Gift of Shadow is my seventh novel, but it marks a significant transition from how I’ve previously written my novels. First of all, it is the first story set outside the world of The Orb series. The characters and story are entirely unrelated to my other books. Secondly, while The Orb is an epic fantasy, and The Green Wyvern is more a sword and sorcery tale, Gift of Shadow is a grimdark fantasy. Finally, my approach to writing Gift of Shadow was much different from that of my other novels. Previously, I was a plotter, more so with my earlier novels than later ones, but Gift of Shadow was a seat-of-the-pants ride.
When I set out to write my first novel, Eternal Knight, I did so with great enthusiasm and little planning. All I knew was that I wanted to write an epic fantasy about a good guy who turns into a bad guy. And so, with very little planning, I wrote a one-page outline for my novel and started writing. Let me tell you, it was a disaster. I fumbled through writing a page or two, realized it was a disaster, and decided on a different approach. Instead of starting at the beginning, I would pick a climactic scene in the later stage of the novel and write that first. Well, that was just as disastrous. As was my approach of writing the conclusion first. Dismayed, I realized I needed help.
I was in college at the time, and approached my Creative Writing professor for advice. He listened to my woes and then started asking me questions about my world. What’s the geography? What religion do they follow? How is their government run? What is the basis of the economy? What technology do they employ? He also asked me about my characters. What did they look like? What were their personalities? What were their backstories? I was at a loss. Yes, I vaguely knew this was a second-world fantasy novel loosely based on medieval Europe. I knew my protagonist was an exiled prince and that his father was an asshole, but beyond that, I didn’t have a clue.
And so, for a year, I devoted myself entirely to worldbuilding and character creation. In social studies terms, I thoroughly outlined the GETWAGS of the world. GETWAGS? Geography, economics, technology, world-view, arts, government, and social structures. For my characters, I created Dungeons & Dragons-style character sheets, which included ability scores, skills, and abilities. I drew maps, sketches, timelines, and architectural plans — a notebook full of them. And then, after that year of effort, I started writing again.
All the effort paid off. The writing flowed. I felt good about my story. The word count continued to rise, and I saw real progress. It went so well that it only took another ten years to finish the rough manuscript, which, by the way, weighed in at over 250,000 words. For those of you not in the writing game—that’s a big book! (By the way, after editing, it was 115,000 words.)
Ten years, though? Why so long? Because I was still an amateur in my early twenties. For the most part, I still didn’t know what I was doing. When I read my manuscript, I saw the weaknesses in my own writing and compared it to Tolkien's, and I would promptly give up on my dreams. Sometimes for years at a time. I kept coming back, though, and eventually persevered.
It still wasn’t good, but I’ll save the story of how I improved as a writer for another time.
As I said before, Gift of Shadow is my seventh novel. How have things changed from when I started?
First of all, Gift of Shadow is much more of a character-based novel. The Orb series was inspired by a story I wanted to tell. The story of a good person turning into a bad person. A story about the pursuit of power. When I wrote The Green Wyvern, it marked a shift. I came up with a character and set them off into the world and asked them to survive. But it was a world I knew very well. It was set in the same world as The Orb novels, albeit in a much later time period. With Gift of Shadow, I started with a character and almost no worldbuilding. In fact, the only worldbuilding that occurred stemmed from character creation.
I knew that Gift was a wizard’s apprentice. This meant that it would be a fantasy world with a formal structure for learning magic. Gift’s master was not only a wizard but a mighty lord. So it was a world with a system of nobility. Gift had recently escaped from the Realm of Shadow, but I only knew that Shadow was deadly and terrifying—otherwise, it was mostly undefined. I knew that there were other realms, but I had only a vague idea of how many and what they consisted of. Finally, I knew that Gift had a dog (a puppy) as a companion, because Gift was based on a Dungeons and Dragons shadow sorcerer, and at sixth level, they get a Hound of Ill Omen. But in this case, it would start the book as a puppy. Finally, due to the traumatic events that had happened to her in Shadow, Gift had only a fractured memory of her time spent there.
Ultimately, I started writing the novel with a fairly well-defined character (a young, vulnerable-looking wizard’s apprentice who had survived the savage Realm of Shadow) and her goal (to get back to her wizard master). I knew the world would be vaguely reminiscent of the Northern European Dark Ages. I didn’t know the specifics of the world (no GETWAGS), the importance of the Nine Realms, or how the magic system worked. Very importantly, I had no plot. I had no idea what was going to happen.
So how was I going to write a book? It was going to be seat-of-the-pants, but I had a plan. Any time there was a fork in the road, any time something bad could happen to Gift—I would make that happen. I would throw everything I could at her and force her to survive it. It was both cruel and fun, and I don’t know what that says about me.
Fun, but challenging. The worldbuilding had to be done while I wrote. I meant that I had the chance to be super creative, but it also meant a lot of going back and changing things I’d written before. Magic, the realms, geography, and history all had to be consistent throughout the novel. I made story decisions very late in the book that required revisions, going back to the first page. Many of these changes wouldn’t have been necessary if I’d done all of the worldbuilding ahead of time. But would I have been as creative if I’d locked myself into a pre-made worldbuilding “box”?
There’s no one right way to write a novel. One style will work on one author but be a catastrophe for another. Be wary of people who tell you there’s only one way to write a book. I will end with one note: whatever style of writing you choose, the book only gets finished if you put in the effort. You can dream about it all you want, but you have to get the words on the page. Don’t worry if they’re an awful jumble at first—get them on the page.
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