Latest / Voices for Voices® / What Makes a Fantasy Epic Worth Reading? | Ep 285

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What Makes a Fantasy Epic Worth Reading? | Ep 285 · Voices for Voices®

0:02
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
0:07
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm your host.
0:08
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Founder of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes.
0:11
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining us on this episode, as well as all the other over 280 episodes that we have both in studio and out of studio we have, for those who don't know, every Wednesday a new in-studio episode comes out, the interesting part with that being that it's a TV studio.
0:40
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: We have to film those ahead and sometimes we miss uh, may miss uh current events or guests that we want to talk to in the meantime, and we don't want to wait uh, especially since we just filmed the last week.
0:57
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: So we'd be waiting another three weeks to film and then it would be the following month of uh of august, and then the first week and the actually the first two weeks of september, and so that's why we're uh you may have seen and heard quite a few uh out of studio episodes this uh season before than what you you have prior.
1:22
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Because we love sharing information.
1:27
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: We love sharing people, their stories, the things that they do, ways that we can connect with them, and that's what Voices for Voices is for a platform for people to do that, and so we want to maximize that anytime we can.
1:42
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: And that remains the same way with our last episode with guest Ben, author Ben Sanford, who is also our guest in this second part.
1:54
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Author Ben Sanford, we were having such a good conversation and the way Zoom operates, it kind of finds its own time when they think that the show should end and in the show and uh, so we weren't able to properly uh talk and share about um ben's uh series and his books, uh.
2:20
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: So you, the, the readers, the viewers, the listeners whether it's you or somebody you know, or maybe it's a birthday or a holiday upcoming that you may have an interest in the books he writes, or you may just like a good book to read on the beach, beach, on vacation, uh, or on your commute soon from work.
2:48
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: So, ben, thank you so much for joining us on this.
2:51
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, the second part, thanks for having me.
2:54
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: You bet uh, yeah, if you'll be able just to you know, pick up, uh or even start over is is quite okay with you know, the, the characters and and and a little bit about the world.
3:07
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: That happened to disseminate those.
3:11
Author, Ben Sanford: Okay, I guess I'll start off with Arax, because that's my main story, because that series is actually complete.
3:16
Author, Ben Sanford: I just finished book seven.
3:17
Author, Ben Sanford: Both of my series are fantasy epics, so they're on a large, grander scale.
3:24
Author, Ben Sanford: Arax is set in a different world than Earth.
3:27
Author, Ben Sanford: It's set in 500 years in our future and there's a lot of back history to it.
3:32
Author, Ben Sanford: So it's a medieval world where people are still fighting with bows and arrows and swords, kind of like the Roman Empire.
3:37
Author, Ben Sanford: The main antagonists are gargoyles.
3:44
Author, Ben Sanford: And I have in the back cover cover.
3:46
Author, Ben Sanford: The back cover sort of sets a synopsis for the story.
3:48
Author, Ben Sanford: I can I'll start off with that and then I'll talk about where the meat of the story, where the characters are that that matter.
3:55
Author, Ben Sanford: Um, so, basically, at the beginning of the prehistory of arax, gargoyles were actually servants of their god, yah, and they betrayed him and in the rebellion he cast them down to arax, but he put them in mortal form, in the hideous creatures that they are, which are gargoyles.
4:12
Author, Ben Sanford: These be beautiful, angelic creatures, but now they are deformed creatures who breed in great numbers, but they don't have any magical powers and they're they despise mankind and wanted to destroy mankind.
4:23
Author, Ben Sanford: So the creator Yah rose up a human champion to defeat them, named Cal, and he was pure of heart.
4:31
Author, Ben Sanford: He got his vision of what this ancient god wants him to do for their world and he unites mankind to defeat the gargoyles.
4:40
Author, Ben Sanford: But his lords betrayed him.
4:43
Author, Ben Sanford: They didn't want to follow along with what he wanted and basically they disobeyed God themselves, their God, and right when they look like they could finally destroy the gargoyles for all time.
4:54
Author, Ben Sanford: They betrayed him and then his kingdom fell to ruin and they raised up their own kingdoms, but since they did not defeat the gargoyles, their own kingdoms fell in kind over the centuries, one by one, and then, therefore, mankind was in this balance against the gargoyles.
5:10
Author, Ben Sanford: No one can either really destroy the other.
5:13
Author, Ben Sanford: And this went on for almost 2,500 years Until the main antagonist in the story, named Tyro, a human who led a revolt against another group of humans aligned with the gargoyles and which took the total balance of all of Iraq.
5:29
Author, Ben Sanford: Now, at the start of the story, he now controls all of northern Iraq and he's starting to sweep south.
5:34
Author, Ben Sanford: In the backdrop of this, a young Tory.
5:39
Author, Ben Sanford: A Tory is the middle kingdom of this world.
5:42
Author, Ben Sanford: Still, they're a good human kingdom, you know.
5:45
Author, Ben Sanford: You just find how good they are by, you know.
5:48
Author, Ben Sanford: You look at their history.
5:49
Author, Ben Sanford: They're the only ones that are still held true to, maybe, what King Kael wanted to do long ago.
5:54
Author, Ben Sanford: And so there's a Tory farmer who's got his only son named Tarin, and his son's going to go on a journey off to be a scribe, an assistant to an ambassador who's an old friend of his father's in this area that's somewhere in between Tyro's empire and Tori North, and his father gives him a sword, a magical sword with mysterious powers to it.
6:17
Author, Ben Sanford: The rest of it's a mystery.
6:19
Author, Ben Sanford: You'll find out as you read the story where it comes from.
6:21
Author, Ben Sanford: And he's like what do I need the sword to go on this journey?
6:24
Author, Ben Sanford: Well, that will be explained as you begin the story.
6:31
Author, Ben Sanford: Where it comes from.
6:32
Author, Ben Sanford: And he's like what do I need the sword to go on this journey?
6:33
Author, Ben Sanford: Well, he, that will be explained as you begin the story.
6:34
Author, Ben Sanford: So the beginning story begins with taryn is just going to become a humble scribe to a king's minister and then he eventually, um, he meets all the other characters that become important in the story and he takes on a central role.
6:43
Author, Ben Sanford: That's unforeseen role that he doesn't realize.
6:44
Author, Ben Sanford: He was actually destined for this, with nothing mistake about it.
6:47
Author, Ben Sanford: Well, he was groomed for his role and that's going to come, the war that's going to break out between the gargoyles and the humans in the north and his own kingdom, and eventually the story will encompass all the other realms of Iraq.
7:02
Author, Ben Sanford: There's another group of creatures called Janai.
7:03
Author, Ben Sanford: They're winged creatures.
7:04
Author, Ben Sanford: They're like winged humans.
7:06
Author, Ben Sanford: They're more exotic than regular humans and they're the opposite number of the gargoyles.
7:10
Author, Ben Sanford: They're kind of like servants of Yaa that were put down on Arrax, and also in mortal form, but they were more beautiful and more graceful and they're supposed to help the humans, help guide them to fight the gargoyles.
7:24
Author, Ben Sanford: There's reptilian warriors, there's ape warriors that speak All these different creatures.
7:31
Author, Ben Sanford: So what happened?
7:31
Author, Ben Sanford: The whole story ends up being trying to unite all these different peoples against this great darkness that's going to encroach upon them, and that follows the entire course of the book.
7:40
Author, Ben Sanford: There's a lot of stories of repentance throughout it.
7:46
Author, Ben Sanford: The people's hearts change as you see that other people you know hearts they harden, they don't want to do it.
7:52
Author, Ben Sanford: Um, it's really about the brotherhood of the characters, whether the the sisterhood of the characters to unite, come together and you see their journey.
8:01
Author, Ben Sanford: There's also side characters from Earth who are stranded on this world and they have modern technology and they talk and act like we do.
8:12
Author, Ben Sanford: These people on this planet have it.
8:20
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Wow, looks like we have a little bit of a here we go.
8:30
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: There we are.
8:32
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: We love technology.
8:37
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: There we go.
8:41
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Mark Ben is on his way back there we are.
8:53
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: There we go Nice.
8:58
Author, Ben Sanford: Was it my problem or what?
8:59
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: No, it's all good.
9:00
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: It happened to me last week.
9:02
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm getting used to like just about anything.
9:08
Author, Ben Sanford: Yeah, you can pick up uh okay, so talk about the earth there.
9:12
Author, Ben Sanford: So there's people from earth that are stuck on this planet and from their crashed starship they created a seagoing vessel.
9:19
Author, Ben Sanford: But they have some of the technology they have from earth, but most of the stuff they're just stuck on this planet and they have no way of communicating back to earth.
9:26
Author, Ben Sanford: So they're trapped with no hopes of ever getting home.
9:29
Author, Ben Sanford: And I use, basically I use those.
9:34
Author, Ben Sanford: Those characters are mainly they're the comic relief.
9:36
Author, Ben Sanford: They're usually everybody's favorite character because they also speak and talk like us and they always, if you ever think of in a story you're, you're watching and you're like, well, why don't they just do that?
9:46
Author, Ben Sanford: That's exactly what the earthers always do.
9:47
Author, Ben Sanford: They always do exactly what you would do in those situations.
9:50
Author, Ben Sanford: So that's why people usually connect better with them than even the main characters.
9:54
Author, Ben Sanford: Sometimes um, but it literally sets them apart in the story and their ship is called the stenics, which is the name of my I use for the publishing company.
10:01
Author, Ben Sanford: But yeah, so the earthers are more of the comic relief.
10:05
Author, Ben Sanford: They're also, um, I I guess, if you try to describe it, if you ever watch, like, uh, I don't know if you ever hear that, you ever see it, whether it's a tv show or a movie.
10:17
Author, Ben Sanford: Mainly if this happens in tv shows, you have a secondary character that really steals the limelight and the the writers always make a mistake of turning that person.
10:26
Author, Ben Sanford: Well, let's make them the main part of the show and it ruins everything.
10:29
Author, Ben Sanford: Right, like like han solo in star wars is best, as the secondary character, luke, has to be the main character.
10:35
Author, Ben Sanford: That allows han to just be joe cool.
10:36
Author, Ben Sanford: Um, if you ever remember the show happy days going up, bonzi took over the show.
10:43
Author, Ben Sanford: He was great in the first two seasons when he was just a minor character and he's awesome.
10:46
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: He shows up when they just made the whole thing about it and ruined it.
10:49
Author, Ben Sanford: So as a writer, you got to be careful.
10:50
Author, Ben Sanford: If you have a characters who are like this, they threaten to take over and you have to keep them.
10:54
Author, Ben Sanford: You know, don't let them take over the whole story.
10:58
Author, Ben Sanford: So the earthers in the story are you.
11:00
Author, Ben Sanford: You know when you're, when you're reading the books, they're like okay, these are the guys you'll identify with because they're from our world, even though it's set in the future and trying to explain it beyond that, it's like so basically you're just following this entire war as it is.
11:18
Author, Ben Sanford: It happens so every single book.
11:19
Author, Ben Sanford: I have all the armies in the back of the book and they change because of the different losses and the disposition and sometimes the alliances shift.
11:27
Author, Ben Sanford: But if you're following the story, you can go use that as a guideline so you can keep it all there.
11:33
Author, Ben Sanford: Because there's so many, eventually, there's so many names and you can get lost if you don't try to keep on track of it.
11:41
Author, Ben Sanford: But I try to keep the pacing slow enough at the beginning so you can get invested in the main characters and then grow from there slowly.
11:50
Author, Ben Sanford: My second series is called Freeborn, and while the first series has a lot of Christian underpinnings to it, freeborn is not, but it's not opposed to it either.
12:00
Author, Ben Sanford: Freeborn is more of a Freeborn is not, but it's not opposed to it either.
12:03
Author, Ben Sanford: Freeborn is more of a metaphor of power and magic.
12:05
Author, Ben Sanford: It's always funny watching people write books or even show movies where there's a magic system and people who have magic are being oppressed.
12:13
Author, Ben Sanford: Well, that would be like a power source unlike anything else.
12:17
Author, Ben Sanford: Of course, people would abuse it if they had it.
12:20
Author, Ben Sanford: If you look at unchecked power, then people always abuse it.
12:22
Author, Ben Sanford: So if you had a medieval setting where it was passed on genetically, then people would gather that powers unto themselves and the peasants would never have any chance of having a revolution because the nobles would have magic and power.
12:36
Author, Ben Sanford: So in my Freeborn book I had, the main character is immune to magic.
12:40
Author, Ben Sanford: He can regenerate and he's strong, but he's immune to magic, which means he's a threat to their entire social order and his father's a king of one of the realms, but he doesn't want to become king.
12:52
Author, Ben Sanford: He wants no one to kneel to him and he doesn't want to kneel to anyone else.
12:55
Author, Ben Sanford: He wants to be free and just choose his own world, his own way, which just seems totally alien to all of their belief systems.
13:06
Author, Ben Sanford: At the beginning of the book he follows through a portal that his grandfather has uncovered and only he can access it because he has anti-magic.
13:11
Author, Ben Sanford: That's why he's immune to magic.
13:12
Author, Ben Sanford: And he goes to the Old West for like five or six chapters, and I don't sugarcoat the Old West, that's a dangerous place, but in the story it grounds him and he finally sees a world where there are no kings and nobles in charge.
13:29
Author, Ben Sanford: It's just grit and determination and your own self against the world.
13:33
Author, Ben Sanford: But it's basically people are free and it's a completely alien concept that always seems like home to him and he eventually has to go back to his home world and the whole story is about him taking on the social mores of the world he's surrounded by, because the world is, you know, it's not.
13:53
Author, Ben Sanford: Even though magic can be used in this world for good things, it's also used as abuse, and so you'll see him.
13:59
Author, Ben Sanford: He's supposed to be destined to free the world and he's like well, how am I supposed to do that?
14:04
Author, Ben Sanford: He doesn't want to, he just wants to set his own course so that freeborn.
14:08
Author, Ben Sanford: That's the basic grounding you see at the beginning of the story and it's completely different from Arax.
14:12
Author, Ben Sanford: In that way it's more of Ethan's journey and the people he interacts with, where Arax, as you're following a whole cast of characters fighting this mythical war against these satanic beings.
14:25
Author, Ben Sanford: Great, if you have any questions from there, but that's the two books in a nutshell.
14:31
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: No, I don't.
14:32
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I like the way that you're able to separate them just as they are.
14:38
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I think both genres, both of those anthologies, I think, are very well thought out.
14:54
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: When you just mentioned the pacing of how this is like one thing as, just like a layman, you hear the word or pacing, it's like, okay, how fast or slow or moderate and and so to just to hear you talk about at the beginning that you slow it down because there is that information, those characters that you want to take a little extra time for the reader take a little bit extra time.
15:26
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: But then when things start moving that pace though, that does pick up.
15:31
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: So the whole book isn't at that same pacing as as the beginning.
15:39
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: And I think I never thought about things like there's all kinds of things I don't think about, but it's just interesting to hear that and it makes a whole lot of sense from just a strategy perspective of okay, if I was reading a book and this was going on and there's this cast of characters, would I want to have a constant speed throughout or pacing, or would I change it?
16:09
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: And I think for for viewers and listeners, I think that's something that's a good takeaway for aspiring authors, authors, or if you're already an author or know somebody that we don't have to be in a box that you know you have control over, over that, and I think that that's just a perfect example of you have control over the pacing, as you're the author and you make a decision like slowing down and then making things faster, and maybe there's times in other books where maybe that the ending might, maybe that slows down or or it could, and and not to think that well, I have to do it consistently all throughout, or else but people might not be interested, I don't know.
17:10
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I've read a lot of James Patterson and it's like real fast, and you just take, turn, turn, turn, turn, and it's similar throughout, whereas I was like, okay, I, I actually would prefer if there was more and more meat at the beginning at of some book and it would book would take a little bit of a slower approach instead of that consistency all through.
17:40
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Because I think, as we all know, our minds and our brains all kind of grow at their own speeds and to have a little bit of a change up isn't a bad thing.
17:54
Author, Ben Sanford: I guess I've always struggled.
17:55
Author, Ben Sanford: The parts I had to change a little bit is because I was very at the very beginning this was about the war, so the battles were intricate and detailed and as you mature in your writing you're like okay, then some of the battles I need to make it get to the point of it and not go into like I would lose.
18:15
Author, Ben Sanford: Like it's like the men that read the book love the battles and they would read every one.
18:20
Author, Ben Sanford: The women readers would be like, okay, they glaze over some of the battles, right.
18:26
Author, Ben Sanford: Then there's other parts that are like you know the, the, the dialogue, which people you know, people love that and everything else, but it's the battles themselves trying to shape it Particularly.
18:36
Author, Ben Sanford: I guess when I got to the Siege of Karel and in book two, which is the pinnacle part of the book I have, the longest chapter I ever wrote was basically the siege from day one until the day before the final assault and I have little things happen, battle scenes and I have interpersonal.
18:53
Author, Ben Sanford: I have little where the characters are speaking and different emotional things happening along the way to break it up, because you can't just go constantly through.
19:05
Author, Ben Sanford: You have to break up the action scenes and otherwise you lose people.
19:09
Author, Ben Sanford: It's just too much.
19:10
Author, Ben Sanford: You've got to let the people collect their mind.
19:12
Author, Ben Sanford: Okay, this is what happened on this day.
19:13
Author, Ben Sanford: It was day 24 of the siege and there was a small action here and then this happened here.
19:19
Author, Ben Sanford: Then these these people, characters, talked here.
19:20
Author, Ben Sanford: It's enough where you got interspersed.
19:23
Author, Ben Sanford: We have lots of action going on.
19:25
Author, Ben Sanford: You got to give those little human moments that lets allows the ground the reader back and let them collect themselves and catch their breath and have a heartfelt moment going on between two different characters.
19:36
Author, Ben Sanford: So I guess learning to do that and make it so the battles are interesting by adding the human character with it and breaking it up, is the one thing.
19:44
Author, Ben Sanford: It was like like when I first started writing it was I wasn't doing that.
19:48
Author, Ben Sanford: That's like you have to do that, otherwise you lose the writer or the realist, the reader.
19:51
Author, Ben Sanford: Yeah, but the battles the battles the first book are not too bad.
19:54
Author, Ben Sanford: They're not that long long.
19:56
Author, Ben Sanford: It's book two, I have a couple of long ones, and book three is a lot of long battles, but I finally get to the end and it's a little bit more.
20:04
Author, Ben Sanford: The pacing's a little bit better.
20:06
Author, Ben Sanford: So you're talking about pacing.
20:07
Author, Ben Sanford: That's the other thing.
20:08
Author, Ben Sanford: It's like you can't lose your reader by boring them with detail.
20:15
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: What would you?
20:16
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Whether it's advice there's so many different areas of the writing process and what would you call an aspiring author or somebody that's thought about because that's inspiring, somebody who has maybe hit a rut and had it in their mind.
20:44
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: This is what I want to do and I have these ideas and then maybe they're only halfway through and they're just like you know what.
20:56
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm going to move on to something else because, and while that might be, for for some people it might just be like an interesting, like it might be interesting for a period of time and then may may move on.
21:11
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, but what, what?
21:12
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: What would you?
21:13
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: What would you kind of guide that?
21:15
Author, Ben Sanford: was 80.
21:17
Author, Ben Sanford: Of course the statistics are always gonna be wrong, but I said there was a 80 of the population thought about writing a book, but only like maybe three percent putting the effort into it.
21:28
Author, Ben Sanford: And of those do it.
21:29
Author, Ben Sanford: No, most of them don't complete.
21:31
Author, Ben Sanford: And those are complete, never get it published.
21:45
Author, Ben Sanford: But I see, I say this, I with iraq's.
21:46
Author, Ben Sanford: For me was it was a story that got in my head.
21:49
Author, Ben Sanford: I'm not a writer.
21:50
Author, Ben Sanford: The story got in my head and I wouldn't let me go, so I kept rewriting it and putting a little effort into it.
21:55
Author, Ben Sanford: Book in high school.
21:55
Author, Ben Sanford: I just rewrote it and it's still not great.
22:01
Author, Ben Sanford: The first two books of Rex are not great writing by my standard.
22:04
Author, Ben Sanford: Now they're not great writing, but I didn't give up.
22:08
Author, Ben Sanford: The whole thing is I would suggest you do is if you are already halfway through anything through your manuscript, whatever it is, don't go back and try to fix the beginning of it, at least for the first book.
22:17
Author, Ben Sanford: Finish that, that first story, right, and then outline what you want to do for your sequels.
22:23
Author, Ben Sanford: If it's a series, if it's a standalone, it'd be easier and then go back and write from the beginning and then just you have your outline and you can fix it.
22:31
Author, Ben Sanford: All right, it's easier, you can go back and fix it.
22:33
Author, Ben Sanford: You can always.
22:34
Author, Ben Sanford: You can always edit and improve on a bad product.
22:37
Author, Ben Sanford: You can't edit on nothing, yeah.
22:41
Author, Ben Sanford: So if it's a bunch of blank pages, it's like I can't help you with that, but if you have, you have something there.
22:45
Author, Ben Sanford: We can move this around.
22:46
Author, Ben Sanford: I mean, think about that, we could do, you do this.
22:48
Author, Ben Sanford: I don't know how well you edit these things here, but we can.
22:51
Author, Ben Sanford: I could talk a bunch of mumbo jumbo.
22:52
Author, Ben Sanford: I've done a one podcast.
22:53
Author, Ben Sanford: I thought it was something like a moron and the guy edited it like I sound like a, I sound like einstein, but it made me sound like it was really brilliant.
23:00
Author, Ben Sanford: But but it's because the editing right.
23:03
Author, Ben Sanford: So when you go back and edit your own work, it's like, okay, that's just, I can, I can fix this, but don't give up.
23:08
Author, Ben Sanford: The whole thing is finishing it.
23:09
Author, Ben Sanford: Once you get some sort of completion, then you go back and rewrite.
23:12
Author, Ben Sanford: So since rax was sitting there forever since high school, the first version, which is actually books one and two now the exact same plot.
23:19
Author, Ben Sanford: I added a lot more detail and changed the language and the dialogue and vastly improved.
23:24
Author, Ben Sanford: Yeah, so don't ever give up on it, just just write a little bit.
23:29
Author, Ben Sanford: And the other thing I suggest is, if you write, if you can write one page a day Right Now I know I talked to David and he writes a lot more than that.
23:39
Author, Ben Sanford: He's a very good writer, um, but if you're new to writing, right, just if you could write just one typed page a day, right?
23:49
Author, Ben Sanford: Single space page a day, which is probably like three, three pages in a notebook.
23:53
Author, Ben Sanford: If he does that every day, in one year you'll write a large book a 500, 400, 400 to 500 every day.
23:59
Author, Ben Sanford: In one year.
24:00
Author, Ben Sanford: You'll write a large book a 500, 400, 400 to 500 page book in one year.
24:03
Author, Ben Sanford: Then you got to edit it.
24:04
Author, Ben Sanford: But still, if you can do one page a day and people say you should only write when you're inspired, that's not.
24:08
Author, Ben Sanford: You know, you write every day, just force yourself.
24:10
Author, Ben Sanford: And sometimes the stuff I force myself to write, I go back and that was great.
24:15
Author, Ben Sanford: And stuff I actually planned out and I actually felt inspired is not as good.
24:18
Author, Ben Sanford: Sometimes you just have to push your way through it.
24:21
Author, Ben Sanford: But, as they say, don't give up always, just just write it.
24:24
Author, Ben Sanford: You can always fix it later.
24:26
Author, Ben Sanford: But getting those ideas down, that's, that's the important thing.
24:30
Author, Ben Sanford: And I don't know if you, I don't know if about if you're like me, but it's funny if you, if I gave you Moby Dick right now to read, or I gave you a comic book that you love, your favorite comic book.
24:41
Author, Ben Sanford: Now, that comic book I gave you is something you love and you, like you care about the story.
24:45
Author, Ben Sanford: It compares nothing to Moby Dick as a masterpiece, but Moby Dick's born and you're never going to read it, so it doesn't matter.
24:52
Author, Ben Sanford: The important thing is not really the quality of writing, it's the quality of the story, because the story is what's going to keep you.
24:59
Author, Ben Sanford: Now, bad writing will distract you from the story you're reading, so you may soldier through the reading your story.
25:08
Author, Ben Sanford: Who love the story don't notice the bad writing or don't notice your writing at all, then okay, if it's good enough where they can get through, it's a great story.
25:24
Author, Ben Sanford: But if it's a bad story, even if it's poorly, if it's greatly written yeah, this is a great written story but it's kind of like going to a movie that wins an Oscar.
25:32
Author, Ben Sanford: I don't want to see it.
25:33
Author, Ben Sanford: You know this is a boring story.
25:35
Author, Ben Sanford: It's like it's great, you wrote it well, you know, but it's boring.
25:41
Author, Ben Sanford: I mean, I mean and it's it's funny too, because you look at throughout history Like we, we put so much emphasis and like it's a really important system in high school English classes, where the problem I have with their education system.
25:57
Author, Ben Sanford: They push through classic literature because it was so game-breaking at the time.
26:05
Author, Ben Sanford: But the problem is they lose the force for the trees, okay.
26:08
Author, Ben Sanford: So, for instance, the first cave painting, the first caveman, they come in.
26:11
Author, Ben Sanford: You look at the wall, they're nothing.
26:14
Author, Ben Sanford: You might have to pass stories down early, but soon as one guy decided to draw a painting on the wall, they're like, oh wow, this is awesome.
26:20
Author, Ben Sanford: Look, we had a blank wall.
26:21
Author, Ben Sanford: Now we have this painting of ukulele killing the mammoth, all right, and then along came you know the greek tragedies, right.
26:28
Author, Ben Sanford: So people are reading that like if you ever heard the greek tragedy, they're terrible stories.
26:32
Author, Ben Sanford: I mean oedipus sleeping with his mother, um, people killing their sibling.
26:37
Author, Ben Sanford: I mean this is awful stuff.
26:39
Author, Ben Sanford: But at that time, for what they had before then, it was like this is groundbreaking.
26:43
Author, Ben Sanford: We need to go see a play.
26:44
Author, Ben Sanford: And then Shakespeare comes along and we hear it in Old English.
26:49
Author, Ben Sanford: We don't understand, it's hard for us to understand it.
26:53
Author, Ben Sanford: But at the time and the stories are good for their time Kind of like Beowulf before, and Beowulf's a terrible story reading now, but back then it was like compared, they had nothing else to compare.
27:02
Author, Ben Sanford: That's a great story.
27:02
Author, Ben Sanford: So shakespeare's time is groundbreaking.
27:06
Author, Ben Sanford: It's kind of like their star wars.
27:07
Author, Ben Sanford: This is fantastic, but we find it boring because we have built upon everything.
27:12
Author, Ben Sanford: Story is built upon itself.
27:14
Author, Ben Sanford: So you get to the 1900s.
27:15
Author, Ben Sanford: You read these early books that come out.
27:17
Author, Ben Sanford: Some of them are, are fantastic, could hold up at the count of monte cristo, but I said ones like moby dick or their start a letter and things like I don't want to read this and you're making kids in high school reading.
27:25
Author, Ben Sanford: They get bored of reading and they don't want to read.
27:27
Author, Ben Sanford: So that's why it's like you got to have you look at a lot of contemporary writing.
27:33
Author, Ben Sanford: Even some of it still doesn't hold.
27:35
Author, Ben Sanford: People aren interested in it.
27:37
Author, Ben Sanford: You want to read of mice and men or stuff like that.
27:39
Author, Ben Sanford: I didn't enjoy it.
27:40
Author, Ben Sanford: Some people will love it and think I'm a jerk for saying bad stuff about it.
27:43
Author, Ben Sanford: But our attention spans now are very shorter than they were before.
27:48
Author, Ben Sanford: Since we already have all this volume of information behind us, it takes a lot to entertain us.
27:53
Author, Ben Sanford: They need to put more focus, I think, in our education system and reading stories that people really want to read.
27:59
Author, Ben Sanford: I think so too.
28:01
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: That's perfect the way you said.
28:03
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: That makes perfect sense that you have you put something.
28:07
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Whether you're in high school or you're not.
28:09
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: You put two things in front of somebody, and one they're interested and one not so much.
28:15
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: They're going to gravitate towards the one that they like.
28:20
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: And same thing would be in high school that there would be the option of hey, bring in your own something to enter through.
28:30
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Obviously, there's parameters in that from a curriculum standpoint, from a curriculum standpoint, but other than that, if somebody finds one particular genre, type of story more interesting than the others, I think that's a great way to I don't wanna say hook, but kind of, in a way, a hook and keep more students interested in reading because it's something they like.
29:04
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: They're more likely to read it and I guess they have to very look at the pictures, if there's any pictures in it versus you know some piece from, you know 1600 or 1700.
29:16
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: And, like you said, the stories are groundbreaking at the time and I think we should be continuing that what's groundbreaking in 2025?
29:33
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: And think of things like that instead of just reverting.
29:37
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, this is the way we've always done it, and we did it on curriculum last year, so it makes it easy.
29:44
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't know what the reasons are that's a discussion for another day, but a little bit connected.
29:52
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: But I mean, I can think of myself back in high school and, yeah, if I had the option to I don't know read about sports and the different rules or something, that would have been way more interesting than a lot of the stories and poems and all those that we were asked to read.
30:16
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I really like how you laid that out, thanks, yeah, we're getting close and I want to make sure we finish on a much stronger on me from a time management standpoint.
30:31
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: But sometimes it's kind of a conversation and it's a sense to keep going.
30:37
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: So once again, can you just share your website and then where people can purchase them?
30:48
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: And I know they can purchase them on your website and you'll get to that, but then they can also purchase on Amazon as well, but I'll let you give your plugs.
30:58
Author, Ben Sanford: Okay, so if you go to my website, it's called Stenox Publishing, which is S-T-E-N-O-X, s-t-e-n-o-x, s-t-e-n-o-x, stenexpublishingcom, and all the books are all on there.
31:12
Author, Ben Sanford: There's a little synopsis for each of the both of the series and they're also, of course, on Amazon and Goodreads.
31:19
Author, Ben Sanford: If you want to look them up, there's a few.
31:31
Author, Ben Sanford: There are several reviews on there for the first two iraq's books and the first freeborn book.
31:34
Author, Ben Sanford: Um, that's fine, because people leave reviews.
31:35
Author, Ben Sanford: They always read for the first two books they don't leave reviews for.
31:38
Author, Ben Sanford: Yeah, right, um, yeah, so stanixpublishingcom, s-t-e-n-o-x.
31:40
Author, Ben Sanford: Um, trying to think where else you can find them on there?
31:43
Author, Ben Sanford: Yeah, but mainly that and Amazon and they're on.
31:47
Author, Ben Sanford: If anybody has Kindle Unlimited, I have.
31:51
Author, Ben Sanford: All the books are available there for free on Kindle Unlimited.
31:55
Author, Ben Sanford: But I have to warn you the map for Rax is in the back of the book.
32:00
Author, Ben Sanford: That's why print copies always cost more.
32:03
Author, Ben Sanford: But, yeah, but for the Rax books, they're pretty, even if you don't have Kindle and Limba, they're not that expensive.
32:10
Author, Ben Sanford: I try to keep at least the first six or seven books.
32:13
Author, Ben Sanford: There's at least four or five books pretty cheap.
32:15
Author, Ben Sanford: Some people like to do e-readers or, lately, some people like to do print.
32:18
Author, Ben Sanford: Whatever people's preferences are.
32:20
Author, Ben Sanford: Yeah, but Stenix Publishing, you know, whatever people's preferences are, yeah, but stenix publishing I'm not very, uh, what do you say?
32:37
Author, Ben Sanford: Well attuned to technology, so like, managing the website has been very challenging for me, so, but even even your podcast, look, it was an easy connected link, so that was nice yeah, I was hoping to like try to keep it.
32:46
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm the same way.
32:47
Author, Ben Sanford: It's like I gotta do seven steps when I can do one, like I'd rather do the one, and so yeah, I gave david has my tiktok um connection and I try to put a lot of the, a lot of previews a little.
33:01
Author, Ben Sanford: I do little scenes from the mainly the iraq's books.
33:04
Author, Ben Sanford: I haven't done the freeborn ones yet but I do little scenes from each of the books, at least the first four books so far.
33:09
Author, Ben Sanford: There's a little snippets here and there, like I try to do scenes.
33:12
Author, Ben Sanford: That doesn't give away the plot.
33:13
Author, Ben Sanford: Yeah, that a little, you know, just a little teaser here or there, kind of like you would do for a commercial, but it was basically a slideshow and with, you know, a music in the background that may be appropriate for that scene.
33:30
Author, Ben Sanford: I will say Freeborn, though there is a love scene at the end of book one on a scale of I guess the one review I had on a scale of zero to none to five would be it ranked as a number two.
33:39
Author, Ben Sanford: So it is keep that in mind.
33:41
Author, Ben Sanford: That's not appropriate for children, but it's a married couple on their wedding night.
33:45
Author, Ben Sanford: I try to keep it subtle enough.
33:47
Author, Ben Sanford: So just be my good.
33:48
Author, Ben Sanford: Freeborn, book one there is a love scene at the end of it, and a Rax book there is too, but it's not.
33:54
Author, Ben Sanford: It's very subtle.
33:56
Author, Ben Sanford: So it's once again somebody on their wedding night.
34:01
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I appreciate you doing that and just looking out for kids.
34:04
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: That's so important.
34:09
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Ben, thank you so much for sticking with us for two episodes.
34:14
Author, Ben Sanford: Yeah, thank you for having me.
34:15
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Absolutely.
34:16
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: It's been really a blessing to have you and learn more about you, the work you do, and to share with our viewers and listeners, and I encourage each and every one of you to head over to Stenix Publishing to take a look and make a purchase if that so moves you, or if you're on Amazon as well, that's so move you, or if you're on amazon as well, um, but I, I think we would recommend static publishing from uh uh, more of a it's going to be more of a positive impact.
34:57
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, uh, there's uh, oh, let's call it what it is but amazon likes to take a little bit of money out when you sell a book, and so, if I have, Well, the aesthetics will connect you to Amazon, probably, so it doesn't?
35:13
Author, Ben Sanford: Oh, it will connect you oh okay.
35:16
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Okay, no worries, I was just the only thing I would ask if anybody reads them.
35:20
Author, Ben Sanford: Even if you don't like it, just give me a review.
35:22
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Reviews just give me a review.
35:23
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Your views are helpful.
35:24
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, Cause you, yeah, you, you you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you you you and mine isn't the best book written.
35:42
Author, Ben Sanford: So yeah, just be honest.
35:45
Author, Ben Sanford: It's like but if you get I will just say this If for your Christian viewers, if they get to the end of Arax, they won't be disappointed, and Freeborn is a different genre altogether.
36:00
Author, Ben Sanford: So I try to, but they will enjoy.
36:02
Author, Ben Sanford: I think they would enjoy either series, but it's yeah, but Arax, or actually just got to at least get booked, at least to get the book three to see the, the thematic undertones of the story.
36:11
Author, Ben Sanford: Good, the book one and two sort of sets up.
36:14
Author, Ben Sanford: Book one sets up the adventure and book two is basically jumps into the action and book three is yeah, it gets into the more, more deeper stuff.
36:27
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Great yeah, Thank you for sharing that and jumping in.
36:30
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I appreciate you.
36:34
Author, Ben Sanford: Ben.
36:35
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, absolutely.
36:37
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: And our viewers or listeners again, whether you're in the United States or in any of the 78 countries that have watched, listened and just almost 800 cities.
36:53
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: It's really just incredible.
36:54
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: When you get started, you have this hope that you want to reach, and reach the masses, no matter where they're at.
37:05
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: We're really grateful to each and every one of you that tuned in, watched, listened, check out Ben's work, check out his books.
37:15
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: I recommend making a purchase if that so moves you.
37:20
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: We would highly encourage that.
37:24
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: So until next time, I am founder of Voices for Voices Hayes, and please be a voice for you or somebody in need.
37:33
Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes: Goodbye.