R. Scot Johns is a life-long student of ancient and medieval literature, with an enduring fascination for Norse mythology and epic fantasy. He first came to Beowulf through his love of J. R. R. Tolkien, a leading scholar on the subject. As an Honors Medieval Literature major, he has given lectures on such topics as the historical King Arthur and the construction of Stonehenge. He owns and operates Fantasy Castle Books, his own publishing imprint, and writes the blog Adventures of an Independent Author, where you can follow his progress as he writes The Jester’s Quest, his second novel.
Scot will be on virtual book tour in March ’09 to promote his latest epic fantasy novel, The Saga of Beowulf. We interviewed him to find out more about his exciting new epic fantasy.
Q. Thank you for this interview, Scot. Can we begin by having you tell us why you chose epic fantasy to write?
A: I’ve loved epic fantasy ever since I was a kid and first read Lord of the Rings. I grew up reading tales of Robin Hood and King Arthur, but Tolkien just captured my imagination in a way that thoroughly immersed me in another world. After that, it was nothing but epic fantasy for quite awhile. But I’ve also always had a fascination for historical adventures, which is what drew me to Beowulf. One of the things I love about epic fantasy is that it’s generally set in a pseudo-historical distant past, with medieval villages and pre-technological societies that contrast highly with our own. It’s partly based on that romantic notion of a simpler time when people lived more closely with the earth, and it speaks to our own remote past, out of which the human race has clambered to reach its present state, for good or ill.
Q: Did you outline before you wrote your book or did you just go with the flow?
A: I outlined extensively. Given that The Saga of Beowulf is an adaptation, I had a pre-ordained structure that I had to work within to some degree. And since my objective was to bring the story as it’s told in the original tenth century poem as completely as possible into a contemporary medium, I adhered to it as strictly as I could, given the dictates of the modern novel format, which are altogether different than those of Old English poetry. I began by thoroughly outlining the structure of the original story as it exists in the poem. Then I created a timeline of events, a chronology of scenes that placed the story in sequential order, since the latter portion of the poem really jumps around, referencing three or four events in a span of a dozen lines.
It should be mentioned here as well that I did an enormous amount of research throughout the writing process, as many of these internal references are to historical events and people that are mentioned elsewhere in historical documents and sagas from the early Middle Ages. These are what really prompted me to develop this ancient tale into a full-length novel, as there is far more to the story than is actually given in the poem itself. A single line might reference an event or person who was known to the poet’s audience, but which has long since been forgotten, save in ancient scrolls and chronicles.
Once I had the basic bones of the story laid out I wrote a forty-page synopsis, broken down into scenes and sequences, developing the ideas that would link it all together, fleshing out the motivations of the characters, and inventing the many people that were needed to fill up the story world. The Beowulf poem is really about a handful of warriors of noble blood, with almost no mention of the common populace that make up the vast majority of any culture, so I had a lot of space to play in and a lot of work to do to fill it up. Ultimately I created a cast of 188 characters, of which some fifty or so are major players, though some of the others are merely mentioned or only put in brief cameo appearances. But there are 188 entries listed in my glossary of proper names.
