How to make a story 'Epic'

 

Iza shared an idea on how to give a story an ‘epic’ feel. As an example, read Dune.

One way is to let the reader know how great the character is with snippets from history about the character at the beginning of each chapter. But there may be more subtle ways to do this. This deserves some more discussion…

From Iza:

I think it may be more fundamental than how to make a story epic. What is important is that the story is made epic.

The events of Dune could have been presented in the Young Adult genre. A 15-year-old boy is tossed around by events beyond his power to change and slowly acquires control over them. As a young adult novel it is nothing special.

But it us not Young Adult it is about Muad’Dib, about whom books were written. It us epic. A quote from Manual of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan is the first paragraph of the book

He is tagged as important. And that matters. it makes for a bigger story snd better book.

 

I also had an epiphany during our conversation of ‘epic-ness’. The political plot of my current Sci-Fi project WWM reflects what has been happening recently. Just like how Australia tried to become more independent of the US via the naval deal with France (and failed) and just as Ukraine has tried to become independent of Russia by attempting to join NATO (and is suffering retribution at the moment), Mars is trying to become independent of Earth, to establish its own sovereignty. The US doesn’t want this. More to the point, if the US doesn’t act, another power might beat America to it and take over Mars for itself.

These political games represent a recurring theme in modern politics, and will resonate with readers.