Portals: A Writer Blogs About Process
According to the powers that be, Black Gate will be publishing a trilogy of mine starting in the fall of this year (2011). Please note that I do not say “fantasy” stories, or “high fantasy” or “heroic fantasy” or “sword and sorcery,” although all apply, and accurately enough.
Indeed, precisely because those identifiers fit, my three stories, “The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone,” would find a poor welcome in almost any current venue except for Black Gate.
Why, then, do I chafe at these terms, and why do they cause me such angst as I dash toward the finish line of the novel, The Portal, that succeeds the stories?
If I must answer at all, let it be to say that I am, like Arlecchino in traditional commedia, the servant of two masters, and that these two masters are at war, they truly are. If I had to reduce them to their simplest, most essential forms, I would call the first Story and the second Style. The first is simple, direct, goal-oriented; the second is impulsive and flighty, the filigree on story’s solid cake. Both have value. Both, indeed, are essential for creating solid, timeless fiction.