I've always had a kernel of an idea for a more adult fantasy than Game of Thrones, and now that it has clearly dropped the ball in that arena, I've been determined to start writing it. I expect it to take over a decade to reach full maturation in my mind, never mind the actual writing.
What are some basic resources for learning how to turn your idea into a book? I've never done this before, but I really feel like I'm on to something, and I want a basic rundown of basic mistakes to avoid when writing.
>>8083611
Wait, youre going to spend a decade thinking about what to write?
Shit I did that as a kid. Never wrote it though because I realized it was fucking dumb.
You need to write. And fast. Just babble onto a page, violently. If it is any good, you can polish it off into a novel. If not, dont edit it and say its a new postmodernist piece, you will make even more money.
>>8083611
The problem with this is that you need much, much more than just an idea. Many people have 'good ideas', but even the most minimally acceptable execution will require very much effort. Even the authors of the simplest, 'lol i could've done that'-type novels (think Hunger Games, Harry Potter) spent pretty much their entire lives reading and writing. Regardless of intellectual quality, to get published you're going to need to reach a certain threshold, and you won't be able to do that if all you commit to it is time. You need discipline to write and read each day and every day for as long and as well as you can, and that's something that only few can keep up for more than a couple months or years.
So yeah, if you have a good idea, and you're just now starting with writing, chances are that 1. you won't finish it 2. when you finish it, it will be of poor quality or 3. by the time you have made sufficient progress with your writing and literary understanding you will suddenly find your idea worthless, cliché, or incompatible with your style.
If you want to get published and GoT-tier successful as well don't forget that books are products like any other. There's demand for certain shit, if you want your book to get the marketing effort that will make it succesful you need it to satisfy the consumers' demands. So try to guess what people would dig by the time you finish it.
May I inquire about your idea though? What makes it special and more mature than GoT?
>>8084122
I'm actually a historian from one of the most respected historical departments in the world, and I hold multiple degrees in the humanities and behavioral sciences from my undergrad days.
I really loved Game of Thrones in the early days because it made a great commentary on the nature of politics and how historical decisions were made. And then it went full blown MUH MAGIC DID EVERYTHING.
I want to take GRRM's original work and run with it. The difference being I have a million ideas of various things and characters in history that I'd love to mirror in my fantasy, and I want to set it in a quasi-18th century backdrop, with thousands of years of fleshed out history behind it.
People mirror history all the time, including GRRM and JRR Tolkein, but since understanding the past is my actual trade, many of those people's attempts appear pretty pleb-tier to me.
GRRM had a good grasp of the moral ambiguity of history, and Tolkein had a good grasp of linguistic and cultural evolution in history, but Tolkein's work ignored the more brutal realities of governance, while GRRM's work revealed itself to be focused only on character development. Neither of these men understand A FLYING FUCK about technological development to the point where someone as educated as me can't accept that their worlds could ever be real. This is a theme that would be major in my series.
>>8084459
study Tolkien and GRRM and other books that fit the bill. Reverse engineer
In terms of writing get a first draft down. It will be awful awful awful but you are currently unburdened by the technical aspects of writing so the ideas will flow. Use the draft as your starting point / rough outline. Then hit craft type books for prose and story tips.
I wouldn't put off the actual writing for too long. You gotta develop the habit so treat that as your 'planning'
>>8084459
Your points are true, but what I'd like to bring up in Tolkien's defence is that the way I see it and what seems to be the general consensus is that he didn't actually want to create a world that's realistic. His oeuvre is more like some sort of summary of old European mythology and spirituality. I'm pretty sure Tolkien did understand the concept of technological development as he was quite an educated and experienced individual himself, being a decorated professor of Oxford and seeing the partial destruction of contemporary Western worldview as a result of rapid technological progress that no one knew the true impact of until the war.
GRRM is striving to be realistic though. I was having an argument with a friend a few days back on pretty much this, my point was f.e. that even within the context of that fantasy universe, a place like the Iron Islands would not really have a realistic chance of existing next to Westeros.
