R.I.P. Robert Jordan, 1948-2007
It was with great shock and sadness that I learned this morning that one of the giants of fantasy literature died yesterday, after a 2 year bout with debilitating disease.
I had been following his struggle with amyloidosis on his blog for some time, but it seemed he was doing well in fighting off the disease, and while still very sick and unlikely to every fully recover, there was still some fight left in him, and I believed him when he said that we hadn’t heard the last of him, or read the last of his great works.
Robert Jordan is a hero of mine. Sometimes I groused while reading his Wheel of Time series, like many before me, but other times I wanted to stop writing myself, because what was the point if I could never write on this level? Jordan’s books greatly influenced my ideas about what fantasy writing was, and what it could be, and inspired me and my own work tremendously.
A soft-spoken man who was reading Jules Verne at 5, Robert Jordan served two tours in Vietnam, raking in an impressive pile of medals in the process. This is a man who knows his subject matter, and he’s just as willing to discuss the difference between the quillons of his characters’ swords as he is the stories themselves. He proclaimed himself a realist and a rationalist, telling all the fanboys in Legolas costumes and the hippie chicks who worship him in no uncertain terms that there is no such thing in magic, and that these are just stories. I had thought at the time that this meant he was atheist, but I later learned that at the same time he held a deep and abiding faith in God.
So needless to say, I felt like an asshole when he scolded me in front of a packed room of 500 people.
I had gotten up to ask him a question about writing at the San Diego ComicCon in 2005. At the time, I was still struggling with an early incarnation of The Painted Man, but I was working on it kind of grudgingly, because I had another fantasy series that I was more enamored with, but was told would likely never sell. I didn’t even have an agent, much less an inkling that I might one day go on to sell a fantasy trilogy to some of the biggest publishers in the world.
I had often wondered if Robert Jordan had some of the same problems I was facing. It seemed to me that the first few books in his series had very traditional story-arcs, while the following books threw those traditional arcs out the window. I had long-suspected that this was because he didn’t have a multiple book contract at first, and was hedging his bets by giving each book a firm closing, just in case it was the last.
But how to phrase it? I was pretty worried about getting tongue tied, even though I usually have little fear of public speaking. I wrote and re-wrote the question over and over in my head as I waited in line. My heart was beating a mile a minute when I got to the mike.
My question was this: “When I am trying to write, one of the things I have difficulty with is the line between what I WANT to write, and what I think will sell. It seems to me that your early books, like the Eye of the World, followed a very traditional story arc, whereas the later ones did not. Was this a conscious decision on your part in order to help secure your book deal?”
Of course, all I got out was “When I am trying to write, one of the things I have difficulty with is the line between what I WANT to write, and what I think will sell…” before he ripped into me.
“Don’t EVER do that!” he scolded, pointing a finger in my direction. Every other response he had been giving was in the same soft-spoken tone, but this seemed to come at a roar. He proceeded to lecture me in front of everyone for 10 minutes about how I should write only what I want, to hell with everyone else, and if it sells fine, and if not, that’s fine, too. He said what I write would be crap if I spend too much time worrying about what will sell.
He didn’t mean it cruelly. Quite the contrary, he was just being firm, like a stern professor, but at the moment, I would almost have rather had a ruler across the knuckles.
Anyway, it was good advice, especially because it was quite the opposite of what other people in my life were telling me at the time. Of course, their advice is good, too. The answer, as always, was in the middle of the two extremes. All the great works of art in history have been influenced by money in one way or the other, from the Sistene Chapel to Great Expectations. There is no shame in throwing a bit with a dog into your script if it will make the Queen laugh and get food in your belly. So should you write what you want? Absolutely. Should you take your intended audience into account? Yeah, unless you’re planning to just stow that manuscript on a shelf somewhere to gather dust. It’s balancing the two that’s tricky.
Robert Jordan might not have given me the answer, but he gave me the shove that made me stumble upon it myself, and for that I will be eternally grateful. I am now on the road to being a professional author myself, with three major worldwide sales under my belt. If I can be half the writer Jordan was, I will be twice what I aspired to be when I set out.
It is painful to admit that his death has also filled me with a horrible guilt, because while I am truly saddened at the loss of this great man who was loved by and touched the lives of so many, another more selfish part of me is throwing a tantrum in the back of my mind, raging that it will never know how the Wheel of Time ends. Will Rand al’Thor die? Will Moiraine return from the “dead” at the darkest hour, as I have long suspected? Will the Golden Crane of Malkier fly again? Will the ancient land of Manetheren rise back out of the Two Rivers? Is Cyndane Lanfear? And who the fuck is Halima? Shit.
Endless questions that will never be answered; the lives of fantasy characters who are as real to me in many ways as the people I see every day. It is rumored that Jordan told the answers to his wife (who is also his editor) in his last days, and that he agreed that a ghost writer can finish his last book, but it won’t be the same.
Rest in Peace, Robert. If I can touch one person the way you touched me, I will be proud.