Jesper & Autumn from the AmWritingFantasy podcast talked about their course on world building, the importance of a good map, and using cover art to bring readers in.
WW_2021_4_27_AmWritingFantasy
Patrick Rothfuss: [00:00:00] Hey there, everyone. My name is Pat Rothfuss and I'd like to welcome you to Worldbuilders Weekly, the podcast! Each week we bring you the best in everything geek: books, board games, interviews with authors and other notable cool people. Even better, this is all for a good cause because Worldbuilders is a charity that works to make the world a better place. And we are so glad that you've decided to join us.
Gray: Everybody, welcome to another edition of Worldbuilders Weekly. Today, we are really enjoying having a special guests who are literally talking about world-building, Jesper, and Autumn from the Am Writing Fantasy podcast.
Hello and welcome.
Autumn Birt: Hi.
Jesper Schmidt: Hello hello.
Gray: And I, in case you didn't know, my name is Gray, I am the Executive Director of Worldbuilders, getting to host solo today, because the staff is off enjoying Margarita's, somewhere at a bar, I guess, or something like that. I don't know. They don't tell me what they do. They just [00:01:00] said, Gray, you handle it, so that's what's going on. Every week, we bring you latest news from World builders Market and Worldbuilders, including special deals on new items, trivia, nerdy tangents, and various geeks doing good stories thanks to your incredible support of our organization. And sometimes like today, we're lucky enough to have authors and other geeks who are doing things to help out the community.
And we really appreciate you being there. Now, as I mentioned, we have the hosts of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, which I can tell you from experience is a very enjoyable one. In fact, full disclosure, I listened to it and I went, you know what? These people should be supported even more. I went on their Patreon and became a patron cause it's worth it.
Jesper Schmidt: Ah, cool.
Gray: It's a really good podcast. We also happen to have our own podcast here at Worldbuilders. So we just started it. We're going to be dropping episode three. How many episodes do you have of Am Writing Fantasy right now?
Jesper Schmidt: A hundred and... 24.
Autumn Birt: 124.
Gray: 124. [00:02:00] So we've got a ways to catch up. Um, so if you want to visit it, you can always go to worldbuilders.org/podcast. And you can also subscribe to it on various places like Spotify. Apple podcasts
The other quick announcement. Last week we had the author Martha Wells on, talking about her experience, writing Murderbot. Now we got in yesterday the Fugitive Telemetry books. We have them in stock right now. Go to worldbuildersmarket.com and type in Fugitive Telemetry, you'll find it. All right. Enough trying to pay the bills, let's go into our trivia questions. Now, Jesper, I know from listening to podcasts, what a great fan you are of Star Wars.
So this particular first one, as your favorite fantasy, you know, world Epic, the Star Wars trivia question that we had last week is: It's a trap! Our favorite Star [00:03:00] Wars admiral, Admiral Ackbar, belongs to what alien race? Now since this is the old question, I can go ahead and say, anybody in chat or authors, if either of you knows which alien race Admiral Ackbar belonged to, you can go ahead and say it,
Autumn Birt: Oh, I can't remember.
Jesper Schmidt: Mmm...
Gray: It doubles as a great tapas dish.
Jesper Schmidt: I wanna outsource it to the chat.
Trapezoid, king of the trad. No, he's a member of the Mon Calamari race. Which, honestly... calamari is a real word. I think if I had to nitpick a world-building thing, it would be someone using a real word in their fake world.
Yeah. Not a good idea.
Autumn Birt: Especially when that's known for food.
Gray: And he doesn't even look like a calamari either.
Autumn Birt: No I, yeah, that's just, it makes them edible. I don't know.
Gray: Yeah. So, everybody who sent in the correct answer to any of our DMS or emailed questions@worldbuilders.org, got an entry into our [00:04:00] monthly giveaway and it's the end of the month. So pretty soon, you know, this is going to be your last chance to get into the giveaway with this new question. Now for the new question, just so you, our guests know, and you in the chat, who may not know, the answer to this should not be put in chat and please don't say it out loud.
We want people to DM this so that we don't give any spoilers. And true fact, this is actually the first science fiction movie I ever saw in a theater, which also sort of talks about how old I am, but: In the 1976 American science fiction action film Logan's Run, what was the name of the ceremony used to maintain an equilibrium by killing people?
Oh, well that's a spoiler, by the way. They... you don't know that they get killed. They're supposed to have ascended. Anyway, by killing people. And at what age were you [00:05:00] expected to participate? So what is the name of the ceremony? And at what age were you expected to participate in it? Yeah. And
Jesper Schmidt: That's hard core if people can answer that.
Autumn Birt: Without looking it up.
Gray: I will confess, part of my, COVID rewatching of things, I actually did watch Logan's run again. It actually holds up surprisingly well.
Autumn Birt: Nice.
Gray: I mean, in comparison, there are worse science fiction movies out there, shall we say.
Jesper Schmidt: Hmm, okay.
Autumn Birt: I can believe that.
Gray: Yeah. All right. And that is all of our announcements, so we can now get onto the good stuff.
Yes. The film is, I don't think it's on Netflix, I think it was on Amazon Prime, but it was definitely out there. So first off, Autumn Birt is a writer.
Autumn Birt: Okay, very good.
Gray: Now we can talk more about her.
Autumn Birt: You can stop there, it's fine.
Gray: I love your bio, it's like, Autumn Birt is a writer. That's the most important thing you need to know. Not only is she a writer though, let's add in some adjectives and adverbs. Autumn is [00:06:00] a best-selling and award-winning author. Her book Gates of Fire and Earth was nominated for Best Book of 2017 by Fantasia Reviews and won Best Worldbuilding.
Autumn Birt: Yes.
Gray: That story is just part of her bestselling Epic fantasy trilogy set in the world of Mira?
Autumn Birt: Yeah.
Gray: Is that how you pronounce that?
Autumn Birt: Very good.
Gray: With its elemental magic and adventure. Born of Water with over 200 reviews on Amazon and a 4.4 star rating has been number one in fantasy and Epic fantasy. And, her post-apocalyptic thriller Friends of My Enemy has also been a number one bestseller in War, which is a difficult genre to get in there There's a lot of competition there. And if you love books full of magic and adventure with fantastic characters set in worlds that feel like you could open a door and enter, you should check out her amazing and award-winning writing. And we have her website in the chat there. So welcome Autumn.
Autumn Birt: Thank you. It's great to be here.
Gray: There's more about her personal life, but we'll, we'll talk about that [00:07:00] later on.
Autumn Birt: Okay.
Gray: And then we have Jesper Schmidt. Um, not that... that came out badly. And then we have Jesper sprit. There we go, that's better. We'll fix that in post. , There was a time when the art of writing was something that lived a quiet life in the back of his mind, a dormant desire, and like so many of our dreams, it was placed on a list of things to do later. That's luckily all in the past. Nowadays, Jesper writes stories about underwater dragons, vampires, awesome spell casters and dark gods, attempting to gain a foothold in the material realm of Ylécium. Is that close?
Autumn Birt: Very good!
Jesper Schmidt: That's very good, yes.
Autumn Birt: I think we should hire you.
Gray: True fact. I have actually narrated audio books before.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah.
Gray: And, also you are coming to us from Denmark. Is that right? Jesper?
Jesper Schmidt: That's correct. Yes.
Gray: Yeah. Uh, lives in Denmark with a wife and two sons. If you don't know where Denmark is, just read Hamlet and [00:08:00] you'll know. and, uh, it's funny, I got to, talk with both of you because I, have the, the most amateur writing of everybody here.
But, it's a close second, is our director of operations who, does have a Viking armor reenactment kind of thing going on. Ah, cool. We had to kind of fight over it, but luckily it was Covid, so it was rock paper not the Viking armor, no? Yeah, otherwise she'd just kicked my ass, so, yeah. but also, it was very interesting.
You say you love fantasy world building, especially maps. And I actually put up just for you, one of our maps that we print out here at Worldbuilders. It's a map of the four corners of civilization based on the Kingkiller novels.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah. I can tell you, just before, when you, went to turn off your fan, that was the first thing I noticed. It was the map behind you.
Gray: Well, actually, we'll talk about that a little more in a bit. But I also want to say, I appreciate the fact that we also have a link to a giveaway that you're doing. Do you want to talk [00:09:00] about what that giveaway entails?
Autumn Birt: Sure.
Jesper Schmidt: For sure.
Autumn Birt: You go ahead. You started to.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah, so it's also linked to map-making actually.
It is so and we're probably gonna talk a bit more about that once we get into all the world-building topics here, but, it is so that we have created a end to end world-building course, which we can talk much more about, but as part of the lead up to us opening this course for the first time here early may, we created this giveaway, which is an illustrated PDF that speaks about how to create a map of a continent, basically from start to finish.
And, if you are very quick about it, you need to get in before the 30th of April here. So you have a couple of days from now to sign up via that link. But if you do that, then you will get this PDF and, we will also email you more world-building stuff then that we think you will be interested in and also let you know a bit about this course that we [00:10:00] are going to launch
Autumn Birt: And one winner don't forget, one person will be drawn from all the entries for a 45 minute, world-building mentoring session. So whatever world-building questions you have, or if you want to delve into writing, uh, weaving your world-building into your writing, we will be there for 45 minutes just with you.
Gray: The Am Writing Fantasy is linked in with the courses you teach on writing and how to do that. Which actually leads to my very first question for you, so I have started NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, five times. I have completed NaNoWriMo three times.
Autumn Birt: That's good.
Gray: Why aren't I rich and famous yet?
Autumn Birt: Well, it has nothing to do with actually completing NaNo or your writing, potentially. It is hard. It is hard to get a leg up. I mean, I've been doing this since 2012 and back in 2012, I used to call it the wild West days. Oh my gosh. It was so easy. Anyone who got in 2008 to [00:11:00] 2012, it was so easy to sell books.
I mean, you could put up a cover your niece drew when she was five, you could have some okay editing and you could do 10,000 downloads on a giveaway. If you hit a thousand downloads now on a giveaway, it's amazing. It... it's a lot of competition. So that's part of the reason.
Gray: Gotcha. I can tell you what I think one of the parts is, is that I do find it much more easy to read about how to write and to take classes on how to write, not that anything wrong with that, but it's much easier to do those things and to buy new notebooks and new software, and watch videos about how to use the software, to write things than it is to actually write.
But at the same time, I know people who have just said, I'm just going to write and they just write. And that isn't always the thing either. So how do you find that right balance between learning the craft of writing and actually writing? Like, is there a proportion you should do or how do you counsel people on that?
[00:12:00] Jesper Schmidt: Well, I don't know if there's a proportion to do with such, but I think it very much in today's day and age, where you can find so much information on the internet and you can listen to podcasts, you can watch YouTube channels about writing or basically everything you want, you can find. For me, I think it's really a matter of trying to find some people that you feel like you can resonate with or that you feel like, okay, these people, they make sense and I understand the way that they teach things and then try to hone in on not necessarily one, but just a couple maybe, and listen to what they are saying and trying to apply that. Because the thing is if you try to collect input from everywhere, you'll get overwhelmed by it. Or you will get lost in it, or you will end up feeling like, okay, now I know a lot, but you don't get any further with your writing at all.
So I think it's really a matter of trying to niche down and decide, okay, these people, I will listen to those, and then try to apply that.
Gray: Gotcha. I guess that brings up the question of community, like, is it important that you [00:13:00] have... I mean, there's certainly the accountability, you know, just having somebody you sit down and write with. Before COVID hit, Mike, our warehouse manager, and I were trying to get in a habit of going into a coffee shop and sitting there and just glaring at each other and typing.
And if any of us said anything else, we glare at each other again, just to keep writing. I know that's important, but, the question becomes like, How important is it to have others critique your work as you're going along? Or at what point do you say, Hey, can you take a look at this? Is it, you know, do you do it as you're going along?
Or do you do it when it's all glistening wonderfully beautifully born from your head or what is going on?
Autumn Birt: In between those two points in between glistening and still writing. I mean, if you had someone, a true mentor, someone who has done a lot of writing and truly knows, their stuff, has gotten a lot of books out and, you know, knows how to market and knows what the readers, what the market's looking for. There you might want to work with them and show them as you [00:14:00] go. But in general, if you keep editing and building, as you're writing, you'll never get to the end. So it's better to get to your first draft, maybe polish it a little bit as best as you're able, and then seek help and say, okay, I have a finished novel, get content edit,
it's called. Get someone to look it over and go through it. Not necessarily a reader, you want someone who actually knows the craft and the marketing. This is usually why they're like really the most expensive edit you could pay for. So if you find someone who wants to take you under their wing and do it for free, keep them, love them, send them cookies, lots of cookies, or chocolate, wine, whatever they like, whatever is legal for you to send them and keep them and
love them, because it is really hard and it's very time-consuming. But those first few books where you have someone who knows what they're doing and kind of coaches you through it that's worth gold. That is fantastic.
Jesper Schmidt: We did talk about it as well on a previous podcast episode, because I feel like [00:15:00] there is a real danger in this kind of writing group thing where people critique each other. So you have like 10 amateurs sitting there, critiquing each other on stuff that they don't know anything about anyway. And you're just getting, get a lot of personal opinions about something that might be completely wrong.
and it's not going to be helpful, especially if you're starting out, you are quite vulnerable. Writing it's tough. It's very difficult. And the problem is also that you don't really know if you're doing it well or not, because it's very hard to look at your own work. And if you then get critique from somebody who also don't know what they're doing it... and oftentimes as well, I've heard horror stories from writers groups where some writers tend to put down the others because then they feel better about their own writing. And also that's not very helpful.
Gray: Oh, wonderful...
Jesper Schmidt: So, as I've said in the past, I think it's best to steer away from those kind of things and do much more what Autumn was talking about.
Again, it's basically the same thing as before, right? Find one or two people that you really trust and you know, that they know what they're doing and [00:16:00] just listen to them and apply what they're saying. And then don't worry about all those 25 other amateurs who are shouting on the internet about this and that or do this and that.
I don't like it. I also don't like when people post in a Facebook group for authors, for example, Hey, can, can somebody critique my work? I don't think it's a good idea.
Gray: Hmm. Yeah, we actually, in our auction, at the end of year fundraiser, we're lucky enough to have several authors and editors who will offer to do, a critique of a manuscript or the first chapter or things like that.
But those are very much established and they're very popular and, and, uh, very valuable, to have. So you mentioned that that's a vulnerability for new writers. Are there any other particular rookie mistakes that new writers will make or even established writers might make that you're like, Oh, you should've thought of that.
Autumn Birt: Oh, I think as an established writer, it's easy to get into the mistake of not talking about your work. Or doing the [00:17:00] opposite and talking about it and never writing. So you have to find that balance where you're writing and you are doing marketing. I mean, that's what talking about your work is, is marketing.
And it is so easy when you're a new writer, you're very insecure and maybe you don't want to tell people until you have a finished product and then you do, and you're launching and everyone's like, Oh, you don't know, you're writing a book for the last five years? Wow. That's great. You know, you need to do that one you're writing, but you also need to not be on social media or something, talking about how much you want to be writing or that you're stumped or whatever's going on.
You need to actually be writing. You know, sit yourself in the chair. I like weekly goals. I think daily goals tend to be really hard. So having a weekly goal that changes, like if you have a really busy work week, maybe your goal will be like one chapter. But if you have a really easy week, maybe you'll do five chapters that week. And try to make it flexible to fit your life and be nice to yourself.
That's my biggest advice. Do your work, hit your goals, but remember you're human and don't beat yourself up if [00:18:00] you slip a little bit. It's okay. And celebrate! We're both bad at this. Jesper and I are horrible...
Jesper Schmidt: Oh, horrible. ...
Autumn Birt: At celebrating our milestones. We just released our first co-written novella and we're like, yay.
Okay. On to the next... Get a beer, something!
Gray: That's actually kind of funny. in that, this is the thing about listening to your podcasts, is that I, this morning was the sing to an episode where you're like, and we're shortly going to be collaborating on a novel and now you're already done, so obviously it just takes a couple of hours. That is Fantastic. Congratulations on that.
Autumn Birt: Thank you.
Gray: Um, that actually that is, uh, well, lest we push the button where we start talking about habit change and productivity, which is a button I should not push on myself, but I'm just curious, since you've co-written a book or your writing habits similar in terms of like how you practice it or is it. How does that work to cowrite something? What is the flow?
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah There's probably many ways one could do that, but, uh, at least the way we do it
Gray: I wanna know how you do it.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah, indeed.
[00:19:00] Yeah. It was more to say like our way of doing it. It's not necessarily what will work for everybody, but at least the way we do it is, that we do plot the book first together. So, and there, we try to make sure we hit all the major points so that we know what's going to happen from start to finish and we are aligned and agreed on that this is the way it should go. And once we have all that down, I will then start writing and I will write the first draft..
Gray: Uh oh... he froze.
Autumn Birt: That's why there's two of us, right?
Gray: Yeah.
Autumn Birt: So, Jesper is responsible for writing the first draft, and then he sends it to me and I get to add in my parts, my description, it's not just editing, I'm adding on layer over top of his framework.
Gray: Right.
Autumn Birt: And looking for those points that he's, you know, he'll either leave blank saying, add a better description here, or just rearranging a few things. But we've, had it plotted out, it's more just the nuances, but I also do like editing. I love putting in the senses, I love bringing [00:20:00] out the world-building hints and this is a world-building one. I just... that's what gets me going. As much as I, like, I don't like plotting as much as Jesper. Jesper's a much better plotter than I am, but ah... Yeah, I just love that weaving part and getting everything integrated and getting into a character's head.
We write in third person, but there's deep point of view. So we really just, you feel like you're sitting on that character's shoulder and I just love bringing that out.
Gray: Gotcha. Welcome back Jesper.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah, and the funny part. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, I timed out for a second there, but the funny part is that actually once I've sent off my chapters to autumn, I actually don't see it again.
So at some point I will get back a, finished file and here it is!
Autumn Birt: Here's your novel.
Jesper Schmidt: It's ready to publish, and then we'll publish. But I haven't seen it. I don't know what we're publishing at that point.
Autumn Birt: I let him know if there are big changes. Those are the important ones.
Gray: So , it sounds like, the method would be, you know, you're plotters as opposed to pantsers.
I could picture it the other way around, cause there's a whole [00:21:00] art thing, the exquisite corpse idea, where you write something, you pass it on and they write something else and pass it on and it goes back and forth that way.
Autumn Birt: That's always fun.
Gray: Yeah, I could see that. I could see it working both ways, although I'm more of a plotter myself.
Although the pantsing part comes when my character does something unexpected, you know, as I'm writing, but in terms of the world building, there's been a lot of articles about how, you know, I don't understand how they could have had this fantasy world because logistically the background to support it just could not exist and things couldn't work that way.
And that has certainly been a criticism, but I could also see it being where somebody has created, you know, notebooks and notebooks and notebooks full of world building, but never actually told a story. So what... at what point... how much of the world building do I need to have in place before I start telling the story? Or is that something that I can just go back and say, Oh, well they have this magic thing called midi-chlorians that will suddenly make it work, you know?
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah. That was nice. Very handy.
Autumn Birt: Yes.
[00:22:00] Jesper Schmidt: No, but it's a good question. And it was actually not only because of that, but it was in part of that, why we built the world building course that we did. Because, at least I've been terrible at, in the past as well is getting completely overwhelmed with world-building disease. You know, just keep world-building and world building and world building. And I never do any writing. And then like four months later it's like, I have all of this stuff, but I don't know what to do with it. So what we tried to do was really to distill, okay, what is the most important things? What is it that you have to know? And it honestly doesn't matter if we're talking about writing a fantasy novel or if we're talking about a game master who needs to build a game world for people to play, and it doesn't really matter because a lot of it is, exactly the same.
So we've tried to distill it down to say, okay, these things is what you need to do. And then we are mapping that against some, what we call , the creator's lab, which is our module number six, which is massive. It has like tons of info in there. But what we did was basically, we said, [00:23:00] consider the story you want to tell.
And then from all of this stuff we have in module six, you pick three things that links to that story, that would be important to that story. And then you world build according to what is individual modules. there to tell you how to do whatever you pick from the list. And then you world build that. And then you move on. Because putting into a frame like that, if you're following along and going by the instructions, it will ensure that one, you do not get sucked into world building disease and spend tons of time doing something you shouldn't.
But on the other hand, it also ensures that you have enough meat on the bone that you can actually run a game or write a novel or whatever it is that you're doing. So, that was exactly part of the problem we had ourselves and in part why we built the course in the first place.
Autumn Birt: Yes. And I was actually the opposite of Jesper, cause I, the first time I wrote a book, I ended up kind of making a generic fantasy setting. And once I finished, I'm like, that's not good enough. And I went back and had to build the world. [00:24:00] And write the story. But what that taught me is that if you know where the story is going, if you do that little bit of plotting, you kind of know what you need to do to create a world at the same time, or create a world that's going to fit that story and enhance the story so you end up building both at the same time. And that's the experience we both ended up having once we met. And so we ended up creating something that kept it concise, made me world build more than I probably would on my own. And also kept Jesper from going off the rails and world building forever.
And we get to a story. And that's why we're writing books already, even though, I mean, time-wise, world building, it took a while because we were also building a course at the same time. We used our experience as we built this world together that we're now writing in as the template for, this does really work.
So it's been tried and tested and it's working.
Gray: So this is a continuation of the whole using your writing career as an experiment.
Autumn Birt: Oh, you caught that we do that a lot.
Gray: Yeah, to say one of my questions how does [00:25:00] that feel to, to do that? And it doesn't go both ways because Autumn, you mentioned it in the podcast, but I don't know if Jesper also does the, uh, Plays around with the marketing and things like that, of his books to try and test things out.
Autumn Birt: I think we both, I think he's been dragged into it at this point, but yes, we definitely both live by, um, experience. I'm always willing to try something new as you've noticed, not a fad diet, but you want to try out something with marketing and testing... He even sent me some Instagram and Pinterest courses and I'm like, sure, I'll try them out.
So that's just me. I feel like, you know, my life is a sacrifice, so other people can know whether or not to try it. That's fine. But again, experience may vary. It might work out perfectly for someone else. It might go up in flames. So far I'm still doing okay. So that's all right.
Gray: Gotcha.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah, a lot of the time, I think, Autumn is often the guinea pig.
So she's the one trying things out that, uh, whereas I mostly spent my time on the stuff that I know works [00:26:00] and that's why I focus and I market our joint stuff there, , and then if there's something really weird, like, well, I don't know, maybe this would work, then usually I'll throw it to autumn and she's always keen to get going on that.
So she can test it out and if she comes back to me and say, this works, then I'll start applying it.
Gray: I feel like we need to get autumn a t-shirt that says cautionary tale.
Autumn Birt: I always joke that my gravestone is just going to say to be continued.
That's just gotta be it.
Gray: What comes to mind when you're talking about the idea of combining the world builders with the stories, it kind of plays off that whole idea of tropes in that I know... in particular, I'm thinking of Richard K. Morgan, who I really enjoy his writing. I don't know anything about the author outside of the writing, because I want to keep enjoying his writing. But it's like his storyline seems to be, or story ideas seem to come from it's this trope, but what if this, what if this kind of world, you know, it's, it's Glengarry Glen Ross, except it's with the Mad [00:27:00] Max road warrior, you know, instead of... and that kind of thing. Or it's Conan the Barbarian except Conan is unapologetically gay, uh, which is his book The Steel Remains in that trilogy. Or altered carbon, which is, you know, it's, uh, it's a film noir trope, except that people don't die, they get their, their bodies reincarnated. So, that's an interesting way to work that. And in terms of that, I think it was episode 87 where you talk about tropes or maybe it was more recent than that. But the question that came out of that particular episode is for you, Jesper. Why do you hate Superman?
Jesper Schmidt: Well, I think actually to be honest, I hate all the superhero stuff. To be very honest. Why do I hate it? Well I think for one, I, Superman is a great example of somebody who... he just doesn't have any weaknesses. He's not relatable whatsoever. Well, of course the kryptonite stuff, but [00:28:00] okay.
You need to travel to another planet to actually feel like you can hurt him at all. But I don't know. I think characters, characters should be relatable. Um, they should be likable in the sense that you, you sort of understand where they come from and sure. Yeah, Superman does have a maybe troubling background.
You, you can certainly say that. Um, but it's just, I don't know. Uh, I think it's part of growing up as well through the years, uh, when I was young, you know, to all the Superman superheroes stuff has just been rehashed 200 million times. And I think if they, during those years, if they had tried to reinvent some stuff or try, like you said before, like turn some things a bit around saying, okay, it's like Superman, but something else, maybe after 20 years of that, maybe I wouldn't have bothered so much, but I don't know.
It's just 20 years of the same stories over and over and over again with the same characters. It's, I'm just so tired of it. So I guess that's my [00:29:00] honest answer to that.
Gray: That's fair. That's fair. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that people are trying to do that somewhat, although with mixed results. It could be argued that The Boys, the graphic novel and the series, was trying to re-imagine the actual con, not actual consequences, but some of the actual consequences of someone who didn't have that kind of accountability and had no weaknesses and how horrible that would be. Of course the problem is, is it also reinforces a whole lot of misogynistic and other stereotypes that are in there. Sheree Clark came onto this and recommended a book called Hench, which is by Natalie Zina Walschots.
And that is a re-imagining of the superhero from a, not only the example of a henchman, but also with more of a feminist take on it. On the, you know, the whole, the concepts and things like that there. And it's, it does get quite enjoyable, not that I'm saying you should like the super heroes, but, I think [00:30:00] you're right, that, you know, finding ways to re-imagine it, sometimes that is the, the fun of it is watching people try and do it. And then you're like, Oh, nice try. Didn't quite pull it off there.
Autumn Birt: I felt that way with Aurthurian Leverages, I mean, as a teenager, I loved King Arthur and everything. And since then, I'm like, so done with Arthurian tales. And there are, I mean, they just came out with that show Cursed and they were trying to show it from Nimue's point of view. And I just... no.
Gray: Yeah. I'm with you there. Actually, that was, something that, uh, I won't spoil the question.
But when you were talking about both of you agreed on the absolute least favorite trope and, it happened to be my also least favorite trope. Do you want to talk about which one you are so tired of seeing?
Autumn Birt: Oh gosh, no...
Jesper Schmidt: Do you remember which one we said Autumn?
Autumn Birt: No. He obviously does. I'm going to have to go...
Gray: Well, I just listened to it this morning. I think it was the trope of 'the one'
Jesper Schmidt: Alright, yes.
Autumn Birt: Oh yes, Oh yes.
Gray: The one who will [00:31:00] save everyone and save the world and things like that. And no one else will work. I just, anytime there's anything that is linked by genetics, I sit there and I'm like, Who thought this was a good idea. You know, the only thing is based on whether or not there's a child born?
Autumn Birt: Or it's that one special child, the prophecy.
And I have to admit they've sort of tilted that one on its head where it is the one who's going to save us, but he's the reluctant hero. And I'm like, Oh, look, you're the one who's got all the skills, but you don't want to do it. I'm... let's move on from that one now.
Jesper Schmidt: I think if I remember correctly, it might have been that episode as well, where I talked a bit about The Matrix, the movies...
Gray: Yeah, you mentioned Neo.
Jesper Schmidt: Because Neo is because in the first matrix movie.
I actually don't mind at all that Neo is the one. Because he sort of gets pulled into a world he doesn't understand. And he doesn't even, he sort of learns his way and I don't really mind that one. I think it's more like [00:32:00] when you get to... Well, you're the one and no matter what you do, you're going to succeed
and, and those kinds of stories that that's really where I don't like it anymore. I'm also on not that much of a fan of these, all of a sudden you are the heir of a kingdom and you didn't know that you were the heir. Oh my God. They've just been... so many times.
Gray: Yeah, agreed. You also mentioned in the podcast that, unmotivated evil is also an issue.
Jesper Schmidt: Yes.
Gray: Why is he bad because he's evil, you know, that kind of thing.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah.
Gray: How do you, it feels like it's a little bit difficult though, especially in world building, and I'm thinking of specifically the Star Wars empire, it can be difficult to portray an oppressive system or an evil situation without necessarily glorifying it.
Like it drives me nuts when little kids walk around with a Darth Vader on their shirt. I'm like, this is not a good thing, you know? How do you walk that line?
[00:33:00] Jesper Schmidt: That's difficult. And I suppose you're right there because actually. Darth Vader is my favorite Star Wars character
Gray: You can like him as a character as long as it's I like him because of the, you know, the flaws and things like that. Not I want to grow up to be Darth Vader,
you know.
Jesper Schmidt: Ah, but he's so cool.
Gray: I will say, I looked at your books and you don't have the most cheerful titles.
Jesper Schmidt: No, that, that is true.
Autumn Birt: That's fair. And I'm not the perfect one to ask because I'm always falling in love, not in love, but I mean, I'm almost always rooting for my evil characters. But I like what you're saying. So you have this oppressive system, but you don't want glorify it.
You know, you don't want to say, Oh, look at the Nazis, you know, or something that's very like, well, they do horrible things, but I think that's where you take the system and you have to boil it down to characters, even like the good, you can have a wonderful utopian society, but unless you show it through the lens of a couple of characters, it's just kind of [00:34:00] nebulous and you don't have it. But I mean the most evil person in the world could be a good father. He might've helped, or she might've helped someone at one time. And almost every society is designed to be helpful to someone. It might be the utopian upper class. It might be like Hunger Games where it's the people in the Capitol.
That system is horrible. The Hunger Games is horrible unless you happen to live in the capital, then it is heaven. And I think it is that, that the duology of that you have to show both sides where for some people it is perfect, this is utopia, but everyone else's utopia for somebody else is going to be hell.
And you have to be able to show both sides. Very few places are evil to every single person there, or it would have probably ended up in a black hole and no one would be there, but that one. Individual it's good for.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah. I honestly think it's... you have to leave it up to the reader to decide themselves. I don't think it's our job as authors [00:35:00] to try to make sure that this isn't glorified and then I need to play down that part and so on. I mean, if we go, if we follow the characters, the characters, some characters will think this is awful and they will point out why and their actions will show why they think it's awful and how they, they act against it. But then at the same time, those who are on the dark side of the force, they will feel that this is the way it should be.
And we are actually trying to do good as well. It's just you guys who don't understand. And then they, like we said, on that podcast episode, you know, the evil person thinks that he's the hero. He thinks that I'm doing the good thing. But the hero is the villain in their mind because you're trying to prevent me from doing what is necessary.
And yes, I understand that maybe it's a bit extreme, but it is what is necessary. If we don't do this, everything else will get destroyed or whatever in their point of view, right. So, and then I really think from there on readers are intelligent people so they can make up their own mind if they like something or don't like something, and I'm sure not everybody will agree with me [00:36:00] that Darth Vader is the coolest character of them all, but that's my view, and then somebody else can have a different view and that's fine.
Autumn Birt: Sorry, Han Solo fan, can't help it.
Gray: Yeah, this is a resonating in the chat. Karimshot just mentioned 'in quite a number of movies, I find myself identifying more with the antagonist than the protagonist'.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah.
Gray: And Zoe said, her kids also both always love the bad guys in books and movies.
Honestly my favorite books these days are ones where you don't actually know who's the protagonist or the antagonist, because it's not that simple. It's a story about people, or whatever . I think you touch on that in the end of the tropes is that, rather than telling another version of Iron Man or Thor, or yet another Batman movie, that there's a whole lot of really interesting in the, you know, twists and new ways of telling these stories.
Do you want to give any examples that come to mind? I mean, we've already linked your books, so obviously, those will go in there, but, any [00:37:00] particular books or authors that you're like, you should watch what this person does?
Autumn Birt: Wow, there's so many good ones.
Jesper Schmidt: Um, I'm thinking right off the bat Autumn, that movie, you directed me to that Chinese one.
What was it called again?
Autumn Birt: The YinYang Master.
Gray: Oh, that's on my watch list.
Jesper Schmidt: Right?
Autumn Birt: So there's one with the subtitles. That's eternal something. It's the one without the secondary title, just the pure YinYang Master. Not only is the CGI amazing. Which, so if you like CGI, if you really want to feel like this thing is real, but the fact that the story sets up a wonderful trope. It really pulls you in and there is a climactic scene at the ending that we will not spoil for you cause you have to watch it, but you're like, you're screwed. You can not get out of this and how it resolves. You're like, it's perfect. It makes logical sense and I didn't see it coming. I just love those.
Gray: Yeah. Those are the best ones when the author reveals that and you're like, Oh yeah, obviously, even though you couldn't see it at all.
Autumn Birt: But there are so many [00:38:00] indie authors. I mean, there's, uh, I think that's where it's like, I stuttered because it's like, there's so many I've read from J.C. Kang Is wonderful. Angela Ford is wonderful. There's so many authors that are out there and they have a wonderful voice and tell brilliant stories and you could get so immersed in their worlds.
And that's what I do love right now. I keep saying that if I had been born in this era, And I mean, I was a good student partially because I was just, it was 45 minutes to an hour to the only bookstore that had like one tiny shelf of fantasy. My library stucked. They'd have like books three out of one, two, three.
They wouldn't have the other two and so I've never been in good with libraries. But if I could have access to all these indie authors for books for like 2.99, these free giveaways and a Kindle. Oh, I would never have done my homework. Screw that.
Gray: Yeah. The, the recommendation actually, could you, could you say those authors again and I'm going to hope the geek in the van can [00:39:00] write them down so we can make sure we give them a shout out. You said...
Autumn Birt: Angela. J Ford is one. JC Kang is one. Oh, Yeah, his covers are gorgeous. They both have beautiful covers. I'm also a graphic designer.
I have a art degree. And so, yeah.
Gray: I have a question about that, actually.
Autumn Birt: But yeah, that's, I mean, even when I was a kid, I would look at book covers. I knew artists almost better than authors. Like, Oh, they used this artist. I love this artist. I have to read that book and it didn't even matter if the book was good. It just, that was, they used my favorite artist.
Gray: Yeah. We do judge books by their covers regardless. And yeah, I actually, I did find your page where you sell book covers, and I have to say, I did not see any partially dressed nubile elves with extra vertebrae, looking back with the smokey eyes over their ass hugging tights.
Jesper Schmidt: Oh my God.
Gray: And I don't understand how you can expect to sell a fantasy novel without that.
Autumn Birt: I know, I'm just a failure that way. I'm sorry. And the women in the bikini armor. Oh, there's a few really great YouTube videos about, you know, just [00:40:00] invincible women and bikini armor. It's like, Ching Ching Ching Ching.
Gray: Yeah.
Autumn Birt: Yeah. That's all I need to re... I am so bad-ass that I only need bikini chain mail, so there.
Gray: What would it say, it's for mobility and to distract my opponent.
Autumn Birt: There you go!
Gray: But seriously, like what, what does go into a good cover? Like how much of the story does it have to tell or how do you choose that?
Autumn Birt: It doesn't have to tell the story.
Jesper Schmidt: Well, almost none.
Autumn Birt: Yeah, exactly. So we're in agreement. You probably noticed that we always end up agreeing, but yeah, the cover should... I get that a lot. Since I do do commissions, a lot of authors want it to be a scene from the novel. And I have to admit, like when I do the ones for Jesper and I, and I do my own, it tends to be a scene from the novel, but it doesn't have to be the character, you know, the hair color, eye color, all of that isn't important. You have seven seconds to get a reader's attention to make them want to go read the blurb.
It doesn't have to be perfect. It should say fantasy. [00:41:00] It should say the mood, you know, is it noble bright? Is it a grim dark? It should have those nuances that you just subliminally. It's a subconscious like, Oh, that I like, and I don't think I've ever heard of any reader reading an entire book and going back to the cover and going, that doesn't make sense.
Jesper Schmidt: No. I mean, th the book cover has one job and one job only, and it is to show what genre is this book so that when you see it, you know, this is the type of book I like. That's what, that's the only job it has, nothing else.
Gray: Gotcha. It's interesting. I'm thinking about... so our illustrious founder, Patrick Rothfuss, his books have been translated into many, many different languages and many different editions.
And there are like, there is the traditional cover. There is the 10th anniversary cover, which is a beautiful stylized kind of art deco kind of thing. And then there's thefamous/ infamous Fabio cover, which has a [00:42:00] version of the main character that sort of looks like he came out of a J.Crew catalog.
Jesper Schmidt: Wow.
Gray: But yeah, and, amityjam mentioned that, Martha Wells last week was talking about how Murderbot doesn't wear armor in some of the later books, but is still portrayed with armor on the covers.
And the answer is...
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah.
Gray: So what? It's, you know, the armor was there at the beginning and it just looks right.
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah, you're, you're trying with the cover, you're just trying to speak to the tropes. You're trying to signal to the readers this is a book with dragons, or this is a book with vampires or
Autumn Birt: A little bit of romance. Yeah. Whatever's going on.
Jesper Schmidt: The shirtless guys? You know, that that's also a signal that this is a certain type of book and the readers who wants to read that they latch onto that cover right away and they'll go check it out. And that's its only job. When you're trying to be too smart about it as an author and you're trying to... I'm going to generate this cover that nobody has ever seen before with this very special artwork that nobody knows what it means. And it might look beautiful, but nobody clicks it because they don't know what kind of book it is. And [00:43:00] keep in mind that readers are scrolling on Amazon, through like lists and lists and lists. And they're probably going pretty fast. So if you need them to stop and then your cover needs to scream off the screen, basically like this is the kind of book you like. And if you go too much away from the tropes, you miss that.
Gray: Yeah. I guess you do have to have the... Not just, you know, it used to be you plan for a paperback size and a hardback size or a trade paperback, but now it's those things and also thumbnail image, recommended reading sizes.
Jesper Schmidt: Right.
Gray: And Zoe mentioned, it's also good when all the books in the series have to look the same, but different, like they have a theme to them when they're coming through there. So going back to the craft of writing idea, Jesper, one of the things that I found confusing about the tiers and the courses in the Patreon, I couldn't find the teir that included the Finnish sauna, um, to help me with the writing. So how important is that to the writing process?
Huge.
Jesper Schmidt: Well, at [00:44:00] least to the beginning of the writing process, for me, it was very important because that was what got me started. But I think once you're past the starting point, then it doesn't matter anymore.
Autumn Birt: Oh, I disagree. The sauna is like still key. I happen to be somewhere where there's a winter sauna and it's wonderful for brainstorming.
Oh, the shower can work too on steam.
Gray: All, facetiousness aside what is it about that sauna that helps, that helped the process for you?
Jesper Schmidt: Well, I think honestly it was a matter of, just completely detaching from the day-to-day. We go to Finland every year for summer vacation and, in these Finnish summer cottages, you go to the sauna a lot and, just getting away from all the day-to-day stuff and just sitting there thinking... I dunno, it just hit me all of a sudden, like, because I had the idea of wanting to write way before then. But I always had it in my mind that I'll do it one day when I go get retired or something, then I'll write some books or something. And then I don't know, it [00:45:00] just hit me out of the blue sitting there. Like, why is it that I got into my head that I should do it later? Why can't I just start right now?
What is really preventing it other than my own thinking limitations here. So yeah, that was it then. And I started writing next morning. Thank God that writing never saw the light of day, but, uh, but I did start the next day.
Gray: Nice. and I did say that we're going to touch on maps. Actually, we have an upcoming fundraiser this June and we're putting together a very special, sort of map portfolio idea. So I'm not going to get too many details about it, just to kind of tease it out there.
But you wrote an entire book about creating the fantasy maps, which by the way, is now on the to buy list because, you know, I'm glad that the stream caught the teaser there for the fundraiser. Yes. A teaser. And let me say it helps that Netflix has just released a fantasy series where the main character is a cartographer.
[00:46:00] Jesper Schmidt: Yes. I have the one on my watch list.
Gray: I will tell you just as a side thing, what I am finding annoying about that is that the world building is amazing, and I really want to know a lot more about the world, but the story keeps getting in the way.
Jesper Schmidt: Oh, okay.
Autumn Birt: That's horrible.
Gray: They keep focusing on these main characters and telling the story of them.
Like, no, I don't care about them. I want to see more of this world, but that's just me. But you know, we do love maps. Like I said, there's a canvas version of a four corners over there.
Autumn Birt: Beautiful.
Gray: What are your favorite maps like you, if I said, you know, what is your absolute favorite fantasy map, what would your answer be?
Jesper Schmidt: Uh, well, I think to be honest, this is a nostalgic question more than anything else. I love the Lord of the Rings map. But this is nostalgic, it's because I grew up with it.
Gray: Right, we imprint on that, yeah.
Jesper Schmidt: I also liked the Forgotten Realms maps, but again, that was also because I grew up with it. All the Dungeons and Dragons maps there.
And I liked those as well. And I think to a large degree they [00:47:00] inspired me a lot growing up and probably kindled my love for fantasy maps.
Gray: Gotcha. What do you look for in a map? Like, are there things in a map that you're like, definitely like a checklist that would be like, Oh, does it have a... what's the word for the North South East West thing?
Jesper Schmidt: Compass Rose?
Gray: Yeah. Does it have a compass Rose? Does it have, you know, distances, things like that or is it just general feel of it?
Jesper Schmidt: Yeah. The map making book that you mentioned before that I wrote, it is much more about how to build a map that actually feels realistic. So it's basically just talking you through a lot of the basics, and putting them in some sort of a stepped approach to go from end to end of the map making.
But because I feel like the thing that removes immersion the most is you might not be able to tell what it is, but if you look at a map and there's just something off, even though you can't quite put your finger on what is wrong, it breaks the immersion. And all of a sudden [00:48:00] it feels like, well, this doesn't feel right.
And basically the map-making book is just assigned to make sure that that doesn't happen. But what you put on the map is very much up to you. It is very much up to the story that you're telling. I do have some, some wishlist that I call it in the book. You like write down some things that your story needs and then make sure that that's on the map.
Uh, because at the same time, you don't want to force your story in a certain direction, just because you created a map that looked like whatever, right? So the map should respect the story you want to tell, but at the same time it should feel realistic.
Gray: That's actually a good phrase to have there.
The map should respect the story you want to tell. that's part of what I was thinking about is I could see one of the sort of ways that a map could ruin a story. Like if I saw a story that was supposed to be set in you know, the 12th century or the equivalent to kind of society, and the map looked like a Mercator projection, you know, it's like, I would want the map to resemble the style of map-making or at [00:49:00] least as I understand them, I'm not an expert, of what the story itself was.
So, you know, they may have, here be dragons in the side. Or whatever country... whatever country is the dominant one would be much bigger than perhaps it actually is and in the center of the map, you know, not that that would ever happen in real life. But yeah, it's fascinating and I am, uh, I think there may be like, there's two kinds of fans. There's people who just love the map side of things. And then karimshot mentioned, you know, I honestly think I'm the only person who skips over the map completely. Definitely not the only person.
Jesper Schmidt: No, definitely not.
Gray: I've done that before, but I have late in life learned to love the map.
Jesper Schmidt: No, that is actually completely true that there is definitely two camps of fantasy readers. There is exactly those who just skip over the map and then there are the ones like me. If I open the book and within the first few pages, if I don't see a map, I'm already feeling slightly disappointed.
So there's definitely both camps. [00:50:00]
Gray: Do you enjoy the kind of maps where it's like, um, who was it? Uh, I'm blanking on his name. He wrote, um, Perdido Street Station. Um, Anyway, he has, cities that are like, it's like London, but it looks different. Or Mary Robinette Kowal, in her books, half of the Eastern seaboard has been wiped out by an asteroid, so that changes.
It's like the map of the U S but differently. China Mieville, thank you. Thank you for, I knew it was an interesting name. I just couldn't remember what it was. Um, because, brain doesn't always work. I seriously could sit and talk with you both forever, cause you're very interesting and these are all subjects that I'm very passionate about, but we are running out of time.
Can you, um, I don't think we actually put in the link to the course that you've developed, unless that wasn't in the, in the giveaway.
Jesper Schmidt: No, the giveaway link on the course link to different ones. But of course, if, if people do enter the giveaway, they will [00:51:00] get the email about it. But if you don't want to enter to give away, we have shared with you the direct link to the course as well.
So you can put that in.
Autumn Birt: Yes. And it's, I actually know it by memory. I'm the website builder.
Gray: Yeah, actually if you want to say it, I'm looking at my notes. I don't actually see it anywhere.
Autumn Birt: It's actually ultimate fantasy writer's guide.com forward slash world-building (http://ultimatefantasywritersguide.com/worldbuilding/).
Gray: Gotcha.
Autumn Birt: So it's a long... Ultimate fantasy writers guide is a little long.
Gray: You know what? As somebody who used to coach people on how to, uh... it is something that you can say to somebody and they will remember it and be able to write it down. So you don't have any underscores, you don't have any double E's or things like that?
Autumn Birt: Oh, next time!
Gray: Then that is a good URL.
Jesper Schmidt: And I guess the thing I would say is that we tried to build something where it gives you end to end instructions, because where we also got caught up in, you'll probably try to as well, if you start searching for world building inspiration or inputs on how to do [00:52:00] world building or whatever on the internet, you get like a million different pages with like 250 questions each page about ask yourself this and this and this and this and so on. And all of that is great. So it's not that we have built a course where it is like reinventing the wheel. A lot of it will probably be familiar to you, but what we've done is that we put everything in one place and we put a system around it and also carved out all the stuff that is irrelevant.
so you can follow it from start to finish. And of course it is in part a course for writers, but at the same time, I would say it's probably only like 10, 15%, maybe that is specific to writing, whereas everything else is just as applicable, if there's any game masters and stuff like that, listening, 80%, 85% of it will be directly applicable if you're just building a fantasy world for, for a game.
I think the one thing probably important to mention is that it's only open for a very limited time. So [00:53:00] we have it open from the third to the 8th of May and then we close it again and we open usually like, every six months. So if you are too late, if you get in there too late, you can put your name on a wait list and we will let you know later on.
Gray: Obviously I haven't taken your course, but I can definitely say that, being part of a cohort of learning is a great way to do it.
Autumn Birt: Yeah.
Gray: I have been a part of the, several other cohort based classes and it's been very effective in terms of learning.
Jesper Schmidt: And the added benefit is as well that if you are a student of ours, then you get automatically enrolled in a monthly Q and A, live Q and A session that we have with our students. So if you get stuck on anything or if you need inspiration from us or from other students, you can join a monthly meeting, and ask you a question, so that's very beneficial as well.
Gray: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge here with us and telling us about the course. I wish you the best of luck with it. I'm I'm sure it'll be very, very successful...
Autumn Birt: Thank you, Gray.
Gray: Just the first of many to come.
We usually, [00:54:00] in order to sign off because of the lag of things, we try to come up with a particular word, uh, that is some, some variation of Vivamus, because that's too easy, so, let's make the word write-a-moose!
Autumn Birt: Write-a-moose? I like write-a-moose.
Jesper Schmidt: Write-a-moose.
Gray: Write-a-moose.
Autumn Birt: Very Maneish actually.
Gray: Originally it was, it was dum vivimus vivamus, the Latin. There we are, write-a-moose.
Thank you.
Patrick Rothfuss: Thanks for tuning in to Worldbuilders Weekly, everyone. Take care of yourselves and take care of the people you love.