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Character: Good characters are what make a good story; they are the heart that readers savor the most. Guy Haley is able to craft brilliant characters that fit every criteria of a good character, understood morals and values, highs and lows, their actions and plans make sense, they don’t ever act out of character for the plot, and most importantly, each character is enjoyable to experience. Firstly, all of them come from different backgrounds and cultural norms that justify their actions and desires. For example, in Haley’s book, Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter, Haley explores the origins of Konrad, a ruthless dictator that takes over planets in the most horrifying and diabolical ways. Haley has him grow up alone in a city filled with crime and strife. He grows up alone and fends for himself against the gangsters and crooks which will take advantage of him at any time. Konrad hates the world he is in; he sees how rampant crime degenerates a society and all its people first hand, so he grows to resent it. When he grows strong enough, he horribly tortures people to death and hangs their flayed bodies in the streets, warning all criminals of their impending fate if they are found by him. Readers understand that this is a horrible act of cruelty no matter how bad their crimes were. Yet Haley makes his actions seem justified, at least in a way that readers may not agree with, but make sense for Konrad as a character. He does make people suffer in horrible ways, in order to keep them in line. Yet, even though his actions are terrible, they are in the name of a good and pure cause. He wants to eliminate crime at any cost, something that makes sense for his character due to his origins. Konrad commits horrible acts of cruelty in order to stop more horrible acts from happening, making a very complex character that seemingly contradicts his morals in order to make his pure dreams a reality. Some other examples of good character writing Haley demonstrates is the dialogue of characters. Each character had distinct speech patterns that helps build their personality. Characters like Belegar Ironhammer, a dwarf king who lost his home, always talks short and with purpose, building the idea that he isn’t happy anymore with life. Another example is Queek Headtaker, a scary killer that isn’t mentally stable. His dialogue helps reinforce what is shown. He often doesn’t make sense when speaking and talks to himself out loud around others.
Setting: The setting of a story is the foundation, a good plot is built upon one that is solid and reliable, and Guy Haley’s settings are pure bedrock. Haley’s settings are always scary worlds of violence and impending doom, ones that desperately need heroes yet can’t stop producing villains. The overwhelming odds and the consequences at stake for characters make his text very exciting to read. Often characters have to win some sort of battle, or many lives will be lost. Haley’s worlds are very grim in a gritty yet realistic feeling way. He builds these ideas from the ‘good guys’ of a story that are usually found in a morally gray area, where they are fighting for what’s best, but only when compared to what others are fighting for. No one feels like a true hero in these dark settings, which itself makes the settings feel extremely realistic. Much like our own world, no government or country can always be trusted to make the best decisions for the people 100% of the time. The ‘good guys’ will often commit terrible atrocities in the name of something good, or do something good for the wrong reasons. These choices also help weave a character’s motives and values. Good characters that do bad things will reveal whether they value their moral integrity or the greater good. Never do Haley’s settings feel too good vs evil. It’s not ever this easy black and white world where everything falls into line perfectly. Good people do bad things, good places are built from evil origins, and bad people sometimes even seem better than the good ones. The complexity of morals in Haley’s settings make them very interesting by themselves and help create further complexity for the characters. It also is more enjoyable for readers this way, complex characters are easier to accept than ones that are more of a caricature. Another aspect of Haley’s setting is the variety of genres. He doesn’t always stick to the grim dark feel in every chapter. Sometimes he includes comic relief to give readers a break from the action. The comedic scenes usually come in the form of a side character accidentally getting into some sort of mischief. Yet it also sometimes is the main character with an odd occurrence of some sort. Although they don’t push the story forward, these scenes are still enjoyable and contrasting with the darkness of the main story, make it seem even that much worse.
Speaker: A speaker in a story can be through the perspective of a character or a 3rd person voice. Haley utilizes a voice that takes on some personality of the character they narrate. The narrator will adopt word choice that feels appropriate to a character's beliefs when telling their part. When the story bounces from one perspective to another the narrator does change in style or tone, giving different themes to different characters. The purpose is to give reinforce ideas about certain characters and their personality, values, beliefs, and so on. Yet the narrator never paints the whole picture. He gives the readers the rough outline of the story. The biggest pieces of the puzzle slide in well and a coherent plot line is formed. Yet the full juicy story is hidden within the details, the complexity of characters and setting isn’t outright stated, which makes the story all the more enjoyable to experience. A reader has to be critical of the choices of each character and their dialogue in order to pick apart their true motives. An entire story could be told within his story, one that goes much deeper than the surface would imply. The narrator only gives the facts, yet that doesn’t make his text boring. He weaves the details of everything from massive battles to architecture of a building into a grandiose paragraph that really helps build the setting. It also really ramps up a sense of epicness and grandeur that excites the reader and makes every paragraph feel important and valuable. Another aspect of the speaker that Haley creates and is interesting is the detailed description of everything. Although sometimes it may feel unnecessary or too much, the description for actions help readers to imagine the scene. Every character’s actions are easily imaginable due to the perfect elucidation that the narrator provides. There is never a scene that readers can’t picture in their heads of the spatiality and logistics of.
Structure: Structure in a novel is important to set up patterns that readers can be comfortable with and help them identify themes and ideas. The pattern Haley follows throughout a story is very coherent and understandable. One interesting aspect of the structure he follows is how different characters’ separate plots fall into the whole. Haley jumps around from different perspectives in different chapters, yet they don’t tell different stories. They do in the sense that the morals of the story as a whole are questioned, yet they aren’t separate from each other. The main plot is driven forwards through each character’s chapters, regardless that they aren’t aware of such. Characters that oppose each other and are actively trying to kill the other will have separate chapters that build the conflict. Yet one character’s chapter will set up the response for the next chapter’s character and so on. The plots don’t work separately until eventually tying in together; instead they actively build off each other to create the plot. The scenes themselves also pullback to a past moment that helps to diversify the flow of the story without impeding it. Sometimes a scene will occur followed by another that references the past in order to give appropriate context for the reader to understand. Another interesting note is the build up of tension. Haley does an excellent job of ramping up a sense of excitement for the coming climax in the chapters. The previous chapters before the climax will foreshadow the gigantic battle that will occur. He usually has several paragraphs explaining the preparation of soldiers to fight and die for a cause on both sides. It feels like a taste of the greater meal to come, one that enthralls readers so they HAVE to know how it plays out. The climax itself is never disappointing. It lasts several chapters, feeling almost like a separate short story inside the main novel. In the beginning chapter of the battle the satisfaction is immense. He does a great job of slowly building to the pinnacle for readers to really get excited about.
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