I've recently started taking another look at several of the books I've read over the years, in preparation for my own writing. I'm not just thinking about the stories themselves, though. Instead, I'm taking a look at the possible creative process that went into them. It's interesting to look at how the books are structured and how the characters develop over time.
Most of the books that I read fall in the epic fantasy genre. These books usually take place in other worlds, or in forgotten times where magic is prevalent and mythical creatures roam the lands. As I looked at these books, I noticed they tend to fall in two categories, which I will call Adventure and War.
The books that I have labeled Adventure are books that follow a specific character or set of characters for almost the entirety of the story. The characters will typically have some goal that they work toward and several obstacles they have to overcome to achieve that goal.
The best example of this style for me is The Hobbit. The book follows Bilbo Baggins and his Dwarven companions on their quest to regain their ancestral mountain home. They have several troubles along the way including a run in with Goblins, being imprisoned by Elves, and how to get rid of the dragon that currently resides in the mountain.
Because the storyline typically follows the same characters from beginning to end, you get the opportunity to really learn the characters. As a result, character development is very crucial to this stories. When you spend 400 pages reading about the same characters, its important those characters come alive for you. You have to really care about the characters in question to continue reading.
With most of these books, you don't get a first hand look at what the villain is doing. Most of the time, that information will come from characters they meet on their adventure, or the main characters actually interracting with the villains. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, in my opinion. It keeps the reader in the dark similar to the actual characters themselves would be and creates a nice element of suspense for the book.
The other side of the coin are books I labeled War. These books are typically about factions at war with each other. The easiest example of this is the Song of Ice and Fire series (also known as Game of Thrones) The premise of these books are several noble families going to war with each other over who will be the king.
War books will usually either follow one faction or all of the factions. The ones that follow all of the factions will have multiple storylines spanning multiple characters. You get less individual development, but more world development, as the tides of war change. The books that focus on one faction in the war will usually show more character development because most of the story follows those characters. This is similar to the Adventure books.
You also see some books that have found a way to combine the two ideas. The Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time are good examples of this. In The Lord of the Rings the first book is an adventure book as the characters make their way to Mordor. In the second book, though, we see several characters move off and start a secondary storyline that is more of a War story, while Frodo and Sam continue an Adventure story.
The Wheel of Time is a similar situation. The first book is clearing an Adventure story. In book two, it starts to slowly become a War story, gradually switching over in the next few books. I like this system because it gives you time to develop an interest in the main characters which makes the War story that much more impactful. Now that you care about these characters, you care about their parts in the War.
I have not yet started a novel, so I don't know if it will be epic fantasy. If it is though, I think I lean more toward the Adventure stories so that is probably what I'd write. I'm a big fan of character driven stories. I imagine that would be what I would enjoy writing as well.
-Eddie.
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