Writing What We Know (Or Not)

David B. Coe / D.B. Jackson is the award-winning author of nineteen fantasy novels. As David B. Coe, he writes THE CASE FILES OF JUSTIS FEARSSON, a contemporary urban fantasy series from Baen Books, including Spell Blind, His Father’s Eyes, and Shadow’s Blade. Under the name D.B. Jackson, he writes THE THIEFTAKER CHRONICLES, a historical urban fantasy from Tor Books that includes Thieftaker, Thieves’ Quarry, A Plunder of Souls, and Dead Man’s Reach. David is also the author of the Crawford Award-winning LONTOBYN CHRONICLE, which he is in the process of reissuing, as well was the critically acclaimed WINDS OF THE FORELANDS quintet and BLOOD OF THE SOUTHLANDS trilogy. He wrote the novelization of Ridley Scott’s movie, Robin Hood. David’s books have been translated into a dozen languages. He lives on the Cumberland Plateau with his wife and two daughters. 

Story ideas come to us from everywhere. They invade our sleep, they interrupt us in mid-conversation, they materialize out of an exotic scent, or a strain of unfamiliar music, or a glimpse of breathtaking landscape. Robert Frost once said that an idea is “a feat of association,” a joining together of two (or three, or six, or twenty) disparate stimuli.

I think about ideas a lot, because as an author of speculative fiction, I’m asked often about the source of my inspiration for the books and stories I write. Sometimes people are genuinely curious; sometimes I suspect they’re a little bit frightened of me. For all I know, the question is intended as a stall tactic, something to keep me talking until the authorities arrive to cart me off…

I have recently re-issued a newly edited version — the Author’s Edit — of my first novel, Children of Amarid. Published in 1997, Children of Amarid is the opening volume of my LONTOBYN CHRONICLE, which won the Crawford Fantasy Award for best work by a new author, and established me both critically and commercially. (The series continues with The Outlanders and Eagle-Sage, both slated to be reissued later this year.) And while the inspiration for some of my later work might be harder to divine, the idea for this series is nearly as old as I am.

I started birdwatching when I was seven years old. My older brothers got me interested in birding mostly because, at that age, I could be persuaded to wander into thickets of brambles and poison ivy to flush possible rarities from their hiding places. Later on, my brothers assure me, they continued to bring me along because they liked me. But somewhere along the way, undeterred by thorns and rashes, I came to love birds. When I was young, my favorite book was a Grosset and Dunlap science book for kids called Birds Do the Strangest Things. I was a bird geek through and through.

In particular, I have always been fascinated by birds of prey: hawks, falcons, eagles, owls. So, when the time came to create my magic system for this first series, I made certain that hawks and owls would play a role. My mages draw their power from psychic connections they form with avian familiars — either hawks (including falcons) or owls, or on rare occasions, eagles. They share their consciousness with the birds; they can “fly” with their familiars by opening their minds to the birds’ sensations when aloft; and when their familiars die, they are vulnerable, not only because they have no access to magic, but also because unbound mages are subject to a dark curse. (Interesting, right? Read the books…)

This was fantasy on a couple of levels. Yes, I was writing books about magic, set in an alternate world of my creation. But through my characters I was also living out my childhood fantasy of having a hawk or owl of my own. More than a pet, I wanted an avian soulmate, which is what I gave to my mages. And if that soulmate also brought the ability to cast spells and ward off evil, all the better.

“Write what you know,” is a mantra of writerly advice. At times, I fear, “write what you know” does more harm than good, by limiting the creative process. The adage, if taken too far, would kill speculative fiction; how can we write what we know but also create stories that take place in make-believe worlds and involve magic or as-yet-uninvented technologies? Starting out, I was fortunate to stumble upon an idea for a magic system that allowed me both to write what I knew and to sound the depths of my imagination.

To my mind, that is the essence of what speculative fiction ought to be. Whether we write horror or science fiction, epic fantasy or paranormal romance, we who write in this genre seek innovative — at times fantastical — perspectives on the familiar. At its best, speculative fiction is a mirror through which we see our own world. The reflection is imperfect to be sure, but frequently more effective because of those distortions and variations. The LonTobyn Chronicle is a story about mages and hawks, but it’s also a first-contact narrative, an exploration of what happens when technology-run-amok meets a pastoral society. In other words, my lifelong love of birds was merely a starting point, a “write-what-you-know” jumping off place for a more involved tale.

Great Horned Owl

And that should be the end of the story and this post. But I’d like to leave you with a personal anecdote. Back when I was starting my career and had begun work on Children of Amarid but had yet to find a publisher, I went out to California to defend my Ph.D. thesis in U.S. environmental history. I stayed with a friend, and the evening I arrived he and I walked through the campus while I told him about this book I was writing, and about the existential career crisis in which I found myself. I was about to complete my degree, but I wanted to give up on my academic life to pursue a career as a fantasy author. It seemed crazy, but that’s where my heart was taking me. In the midst of our walk, and my angst, we happened upon, of all things, a family of Great Horned Owls: two adults and a brood of three unfledged balls of fluff. I was speechless. My friend told me it was a sign that I should follow my dream.

I don’t know if he was right, but it’s certainly how I chose to interpret that moment. In the years since, I’ve treasured the opportunity to blend concepts, emotions, and experiences that I “know” with worlds, characters, and forms of magic that I discover along the way. I’ve drawn upon other passions and life experiences beyond birds — my love of history, my fascination with politics, our family’s experience living in a foreign land for a year, the struggles of people I know and love with mental health problems and addiction. And I’ve found time and again that writing speculative fiction allows me to delve into these topics in ways that are at once personal and revealing, imaginary and utterly real.

Readers, what are some of your favorite birds in fantasy? One lucky commenter will receive a copy of The Children of Amarid.