An Interview With Ian Benke
Engaging characters. For me, character is foremost. Whether you’re writing about humans ten years from now, or sentient gas clouds in a distant galaxy, the central characters must be relatable. Relatable doesn’t mean a character who looks and acts like me. A relatable character has thoughts, emotions, desires, and frustrations that I can comprehend, regardless of whether I have experienced the character’s situation or not. Characters don’t need to be likeable — though that helps — but they do need to be understandable. As readers, we must care whether or not your character succeeds, or we won’t read any further.
Science Fiction and Fantasy are hugely popular genres. What does it take for a writer today, to write compelling and successful Science Fiction and Fantasy stories? Authority Magazine started a new series called “How To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories”. In this series we are talking to anyone who is a Science Fiction or Fantasy author, or an authority or expert on how to write compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing JM Landels.
JM Landels, writer and illustrator of the Allaigna’s Song trilogy and co-founder of Pulp Literature Press wears far too many hats. The strange mix of a degree in Mediaeval English Literature, a misspent youth fronting alternative punk bands Mad Seraphim and Stiff Bunnies, and a career as a childbirth educator and doula informs her work. These days, when she isn’t writing, editing or drawing, she can be found heading up Academie Cavallo’s Mounted Combat Program at her farm in Langley, BC where she swings swords and rides horses for fun and profit.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share a story about what first drew you to writing over other forms of storytelling?
I ‘wrote’ my first book at the age of three or four. As near as I can tell from the evidence, it was a feminist interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood, written and illustrated in red sharpie. I think my mother still has it somewhere. So it seems I’ve always wanted to write and illustrate books. Authors like Madeline L’Engle, CS Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, and Andre Norton inspired me throughout childhood, and then CJ Cherryh, Robert Heinlein, Margaret Atwood, Isaac Asimov, and Patricia McKillip added to that love of fantasy and science fiction novels throughout high school. At some point I got really into comics — The X-men in particular — and I started drawing as well as writing. I even studied at the London Cartoon Centre under David Lloyd and Dougie Braithwaite. I did illustrate my first novel, but I realized that being an artist as well as an author was waaaay too much work, and decided to stick with prose.
You are a successful author. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- A love of reading. There is really no better way to learn the craft of writing than by reading. There are all sorts of courses you can take on how to tell stories, but unless you internalize the flow of storytelling, it will always be hard work. Read enough — in all genres and styles — and you will develop an instinctive sense of story structure, pacing, character development, and language. That doesn’t mean you won’t need to edit, but it will make the process much less painful!
- An inner critic that knows when to shut up. After working on a B.A. and D.Phil. in English, I became paralyzed with perfectionism. I had studied language and literature for so long that I knew a great sentence when I saw one … and I just wasn’t seeing great sentences come out of my pen. What I needed to realize is that great sentences don’t arrive fully formed like Venus arising from the sea — they’re born ugly and messy and need time to grow up. Once I trained my inner critic to zip it and just let those ugly, messy words flow, I started to be able to write. Only once an entire first draft has been sitting on the page stewing in it’s own mess for a few months do I unleash the critic and let her get to work with her scalpel.
- Perseverance, aka sheer pig-headedness. I’m stubborn, which means I will not give up on a manuscript until it behaves itself and tells the story I want it to. That stubbornness is also useful in beating back the voices that tell us that writing is a fool’s game, and that the odds are stacked against us. (They are, but don’t let that stop you).
Can you tell us a bit about the interesting or exciting projects you are working on or wish to create? What are your goals for these projects?
I’m in the final nit-picky editorial stage for the last novel in my Allaigna’s Song Trilogy. It will soon be released into the world, and I’m both excited and sad to be finishing the trilogy and stepping out of Allaigna’s world. Sad, because I love those characters so much, but excited because it will let me devote my time to The Shepherdess, a historical series set in 17th century France, featuring a shepherdess-turned-spy.
Wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. How do you define sci-fi or fantasy? How is it different from speculative fiction?
I think of speculative fiction as an umbrella term that covers both Science Fiction and Fantasy. Fantasy and sci-fi are very different genres, but they share the common starting point of ‘what if?’. Sci-fi tends to be forward-looking, extrapolating from the present to the future, whereas fantasy more often simply exists in worlds that are alternative to our own. Take the example, ‘What if dragons existed?’ There are any number of fantasy novels that include that premise, but there is also the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey, which is clearly sci-fi. The difference is that McCaffrey imagines a future where humankind has travelled to the stars and discovered a planet where dragon-like creatures do exist, whereas fantasy novels simply presume a setting in which they exist. There are degrees of science in sci-fi, and plenty of ‘hand-wavium’ writing that skips over technology — and that is the difference between hard and soft SF. Soft SF tends to have more in common with fantasy, whereas hard SF really emphasizes the rational speculation in that ‘speculative fiction’ label.
It seems that despite countless changes in media and communication technologies, novels and written fiction always survive, and as the rate of change increases with technology, written sci-fi becomes more popular. Why do you think that is?
I’m not sure that it is more popular. Fantasy has certainly seen a rise in popularity, but as an editor I see very few SF stories cross my desk. We have far more SF television and film than we used to, and I’m hoping that will encourage more publishers to put out science fiction novels, and more writers to tackle SF.
In your opinion, what are the benefits to reading sci-fi, and how do they compare to watching sci-fi on film and television?
The best science fiction makes you think. It can serve as a warning or as a guidepost. It says ‘Something like this might happen in the future,’ prompting us to consider how to avert or create that future. In general books tend to be a bit better at it than film, simply because we tend to get distracted by the ‘wow’ factor of design and visual effects. Now, I’m a very visual person and I absolutely love filmmaking done well, but it’s a bit like candy for me — I gorge on it and then it’s gone. Whereas a book that I’ve carried around and read over a week or two stays with me longer and gives me space to think more deeply.
What authors and artists, dead or alive, inspired you to write?
CS Lewis said ‘People won’t write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself.’ I read that in his biography at the back of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was seven, and it’s stuck with me ever since. That, more than anything, started me on the writing path. I’m also immensely impressed with the writing styles of Margaret Atwood, Ursula K LeGuin, and Barbara Kingsolver. I’ve had my writing compared to all three of those authors, which is about the deepest compliment anyone could give me.
If you could ask your favourite Science Fiction and Fantasy author a question, what would it be?
I would ask Mary Shelley what really happened at the Villa Diodati.
We’d like to learn more about your writing. How would you describe yourself as an author? Can you please share a specific passage that you think exemplifies your style?
I write fantasy and historical fiction with a literary sensibility. I tend to be a minimalist, moving from scene to scene quickly, while leaving much up to the imagination of the reader — a written equivalent of the white space between comic book panels. I also play around with point of view and tense. My Allaigna’s Song Trilogy contains three points of view in different tenses — first person past, first person present, and third person present — to convey the voices of three main characters. And at the start of my first novel, I even dip briefly into second person. Here are the opening paragraphs of Allaigna’s Song: Overture.
Allaigna’s Song: Overture
Verse 1: Brothers, Sisters, and Lullabies
If you walk down the grand staircase of Castle Osthegn, you will see a family portrait. It is placed across the landing from the wide steps so that your eye is drawn helplessly into the picture as you descend. Such is the skill of the Leisanmira painter that you are almost convinced the little girl on the right will jump out of the frame and take off pell-mell into the courtyard. And you can tell that is what she wanted to be doing when the image was painted.
The little girl was me.
There are other, more formal, paintings of my family members, individual and grouped, spread throughout the fortress. But the one at the bottom of the stairs is the only one that tells me a story. In this painting I am shown in my favourite red tunic of soft flannel — the one my nurse turned into handkerchiefs when I grew too large for it — and loose-fitting trousers rolled to the calf above grubby bare feet. My mother’s arm is around me, her fingers creasing the cloth beneath my arm. It is a half-hearted grip, as if holding me still takes more effort than she can afford. Her eyes are tired and her skin pale. Wisps of curly blonde hair escape a hastily pinned coif, and the bodice of her dress is askew, barely containing blue-veined and swollen breasts.
The head of the family, Lord Osthegn, Allenis Andreg, Duke of Teillai and Warden of the Clearwater Plains, stands behind and to her right. A possessive arm rests on her shoulders; the other is proudly akimbo. He beams with joy, and this is the only portrait that paints him so. In truth, it is the happiest my three-and-a-half-year-old self ever saw him. The subject of his joy rests in Mother’s right arm, its bawling ruddy face showing a remarkable resemblance to the Duke already. I don’t know why the artist didn’t portray the baby content at the breast or with an idiosyncratic smile as most painters would, but I’m glad he didn’t. This is how I remember my brother Allenry when he arrived to interrupt my life, and I appreciate the painting’s candour.
Based on your own experience and success, what are the “Five Things You Need To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories?” If you can, please share a story or example for each.
- Engaging characters. For me, character is foremost. Whether you’re writing about humans ten years from now, or sentient gas clouds in a distant galaxy, the central characters must be relatable. Relatable doesn’t mean a character who looks and acts like me. A relatable character has thoughts, emotions, desires, and frustrations that I can comprehend, regardless of whether I have experienced the character’s situation or not. Characters don’t need to be likeable — though that helps — but they do need to be understandable. As readers, we must care whether or not your character succeeds, or we won’t read any further.
- An intimate knowledge of your setting — that you don’t fully share. Because you are writing in a world you have created you’re going to have to know a lot about that world and how everything in it works. You are the chief geographer, sociologist, historian, and anthropologist for your milieu, so you’re going to have to do a lot of behind the scenes work both researching and inventing to make your world seem real. The kicker is that you must not share all of that work with your reader … because you will bore them to death if you do. The purpose of world-building background work is to make yourself as familiar as possible with the world — enough so that you can close your eyes and walk through it in your mind. As your characters move through the novel, you can then share information about the setting with the reader as those characters interact with it. And no more than that. It’s a ‘need to know’ situation. While it may frustrate you to know far more about your wonderful world than your reader does, your reader will thank you for not bogging down the action with unneeded detail.
- Clear and urgent stakes. You can have the best characters in the most interesting setting imaginable, but if there is no problem or threat for your characters to overcome, there is no tension — and no reason to read further. Epic fantasy and science fiction usually have large, world-shaking threats, but stakes don’t have to be epic in scope. In a coming-of-age story they can be as simple as gaining respect or earning new skills. Regardless of the size of the problems, the characters must yearn to solve them and encounter impediments along the way. This is true of any genre, of course, but sometimes rookie SFF writers spend so much time building their worlds that they neglect to add meaningful goals and obstacles for their characters.
- An opening that orients the reader. Within the first page of a novel or the first paragraph of a short story, it’s a good idea to let your reader know the genre, setting, tone, and a hint at the central conflict. Take this opening line of a Baldemar short story by Matthew Hughes (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan/Feb 2020): “I’m going to cast a spell upon you,” said Radegonde the Ineffable. “It might be a little uncomfortable” Right away we know that a) the genre is high fantasy and b) the tone is humorous . The conflict shows up as soon as the protagonist, Baldemar, asks what kind of spell: The thaumaturge’s face said he was not used to being questioned by his inferiors … Baldemar’s cooperation was necessary to what Radegonde was trying to achieve, though the wizard was still adjusting to the unusual situation of having to take anyone else’s priorities into consideration. So now we know that Radegonde is up to something that requires magic to achieve, and Baldemar’s cooperation is vital. We also know quite a lot about the personality of Radegonde. Even if you’ve never read a Baldemar story before, you can tell that the wizard’s henchman will be asked to do something more than uncomfortable, probably dangerous, and we will likely chuckle a good deal along the way, thanks to the author’s amusing tone. Hughes hasn’t told us directly about the setting, but given the tropes of the genre we can probably guess that we’re in a wizard’s workshop in a fantasy world. Take a look at your favourite books and see how the authors orient the reader within the first page. In SFF, where we may know nothing about the world we’re entering, this orientation is vital.
- Something new. Remember, speculative fiction is the genre that asks the question ‘what if?’. Which means it should present something new for the reader to think about, whether it’s a idea about the future, or a different take on an well-known type of story. If your story is yet another dungeon adventure, space opera, or vampire tale in which the character types, tropes, and physical rules of existence are the same as in pre-existing works, that isn’t speculative fiction, it’s fan fiction. If you don’t have anything new to say, speculative fiction may not be the genre for you.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Entertainment, Business, VC funding, and Sports read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them 🙂
Claudia Black is one of my favourite actors. She has a crazy smart twitter feed, and I based Allaigna’s physical appearance on her, circa Farscape. So I would be more than delighted (and just a little fangirlish) to meet her. But I find lunch conversation is much more animated with three of four people in the mix, so I’d love to have Jane Espenson and Taika Waititi, who are writing and directing some of the most intelligent (and funny!) television out there, join us. Can you imagine what fabulous shows could arise? How cool to be in at the ground floor of that!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I’m @jmlandels on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. My website is jmlandels.stiffbunnies.com and my books can be found at the usual online booksellers as well as pulpliterature.com.
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.
Writer JM Landels On How To Create Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.