It's official. Instead of watching TikTok videos for free, I spent 10+ bucks (I wonder if it's SGD or USD) on the first Witcher book. Entitled The Last Wish by Andrzej "Książę Andrzej" Sapkowski, I just cleared Chapter 1 yesterday. In this post, I'd be commenting on my feelings/reactions/analysis/whatever on it. Before I begin, here's a Witcher theme music I'd associate with Chapter 1.
Quality, writing style, and translation
I did a word count check on Google for The First Wish. It's actually a relatively short read at 90K+ words. To put it in perspective, Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin "unrelated to Guan Yu unless proven by science" Kwan had a word count of 100K+. On average, a novel's word count would range from 70K to 120K for adult fiction (i.e. the genre both Crazy Rich Asians and The Last Wish would qualify under). As a writer, I struggle with pushing the word count as much as possible. While my fellow Singaporeans may agree with it, the likes of Prince Andy (sorry, my Polish vocabulary is non-existent beyond the word kurwa) clearly had something to say about it. More specifically, it is the national word of Poland.
Jokes at the expense of Poland aside, it's heartening to see writers prioritising quality over quantity. The best-case scenario is both. Yet, I suspect a common danger many aspiring writers may face is a lack of self-understanding in terms of personal limitations. Life isn't dictated by internet memes of cats being whatever they want to be, but we humans have the funny tendency to live life as if it's one of wondrous internet memes.
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| I can never be a tank. That'd screw my party up in any MMO. |
Recently, I came across news of Bob "I suspect Deadpool is gonna call him Bob" Iger claimed the reason behind The Marvels' abysmal box office showing was "insufficient executives". This is not some kind of Deadpool 4 joke. It's real. In other words, quantity is a must for quality to shine (not my logic, but Bob's). When it comes to writing, however, I'm glad that Prince Andy proved once and for all that quality can offset quantity as long as a specific word count is there. Again, we're talking about the 70K to 120K range.
Reading The Last Wish was an eye-opener for me. Firstly, let me get the not-so-good out of the way. It's been said that the English translation was horrible. While I was comfortable with it more often than not, there were moments when the word usage felt weird to me. It's not about Prince Andy's capability as a writer. Instead, it's due to human limitations when it comes to translation. Those familiar with Fate/stay night memes would know some funny moments resulted from this. In fact, playing FF14 actually revealed such moments of flawed translation.
An example of this is the pre-fight cutscene for P11 where Elidibus says, "my truth," where in fact, the actual wording was, "私の天心" (i.e. my divine will). Another example was Emet-Selch's reaction to seeing Azem in the Warrior of Light in Shadowbringers, where the actual Japanese words were concerned. Overall, though, I can live with it.
Apart from that, I enjoyed reading Chapter 1. In the process of reading, I was forced to challenge my elf. What are the things I need to improve as a writer? What are the things which I can attribute to my personal style? What are the things which I know for sure are beyond my grasp? This requires a combination of humility and confidence. In a genuine sense, being a writer means you can't behave like the typical human being, where it's a zero-sum choice between humility and confidence. It's a paradox. But then again, which human being isn't one?
Writing style-wise, I find it surreal to see similarities between Sapkowski and me. If someone were to tell me my writing style mirrored that of Kevin Kwan, my response would be indifference, But Sapkowski? That's clearly going to be a great compliment unless it's sarcasm. To be fair, we're not identical twins of different nationalities and ethnicities. We both use short sentences instead of the typical longer sentencing style. However, in terms of how the words flow, that's where the difference comes. Sapkowski's usage tends to have that terse feel due to literal short sentences being used with the occasional case of two to three comma breaks. I use commas more frequently to create a two-break sentencing style with the rare case of three breaks in a sentence instead of two. With that said, I'm now using short single sentences to balance things out, as my previous approach was too robotic. It's 100% art and 0% science since I had to go with the feel instead of technical understanding.
Description-wise, it's something I see myself needing more effort. At the same time, a great job of describing scenes is about more than just showing versus telling. It's about knowing when to go all out instead of doing it as often as possible. The logic behind impact is that it works so long you don't numb the audience. Doing it often tends to have that happening. It's not a question of how much but where.
(Note: I believe in telling instead of showing if I want to shock the reader. You may not need to do so if you're not writing dark fiction. But A Requiem From Winter Past is dark, albeit not on the scale of Berserk. That one would be as dark (?) as the Lego Batman song.)
The battle scene between Geralt and Adda's striga was breathtaking. My only complaint was overusing the portrayal of pirouetting as if the Witcher in question wasn't Geralt but Zinedine "Le Professeur X" Zidane. The description of movement, be it the combatants or the silver chain being used, was succinct but nonetheless left nothing to the imagination. I remember reading the Dark Elf series novels by R.A. "not rated R" Salvatore. The fighting scenes were as detailed, but one approach was more technical, while Sapkowski's was less. As a result, Salvatore's fight scenes were criticised as too descriptive-centric. Do I have an issue with that? The answer is no. In fact, Salvatore was the reason behind the way I do my fighting scenes. Yet, Sapkowski exposed the weakness of my style. I was too much into the technical side of things, but I needed more in the description of movement. The fighting scene was a mixture of elegance and brutality. That's what impressed me, among other things.
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