking into rooms, having the salient conversation, then leaving the room again. Almost as bad as all the tea drinking in later WoT.

honeyboo your planned book certainly sounds epic in scope! Interesting setting it where you live. I always end up setting mine in London, which is a bit boring really as so many booksespecially in the genre I'm writingare set in London.

Oh gosh, i had forgotten all the tea drinking in WoT!

I've just come up with a very exciting fight and chase scene for the start of chapter three which not only gives some actual action, but solves a motivation issue that was bothering me about one of the characters. I feel most cheered.

well, it's contemporary and around 60-61 AD, not too much in between. The next book (thinking positive) will be different, it's a time travel sort of scenario.

Not London, luckily I live where lots of exciting action from real life 61 AD happened and historic sites so can use that to help drive the story.

Just spent time critiquing on scibophile so I could post something to be critiqued, but their is NO fan fiction on there and I need to edit, and finish current space ginger story.

Reading other people's work though is very useful!

Loving this thread. I have actually got on with a bit of writing today...still procrastinating lots though. I find it easier to write outside of the home - my phone fell off the ark so no chance of googling when out...I like the buzz some cafes have in terms of background noise...so long as I'm not sitting next to someone who is having a really loud conversation, it seems to work really well...plus guilty tea and cake and a sense of not being isolated although sometimes, I do like to work alone...depends on which mood takes me I suppose.

that sounds like my dream user, I have children, work full time and manage an hour a week in a cafe writing if I am lucky... but this is what I want to do with my spare time now (she says after playing on mumsnet, tumblr, and scribophile)

I love this level of detail. I'm forever having conversations about minor things that are relevant for a single sentence

This reminds me of a lively debate we had as students.
One person was saying they loved the commentary of someone or another. A couple of others said they found him very long winded. At one point in the argument someone went over to the lover's bookcase and pointed out he had written 5 long books on the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians-which only has 6 chapter.

Lover maintained that he just went into detail, so someone opened one of the books at random and began to read.
"This," he read, "the first word in this verse is the word "this" and I am convinced of the importance of this tiny word." The commentary on why Paul had chosen this particular word and the significance went on for a few pages.
At which point the classics student among us brought out his copy of the Bible in the original Greek and pointed out that the word "this" was definitely missing from the original.
The debate deteriorated from that point.

amazing. Funnily enough I hated studying English because I thought all the reading into things was made up nonsense. I still do but I like work to pass a Google check

Funnily enough I hated studying English because I thought all the reading into things was made up nonsense. I still do but I like work to pass a Google check

I'm just going to stand over here and give a short lecture on the importance of literary theory in the fight for gender, racial and sexual equality and the power of the written word in shaping culture.

Don't mind me and my nonsense...

honeyboo have you ever watched the detectorists? I love that sense of history under our feet.

I'm too self conscious to write in cafes but I do like to people watch--on the rare occasions I'm not preoccupied toddler wrangling.

Funnily enough I hated studying English because I thought all the reading into things was made up nonsense
I used to wonder when doing GCSE English whether the author had thought any of the things the English teacher said. Especially Cider with Rosie.

I head on the radio once a story about a child who was set a question about the significance of a tree in the playground in a children's story. Her mum happened to know the author and phoned them to ask. They said, "no significance, there was just a tree in my playground when I was at school." So the child wrote that and got it marked wrong.

I bet sometimes authors have put something with deeper significance which no one ever notices, and other times something they just tripped off with no importance at all is poured over with great consideration.