One thing I really liked on your books is that you’ve reinvented a lot of fantasy tropes in a lot of good ways. But you also are inspired by some literary works, you’ve mentioned Les Miserables , which is a fantastic novel. So I was just wondering if what advice would you have for people in terms of speculative fiction and literary works?
Well, advice for drawing. We did a writing excuses podcast on this, so you can go look up those, “How to be influenced consciously.” But boy. Read good stuff, and start to think about why it’s good. It’s going to help you. I don’t know if I can specifically tell you anything other than that, but read it, decide what ‘s working for you, and try to use that, try to feel. But remember to feel what they did, not what they did. Meaning, here’s a good example. You read Tolkein. You say “Wow”. What Tolkein did wasn’t creating Elves and Dwarves. What Tolkein did was create an interesting mythology that was well interconnected. And a lot of people will say well, I want to learn from Tolkein, so I will use what he did, and they don’t dig that level deeper. They say “Well, I’m going to use the elves and dwarves.” They don’t say “What is it that he did the level down that really made this work?” And that’s what you should be emulating. So when you read the classics, say “What’s making it work?” Try to dig the level deeper if that makes sense.
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