About The Imbalance

Account of Joel Minty, author of 'Purge of Ashes' Book One of the Imbalance.

30 Days of Balance #5: What is Imbalance About?

Posted on March 10, 2016 by The Imbalance

It is a fine line to preemptively explain an epic fantasy. No doubt it will be filled with fantastical elements, exotic locations, and a bevy of particular terminology. Explaining any major undertaking in such a realm challenging to describe to the layman, and yet – when a book is new – everyone is a layman. I always feel silly when family members, friends, acquaintances or anyone asks what Imbalance is about because I grew up believing a good epic fantasy concerns itself with the growth and development of multiple characters or the deep history of a fictitious world. Paraphrasing a past is just not a palatable prospect.*

I inevitably end up saying something about the following simplified terms:

swords
monsters
magic
grit
gods

These moments hurt a little because it short changes not just my own story, but every one of the amazing, amazing epic fantasy novels I’m proud to have read and loved. If it is woven complex enough, it simply cannot be readily translated to those with a fringe understanding of the genre. My favourite, Erikson, knows (See this post).

So how does this change now via blog? Well, for one I don’t feel like my audience immediately tunes out after hearing the word “magic.” For two I can choose my words a little more carefully. And for three I can assume some manner of interest beyond due diligence.

My query letter used to end with the line, “Purge of Ashes chronicles the mettle of young soldiers as their impact ripples from a dusty road all the way to the gods’ realm” and this is a pretty good starting point. The series is called Imbalance and it has a short game and a long game. The short game is based around the young soldiers of the Loce Freelancers, third division – who they are before the invasion and who they become while treading the ashes. War and upheaval frequently upset balances of power, leaving the young to fill in the shoes of the dead. They undercut self pity and notions of unfairness with the threat of eradication. Choices made in love and actions taken in hate cause butterfly effects that sway rebellions, quell insurrections or force a return to glory. The ordeal suffered by the Loce Freelancers, third division has repercussions that extend beyond each individual’s inner struggle to create tangible change in the world beyond. To simply tread the ashes is not enough. One must be purged to find solace, and with solace comes the return of balance.

The long game is the second half of the query – about the god’s realm. What constitutes balance between good and evil, chaos and stability, is rooted in the nature of the gods and therefore foreign to the mortal mind. For example, the gods of good and evil (alas, I simplify anyway) have separate notions of what constitutes a fair division of power between them, but it is the mortals who they need to sway. The rest, as they say, is in the text.

One final thing: I could type out a laundry list of concepts I believe to be ‘themes’ in Purge of Ashes and they would read like a Grade 5 class studying abstract nouns. What matters isn’t words like ‘glory,’ ‘redemption’, ‘honour’, ‘bravery’ or ‘love’ – what matters is the weight of all such concepts, and how heavy they feel against your chest. The words are empty and typical without the book behind them – and by the time you have read it in full, you can and will decide for yourself.

*Note: this alliterative sentence is entirely for my epic fantasy comrade Sean Rodden.

30 Days of Balance #4: Progress to Publication I – Original Draft + Movie Script

Posted on March 8, 2016 by The Imbalance

Imbalance was sat on for a very long time. Numerous times. Creativity for me has always been a sine wave and with each high to productivity comes the balancing low. It is not what it used to be, but with each progression towards the finished book, it is far more a product of what it was than not. All the roots came from a map, but at some point words came into play. There is always a first draft. This post is about the first incarnation of Imbalance and Purge of Ashes, between 2003-2007 when it existed first as a student’s fancy and then as a movie script.

The Original Imbalance Book One: Like most good stories, the characters and scenarios for Imbalance were conceived while steering a dragon boat on Little Lake in Peterborough, Ontario. The shorelines were dotted with houses and the air smelled of the Quaker Oats factory upriver. Being out on the water is quite different from sitting on shore and merely observing. Brushed along by the wind, yet bobbing gently atop the water, it is not so hard to forget oneself and one’s simple chore of turning a 22-passenger boat once every few minutes.

When I got home I collected a series of characters first, having pictured my aforementioned map as the homeland and decided what location suited me best for a beginning. Then I began to write…

I check the word count of my original Imbalance from back in 2003 and I see it totals 44,000 words. It is weird and foreign to me. Everything is out of order. People’s names are slightly different. There are five entire chapters dedicated to what I summed up in about three pages of the upcoming release. Plus I had a point of view from the Scalion Legion, which was… different. I also organized the book in an interesting manner. Four sections of five chapters each, plus prologue and epilogue. Each one was named after a location – the same as the upcoming release but adding ‘Hazenma’ between ‘Katolys’ and ‘The Longest Road’ disparities. Additionally, each chapter had a title, and each title was drawn directly from a war metaphor. For example: Chapters 1-5, from ‘Katolys’, where titled: ‘A Flicker’, ‘Embers’, ‘Heat’, ‘Inferno’, ‘Ashes.’ The chapters for Hazenma reflected the process of a blacksmith forging a sword, and so on. The prologue was called ‘Premonitions’ and featured Ronun Thel’s first memory. The epilogue was called ‘Apparitions’ and was likely a Matthew Good Band reference / cool rhyme.

While I scrapped most of this version when I began to write Purge of Ashes in earnest in 2008, I did borrow some of my favourite bits – and certainly many of the scenes flow similar. The very first scene I ever wrote was Kaern playing with fire in the fire pit beside his farmhouse, which lasted a long time before eventually being turned to memories in the release. The Chapter 1 scene with Bale overlooking the Katolyian wharf was not too different then than it is now. Nor our introduction to Aronan. Where these fledgling scenes were most useful, however, was the year prior when I attended a Television Writing & Producing program where I was asked to pen a movie script.

The Movie Script: Since everyone was there to try their hand at learning how to produce television shows, or in my case create adult animated cartoons, no one was too interested in drawing up a whole movie script for this one particular class. It was the odd combination of ‘movie scripts’ and ‘late night’ and slipped aside the objective of most students – myself included. After imploring the class for at least a few scripts before the winter holidays, I decided that while I had no new ideas for full-length movies, I did have one lingering property…

I took what I had written for Imbalance, chopped the ‘Hazenma’ part right down to almost nothing, and then actually finished the story by filling in the finale in the form of a movie script. I found the time over the holidays because… well that’s the glory of being a student, isn’t it? My teacher praised it some, but then he was desperate to encourage more scripts out of the other students, so I took it with a grain of salt. What mattered most was that I really liked some of the choices I made in the final moments of the script. This script also forced me to keep the dialogue short and to the point, which I believe later helped me with some of my favourite lines in the upcoming release. It also kept the pace of the novel fast and action-oriented, a pacing I am proud of amid my many details.

Now, nothing was ever going to happen with this movie script. Let us clarify that. I had not the comprehension to pursue it, and at the time there was a notable lack of interest in fantasy movies from nobodies. There was a notable lack of interest in fantasy movies from anyone. Anyone not named Tolkien or Rowling, anyway.

So that was where I sat in the new year. Cool script, but who cares? It would take at least a year to realize that the collaboration required to make it in TV was beyond my scope and that writing was a medium I could plumb until kingdom come… but that’s a story for Progress to Publication II.

30 Days of Balance #3: Biting My Nails vs. Writing

Posted on March 7, 2016 by The Imbalance

Some days my biggest adversary is not getting words into the story, obeying timelines or the organization of the almanac, but the wanton destruction I deliver to my own fingernails. See, finger tips are used to type, and unsightly fingernails can often tarnish said tips. A furious amount of carving disguised as cleaning will ruin these functioning appendages to the point of creating ten hyper-sensitive, throbbing extremities – digits no longer capable of pressing keys without exacting an unfair amount of pain. Equally as nasty, the distraction of having a hand up at my mouth keeps me from typing, lending my mind to long gaps in focus where my subconscious is instead hell bent on straightening some calcium deposit.

It does not bode well for an author. A quick Google search reveals few to no hits correlating the two premises and I find this odd. When I had this problem writing essays in university I used to minimize and load up a hockey video game. It took twenty minutes to play and required both hands firmly on the keyboard. The result was twenty minutes without touching my nails. Biting one’s nails is a strange thing to do – but once you start, it is the sensitivity of the area that drives you back without thinking. Fade that sensation and you are set free.

Alas, this tactic is insufficient. I no longer have twenty minutes to so freely spare.

My solution? I may be one of the only authors to wear a pair of gloves while writing. I am all style in a pair of black gloves so tight they almost cut off my wrist circulation – the kind as ideal for snowballs as they are unsatisfactory at keeping wetness at bay. While this is simply happenstance, it serves the tips of my fingers well because I can still type through the material. Despite their overt benefits, I don’t always choose to wear the gloves, usually resulting in stinging regret. Stubbornness? Discomfort? Assumed control over my vice. Whatever the reason, they are a necessity. They may look a little silly, but if I know I’m in for the long haul I make them my first priority. No one requires their authors to look good during.

As of the writing of this post, the mitts are sitting in a clump beside. I assumed I would have no fingernail problems, but my right index and pinky are sore. I don’t really remember causing the damage. Blog posts are one thing – their style is you and quick to fire off. Imbalance is quite another.

If you’re a writer and have the same problem, I’d love to hear from you.

30 Days of Balance #2: 200,000 Words + One From Joe Abercrombie

Posted on March 6, 2016 by The Imbalance

Being new is hard.

Being an author is hard, too.

Being a new author with a book breaching 200,000 words is doomed to failure.

Being doomed to failure is hard.

My debut Purge of Ashes clocks in at around 204,000 words, about double what ‘they’ say a newly minted author should attempt. Everywhere I looked my word count was not just implausible or foolish, it was impudent and rude. A sure sign of an upstart university kid who thinks piling words from his engorged lexicon comprises prose fiction. The gall of it, going a book’s length into the sextupal digits. And yet here I am writing with both a publishing deal and the guile to work the word ‘sex’ into a post sans smut. University was a long time ago.

The word count was one of the most daunting aspects of completing Purge of Ashes. Attracting an agent or publisher would be based on their opinion of whether or not I would make money for the company. At first there would be no bearing on quality. The gatekeepers were therefore math types who were hedging their bets to calculate the odds of your book being a success – a risk worth taking. At 204,000 words all the algebra in the world would never fit the right numbers into the right variables for me. The cost of the excess paper required to print the novel outdid my potential, especially if the measure of that potential was 250 words on a single query letter.

I could never simply lop a chunk of the book. The ramifications were either too vast to consider or too damaging to the atmosphere or pacing. Nor could I split the book in two. You don’t set out on a mass exodus only to have the story end mid-jaunt when people’s feet are starting to get sore. One option seemed ideal: print as is and cuff the norms.

The thing is, they say write what you know for a reason. If there was one thing I was comfortable with in my knowledge, besides the TV show Futurama, it was my understanding of why my favourite fantasy series were so great. The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire and then later Malazan Book of the Fallen and First Law. None of these were small books. None of them squirmed into the presentation britches of the so-called rules of publishing. If these were what I knew, then an 80,000 page one-off to get my feet wet was not for me. Not grand enough by half.

So what could I do? I had done it my way like a cool dude, but now my way had petered from a paved highway into a lapideous streambed.

An offhand comment from @Grimdark himself, Joe Abercrombie, did the trick. I was beside myself at how impossible maintaining my 204,000 words seemed in a day and age where the internet could tell me ahead of time the many reasons I would fail. No one was going to care to represent my work and my craft was going to be for nothing but a few loyal friends. Then, halfway down the comment section on a thread purporting to tally ‘caps’ for word count by genre, I came upon an old post of Abercrombie’s calling the results into question – and you’re welcome to read it here. (A search for ‘Abercrombie’ will find it for you quickly.) He basically implied that a great number of impressive debuts in the preceding years, including The Blade Itself at 190,000 words, were closer to 200,000 than anything else… so why imply limitations? The successes belied the restrictions.

This prompted in me a steely resolve to ensure Purge of Ashes failed or thrived as conceived. If other excellent books could skip the line then so could I. Even the most famous authors started out timid over their capability. Let April 5^th be the judge of the company it will keep.

30 Days of Balance #1: The 30-Day Countdown

Posted on March 5, 2016 by The Imbalance

In the Imbalance novels, recorded history begins in the span ‘1b’ and winds through time to the present: 340b. Some call the present span 1i instead of 340b because it marks the birth of imbalance, and in accordance they augment their calendars and chronologies. Others cry and cajole that this identifier belongs fifteen years prior in 325b at the live birth. To these purists the world is already in the year 15i. Whether you side with the purists and the live birth or the populists and that endae aft in early Anona when the scales first tipped, the one thing agreed upon is that the days of balance were numbered.

For our purposes, 30 will do.

Today marks the first of a 30-day countdown to the release of Purge of Ashes on April 5^th. 30 more days of balance in which to get excited about the trilogy, explain some of the inspiration for the series, discuss the writing process for a debut fantasy novel, and learn some things about me before I get busy finishing the sequel. I have created the majority of these posts ahead of time to ensure the frequency and quality does not wane as the release date approaches and I revert from determined professional to giddy teenager. I hope those interested in reading my debut peruse this list of topics and pick a few they would be interested in to watch out for. A crash course on Imbalance straight from the Arnbred destrier’s mouth.

Happy reading to you all.

Pleasure note that my cover reveal and date for pre-orders are anticipated projections and subject to change.

Saturday, March 5	The 30-Day Countdown
Sunday, March 6	200,000 Words + One From Joe Abercrombie
Monday, March 7	Biting My Nails vs. Writing
Tuesday, March 8	Progress to Publication I: Original Book + Movie Script
Wednesday, March 9	What is Imbalance About?
Thursday, March 10	The Value of a Good Ear + Friends
Friday, March 11	A World Birthed From Maps
Saturday, March 12	Two Levels: Shakespeare vs. The Simpsons
Sunday, March 13	Never Quitting + Warcraft III
Monday, March 14	Favourite Authors
Tuesday, March 15	Progress to Publication II: 6-Year Challenge
Wednesday, March 16	The Cracks of the Day vs. Money
Thursday, March 17	A World Birthed From Documents
Friday, March 18	Love + Art
Saturday, March 19	Writing Women
Sunday, March 20	EARLY SAMPLE: Purge of Ashes
Monday, March 21	Cover Reveal (subject to change)
Tuesday, March 22	Pre-Orders (subject to change)
Wednesday, March 23	Self-promotion vs. The Internet
Thursday, March 24	Naming Conventions
Friday, March 25	Fantasy vs. Horrible Fantasy Covers
Saturday, March 26	Progress to Publication III: The Roddening
Sunday, March 27	Starting in the Storm + Passive Voice
Monday, March 28	Birthday Promotion!
Tuesday, March 29	Short Stories
Wednesday, March 30	The Timeline Doesn’t Matter
Thursday, March 31	Writing vs. Worldbuilding
Friday, April 1	Something Unique + Inspiring
Saturday, April 2	Pronunciations + Pronunciation Keys
Sunday, April 3	Publication + Realmwalker Publishing Group
Monday, April 4	Grip of Dust
Tuesday, April 5	The Birth of Imbalance

Sketches

Posted on March 3, 2016 by The Imbalance

Sitting here staring at a copy of A Clash of Kings next to the computer. It’s waiting on the table to be transported out to my mother-in-law this weekend who has taken up with A Song of Ice and Fire. I can’t say I would have expected that back in the late ’90s.

Just a quick note tonight that RPG has informed me of incoming sketches from my cover artist – so it has officially begun: the book being made in earnest. I’m am eager to pin down my vision for the cover and very glad RPG is open to artist/author engagement when creating covers. One of my biggest fears throughout the process was spending all these years creating the content only to be afflicted with a cover that featured a half-naked warrior woman next to an old guy in a robe, who is probably a mage but looks like an old guy in a robe, as they grapple with some lizard-man wielding a silver gun akin to the kind you’d find on the cover of a mid-’90s Choose Your Own Adventure cover.

When this cover is done it will be yet another reason to get the hardcover.

JM.

30 Best Fantasy Book Series

Posted on February 23, 2016 by The Imbalance

This list has been hopping around the internet lately and everyone has been weighing in on its merit: 30 Best Fantasy Book Series

Could be “30 Most Heard Of Fantasy Book Series” just as easily, but perhaps that is exactly what qualifies ‘best’ in this instance: bringing joy to the most people. As works of art, well, such things are in the brain of the beholder.

My main addition to the discussion is to point out the frequency with which people throw out the entire list because of one entry. Either “________ wasn’t on there! VOID!” or “They included ________? Egregious! Detestable! Stupefying!” The greater the amount of variables in a list, the greater the likelihood of something not matching your personal list. That’s why you have a personal list. If you could get your exact point of view from someone else, people would. Yours will always be different. What such lists do is emphasize what the greater population for a given genre or subsection believes to be best, with a few personal favourites thrown in. The closer the content’s source publishers are to Pitchfork the more faith they put in their individual critics, the more power they give their unique take. The broader your platform, the more the publisher seeks to appease. In the former’s case, the list seeks to point out the unheard sometimes at the sake of quality, in the later’s case, the list seeks to emphasize the quality of success at the sake of diversification or unpopular opinion.

So my opinion on the list?

Pretty much every major fantasy series I’ve ever loved is there, no matter how old I was at the time. Can’t go wrong with that. I heard someone complain about a lack of Guy Gavriel Kay on the list, but we’re talking series here, and Kay is known, for the most part, for excellent one-offs. He’s the only exception.

Finally, don’t like a list? Get a voice and make your own.
I once made a qualitative list of my 100 favourite songs. It served its purpose.

1st Page Critiques & Mark Lawrence

Posted on February 21, 2016 by The Imbalance

So author Mark Lawrence has made a little collection of critiques for amateur authors and I read through the lot of them after being forwarded the link. I thought I would post it below because I found it to be an interesting concept. Maybe I was in a funny mood this day, because the idea got its hooks in me. It is no doubt a brave and noble endeavor on his part.

At first the idea horrified me – to be judged on your first page alone sounds even worse than submitting to agents. At least your query letter is especially constructed to meet their needs. A good opening can definitely grab readers (for an example, I found a copy of Brandon Sanderson’s Steelheart sitting next to the microwave at a private school I was teaching in recently. Apparently no one on staff knew who he was. I flipped it open and the first line was: “I’ve seen Steelheart bleed.” Amazing! Seems like a paradox and I’ve only read four words) but at the same time an excellent novel does not need a thrilling opening if it proves itself excellent. I completely forget the first paragraph of Crime and Punishment, but that is in no way indicative of the quality of the book.

Then I found it interesting and horrifying. As an author who is serious about getting noticed for my epic fantasy debut, where would I stack if I had the balls to submit (which I don’t)? Purge of Ashes has an excellent pace to it, this I trust. It developed from a script serving the story beats of an action movie and a compliment of this ilk was the first response I got from Realmwalker. But the first page? The book ramps up the action pretty quickly, but page 1 of the Prologue is less ‘exciting’ and more ‘critical detail’ necessary to appreciate much of what is to follow (how is clear come the 2nd or 3rd chapter). If I don’t start with a robbery, a murder, a chase or a hunt, are readers going to put my novel down?

I relaxed once I read a few of the first pages. Not enough to submit, mind you, but enough. While Lawrence describes himself as viscous and not pulling any punches, he comes off gentle enough in my estimation. Certainly on #5, despite questioning the author’s language of origin. These are worlds apart – and what’s more his preamble explains that the point is not to prove what works and what doesn’t – it is to provide assistance to anyone who faces similar challenges in writing. A one-man Dragon’s Den (or Shark Tank if you get American TV). Mostly right all the time.

What I realized from my fear and recovery was was that in importance hardened fans defeat the first few pages. Gain hardened fans and hardened fans will spread your wares. They will urge others on no matter what section of your novel they may struggle with. I have no doubt that Lawrence would be incredibly popular regardless of how hair-raising the first pages of Prince of Thorns are. My chief inspiration is the Malazan Book of the Fallen and if there is one thing that ought to be gleaned from the increasing fandom of this superb series it is that rabid fans can badger the most baffled and un-hooked readers into anything if there is gold buried beneath.

So I say bury the gold. If it shines bright enough, it will be found.

Anyway, here is a link to all of the critiques.

Drunk Calendar

Posted on February 21, 2016 by The Imbalance

I think the calendar countdown running on the right side of my home page is drunk. Or at least inept at basic math. Today is February 21, 2016 and the release date – as clearly stated on the calendar itself – is April 5th. And yet it insists that my book is dropping in ONE MONTH on, I suppose, March 21st – 16 days prior than reality. Is this widget only accurate once you’re within a month? You’d think an algorithm to calculate how many months AND how many days would be equally simple to make while being 1,000 times better.

In related news, between this and my last post you totally witness my range as an author: it’s the same as the range of iHawk on Futurama: maudlin to irreverent.

On Harper Lee

Posted on February 19, 2016 by The Imbalance

I grew up with a cat named ‘Boo.’

I’ve also read To Kill a Mockingbird three times since 2010 and it never failed to bloom for me. It was my favourite book given to me in high school and it is my favourite book to teach years later. I have trouble reading the ending to my class without crying. People remember the book’s overall warmth and message, but they forget all the little details that mirror the main story and draw delicate parallels – Dolphus Raymond, or Mrs. Dubose, or all of Atticus’s lessons for Jem. It was a round, quaint story with no wasted words. It still is. It yet will be.

“You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”

R.I.P Harper Lee.

Imbalance

The Epic Fantasy World of Author Joel Minty

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