A few months ago my writing group started doing writing prompts. I decided, for my turns, to go slowly through the first half of a fantasy novel I found compelling. I had puzzled over what had made the first half captivating and what left me disappointed in the second half. What about that first half was so promising, a complexity that did not carry through to the end, or did not feel finished. A few elements—the start of the book in Prague and a demon named Brimstone who lived in a labyrinth of portals that came out in other parts of the world—there was more to him than making magic out of endangered animal teeth. Yet the story veered away from him. Some answers are revealed in other books in the series, But we never return to Prague.
You may at this point be wondering what book it is. The title is Daughter of Smoke & Bone. As far as I can tell, it started a torrent of similar titles. Have you noticed books called something & something? City of Blood & Ash, or the like. Adult fantasy is a marginal genre yet titles in the four top-selling genres
—mystery, suspense, romance and historical
—have adopted that construction. At least I think it was the first. If you know of any like that published before 2011, do let me know!
Coming up with writing prompts from the book, then writing for ten minutes from the lines I choose seems to be a great way to study what captivated me and what was missing, rather than a purely cerebral approach. It’s interactive and generative. Was it mainly Prague I wanted to return to in the second half of the book? Do we ever find out how the demon main character is made of smoke and bone? We may find out later in the series but sometimes there’s a mystique that never becomes completely concrete. and never intends to be. What’s required for that liminal line to be satisfying?
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