Stop Writing the Lore. Bring the Giant In.
Near the end of writing Shadows Before the Dawn, I reached a battle that should have felt enormous. It was one of those points in a fantasy novel where different stories begin to collide, the danger that has been gathering in the background finally becomes real, and the author (hi, that's me) is expected to deliver something that justifies the hundreds of pages it took to get there.
The problem was that my battle felt fairly ordinary; I didn't want that, my readers wouldn't want that.
There were armies, large walls and characters that were all having to make decisions that would shape their path in this first instalment. Nothing was particularly wrong with it, but there was also nothing that made me sit back and think, “Yes, this is the moment readers have been waiting for.”
I spoke to Chris Wards (my good friend and fellow writer) about it, as I had done with most of the problems I encountered while writing the book. He knew the world almost as well as I did by that point, partly because we had spent years discussing it and partly because he had drawn the map, which meant he occasionally had a better understanding of where everything was than I did.
For spoiler reasons, I am going to describe the creatures we discussed as giants. They are not exactly giants, but they are large, ancient and tied to the deeper history of the world, which is close enough for the purpose of this story.
I had already written about them. I knew where they came from, why they existed and how they connected to the wider series. I had plans for them, as fantasy writers always do. Those plans mostly involved saving them for later, when the series was bigger, the stakes were higher and I had found the perfect moment to reveal them.
Chris listened to me explain the problem with the battle and then gave me a very simple answer.
Bring the giants in.
The strange habit of saving your best ideas
Fantasy writers (or should I say writers in general) tend to accumulate ideas faster than they can use them. We create a kingdom that will not appear until the third book, an ancient order that disappeared centuries ago and a creature that lives beyond a mountain range none of your characters currently have any reason to cross.
At some point, you stop writing a novel and begin managing the fictional equivalent of a large encyclopedia.
I had histories, maps, religions, wars and creatures that existed beyond the immediate events of Shadows Before the Dawn. Some of them were little more than notes. Others had been developed enough that I knew exactly how they fitted into the larger story. I wanted the world to feel as though it continued beyond the edges of the page, and I wanted readers to sense that the first book was only revealing part of something much larger.
There is nothing wrong with that. A fantasy world should feel larger than the route travelled by its main characters. The suggestion of distant places and forgotten histories can create a sense that the world existed before the story began and will continue after it ends.
The problem comes when you become so protective of the wider world that you forget to use it.
I was saving these creatures because I thought introducing them later would make the second book feel bigger. In my head, they belonged to the future of the series, and bringing them in earlier felt like I might be spending one of my best ideas too soon.
This is a slightly ridiculous concern when you stop to think about it. Readers cannot be impressed by the brilliant material you have carefully kept out of the book. They do not know about the scene you are saving for the sequel, the character you plan to introduce in three years or the ancient civilisation described across eleven pages of notes on your computer.
They can only respond to what is actually on the page.
I had spent years building lore around these creatures, but at the moment the story could have benefited from them, I was still treating that lore as something separate from the book. It was background material. It was preparation. It was evidence that I had thought deeply about the world, which is useful to me as the writer but not particularly exciting for anybody else.
Worldbuilding only becomes part of the story when it affects the people living inside it.
When the worldbuilding finally does some work
Bringing the creatures into that battle changed far more than the battle itself. It connected the immediate danger to the older history of the world, gave the scene a scale it had been missing and allowed several ideas that had existed quietly in the background to finally matter.
More importantly, it gave me momentum.
Once I decided to bring them in, I wrote roughly another 200 pages in a remarkably short period of time. That one decision helped shape the final stretch of the book because it did not simply add something visually impressive to a fight. It changed what the characters understood about their world and opened questions that would continue beyond the ending.
It also created one of the moments readers have spoken to me about since the book was released. One friend described it simply as “cool,” which may not sound like a detailed literary analysis, but fantasy writers spend a great deal of time trying to create something cool while pretending we are engaged in a much more sophisticated exercise.
The moment worked because it felt surprising without being completely disconnected from what had come before. The creatures had not appeared, but their existence belonged to the world. There were foundations beneath the reveal, even if readers had not yet understood exactly what those foundations were supporting.
That is probably the balance I had been struggling to find. I did not want something enormous to arrive without warning and solve the problem for everyone. Readers are rarely thrilled when an author introduces a convenient magical solution five minutes before it is needed. At the same time, I had become so cautious about earning the moment that I nearly left the moment out altogether.
There is a difference between laying foundations and permanently remaining on the building site.
Worldbuilding needs a payoff
Chris made a point during our podcast episode on worldbuilding that has stayed with me. The best worldbuilding eventually pays off. A detail about the history, culture or magic of a place becomes far more satisfying when it collides with a character decision or changes the direction of the story.
The ring matters because it has to be carried to Mount Doom. Hogwarts matters because the school is where the characters form friendships, make enemies and uncover the dangers threatening them. A map becomes more than decoration when the distance between two places affects whether someone arrives in time.
The same applies to the less dramatic parts of a fictional world. A religion matters when it shapes what a character is willing to sacrifice. A political system matters when it prevents someone from acting freely. A cultural tradition matters when breaking it costs a character something.
Otherwise, it may be interesting, but it is still only information.
That does not mean every detail needs to become a major plot point. Some parts of a world exist purely to create texture, and that texture is one of the pleasures of reading fantasy. I do not need every meal, song or minor historical reference to return in the final chapter with a sword and a surprising claim to the throne.
But when a story is missing something, writers often respond by inventing more. We create a new threat, a new character or another piece of magic because it feels easier than looking back at the promises we have already made.
Sometimes the answer is already sitting in the lore.
The creature mentioned in an old story might be ready to step into the present. The political disagreement introduced earlier might finally divide the characters. The magical limitation that seemed like a small detail might become the reason someone cannot escape.
In my case, the answer was the giants.
Use the world you have built
There is no rule saying that every interesting idea must appear in the first book. Some things should remain distant, and some questions become more powerful when they are left unanswered. I am still keeping plenty of secrets for Masks of the Fallen, partly because the story needs them later and partly because I enjoy knowing things the reader does not.
What changed for me was the assumption that saving an idea automatically made it more valuable.
Sometimes waiting creates anticipation. Sometimes it simply means the current book is missing the very thing that could bring it to life.
If you have built an enormous world but the story feels smaller than it should, it may be worth looking through the material you have been protecting for later. Not because you need to empty the entire archive onto the page, but because one of those ideas may already belong to the story you are writing now.
You might not need another history, another prophecy or another page explaining what happened three thousand years ago.
You may just need to stop writing the lore and bring the giant in.
Comments