Storytelling

The magic of Project Hail Mary: 5 key elements

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 12 Comments
A shiny pin badge shows a space ship soaring across a circle with sun rays and stars beneath it, text at the edge reads project hail mary
The promotional pin I received at a recent screening of Project Hail Mary

I recently saw the film adaptation of one of my favourite novels, Project Hail Mary… twice. I’ve read the book twice, too. Back when I first picked it up it was one of those rare novels where I actually felt sad when I got to the end, not because I didn’t like the ending (I loved it), but because the story was over, and I would never get the same emotional experience of that “first read” back again. With the film adaptation, however, I did get something similar: a “first watch”. I’d been looking forward to the release ever since I learned it was in production, and I wasn’t disappointed. The filmmakers did a remarkable job of the adaptation, and I enjoyed every single moment in that cinema. I confess to shedding more than one tear.

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When all is not as it seems: the tantalising wrongness that precedes epic twists

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 19 Comments
Old spiral staircase from above tiles with repeating floral patterns
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

I was recently thinking about one of my favourite novels, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, and it reminded me that there’s a quality some science fiction, dystopian and speculative fiction stories have—a rare one—that I absolutely love. It’s hard to describe, and perhaps even harder to achieve, but I’d characterise it as a tantalising sense of wrongness intertwined with mystery, often (though not always) occurring at the beginning of a story, which usually precedes a giant, reality-altering twist.

It’s that growing conviction that things don’t make sense in the world, that something very odd is happening, perhaps even something sinister, but you don’t know what it is yet. You just have this sense that the situation is off, wrong somehow, and that you, and perhaps even the characters, have a fundamental misunderstanding of the reality in which they find themselves. At the same time, you can feel in your bones that you are going to find out what it is, and that when you do, it’s going to be a hair-prickling revelation or a fantastically unexpected twist. This feeling seems to often be evoked when the initial story world, or simply the story we think we are about to be told, is increasingly questioned, then ultimately flipped on its head.

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What Fantasy Authors Can Learn from Marvel Studios

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 37 Comments

Photo credit: marvelousRoland via VisualHunt / CC BY-SA

This week I’m excited to bring you a guest post from writer, English teacher and Marvel fan Josiah DeGraaf, who blends the fantasy and superhero genres in his writing. He takes a look at what fantasy authors might learn from the successes of genre-mixing in superhero fiction:

If you aren’t much of a superhero movie fan (or even if you are), the upcoming slate of movies Marvel alone is trying to push out may seem rather exhausting. 10 more films in the next three years with plans through 2027? It’s no wonder you have people like Spielberg predicting superhero films will go the way of the Western and burn out in the near future.

Yet, despite all the films churned out by Marvel and DC, moviegoers keep purchasing tickets without any signs of stopping. Superhero stories are a (relatively) narrow genre—and yet many viewers (such as myself) regularly see two to four superhero films a year, despite the criticisms Marvel’s received for weak villains and paint-by-number three-act stories.

How has Marvel been able to keep selling tickets without running into genre fatigue? There are multiple reasons, but there’s one I’d like to focus on: Marvel keeps the genre feeling fresh by mixing it with other genres. This is a skill that not only budding novelists can be taking advantage of—but a skill some of the best fantasy authors today are using to craft unique and brilliant stories. Continue reading →

Those First Few Pages: 8 Hooks That Get Me

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 28 Comments

Photo by Caio (CC0 1.0)

One of the criticisms I often hear levelled at books is that they take a while to “get interesting”. Even well-crafted first chapters can be a tad slow if the characters, world and story haven’t fully sunk their claws in yet. Nonetheless, I think most readers know to stick with a promising book even if it’s not immediately riveting, because they will be rewarded if and when those claws do sink in. Some of my favourite books had beginnings that didn’t powerfully hook me, so I don’t expect to be utterly wooed from the first line, or even the first few pages.

Occasionally, however, I am. Some books have striking openings that grab me and tug me forward, creating a level of excitement I might not normally expect for at least a few chapters. I always find these beginnings impressive, and enjoy trying to pinpoint what it was about them that drew me and other readers who raved about them in so completely. So for this post, I thought I’d do just that, and look at few “hooks” from beginnings that enthralled me: Continue reading →

Great Books About Writing

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 18 Comments

Photo by Nic McPhee via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

About four or so years ago, I read a large number of “how to” books about creative writing. I read them because I was a new writer wanting to hone my craft, but also because I was writing my master’s thesis at the time. It involved analysing existing writing advice about world-building… in short, seeing what other writers had to say about inventing and describing fictional settings. Some of the books I read were very useful, others not so much.

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