The Art & Anatomy of Pastiche by Scott Oden

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Excellent series of posts by our Scott Oden.



The Art of Pastiche
scottoden.wordpress.com/2020/07/09/the-art-of-pastiche/

Anatomy of Pastiche, Part 1
scottoden.wordpress.com/2020/07/12/anatomy-of-a-pastiche-part-one/

Anatomy of Pastiche, Part 2
scottoden.wordpress.com/2020/07/13/anatomy-of-a-pastiche-part-two/

Anatomy of Pastiche, Part 3
scottoden.wordpress.com/2020/07/16/anatomy-of-a-pastiche-part-three/

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Excerpt from Anatomy of Pastiche, Part 3:

To me, the hardest part about writing pastiche isn’t mimicking REH’s prose style, nor is it imitating his pacing, action, or world-building. No, the single hardest thing about writing Conan is Conan, himself. He looms large over the stories, and rightfully so — it’s his chronicle we’re reading. The Cimmerian is a complex character, larger-than-life yet intimately familiar, savage yet principled; he is a barbarian cut from the same cloth as Geiseric or Attila, as cunning as Machiavelli, as bawdy as Falstaff, and as brooding as Byron. So, not a daunting task to write about a man like that, no, not at all . . . 



Writing Conan of Cimmeria is a balancing act between voice and reaction. At every turn, you must ask yourself these two questions: “Does he sound like Howard’s Conan?”, and “Are his responses consistent with how Howard wrote him?”. These two things do more to define the character than any amount of set-piece action ever could. So let’s look at them a bit more in depth, shall we?

Wanna read more? here's the link below:
scottoden.wordpress.com/2020/07/16/anatomy-of-a-pastiche-part-three/

[Von K]

Thanks for the post Hun. Some great stuff from Scott there. I read up to part two from the DMRtian Chronicles link on DMR books blog yesterday evening but the third and last part and the one I was looking forward to the most wasn't online then.

This is a topic that has fascinated me from back in 2012 when I first signed up on the old forum and posted my Costigan and Conan fanfics.

I hope this thread can also serve as a more open discussion with Scott and other members of the forum here on the nature of pastiche itself. It links also into the broader study of the kind of writer REH was and the still broader nature of the art of creative writing itself.

[thedarkman]

I have tried my hand at Conan fanfic myself, and it’s pretty darn difficult, as Scott clearly illustrates in the three articles. I’m currently interested in Conan pastiche as a exercise to try and capture some of that “Howardian Style” and incorporate it into my own characters and settings. And it doesn’t have to be a Conan pastiche; some of Howard’s most remarkable work was created outside the Hyborian Age; like his Crusader fiction, or in Roman Britain with Bran Mak Morn. Trying to write like Howard, even just a little bit, is a hell of a lot of work and good fun. That said, Scott is one of the few who has captured a little of that lightning in a bottle and made it work; here’s hoping he’ll get a crack at a full-length Conan novel in the near future.