The upside about having a kid: Everything. I love his little face. I love how I can see my wife and myself in him. I love helping him when he cries, love feeding him at night, even when I'm groggy and grunting. I love his ten little wiggly toes and how he stares at the wall until I say his name. I love his smile.
But then there's the downside: No time to keep up a blog.
Nevertheless — here I am! I've been procrastinating on a longer post and have mulled over a few topics I've wanted to talk about, many of which folks have asked about. So I figured, why not take this to you?
Before we begin, what the heck is "Ask the Fantast" anyways?
Ask the Fantast is an opportunity for you to send questions for me to discuss in my blog posts. Just remember: I can't speak officially about Games Workshop or the Warhammer hobby — and that includes questions about lore. If you're not sure if your question is okay, just submit it and let me worry about it. |
Factions and Fandoms
A great question came in from Alexander Z. via the blog's web form that I want to hit first:
Is understanding fandoms a part of your preparation for writing a BL novel? What are some unique traits of the different faction fandoms you've dug into?
For the fandom question, there's a pretty short answer to this: Sort of.
Generally, I don't make a serious effort to look at what fans of a given faction are saying about that faction. Sometimes, though, when I find one of those unique traits Alexander referred to, I do make a point to look for fan speculation. I'll pay attention to fan discussions to interrogate folks' ideas on their own merits and develop them as necessary.
For example, anyone who's been on a 40k subreddit for more than two hours will notice that a lot of fans have a beef with the t'au. The big beef seems to be that the Imperium would be able to crush the t'au, essentially, "if it tried." I've always found this sentiment a little silly — the Imperium is defined by its inability to enact real systemic change, which (I believe) is what would be required for it to mobilize effectively against the t'au. While writing Elemental Council, I knew I absolutely had to address all this, so I inserted my own opinion into Artamax's monologue about the threat the t'au pose today being secondary to the threat they will pose in ten thousand years. (I talk about this dynamic in another post as well while discussing research.)
Another example is the "writers don't understand numbers" meme. To be fair, it is at least partially true — I hate math — but when fans are critical of the numbers referenced for 40k wars, I really think they're overthinking it. Specifically, I've read some opinions that one million Space Marines are too few for an Imperium that consists of a million worlds. Whenever I hear that, I think, "Isn't that the point?" Others argue writers don't give wars enough troop numbers to achieve a reasonable scale of attrition, usually with World War One as the point of comparison. But what if, despite the superficial similarities, World War One is not an appropriate point of comparison? What if the Seven Years War is, for example, or the Spanish Conquest? Then it totally makes sense that a few thousand soldiers could determine the fate of entire planets and sectors.
All this said, if I need to understand why fans like something specific, I will research those things. It's not quite that I'm trying to understand the fandom or internalize fan consensus. Rather, I'm trying to fertilize the little garden in my head so I can let its vines grow up the walls of my skull until they come out of my ears and I write something cool, appropriate, and consistent with folks' expectations — even if it subverts those very expectations. (Basically, I have to know how to walk the walk and talk the talk.)
As for unique faction traits that I find interesting, I hit on some points about what makes faction worldbuilding so cool in another post, but I'll flesh out this topic with some additional examples below:
The T'au Empire. The potentiality of the t'au is marvelous. Will they be good guys? Will they be bad? Will they be successful? Will they fail? Keeping that potentiality in mind, what does the ascendance of the Goddess T'au'Va mean for the Empire? Will they begin to evolve psykers and be susceptible to corruption? The potential for corruption, in particular, is awesome. What if the Goddess T'au'Va begins manipulating t'au evolution so she can commune with them? What if she begins manipulating drone intelligence so she can commune with them? And what if she seeks to this elevation for "the Greater Good" — whether or not the t'au want it themselves? Totally seems like a plausible psychic fall for the t'au, if things ever go that way. (I really hope they don't, though. I have a more noblebright opinion of the t'au.)
Leagues of Votann. I absolutely love the Votann (the artificial intelligences, that is). The idea of abominable intelligence as the cornerstone for a spacefaring civilization year 40,000 just reeks of legacy, heritage, and all the consequences they might spawn. True to the spirit of 40k, the Votann's current status is unsustainable — they're basically getting bogged down in vast quantities of data — but they do also have to be at least somewhat sustainable, right? These AI cores have propelled the rise of a massive civilization at the center of the galaxy and have overseen a functioning society of living and artificial beings. That the robots haven't betrayed them (yet, I guess) seems really important. Clearly something about squat society works, and I think it comes down to their heritage.
Ynnari. I admit I'm not up to speed on Ynnari lore or stories, but I love that they exist as an intersection of other Aeldari factions. Religion unites them — but is that enough to overcome their cultural differences? It seems like that vexing combination of things in common and things not in common would offer some rich opportunities for conflict and drama. And as demonstrated by conflicts between ISIS and the Taliban, I wonder how sustainable the religious unity of the Ynnari really is, when the rubber hits the road.
The Influence of My Background on My Writing
In a reddit post, u/Coletron3000 offered a really satisfying compliment accompanied by a serious question:
Your writing, really uniquely for Black Library, seems highly focused on issues of imperialism, and the preservation/expression of cultural values in the face of colonialism’s oppression. I think it’s some of the most nuanced and intelligent social commentary Black Library has produced (while also having the necessary number of big explosions). How has your background as a Vietnamese-American and military veteran informed your approach to these complex issues?
I talked about some of this in The Mortal Realms Story Phase Episode 78, but there's certainly more to discuss here.
I'm half-Vietnamese. If you didn't know, let me be the first to tell you: Growing up as half of anything is weird. As a child, my mental image of myself was a red-blooded, freedom-loving, steak-eating American. But as soon as I hit middle school, many of my rudest peers quickly disabused me of this notion.
I was different, if only because these ass-hats said so. I was yellow, a chink, a gook, a charlie, a "wetback" (I think that kid just didn't understand that certain slurs are for certain groups). I was not like them. I was not who I thought I was.
This experience continued in the Marine Corps. I had been called racial slurs in high school but the shit-talking in the Marine Corps was next-level. Some of it was in good spirit — and that was repaid in kind. But some of it was malicious and laced with implicit threats of violence.
I'm not hating on all of my fellow non-ethnic Americans here. There have always been so many good people who helped me stick up for myself or who did it for me — and far, far more than those who seemed embittered by our differences. But the bottom line is that in any culture, if you're half-[insert ethnicity], anyone who treasures racial make-up as a pillar of their own cultural identity is just not going to view you as part of their in-group. You're just an other.
From all this, some of many questions I started asking in youth that continued into adulthood were Who am I? And where do I fit in this society? How do they see me? How do they see themselves? In Afghanistan, I was a Marine on a patrol base in Marjah. That made me an occupier in a foreign land, but it also made me a liberator. Children held our hands on patrol and laughed with us and asked us to come back tomorrow. Little girls went to a school that used to be a Taliban stronghold with multi-colored, polyester bookbags bouncing on their back. But then, other children cursed at us and spat. In 2011, they told us they wished we had died and not Bin Laden.
Much of this reminded me that I was the child of a Vietnamese fighter pilot, too, who had fought to defend his homeland from his own countrymen. My father fought for his country, but so did his enemies. The USA's involvement in that war is regularly viewed as unjust. But my father didn't think so — he thought the USA's involvement utterly righteous.
So who was I? Who am I, still? Victim or oppressor? The son of a refugee from war or an occupier of foreign lands, soldier for a late-stage capitalist empire? Which is my country, if neither truly accepts me as its own? So much history is at play here, a wrong repaid by wrong repaid by wrong and mental scars passed through generations. In the immortal words of Herzen: Who is to blame? (For those who've read Godeater's Son, you'll know Heldanarr Fall finds his own answer to this question at the climax of the novel. I'd say I have too, and I don't fret about all this much anymore — but the question of identity has utterly changed my view of the world.)
All of this is a long, long way of saying that I have never set out to write commentary on colonialism or cultural resilience. I sit on an intersection of identities that has given rise to experiences both miserable and joyous. But that perspective has thankfully enabled me to see things that many who enjoy a more comfortable and secure place in their society (and cultural identity) are blind to. To recapitulate that in fairer form, I'll tell you what I told the only other half-Vietnamese person I've ever met in my life, after we realized how similar our lived experiences were: "No one is really ever going to know, are they?"
I hope that answers your question, u/Coletron3000, even as shaded as it is by my own experience. As for the record, I think what I told that other half-Vietnamese person was only half-right. Because when you tell people of the world you have seen and the life you have lived, and when those people are ready to listen and accept, I really do think they understand. Maybe that's why these themes resonate.
Combat Experience
A question from u/Pmurder-, also on the subject of lived experience:
I’d love to hear about how your experiences in the USMC has influenced writing and adding realism to stories.
I'm going to focus on combat here, which I think is the focus of the question.
For background, my combat experience is limited to my first deployment in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011. Our company was in the thick of it in Marjah, Afghanistan, around MSR ("main supply route") Jessica. Walking that road was considered an invitation to get shot at or blown up. Taliban fighters attacked our patrol bases fairly frequently, always at dawn and dusk. It was light stuff, small-arms fire — certainly nothing like what the war-pigs in Ukraine deal with or the salt-dogs in 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines before we relieved them in place. But it was combat.
To give you an idea of what this was like, the patrol base in the midpoint of Elemental Council is based on Patrol Base Bouresch, where my squad, Warpig 1-2, was based. The human attack is similar to what we would see, with the insurgents sneaking up, all of us watching each other, and then everyone opening fire at about the same time. At Bouresch, we were attacked for two weeks straight before my company launched a clearing operation south of Jessica, which drove the Taliban from their local stronghold and ended the attacks. In addition to base attacks, we were attacked a good few times outside the wire, but the insurgents really kept their distance most of the time, engaging at distances of 500-800 meters. (So basically, everyone just said hello with their guns and then went home.)
I reckon there are three levels of combat experience I try to bring to my writing: the sensory experience, the tactical experience, and the emotional experience.
The sensory experience is incredible. Bullets make the sounds they do in movies, whizzing overhead, pewing off the ground. Psychologically, firearm discharges sound wildly different depending on whether they're on your side or not. For example, nothing feels better than an M-249 SAW buzzing at an enemy position. But once I heard the metallic rip-roar of a PK medium machine gun (a Soviet weapon used by the Taliban) open up about fifty meters away as my squad was responding as QRF ("quick reaction force") element to medevac a friend. I very nearly pissed myself until I realized it was our local militia allies covering our movement. When I realized the muzzle flash and reports were on our side, it felt great to hear. (For more on this, see the emotions section below.) Capturing all of the actual sensory detail from war in story form is easy, because it's done so much and so well in modern media. The trick, as with any writing, is attention to detail and focusing on small, specific things that make it feel more realistic. If I tell you a PK machine gun roars, well, yeah, sure Noah. But if I tell you that a PK machine gun is distinguished from M-240 fire by the metallic clanging quality of its discharges, like a xylophone being dropped down the stairs, I've suddenly added a level of specificity that makes this description more realistic.
Conveying the tactical reality of combat gets... sticky. There have been a few times I've worked with editors who recommended I not do something based on what actually works or happens in combat because. I was peeved, but in hindsight, they were right. Believe it or not, using real-life doctrine and terminology in a Warhammer 40k story is often not appropriate. It's just too jarring to see in the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, and the number one rule of fiction is to keep your reader immersed. (And besides that, sometimes conveying minute distinctions between, let's say, aquatic vehicles and amphibious vehicles just doesn't have a clear payoff for the story.)
One caveat here: Oddly enough, conveying tactical reality in Age of Sigmar works pretty well. Before Heldanarr Fall's first attack on Candip in Godeater's Son, Boskin describes satellite patrol tactics that we used in Afghanistan as a kind of advanced overwatch strategy. I didn't get challenged on this at all — and fair enough! I believe medieval Mongol operations and chevauchées are pretty similar to what I described, too, so the doctrine was probably appropriate.
The most important part of tactical reality to convey is how complex war actually is. War is not just pick up a gun and go. It's not even just the less obvious stuff, like entrenching techniques, logistics, and living arrangements. Learning war means learning fire coverage. It means learning movement, like the advantages of "bounding" versus "bumping" to cross danger zones and how much standoff or muzzle clearance you should have from your cover when returning fire. You have to understand the applications of fire and movement, cover and movement, and fire and maneuver — all of which are very different. You have to learn how to operate in a team and what your team's role in a squad is and how to fill range cards for machine gun positions. You have to know "talking guns". You have to study five-paragraph orders and understand how to execute them. You have to take notes and understand — better yet, memorize — reams of reporting formats.
This is only the beginning. When you're a squad leader, you have about ten times more you need to understand and prepare. You receive orders, issue warning orders, prepare your own orders, then brief them. You have to organize terrain models and rehearsals for missions; you need to be able to function as a link between your unit and your subordinates at the same time. You need to supervise and check comms maintenance. (Holy mother of god, fucking comms, don't even get me started.)
All the random crap I've mentioned above is only the tip of the iceberg. War is an insanely complex affair at every level — and I've only been talking about the small-unit level. Officers deal with shit a hundred times more complicated than all this, and they have to deal with political bullshit at the same time.
In my opinion, the emotional experience of combat is most important to get across. These are the memories that have stayed with me through the years, the things I don't think anyone who hasn't been downrange can really convey accurately in prose. The first time someone shot at me, a bullet skipped off the ground at my feet, and I immediately wanted my mom. Another night, my friend was shot through the gut in a close-range ambush, and our base mobilized a QRF element to medevac him. (This is when I heard that PK medium machine gun.) As we moved to contact, weapons up, I was so ready to kill. And I was afraid. Afraid I would get shot, afraid my friend, Blochberger, would die if we weren't quick enough.
Another time, my friend Loughner was shot on post ('twas a flesh wound). Our Navy Corpsman tried to keep him out of shock by asking what his favorite basketball team was. Loughner responded, "I don't fucking watch basketball, doc! Someone get me a cigarette!" I laughed, thinking, "Yeah, dumb question doc," as I raced to get my gear. As we medevac'd Loughner, I realized that he was going. It hit me like a freight train. Loughner was a shitbag, but he had been my best friend on that deployment, and we never really talked again before he died a few years ago. His life was rough after that day.
As we secured the landing zone for our medevac, I remember how Trujillo, Deis, and I secured the landing zone for Dustoff. We saw three men crossing a field at a hundred yards with AKs in hand and identified them as combatants. Trujillo asked if we could fire; Deis asked for positive ID. I saw their militia armbands and realized they were with us and quickly told them. We didn't kill them. I felt relief — a cold rush of relief. We hadn't killed them. And you know what's really strange? Another day, when our patrol base was attacked, about seven of us had a clear shot on an insurgent who dropped his rifle and ran for his life. We could have killed him — weapon or not, it would have taken the enemy down a player. But despite making positive ID, no one shot him. And in hindsight, the relief I felt then was the same as I felt when we didn't shoot at the landing zone.
Hey, do you remember the scene in Godeater's Son when Heldanarr Fall counterattacks across the River Losh and reflects on running with his comrades? That was pretty much a moment-for-moment translation of what I was thinking the first time I moved to contact in combat. Later, when we egressed from contact (seventeen enemy fighters had us in a U-shaped ambush), I literally ran like I had never run before across muddy fields as we bounded back toward our patrol base. That feeling was the inspiration for Relo's opening line from Elemental Council. "Ever run for your life?" (I have, ha.)
Okay, I suppose that's enough waxing nostalgic. Point is this: the people who fight and die in wars are not faceless. They are human, and they feel human things. This is the emotional truth that needs to come across in combat scenes.
Writing Method and Work-Life Balance
From u/ShooterSW:
How do you plan/write your books? Any tips you could give aspiring writers? What does a typical writing session look like for you? Do you write full time? If not how do you balance writing around a full time job/family obligations.
For planning, I'll begin by saying there are some obligatory formalities you have to go through to get any project approved. All novel acquisitions are like that, with any publisher.
Setting that process aside, my actual process looks something like this:
Planning: First thing to do is brainstorm. Showers and walks are great for this — basically just trust your mind and write down anything interesting that wanders in to visit. (When you have an idea, do not delay writing it down! Do it immediately!) Watching movies or reading books is also great to generate inspiration. Meanwhile, I also start plotting my story beats, which is a level of story organization above scenes. I get those ducks all rowed up, then break the beats down into scenes. If any interesting scene ideas plopped into my head during the brainstorm, I'll find places for them in my beat sheet. If I don't know what scene to put in a certain place, I'll leave it blank and deal with it later. The final stage of planning is a chapter breakdown. That is basically a super-detailed synopsis. It's not always necessary (or helpful, even — I think Yndrasta might have suffered from my chapter breakdown), but it does give you a solid road map to write the book, even if you decide to take some detours.
Writing: I talk about this a bit in another post, but basically I write a vomit draft. That means I push out a rough draft as quickly as I can, sit on it for a few days, then re-read it, take notes, and rewrite a more thorough first draft. At that point I just re-read, revise, and rewrite until I'm satisfied with the work or until I hit the deadline. Thinking about it, I've gotten to the point where I don't need to do more than one major rewrite — but I used to rewrite stuff from three to ten times.
A typical writing session for me means finding alone time, getting a cup of coffee, and making mind-love to my computer at god-awful hours, and losing myself in the work. Usually, I start around 5:00am, finish up around 7:00am, and then get back to the manuscript around 7:00pm after I've finished my day job. When I was writing full-time in Vietnam, I would work from about 4:30am to early afternoon and exercise in the evenings to generate new ideas.
I don't write full-time anymore, but I did up until Godeater's Son, which is when I came back to the USA from Vietnam. In Vietnam, I could pay the bills on what I earned from writing and teaching English. However, the wife and I wanted to live in America, which meant we needed more money — and therefore more income than I could earn from writing. I have another job, now, and that takes priority since it puts food on the table and keeps a roof over our heads. I still make writing a priority before and after work.
By the way, if anyone out there is looking to write full-time, I highly recommend moving out of the US (and the developed world, actually) to somewhere more affordable. I spent about $150 USD per month renting a dungeon in a Vietnamese lodgehouse so I could write. Three gorgeous hot local meals set me back about $10 tops every day. Working part-time as a teacher more than covered these expenses, and I had plenty of time to write. But fair warning: If you're thinking about living in a "mole-hole" like I did, make sure you have some street smarts or charm, because otherwise you might find yourself in sticky situations. Trust your gut.
You've probably put this together by now, but balancing writing around life is hard. I'm still figuring it out myself. My day job aside, I just had a kid and even had to pick another Black Library writer's head to get some practical advice about how to make the arrangement work. (If you're reading this, by the way, thank you for the call!)
End of the day, a writer must accept that they only have so much energy and so much time . If you want to devote yourself to writing (or anything in life), then something else is going to have to give. Ultimately, I managed my minor ascent to Warhammer glory because I lived in a tiny closet with no windows, no friends, and no commitments. Not everyone walks that path to success; I'm just trying to illustrate what I did. If you want it, put the time in and you'll figure out your own way.
Coffee and Language
Svyatoslav P. sent in an interesting question via the blog's web form:
Hey, Noah. I have read your story Nadir and quite enjoyed it. Hope to see more of your stories in Age of Sigmar. Surprised to find out that you studied russian and ukrainian languages, an unsual choice. So, how do you love your coffee?
Oh-ho-ho, Svyatoslav, you have just made my day. My Ukrainian really needs work, though. The hardest part for me is getting frustrated with the unfamiliar roots. I can parse most new Russian words based on their roots, but Ukrainian? Forget about it. An example of what I'm talking about is, Ukrainian бачити ("see") compared to Russian видеть (also "see") — the roots just feel wildly different. Same with чекати and ждать ("wait"), відповідати and отвечать ("answer"), and tons of other simple word pairs. Why can't they be similar, like говорить and говорити ("speak")? Woe is me!
I guess the real issue is that I need to learn Ukrainian roots. Once I realized розуміти ("understand") basically used the same roots as Russian разуметь (also "understand"), that helped immensely. I'd love some tips for studying roots.
Anyways, I'm glad you asked about coffee, my greatest passion. My mainstays are hot brewed coffee (boring, I know), Americanos (of course), and instant coffee (don't laugh). Since I hate being happy, I never put sugar in my coffee. When I'm feeling reflective and want a treat, I'll have myself a Vietnamese coffee, black over ice. If I have time, I'll boil up a Turkish coffee (but again, no sugar). Vietnamese black coffee is great, by the way — thick like a cup of iced motor oil. If you want to try it, find some robusta beans (instead of arabica). Also, for some reason, Turkish coffee is popular among the Russians and Ukrainians I know. Do you know why? When I lived in Kiev with my friend Kostya, he'd often make me some nice Turkish coffee for breakfast. What a bro.