Writing 101: Fight Scenes

Today's post is a shorty but I hope someone finds it useful! At some point in your writing career, it's not unlikely you will be faced with the task of writing a fight scene. It might be a fist fight, a spar, or even a battle scene (especially if you're writing fantasy). Here are three things to keep in mind when you write:

1. Keep it short. I mean this both in the sense of how much page space it takes in your book, as well as how long it's lasting in the "real world." All too often I see sword fights and battle scenes that drag on and on and on... but in reality, most fights are short. I suspect this misconception comes from TV and movies, since in those cases they have to be long enough for the audience to absorb. But people obviously don't fight for fun (except in sports!) or to be flashy. They're fighting either to hurt/kill someone or to defend themselves, so they're going to be efficient.

2. Keep the plot going throughout. Oh, fantasy novels, how bad you are at following this rule! While keeping in mind that someone in a fight doesn't have a lot of time for introspection (see previous point), you do want it to be clear to the reader that the existing conflicts are still at play. You know the old adage that every word in your book should move the story forward? It's just as true for fight scenes.

3. Do some research. Probably not getting in a fight of your own, though I suppose it depends on how dedicated you are to the craft... anyway. Read first-hand accounts of the type of fight you're writing about. If you're aiming for a particular style, such as a martial art, watch videos on YouTube. You'll want to learn the facts, since unless you have personal experience, your imagination will probably mislead you. The one that always bugs me is writers describing swords as being really heavy. Swords are not that heavy! Don't alienate us pedants with those kinds of details. ;)

And that's it for now. You know, in my everyday life I'm a pacifist, but good fiction turns me downright bloodthirsty. Bring on the violence!

Writing 101: Map Making

Today we have a hands-on workshop here at Paper Hangover. We're going to be making maps! This project is designed for those of you writing secondary world fantasy, but anyone can join the class if it sounds fun. ;)

So, I have this problem. Whenever I try to draw an imaginary land mass freehand, it ends up looking like a piece of fried chicken. To wit:


Oops. (Don't even get me started on those southern rivers that don't make any sense.)


I was all proud of myself for this one until my boyfriend pointed out it looks like a thigh. God damnit!

So, I don't bother freehanding it anymore. Instead, I spill stuff. But before we get into the messy part, let's examine why exactly you might want to make maps.

Get real, Lauren. Fantasy books with maps in the front are so 1990s.

I want to make it clear that these maps you're drawing don't have to be for readers. If your characters travel around a lot, a map might make it into the book, but otherwise probably not. So the two main reasons you'll want to draw some maps for your story are:

1. Come on, maps are cool.
2. So YOU can keep everything straight!

Because of number 2, I recommend you draw maps for the towns or cities your story takes place in, and even floor plans for the buildings. Otherwise your character might end up walking to school uphill both ways, and nobody likes that.


YOU WILL NEED:

Paper (I'm using blank sheets for the pictures, but you can definitely use scrap paper)
Old coffee, black tea, or red wine
A large waterproof surface
A pen or pencil



Now, quite simply, we're going to make a mess.



Dribble. Splatter. Splash. Pour.



Press two sheets of paper together or fold them in half. (Caution: may start to resemble a murder scene.)

Leave the sheets out to dry.

Now, you're going to get a lot of amorphous blobs, long thin streaks, and just generally stuff that doesn't look anything like land masses. But somewhere in your collection of spills should be some usable shapes. When the paper is completely dry, outline them in pen or a dark pencil. Definitely take advantage of tiny splatter marks -- islands!



This one kind of looks like severely squished Europe from some angles, but we'll ignore it this time.

The paper you spilled on is going to be warped, so you'll have to get a clean sheet and trace over the original. Now it's time to fill in the blank space!

Use whatever key or color coding you like to indicate various natural and manmade features. The main thing you want to keep in mind is avoiding a Patchwork Map. So:

-Got a mountain range? Find which body of water is closest to it. On the opposite side from that body of water, you will have a desert, grassland, tundra -- some sort of arid landscape. That's because the mountains squeeze all the moisture out of the air before it gets to the leeward side.

-Think about other ways in which climate relates to geography. For example, the so-called "desert island" doesn't really exist -- small lone islands get a lot of rain because there's nothing blocking them.

-People need fresh water. If you have rivers, there will be settlements on them. If you have big rivers, there will be major cities on them.

-Rivers originate at high elevations and follow the path of least resistance to the sea. In flat areas, they will wind a lot, but not in hilly ones.

Of course, this is all assuming your world has Earth-like geology. Feel free to throw this advice out the window for awesome reasons, such as a magical river that springs up out of nothing. :)

In contrast to the chicken pieces of my earlier days, here are a couple of maps I've made for my stories using the spill method: Dominy, Kolay and Chosa. The Sunset Sea in that second one was a product of uneven spillage!

If you have any questions, tips, or corrections (hey, I'm not a geologist), please leave a comment. Thanks for reading, and good luck with your map making!

Writing 101: Building a Religion

A Common Omission

Pre-modern people were really religious. Really, really religious. Religion influenced every aspect of life. Before our modern concept of science was born, religion explained the way the world worked -- from birth and death, to the weather, to how best to prepare food. To the common person, atheism was unheard of. In the short and brutal lives of peasants, religion was often a singular comfort.

So why, then, does religion show up so sparsely in fantasy fiction? It's a fun world building opportunity, useful for explaining the culture of your imaginary peoples, and it can even influence the plot. Now, I have a feeling that if we all wrote our stories with religion as prominent as it was in real life, they would be kind of hard for modern people to relate to. But I still encourage you to include religion in your fantasy story, probably more than you were planning to. Here's some tips to get you started.


What People Believe versus What's Real

At this point I want to make it clear that you don't have to have actual deities, spirits, and so forth in your fantasy world. As the author, you get to say how your world is really run. But the people who live in it will have ideas about it that you know aren't necessarily true. This is especially the case if you write about more than one culture -- whose religion is right, if anyone's?

You don't have to make the distinction; I just want you to know it's an option, especially if you're not entirely comfortable with religion. And if you do make the distinction, you don't have to make it obvious in your story. As a reader, my favorite is when it's ambiguous who, if anyone, is really pulling the strings.


Basic Design Questions

1. Are there gods and goddesses? (Not all religions have them.) How many? If there are multiple, are they truly discrete beings, or are they just different aspects of the same divine force? Has a deity ever been human? Did they start out human and ascend, or did they go into the world as a prophet or messiah?

2. Where and how did this religion originate? Religions tend to travel, so the country your story takes place in might not be where the religion came from. Who spread the word? Were there prophets, enlightened wise men or women? How widespread is the religion now?

3. Are there any holy books? If so, are they considered to be the words of the divine, or messages delivered by prophets? There might be a canon of texts considered most holy, as well as later texts that are more like opinion pieces. What about books which are considered to be dangerous, like the words of false prophets? On the other hand, some religions don't place much if any importance on texts.

4. What is the religion's creation story? Is there an end times predicted? If so, will a new world be created after, or will the god/dess(es) be finished with that whole creation business?

5. What's the afterlife like? Is there a heaven, hell, multiple versions of each? Does a person reincarnate? If so, for how many lives? What determines where a person goes when they die -- their beliefs, their actions, or just who they are? Do you end up in the same afterlife for eternity, or can you work your way into a different one?

6. What is the organization of the religion like? Is there an equivalent to the Catholic Pope, or any other hierarchy? Can someone chose to live a monastic lifestyle, i.e. a monk or a nun? Do you need to be initiated into the religion, and if you break the rules, can you be kicked out?

7. How does the religion interact with government? It might be more powerful than emperor, have no influence at all, or be somewhere in between. Sometimes they are one and the same. Are there laws pertaining to religion, such as what you can and cannot practice? Can you be thrown in jail for heresy? Keep in mind that "separation of church and state" and "freedom of religion" are relatively modern concepts. What about magic -- encouraged, forbidden? Certain types only? (Those questions might sound familiar.)

8. How accessible is religion to the common people? For example, is there a liturgical language? (For centuries, you had to be able to read Latin if you wanted to read the Bible, and some Catholic services are still performed in Latin.) Do the people in your culture have to be well-educated to study religion for themselves? Are there priests and priestesses, shamans, or other individuals who serve as a bridge between ordinary people and the spirit world? Or can people petition and contact the spirit world on their own?

9. How inclusive or exclusive is the religion? Some religions, like Christianity and Islam, are strict about their believers only following that one path. However, the way religion is practiced in many Asian countries is much more eclectic -- religious practice in China tends to be a mix of Buddhism, Taoism, and folk religion.

10. How has the religion affected people's morals, if at all? To me, this is kind of a chicken and egg question. Do we think stealing is wrong because the religions that have shaped our societies say it's wrong, or do those religions say so because people already sensed that stealing was wrong? But you can take it unique places -- say the primary deity of your religion once lived in the form of a young child, so children are considered exceptionally sacred.


Plot Goodies

Although religion can merely be a world building tool, I think it's fun to incorporate it into the plot. Here are some ideas.

Interpersonal conflict. Two people who follow different religions, or just have different ideas about a shared religion, might butt heads. This can be a major or minor plot point, even just serving to increase tension throughout the story. You can also ramp up the scale: holy wars, anyone?

Divine intervention. Your characters might receive (or believe they have received) a message or sign from the gods. Or something more dramatic could happen, where the physical and spiritual worlds meet. I'm not advocating a literal deus ex machina, however! Your characters should solve their problems by themselves, and if divine power is involved, at least foreshadow it.

Routines and inconveniences. Do adherents to your religion need to say a certain prayer or do a certain ritual every day? If so, that could cause problems when they're off adventuring. Are they obligated to offer food or gifts to some being? Imagine what a pain that would be if you've only got enough money for one pint of ale. If it's a high priority for a character, they might go to great lengths and get into trouble to fulfill their duty.

Getting in trouble with the religious law. You see a lot of stories about outlaws, but not many about religious outlaws! Remember that in real life the clergy has often been as powerful as the government. What happens if your characters piss them off? And remember my question about canon versus forbidden texts? Maybe your characters could stumble across some information they're not supposed to know.

A crisis of faith. Despite what I said before about atheism being nearly nonexistent in pre-modern times, your character might not be completely at peace with their religion. Maybe they realize they've been following the wrong deity. Maybe the discovery of that apocryphal text that gets them in trouble with the clergy also shakes up everything they thought they knew about the world. The fact is, in the old days most people didn't have an opportunity to question what they were taught. But you can give your characters one!


I've tried to make this post thorough, but don't feel as though you have to follow it religiously (hah! haha. ha. ...) during your own world building. Take what you need to make your story interesting and believable; tweak it as you go. Good luck!

Writing 101: Soft Magic

In search of information on different styles of magic systems I found a disproportionate amount of emphasis placed on hard magic. So I wanted to focus this post on the lesser discussed style of magic systems: Soft Magic.

“Too long; died reading.”

Hard Magic = Rules are explained + Magic solves the story’s conflict(s).

Soft Magic = Rules are unexplained + Magic is, or causes, the story’s conflict(s).

The above formulas’ are broken down to each style’s most basic form and is more like a guideline. There’s certainly a lot of leeway with both and a middle ground where you can blend the two together. But we’re talking extremes today to help you understand what either is, if you don’t already know.

I borrowed the terms “Soft Magic” and “Hard Magic” from Brandon Sanderson's First Law. Brandon Sanderson’s essay delves into the different styles very insightfully. I highly recommend the read if you’re using magic at all in your story. Also, in this post I’m using the concept of “magic” in its broadest sense, including any time it doesn’t involve wizards, or the like, casting spells.

Hard Magic

With hard magic, the rules of that magic system are laid out for the reader so that when the characters solve a conflict using magic, the reader isn’t left scratching their head in confusion or thinking that magic can just do anything. They’ll have already known what magic can or can’t do by the time the use of magic is what defeats the big bad boss in the climax, avoiding a dues ex machina.

Lauren posted some awesome questions on our blog that you should consider when building or maintaining any magic system. Many of the questions would lead one down a nice path toward a solid hard magic system. Bless her cotton socks.

Click to enlarge.

Caution

There’s a danger in explaining a concept that no one needed or wanted an explanation for.

In the original Star Wars trilogy, The Force was a mystical power (soft magic). In the prequels, George Lucas introduced the concept of midichlorians—a microscopic life form living inside the Jedi (hard magic). This enraged many fans that preferred the former explanation of the Force.

Soft Magic

The more I studied the different styles of magic systems in my favorite stories I discovered that my preference might skew a little more towards soft magic.

These stories are usually more interested in the characters than the mechanics of its magic system. That's not to say that hard magic isn't interested in its characters. The two styles just do the same thing differently.

Sometimes, readers just don't require an explanation as to how or why the magic system works. It just does what it does and that's perfectly acceptable. All the Disney movies that I can recall off the top of my head are soft magic. Most children’s fantasy books are soft magic. Still, just because you write for adults doesn’t mean you can’t use soft magic in your story.

Examples of soft magic:

• Cinderella: It's never explained how the pumpkin turns into a carriage or why it changes back at midnight. It just does. We don’t need no stinkin’ explanation.

• The Wizard of Oz: How exactly do ruby slippers send, not only Dorothy back home, but her little dog too? It just does. We don’t need no stinkin’ explanation.
  
  
• Groundhog Day: It's never explained why Phil Connors (Bill Murray's character) was repeating the same day over and over or how (Spoiler alert!) he manages to escape the loop and finally enter the next day. It just happens.

“Seeing my shadow gave me magic driving powers. That’s all the stinkin’ explanation you’ll get.”

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Willy Wonka made gum that never loses its flavor, ice cream that doesn't melt, and Everlasting Gobstoppers that never get smaller no matter how much you suck on them. It’s all fantastic enough that we readers don't care for an explanation of how that can be. Had Mr. Wonka sat down with Charlie and friends and told us how it all works, that would probably ruin the sense of wonder which hooked us in the first place.

“Everyone gets an Everlasting Gobstopper!”

“…after my presentation on the concept of mass-energy equivalence. Please, turn off all cell phones.”

The common theme in the above soft magic stories is that the magic itself causes more problems for the characters than it solves.

Cinderella had a fantastic night dancing with the Prince, but Fairy Godmother’s magic couldn’t last forever. That very night, she was forced to return to her harsh living situation. Dorothy is lost in the Land of Oz with all these strange people and is just trying to get back home. Reliving the same day over and over isn’t fun for Phil Connors who never wanted to be in that town on any day of the week. The Chocolate Factory tortures many of the characters with all the things they thought were cool.

Even when the magic isn't creating problems, it’s simply ancillary to the plot. Its visual spectacle, cool images to keep us hooked.

But wait! Slow down. Just because you might choose soft magic for your story doesn't mean that you’re free to use magic in any kind of way. You still must maintain internal consistency. What you do with the rules you create will determine: the style of magic system you present to the reader, the nature of the story’s conflict and how it is solved in the end.

How to use Soft Magic

Show the magic working in your story the way it’s supposed to, and by virtue of seeing it in action, the reader will simply know that it works and will need no further explanation. Don’t make it into a mystery that the characters must figure out unless you don't mind if the reader also makes it into a mystery that they will try to figure out. Give the magic less importance to the overall plot/conflict. When the conflict isn’t solved with the use of magic, the nuts and bolts of your magic system are unimportant.

Cinderella won the Prince’s heart because of who she was as a person. The magic only provided her access to attend the ball, not necessarily to even meet the Prince. With the help of friends, Dorothy defeated the Wicked Witch with water, not magic, and by accident. Phil Connors escaped the Groundhog Day loop by surviving his character arc. Charlie won the Chocolate Factory because, as the last kid standing, he proved himself to be the best candidate to keep Mr. Wonka’s most precious sweet-making secrets. None of these climactic resolutions involved magic. If anything, they put an end to all the magic.

Caution

One issue you could potentially run into with building any rule system is creating a mystery where there is none. You’re not prepared to solve it because to you there isn’t even a mystery that needs solving. You’ve built this fantastic world, you’ve fallen in love with it, and you want to show it off, so you include everything you know about it in your story. Forget the potential for info dumps here, but the more you place focus on a specific concept in your story the reader will also focus on it, and wonder about it, and ask questions about it. It’s natural. You can use that to your advantage, but if you aren’t careful it can hurt the story you wish to tell.

The TV show LOST played around with blending “magic” that was hard (Dharma Initiative) and soft (Jacob/Man in Black). Among the many freaky things going down on that island, there was a mysterious smoke monster that could shapeshift into people who had died on the island. There was such an emphasis and build up to the question, “What is the monster?” that viewers naturally wanted to find out what it was exactly. The monster's nature was often inferred but never outright explained all the way through the end of the series.

This, amongst other mysteries that went unexplained, polarized viewers between those who demanded more answers to the island’s mysteries and those who had gotten all the answers they needed. Both viewers were right. None of them were wrong. The viewers who needed more answers were just watching the wrong show. And those that got all the answers they needed were watching the perfect show for them. But what sparked the outrage in viewers was how the writers blended hard and soft magic. By including both, viewers who liked getting answers felt cheated when the writers naturally glossed over concepts that were merely part of the soft magic portion of the show.

Hard or soft magic; neither is inherently better than the other. As the storyteller you must decide which audience you’re writing for. The easiest way to find out which one is to determine whatever it is you like to write, what do you find most interesting, what do you like to read, what kind of feel are you going for in your story. You won’t be able to please everyone. You shouldn’t even try. But whether you’re shooting an arrow at a bull’s-eye, a bullet at a target, or a basketball in a hoop, aim for something. Sometimes you’ll miss, but if you don’t aim you’re more likely to miss.

I hope this helps guide you. Thanks for reading

Writing 101: The Magic Next Door

This week will be the first of multiple posts on the big question: how do you develop a magic system?

Making magic is tricky business. All fiction requires some level of suspended disbelief, but fantasy authors have the extra challenge of writing about things we're reasonably sure could never happen in the real world. Done well, and you can win over readers who love fantasy as well as those who shy away from it. Done poorly and you risk yanking readers out of the story, something a writer should almost always try to avoid. So how do you come up with a system that's interesting, non-cliched, and that makes readers want to suspend their disbelief?

I'm going to use one of my favorite words now: verisimilitude! (Try saying it out loud, it's a blast.) It means something that looks and feels true. It's a quality you want to strive for when writing about magic. Give your readers a magic system they can believe in, and you've got an attentive audience.

Today I'm going to go over some tips and basic questions you might ask yourself when working on a magic system. These topics are designed to bring out the verisimilitude of your magic.

Waaait just a minute... am I saying this is the only way you should write magic? Definitely not. Stay tuned for posts from Michael about some different styles of magic systems, which you may prefer. What you get today is my method!

HOW do you use magic?

Is it an innate skill, or can it be taught? How much training is required for basic use, for mastery? Is it voluntary and/or controllable?

What traits must a person possess to be a magic user -- physically strong, intelligent, imaginative? Maybe it's a skillset unique to your world, but maybe not.

Close your eyes and imagine you're a magician in your story. What do you do? Where are you drawing the power from? The air around you, a spiritual force or higher being, yourself?

What effects does magic have on the user? Does it leave you hungry, thirsty, tired, ill, sneezy? If magic comes from within, magicians sure as hell better get exhausted if they do it for too long. Nothing comes from nothing. Something has to be used up, gathered, transformed, or what have you before it turns into magic.


Maintain internal consistency.

Magic that can do everything is boring and strains a reader's suspension of disbelief. Figure out what your magic can do; figure out the logical extensions of that; figure out where it can't go. It can be a huge help to write down physical laws of magic. Then make sure you don't break them.

How far can magic travel? How long does it last? And on that note....


Have ontological inertia.

Forgetting about it is a common trope. If you bake a cake and then you die, the cake doesn't stop existing. So if you make some magical creation or effect/illusion, why would it go away when you die? Of course, there's the possibility that you're constantly working at it to keep it in existence... just, make sure that's what's going on if you take that route.

Then again, if you bake a cake and you die, the cake would eventually start to mold. (Note: death not a necessary precondition for molding cake.) If you mix the batter and then you die, no cake happens, but the batter is still there. What happens to magical creations in your world if left alone for a long time? What if they're not completed?


What are the laws surrounding use of magic?

A blanket ban, or at least ostracization, on all magic is a common plot device. What spins can you put on it? Is there a certain type of magic that's outlawed? Classes or types of people forbidden from using magic? Do you need a license to practice magic, and if so, how do you get it? Are there any safety regulations akin to seatbelt and helmet laws? If your magic hurts someone by mistake, to what extent are you liable?


Can animals use magic?

And if not, why not? Don't handwave it!


Can magic be used to hurt people?

An unfortunate truth is that if it can be, it will. Don't have your people be all unpleasantly shocked when some mastermind decides to use magic in a completely obvious evil way.


What technology has your society developed with magic?

Generally speaking, sci-fi is good at showing the ramifications of technology in many areas of life. Fantasy, not so much. For example: if people in your world have the magic to make things levitate, why aren't there elevators? You can put in constraints if you like, but do make sure they're there. Similarly, consider what technologies would never be developed or would be obsolete. Given that same power of levitation, would the wheel ever have been invented?

Of course, no technology happens overnight; it builds over time. Just don't assume human civilization with magic will mimic human civilization without.


What about other societies in your world?

Do they use magic too? Do they use it differently? Have they discovered aspects of it unknown to other cultures, or on the flip side, are they still "developing"?


If anyone would like to share some of their answers in the comments, go right ahead! I'd love to see what people have come up with.

Writing 101: Bigger Than Big Is

Some fantasy worlds seem huge while somehow appearing to still be holding tons of information back. Some of the best fictional settings give the reader a sense that the world beyond the main characters is alive. It feels as if that world could truly exist somewhere over the rainbow even if the main characters had never been born. We, the readers, just so happen to experience the world through the point of view of said main character. How do authors do this? That’s what we’re going to discuss in this installment of Writing 101: How to create a setting that's bigger than big is.

Zoom in on specific details in your setting.
Each character is the main character of their storyline.
Brief tangents enrich your world.

This topic alone could fill up a book all by itself. A single blog post won’t do it justice, so we may end up revisiting this in the future. Some of these techniques also might be a little more suited to fantasy writers. Some genres simply don’t require the story’s world to feel large at all. As always, take what you need and leave the rest. Here a just a few ways to expand your world for the reader:

It’s the Small Things That Count

Novels are unique in relation to other forms of entertainment. Fiction is allowed a certain leeway to go on tangents whereas time constraints placed on movies and TV shows prevent those stories from stretching their legs. This is the advantage of the novel. Authors can take their stories off course a little and should be encouraged to do so. It makes for a meatier storytelling experience, and it’s what separates the novel from all other forms of entertainment. The key is to not go overboard. But that's true with anything, right?

Think of your world as the Big Bang. Begin by introducing small details and then, little by little, branch out with bigger revelations as the story unfolds. To start out, pick a unique part of your setting and explain it in explicit detail. The reader will feel that since you as the author know so much about the small stuff that when you gloss over the big stuff later, they’ll simply ride along with you. They'll understand that there's too much to tell and will accept the illusion you've created.

In this case, it’s a good idea to know your world inside out so that you'll have a detail to zoom in on in the first place. J.K.Rowling charted out everything, and not all of her ideas made it into her books. Whether you outline extensively before you write, or if you learn about your world as you go along, you must know a whole lot more about your world than you're ever going write about. You don't always have to know everything up front. Sometimes you discover things about your world as you write about it. For me, that's part of the fun and I’m a strict outliner.

Abed Delivers A Baby

Each character is the main character of his or her own story. Think about how in real life everyone’s got their own thing going on. You might sincerely care about your friend’s problems. But they’re not always central to the running storyline that is your life. We all have a life of own, and depending on the scope of the story you’re trying to tell, so should each of your characters.

Awhile back on the TV show Community, the writers pulled off a really cool concept. One of the main characters had a mini adventure that took place entirely in the background of the show. [YouTube Link] A good idea to remember is that even though your story’s plot should always revolve around your main characters, your world, more often than not, shouldn't. Allow some of your key minor characters to go on their own "off screen" adventures. It isn’t necessary to jump into their POV either (although that’s an option). Whenever they show up naturally in your story, they can tell the main characters about their adventures à la Gandalf the Grey every time he disappears and returns.

At times in Harry Potter, every character Harry met had a moment where they seemed to have something else going on that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with Harry at all. Hermione had S.P.E.W. Hagrid had Aragog, Grawp, and Norberta. Although the plot of each book revolves around Harry, the wizarding world itself could have gone on without or without Harry's existence. Some of the characters could have even had books of their own written about them.

Every single character doesn’t need to have some wild adventure going on “off camera”, but it does need to appear to the reader that there’s a world out there doing its own thing. One small way to accomplish this is to simply show you minor character or bit player doing the very thing he’d be doing if your main character wasn’t around. Have your MC show up and interrupt the minor character from their daily routine.

Caution: Your main characters always come first. Never give an off screen adventure to a minor/background character at the expense of the main plot. Don’t let your minor characters take over the story. Don’t make their adventures so much cooler than your main characters’ that your reader starts to wonder why you didn’t write that story instead. Or maybe you should write that story instead.

“A Royale with cheese.”

Give your characters the freedom to chew on the scenery. Have them allude to significant moments in the history of your world. Let their conversations go off on tangents to show their personality, what they care about most, their likes and dislikes. This could go against the grain of the rhetoric "tension on every page", but all of our favorite authors do this successfully. Done right it isn’t even noticeable in a negative way. Your favorite author reels you in with juicy conflict, teases you with tension, and entices you with sympathetic or interesting characters. By the time they serve you that low-tensioned tangent scene in Chapter 10, you had already been salivating for more information about the characters and the world, and you eat it all up when it finally lands on your plate.

Allowing your characters to talk briefly about things that have nothing to do with the main plot is one way the reader can learn more about the characters and their world at the same time. Keyword here is briefly. I want to caution you to be extra careful with the tangents. Not to discourage any writer out there, but not all of us can pull a tangent off. Not all readers even enjoy them. In some instances this very technique can be a detriment to the telling of your story. There are many scenes in fantasy novels that go on and on and nothing (in terms of conflict/tension) ever happens. Many readers do enjoy that aspect of books, but keep in mind that just as many readers don’t like it very much. Know your audience.

Caution: Keep tangents brief. Get back to the main plot as soon as possible. At all times try to make your tangents relevant to the characters (in how they feel or view the world, etc.) or the setting (how it changed or is changing etc.). Tangents should come off natural and shouldn’t feel out of place storywise. If your tangent is just something you think is cool or funny and really has no purpose other than that, be honest and murder your darlings, please. Never include extraneous information without intending to for a story specific purpose. If it’s your goal to input a slice of worldbuilding life in a particular scene, by all means do it. Only as long as you know the purpose you're providing it for the reader. Make sure you know your intentions with that scene. All readers may not appreciate the tangent, but at least it won’t be in your story by mistake. Haters gonna hate.

How To Incorporate These Techniques Into Your Story

None of these methods should ever take over your main plot. Sprinkle them throughout your story in little doses. It's all about creating the illusion that there's more to tell. Zoom in on a specific detail while leaving large chunks of information out of the story on purpose. Hint at things going on in the background, but don't give the full story or maybe not even a resolution. Interrupt those tangents with the main plot just when the tangent was getting interesting. When reader's only get bits and pieces, we naturally grow curious about what isn't said or hasn't been explored.

Any questions?