Writing popular fiction

Court Jester's cowardice would provide an excellent sub-plot. Suppose that one of the good king's knights is a rather unpleasant character named Rollo, and suppose that Rollo is the only one in the entourage to realize that the Jester's wit is a cover for weak knees. If Rollo is developed as a first class bully, who constantly harasses the Jester, we have a good, secondary sub-plot in this man-to-man confrontation. During the course of the book, the Jester would take less and less guff from Rollo, until they were finally matched in a duel which, naturally, the Jester would win, perhaps not because of his strength but because of his superior cunning and determination.
    In the epic fantasy novel, the length can easily support a major sub-plot for every secondary protagonist.
    Alien Background
. Unlike the dark fantasy, the epic fantasy takes place in a completely imaginary world; it bears little or no resemblance to present-day society and is rich with its own customs, religions, languages, countries, and geographical peculiarities. However, the epic is
also
unlike sword and sorcery, in that action is
not
the end-all and be-all of its existence; the background, here, must be as carefully detailed as any in science fiction, and according to the same methods that a science fiction background is worked out. The only difference, of course, is that the epic fantasy does not have to have, as its setting, a world that is a logical, scientifically justified outgrowth of
today
.
    With these things in mind, you would do well to read carefully the work of J.R.R. Tolkien whose
Lord of the Rings Trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers
, and
The Return of the King)
is perhaps the greatest series of epic fantasies ever written. Other popular epic fantasy novelists are Mervyn Peake (
Titus Groan, Gormen-ghast
, and
Titus Alone)
and Talbot Mundy
(Tros, Helma, Liafail, Helene, Queen Cleopatra
, and
The Purple Pirate)
.
CHAPTER THREE    Suspense
    Of the seven major categories of modern fiction, the mystery and suspense forms—especially suspense—provide the writer with the greatest opportunity for financial success. Most hardcover and paperback trade book
(Trade books are the kind sold in general bookstores, department and drug stores, etc.) houses publish regular mystery and suspense lists; and a substantial portion of the novels labeled as "general" and "mainstream" fiction are actually suspense novels. The leading best-seller lists often include at least one mystery and almost always two or three suspense titles, though these last may not be clearly labeled as such. The Mystery Guild and the Detective Book Club reprint published novels for their members, providing extra income for established suspense and mystery writers; and the Literary Guild, Book-of-the-Month Club, Doubleday Bargain Book Club, and other large, mailorder discount organizations feature mystery and suspense titles more often than they do those of other genres, paying extremely well for book club rights. And the percentages of mystery and suspense novels sold for motion picture production, while not exceedingly high, are nevertheless substantially above the percentages of film rights sales in other categories.
    In addition, while there are some series characters to be found in the science fiction, fantasy, Western, and erotic genres, none of these categories support the quantity and range of series characters that the suspense and mystery genres do. Series novels, like Ian Fleming's James Bond books, in which the same characters and backgrounds are used through several books, are important monetarily and creatively, because the series character allows you to build a regular and faithful audience that would be harder to come by if every story you wrote were unrelated to the last. Category readers pay for
escape;
if they like a character who appears in two dozen books, the familiarity of background and story helps them "settle into" each successive novel more quickly than they got into the last. Also, by picking up a novel in a series they enjoy, they are taking less of a chance of wasting their reading time on something they cannot finish or, having finished, wish they had not.
    Successful
mystery
series include Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer novels—many of which received lengthy runs on the best-seller lists—and Richard S. Prather's Shell Scott books. Prather's agent (Scott Meredith) some years ago got him a million dollar contract with Pocket