Diana Wynne Jones

Mar. 28th, 2011 at 9:30 AM

As many of you probably already know, author Diana Wynne Jones passed away on Saturday.

Jones is partly responsible for the character of Golaka the chef in my goblin series. Back in late 2000, as I was finishing up the first draft of Goblin Quest, I picked up a copy of her book The Tough Guide to Fantasyland [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. This book was exactly what I needed as a newish writer, being a guidebook/dictionary to generic fantasyland, including every cliche and trope from Dark Lords to Eye Color to “reek of wrongness.”

It also has an entry for Stew, the official — indeed sometimes the only — meal of Fantasyland.

Now, let me share with you the never-before seen opening paragraphs from the very first draft of Goblin Quest:

Jig’s spoon sank forgotten into his bowl of stew as he tried to back further into the shadows. To his left, his friend Brak moaned.

“He’s going to choose us this time. I know it.”

“Hush,” Jig snapped. He tried not to panic, but even Golara’s wonderful stew couldn’t stop the knot of fear tightening around his heart.

I cringed when I read the “Stew” entry in The Tough Guide. Fortunately, it was only a first draft. I still had time to fix this! I went online and began researching different recipes, trying to adapt them for goblin cuisine.

Golara became Golaka, and soon she was preparing spicy rat dumplings and pickled toadstools and pot pies. She became interesting, and eventually turned into one of my favorite characters in the series.

I wonder how many other struggling new authors Jones helped with that book, which was such a brilliant idea — sharply written and highly amusing. If you appreciated Golaka and her rather twisted recipes, thank Diana Wynne Jones. And if you haven’t read Neil Gaiman’s post “Being Alive. Mostly About Diana.” go do it now.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

( 27 comments — Leave a comment )

jimvanpelt wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 02:02 pm (UTC)

I was very sorry to hear this news. I think that if science and medicine has any worth at all, it should be throwing its effort in preventing this sort of thing from happening to us.

I'm not a circle of life kind of guy.

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jimhines wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 02:21 pm (UTC)

I'd also add that we need to work harder at making the advances we have discovered available to *everyone* who needs them.

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cathshaffer wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 02:17 pm (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, stew WAS the common, every day meal of medieval europe. There was a sort of constant stewpot that stuff would be added to on a daily basis. Yesterday's leftover stew would have today's meat or whatever added to it. It would be served in bowls made of stale bread. The main meal of the day was eaten around 10 AM. Further meals were leftovers of the morning stew. So I'm not sure I see the problem with stew.

As a new writer, I expended altogether too much energy trying to avoid cliches and common tropes, to the point of paralysis, so I would recommend taking something like The Tough Guide to Fantasyland with a grain of salt. It's worth being aware of things that have become cliched or are not credible, but if you do your research, nothing is off limits. Even stew.

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serialbabbler wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 03:16 pm (UTC)

Sure, but why should all fantasies (or even the majority of them) be set in the equivalent of medieval europe?

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cathshaffer wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 03:18 pm (UTC)

No one is saying all medieval fantasies need to be set in medieval europe. But medieval europe (or similar) is popular with writers and readers, and if you go that route, and if you're going to be authentic, you're going to have stew. (And horses.)

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serialbabbler wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 03:22 pm (UTC)

I'm a reader. I get bored with medieval europe. (God, do I get bored with medieval europe.)

I like stew, though, so that's okay.

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cathshaffer wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 03:29 pm (UTC)

There is starting to be quite a lot of fantasy written in non-medieval european settings, so that makes it nice for people like you are are bored with them.

I am now hungry for stew.

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serialbabbler wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 04:35 pm (UTC)

Since I'm complaining anyway... I'm also tired of fantasies set in modern day New York City and London. What's wrong with Spread Eagle, Wisconsin or someplace. ;) *goes back to reading a fantasy set in modern day New York City*

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marycatelli wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 03:28 pm (UTC)

Respect cliches. Nothing becomes a cliche without good reason.

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cathshaffer wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 03:33 pm (UTC)

In retrospect, I wish I hadn't let fear of cliches slow me down so much. I think new writers could do worse than rehashing cliches in their freshman efforts. A lot of those early efforts will be unsaleable, anyway, and it's a lot easier to make your mistakes with character and plot and such if you are not having to independently invent every single thing about your fantasy setting and culture. And, if handled carefully, cliche elements can actually be made fresh and interesting.

(This is not to say that DWJ's Tough Guide is not a great resource. I've been meaning to read it myself for a long time. I lean more toward science fiction, though, so it hasn't migrated to the top of my TBR list yet.)

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fadethecat wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 04:44 pm (UTC)

As I recall, the book mentions specifically that a lot of people write about stew on traveling adventures, where you're breaking camp every morning and moving along. In which case using Generic Fantasy Stew is not a useful cliche because Medieval Europe was like that, but a sign of using a cliche in an inappropriate location. Setting up a heavy cookpot every night to make stew in a random camp is a hell of a lot less efficient than hauling some bread and cheese along!

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cathshaffer wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 05:00 pm (UTC)

Oh, yeah, camping and stew don't mix. LOL.

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fadethecat wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 05:26 pm (UTC)

Really, it's a perfect example of Cliches vs. Unexamined Cliches. Cliches are usually such because they're effective and convenient and shorthand for various assumptions. Which can be very useful! But if you change some of the details, and haven't looked at the assumptions, but keep the cliche... Suddenly it can become cheap and ludicrous and...well. Amateur. I think cliches can be awesome; it's unexamined ones in what's supposed to be good writing (as distinct from "I'm writing this for the practice, so I'm not going to fuss over X" which is a pretty useful learning technique on its own) that make people start muttering about cliches.

...well, that and seeing the same thing a dozen times. But no one complains about all those damn chairs showing up in so many books, because generally they are used in appropriately chair-like manners. When someone sticks a chair on the back of a horse in twelve consecutive novels because, hey, everyone knows you use Chairs for Sitting, it's in all the books!, then maybe people will start muttering about those cliched chairs everywhere.

That was a terrible example, I think. But anyway. I really liked The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, because it's funny, and it's not really telling me not to write certain things, but to think about why I'm writing them if I do.

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rachelmanija wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 06:45 pm (UTC)

I think the issue is not that stew exists in fantasy novels, but that many never had anyone eat anything else. I am pretty sure that stew was not actually the only thing anyone ever ate, even in medieval Europe.

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cathshaffer wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 06:46 pm (UTC)

I have it on good authority that they ate an occasional turnip. :-)

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rowyn wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 02:33 pm (UTC)

After reading Tough Guide, my fantasy settings stopped using horses as mounts. :)

I am so sorry that Ms. Jones passed away. She's my favorite author. ;_;

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jimhines wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 02:51 pm (UTC)

Well, horses are basically just like medieval motorcycles, right?

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rowyn wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 03:04 pm (UTC)

In one story, I thought of her 'horses are just like bicycles and have no personality whatsoever' joke, and had the protagonist riding an actual bicycle. :)

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mtlawson wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 02:44 pm (UTC)

That was an incredibly awesome book. She will be missed.

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serialbabbler wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 03:20 pm (UTC)

Neil Gaiman's post made me cry. Of course, this is the anniversary of a friend's death for me so that might have had something to do with it.

Diana Wynne Jones was a most excellent fantasy writer.

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xjenavivex wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 04:28 pm (UTC)

thank you

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deborahblakehps wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 05:44 pm (UTC)

I loved everything that woman wrote. I haz a sad.

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trinker wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 07:17 pm (UTC)

I love your story of how Golaka came to be.

And now, you and Lois McMaster Bujold (and I seem to recall something in Brust, and who else?) can be the core of a new trope, the imagined world gourmet cook. -g-

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laurahcory1 wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 07:39 pm (UTC)

I love The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and also The Dark Lord of Derkholm. She will be missed. Not coincidentally, we're having beef stew for supper tonight.

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limpingpigeon wrote:

Mar. 28th, 2011 09:22 pm (UTC)

When I heard about her passing the other night, I think I mourned more intensely than I recall ever mourning someone I never actually met. I'm not an author, but I'm a fantasy artist, and she's one of the authors that had a huge influence on my love of fantasy and how I portray it in my artwork.

I also was selfishly angry when I read that she was working on a book and had plans for another, in a "Dammit! She had more stories to tell us!" kind of way.

Though I never met her, she touched my life, and the world was a better place for her involvement in it.

I was at a convention panel a few months back where Peter S. Beagle was recommending the Tough Guide to aspiring writers. I'm sure it has helped a lot of writers, and for those of us who are just fans of fantasy writing, it's still a fun, snarky read.

Edited at 2011-03-28 09:30 pm (UTC)

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barbarienne wrote:

Mar. 29th, 2011 12:35 am (UTC)

Count me among those whose characters have much more interesting things to eat because they don't get stew anymore. :-)

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eseme wrote:

Mar. 29th, 2011 02:18 am (UTC)

I loved her books in my childhood. I heard about the Tough Guide in college. I read the whole thing, multiple times.

It is the best.

I was so sad when I found out this morning.

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