Learning from Genres I Never Read

I guess I'm into D&D romcoms now...

BTMM- Legends and Latte`s

Yea, I ate this right up. It’s kind of embarrassing how much I loved this book and it’s prequel.

Now if you do a quick scan of the books I usually read, you might notice they air towards doom and gloom. Contemplation and existentialism. In short, I read a lot of literary fiction and surrealism.

So imagine my surprise when I picked up a Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes and absolutely fell in love. Now you’re probably thinking what I was thinking - Legends and Lattes? And then you read the prequel called *checks notes* Bookshops and Bonedust?

Yea…no way

But I guarantee these books are worth their weight in gold, and I don`t say that lightly. Both novels are set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. This didn’t matter to me, but what caught my eye was their tagline of being “high fantasy and low stakes”. And that they were.

Reading these books felt like a warm hug. The books follow Viv, a battle hungry orc, at different phases in her life when slowing down and building community becomes most important. Watching her world fill up with the best things in life -fulfilling work, healthy romance, manageable challenges, and friendship - made the funk that was growing in my own life dissipate.

What I learned from Travis Baldree

One of my creative writing professors once told me that if I read something I like, I should pinpoint exactly why I liked it. So here we go.

I think one of Baldree’s strong points is understanding the emotions he`s pulling out of us, then creating character interactions that address those emotions in satisfying ways.

When I write I write for myself first. Whatever I think sounds the best, entertains me, or feeds my own emotions are usually what take priority. And I do this because it’s generally easier to tend to myself than it is tending to a crowd of imaginary critics I’m scared I’ll disappoint.

But strangely, I felt like Baldree struck a balance, between entertaining himself and entertaining his audience. His work felt like stories based in play. Like a child who sucks you into the drama unfolding between their barbies, Baldree is seemingly able to entertain himself while entertaining his audience. He is a master at invoking complicated yet positive emotions, but he tends to these emotions in a way that ensures you’ll leave his world satisfied.

This brings me to the next thing I learned-

You don’t need to torture your characters for them to grow. And stories can still be profound even when your characters are confident.

Now let’s replace “your characters” with “yourself” and I think we have an interesting conversation that’s beyond the scope of this article, but I think reveals a lot about writers who create literary fiction.

This doesn’t go to say I’ll be doing a 180 on how I write, and I still plan on bullying my characters (just a bit). But I consider my writing style a living animal, and l’d love to play with these lessons in stories to come.

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