What Winston Churchill taught me about writing fantasy novels

As an author, inspiration comes from many sources. Likewise, you have many teachers when it comes to honing your craft. I’ve learned a great deal from my editors, from books, and from those kind enough to leave reviews or give me feedback.

But sometimes insight into the craft of writing comes from unexpected places. Such was the case when I recently began to develop an interest in Winston Churchill.

Most people don’t of course think of Churchill as a writer. As the pivotal leader in the Allied victory in World War II and arguably the greatest statesman of the 20th century, his accomplishments in the political sphere naturally reign supreme. And yet before his political life began, and indeed, all throughout his life, Winston Churchill was a prolific writer. In fact, he made the vast majority of his earnings from his articles and books, not from his political career.

Churchill penned over six million words in 37 books comprising more than 70 volumes, and was a master of what he called, “that noble thing, the English sentence.”

The rights to his book, The Second World War, were sold for $1.4 million in the United States (equivalent to $16.1 million today) and £555,000 in the United Kingdom (roughly $16.7 million today)

Writing is an adventure

Though Churchill is justly famous for his wit and wisdom one of my favorite of his quotes comes from his insightful comments on the writing process.

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.

Winston Churchill

Only someone who has waded knee-deep into the literary morass and struggled to bring forth a finished work could have penned such words, and perhaps only other authors can truly understand the truth of them.

Though Churchill did pen a single fictional novel, he mostly wrote history. While I have never read any of his works, his ideas and thoughts about writing and his love of the written word have come home to me especially through Churchill, Walking with Destiny, by Andrew Roberts, and in several speeches Roberts has given while talking about the book and about Churchill.

Words last forever

In that book, Churchill shares one of the deepest, most profound thoughts I have ever read on the enduring power of words:

Someone…has said: ‘Words are the only things which last forever.’ That is, to my mind, always a wonderful thought. The most durable structures raised in stone by the strength of man, the mightiest monuments of his power, crumble into dust, while the words spoken with fleeting breath, the passing expression of the unstable fancies of his mind, endure not as echoes of the past, not as mere archaeological curiosities or venerable relics, but with a force and life as new and strong, and sometimes far stronger than when they were first spoken, and leaping across the gulf of three thousand years, they light the world for us today.

Winston Churchill

If you think about words, what are they? They are encapsulations of human thought. And once recorded, they have the ability to crystalize and preserve that thought for ages to come. Of course, the thought may be shunned or misunderstood, and indeed words often are. But the thoughts turned to words have the potential to speak to readers long after they are gone. Which is why it is so vital to write while your days under the sun yet remain.

We cannot say which, if any, of our words will have an enduring place for generations to come. But we can be assured that the words never written will be quickly forgotten. There is an eternal power that flows in ink and pen.

Choosing words wisely

All of this is of course inspiring for writers in general, but the title of this piece purports to reveal what Winston Churchill taught me about writing fantasy novels and, you may note, I have been conspicuously silent on that subject, but wait no longer.

The curious thing about the advice I’ve taken from Churchill in this regard is that it does not come from anything he had to say about writing. Instead, it comes from advice he gave to his private secretary when asked about how to be an effective public speaker and how he was able to boost the English morale so incredibly during its darkest hours through his speeches.

Churchill replied that it came down to three things.

The first was to keep your sentences short. Each sentence should express one thought, and one thought only.

The second was to keep your words short. Don’t needlessly show off or complicate your sentences with long words when shorter ones will do.

And finally, if at all possible, you should choose only those words that have had sound use by the English people for a thousand years, words that can be found in Anglo-Saxon and Old English.

While the advice of using shorter sentences and shorter words is fairly common to hear these days in writing circles, it was the third suggestion that struck me most.

We can see it clearly in this peroration from his famous “Fight Them on the Beaches” speech:

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Simple words, but they have a rhythm and a power that is hard to deny. The only two words not derived from Old English there are “confidence”, which comes from the Latin, and “surrender” which comes from the French.

Stories about a mythical past

This advice to me seemed particularly appropriate when it came to the writing of fantasy novels. Fantasy, in its purest expression, is a story about a mythical past. Since these stories are rooted in ancient times, would it not be fitting to use words familiar to people from those times? This would give the reader the feeling of walking through an imagined past, of connecting with those mysterious and old tales handed down to us from people long gone.

That is what fantasy does best and it’s the reason I am drawn to such stories, to recover what was once lost and has been forgotten, to relive the noble ideals and heroism of a bygone age.

When you start to consider this as a standard for word choice you find that there are thousands of words that fall in this category. But using this rule, here are a few examples of how you might shift your choice of words:

Equipment becomes trappings, avalanche becomes rockslide, and barrage of blows becomes bashed and battered.

Old and familiar

For me, this is more of an aspiration than an absolute rigid rule. But I did employ it quite often during the writing of my most recent work, Grimbriar. And I think the book turned out better because of it.

Of course, there are still plenty of words that are common enough which are not derived from Old English and still have their use.

For instance, there are many words that simply sound familiar and not modern at all. Valid, zest, and soup are all from the French, and taunt, insipid, and obvious, are all from the Latin, and sugar, mattress, and assassin from Arabic. It’s probably impossible to use only older words in a novel-length work and even Churchill in that great speech allowed himself a few.

Another important aspect to remember is to ensure that you use words still in common usage. There are many lovely archaic words that have fallen out of favor. While I’m not averse to throwing them in here and there, I’ve learned to avoid such words most of the time.

Lessons from an English bulldog

To be a writer of fantasy especially requires an affinity for the past, for the old tales and legends. And so it seems natural that these older words would evoke such legends in a way that modern words fail to do.

I plan on using this standard for every book I write from here on out, perhaps even when I’m not writing fantasy. To give readers the old words, the familiar words can bring not only comfort, but they can resonate with the force of centuries of common use.

I don’t believe this approach is something every fantasy writer should take, but for me, it has been a pleasant and unexpected insight into how I can make my words resonate more profoundly with those who read them.

And so, a hearty American thank you is in order to that great English bulldog, Winston Churchill. A great leader, to be sure, but also profoundly gifted and wise in other areas and a true master of words.

From London to Tennessee, from the beaches of Normandy to the hills of the Smoky Mountains, from a leader of the free world to an obscure and aspiring writer, inspiration and insight indeed come in mysterious ways.