Writerly Review: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
I’m trying really hard this year to focus more on the craft of writing in a serious and systematic way. If you knew me, you’d know this is very, very out of character for me when it comes to my artistic pursuits. Strangely, ‘Serious and Systematic’ could be my nickname in my day job; I am extremely detail oriented and obsessed with staying on schedule with my projects. But when I get home it’s like - poof! - my brain needs a total break. When it comes to my writing it’s all instinct and following my subconscious and I have never tried to impose any real structure. I call my drafting method ‘The Chaos Method’. I’ve thus far tried to learn how book structure works just by reading a lot of them and internalizing. So, like, when I decided to start writing murder mysteries a few years ago, I just read a whole bunch of murder mysteries and got an unarticulated sense for their beats. Nothing serious or systematic about it.
Which, great. Maybe that will be enough. But I also think it might be the case that there’s something to be said for studying our craft as seriously as we study that upon which our livelihoods depend. I am serious about my writing. I very seriously want it to go somewhere, even to be that upon which my livelihood depends someday. So I’ve committed to reading craft books this year. I’ve also committed to trying to read novels with more of a deliberate eye to their craft.
So this series of reviews won’t be looking at books from a reader’s perspective, but from a writer’s perspective. Trying to parse out what makes the books work, what didn’t work as well (for me, obviously), and how the prose hits me. Trying to take apart the structure and figure out what makes everything ‘tick’, so to speak.
First up? Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett.
Firstly, firstly: I loved it. The prose was gorgeous. Literally the first thing I wrote in my notebook was: “immediately gorgeous, lush writing”. So you know I was smitten from page one. I think the plotting was really solid, the pacing was pretty much perfect, and the writing itself would have been just as fit for a literary as a commercial novel. I think Fawcett is one of those rare ‘Both’ writers. (Generally, I think writers tend to be Plot Writers, or Prose Writers, in that they are really strong in one area or the other. Both Writers are rare. And fabulous.)
We start out with a very gradual beginning that I thought really countered the current advice that writers need to dive into action right away. I’m on board with the idea that your inciting incident really should be in the first few chapters, but a) the inciting incident doesn’t have to be flashy, and b) there’s value to a little buildup, or a glimpse into the MC’s regular life before we yank them out of their day-to-day existence. This book was a great example.
Chapter one is our MC arriving at the destination where she’s to be completing her fieldwork for her encyclopaedia. We get an entire chapter, really two, to hear about the village she’ll be staying in for the next few months, to meet the villagers, to get a few ominous hints about why the faeries here are maybe more dangerous than any faeries MC has studied before…
Technically, I’d argue you could view coming to the island village itself is the inciting incident, since it is outside MC’s norm to an extent - it is made very clear to us in a myriad of ways that she’s a fish out of water in this town, someone used to being tucked away in her office, uncomfortable socializing, useless at starting a fire or otherwise taking care of herself without some modern amenities - but even if you want to argue that the inciting incident doesn’t come until the first faerie is on the page, or until MC pisses off the head village woman, or until LI arrives… It’s good, in my opinion, to spend a few moments getting to know the MC, just getting a sense for their voice and the interiority of the novel, and getting a general overview of worldbuilding. There’s value in that.
(Though I wonder if the current assertion that writers need to grab readers and shake ’em like chew toys in chapter one originates in a cultural shift wherein our attention spans are ever shorter and a writer perhaps had more time in the past to establish their world and characters but now if nothing metaphorically explodes by page three you’re doomed to loose your audience? Something to ponder.)
Interiority was a real strength of this novel, though at times the MC’s voice worked against the author to some extent. This was a masterclass in how to play with what the MC knows vs. what the readers know, and to build tension with the differences therein. So, for example, the MC would observe that LI was sad, but not understand the reason, or misattribute it, but thanks to precisely what she observed, we, the readers, would understand that the LI was pining for her. That kind of interiority is one of my favorite aspects of novels, as a medium. That insight into what our characters are thinking and why they do things you just can’t get to the same extent in, say, movies, for instance.
The main challenge the MC’s internal musings brought to the narrative, in my opinion, is that she was so detached - arguably, she was a somewhat unreliable narrator because she wanted very much to believe herself more detached than I think she actually was, and therefore lied to herself at times about her supposed dispassion - that sometimes her insistence on distance and objectivity made it difficult for Fawcett to convey enough tension in some of the action sequences. Particularly towards the end there was a rescue scene that put our MC in mortal danger, but while I understood that to be the case, I didn’t feel it as a reader because the MC wasn’t really feeling it. I don’t think there was really any way around it - it was a consequence of staying true to the voice of the MC - but I do think it pulled me somewhat away from the emotional impact of the scene, just as the MC was distancing herself.
Other things I thought this novel did very, very well:
Chekhov’s gun, Chekhov’s gun, Chekhov’s gun. Woven throughout the narrative were a large number of theses little details that would come back into the narrative at significant moments. Who the changeling turned out to be. Needing the head woman’s help after pissing her off for not accepting her hospitality. The lost button magic. There were a few instances where the first mention of the oddity only preceded the interesting way the information would later be used in the story by a couple of chapters, and I would have liked a bit more distance between the two, but overall… mwah. Well done.
A complex MC, though I think she’d argue she isn’t at all complex - just a scholar devoted to her studies. I thought the author did a really good job giving the MC a lot of really likable qualities while the MC herself insisted on brutal honesty regarding her sometimes less altruistic motives for seemingly altruistic actions. (Though, of course, we readers realized early on that she might well deny her own altruism, even if it was solely motivating her actions. For science!, our MC would cry. Though really it was just her rescuing cats all over the damn place.) Fawcett also gave MC a dog, which was a nice way to humanize her. It’s hard to dislike a woman who loves her dog.
The love story. It’s only just beginning, as this is only the first book in a series, but the pacing was perfect. LI shows up off page first - MC muses on him and receives a letter from him and then - ah! - he arrives in person, and of course he is a dramatic contrast to MC but his wildly disparate personality suits MC perfectly as it allows her to sit comfortably in her preferred silence in a corner while he holds court with all and sundry, gleefully making friends wherever he goes. Then a bit of tension - is he here to really help MC, or to steal her research? And what about… you know… that other thing we learn about him midway through the narrative? And… are his feelings genuine, or is he just constitutionally incapable of resisting the urge to flirt with every female within a thirty mile radius? But then hints his feelings are genuine. Oh. And quite the surprise to the MC, hints her feelings for him are genuine. (She did not see that coming. That’s inconvenient, huh? To care about this ridiculous flibbertigibbit!) Then they rescue each other, and rescue each other, and help each other, and help each other, and, oh, they could be good for one another, couldn’t they? A proposal, a kiss, will they end up together? Aaaaaaand, scene.
There were a few things that worked less well for me. I thought one of the MC’s decisions that led to the climax of the book was super shortsighted. I could see where the author had set up that she might do such a thing. Maybe. But I still couldn't really get on board with our incredibly intelligent MC doing something so, well, stupid. (The twist regarding HOW she did it literally had me going, “Holy shit! Holy shit!” in my living room though. So points for that.) I thought the reason MC needed rescuing at the end felt like a plot device. It was a little clunky for me, though I understand the necessity for structural purposes. And then, lastly, the climax wasn’t quite climactic enough for me. I thought the final battle needed to be more difficult. I wrote in my notes “not enough wow! for me”. That said, probably plenty of wow! for others. That’s such a very individual thing.
Overall, this was a really well paced book with absolutely gorgeous prose and deft use of interiority with a somewhat obtuse, but lovable, scholar for an MC.
Four and a half bum wiggles.
