My overnight learning about fantasy storytelling

[scarlettina]

Last night, amidst Merlin's bed-tumbling and Spanky's crankiness, I had a realization that will address one of my issues with the novel, which has sat dormant since I got back from Africa. The realization was that I'd been working on the characters as characters, but hadn't been working on the setting as a character, and somewhere in the back of my mind I'd wanted the setting to be a character and had been failing at creating that. It's not the thing that has kept me off the book, not the main one, but it's a contributing element. I've had this vague idea about how the incursion of magic into my world has affected society, but I've never really developed it to its logical conclusion: how the incursion of magic has affected the environment in which that society exists. It's world-building 101, right? We learn by doing, I guess, or at least I do. Heaven forfend that I actually, you know, read a book to learn about process, or listen to friends who have tramped this road ahead of me.

::sigh::

I despair of myself sometimes. So I'm note-taking and thought-processing and we'll see where this goes and if it helps to fire the process again.

Comments

[blakesrealm.livejournal.com]

Not quite sure where your recent D&D knowledge is at the moment but have you looked at Eberron at all by Keith Baker? Some interesting takes on a world that is basically run by magic, in a lot of ways. Just small things that add a lot of flavor, might be worth looking at just to get an idea.

I recall you're friends with Jeff Grubb so I'm sure that the books are available in your circle of friends.

As far as Merlin goes ... here's hoping the best for you both. It's funny the lengths that us pet owners will go to ease the pain/suffering of our loved ones. A friend of ours without pets couldn't understand why Pam and I would spend $2,200 on a surgery for one of our cats when money was tight for us. I just can't see not doing it personally.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Hey Blake, thanks for the thought. I'm familiar with Eberron, but it's not really the sort of thing I'm doing. When I talk about reading to learn about worldbuilding, I'm really headed more in the direction of reading books about craft (http://www.otherworlds.net/worldbld.htm) rather than other people's fiction, though other people's fiction is hugely instructive.

If you dig deep worldbuilding and you dig Eberron and D&D, then you ought to read Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, which has some of the deepest, strongest worldbuilding I've ever seen. Lynch is a game designer and his experience tells in the narrative. The book'sa helluva good read and completely immersive. Someone else whose work includes impressive, inventive worldbuilding is jaylake. Yes, he's a friend, but that doesn't lessen the power of the invention in his novels. You ought to check out Trial of Flowers or Mainspring (the latter of which has made it to the preliminary Nebula ballot).

[blakesrealm.livejournal.com]

I figured that you were talking more about the actual construction of a world book, aka more how-to rather than anything else, but figured I'd throw out a D&D reference to a world that involved more magic and some technology as well. No idea why it popped into my head like that, the whole Eberron thing I mean, but it did. :)

Also, thanks for the recommendation I'll check his work out.

[skidspoppe.livejournal.com]

As long as you learn... that's the important thing!

But hey, congrats on figuring it out!

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

In a fantasy novel, I'd say that setting-as-character is a critical issue, not just a contributing element. If readers weren't looking for a fantasy setting, they'd be reading a different genre. And if the fantasy setting doesn't add up, some will notice. Obviously, the survival of D&D-derivative fantasy shows that many readers will ignore it when a setting that doesn't add up, but the fact that setting problems are in your mind at all – even at the back of your mind – says that you don't want a setting that doesn't add up.

If you care to describe how the setting diverges from reality, I'd be happy to ponder what effects those divergences would have on the setting-world.

Smaller changes are easier to manage. A not-so-complicated change would be the modern world, plus the presence of vampires, who keep their existence secret, except to cultivate myths that vampires are far more powerful than they really are, so that people who discover them are inclined to take unnecessary risks when fighting them, such as heart-staking them when a stout gunshot would do the job.

A more difficult change would be the modern world with vampires that are powerful and contagious; such a world would very quickly run out of living people to prey upon. In such a setting, vampires would have to come to an agreement on how many victims are allowed to rise as vampires, how often vampires are allowed to hunt, and what penalties to impose on vampires who exceed their hunt limit.

(I just use modern world plus vampires because vampires are a pretty well-understood fantasy element, even if they're more horror-fantasy than general fantasy.)

Learning Your Craft

[ladyjestocost.livejournal.com]

Some things are so obvious you must learn them for yourself - otherwise they're not part of you.

I realize this sounds terribly New Age, but it's true.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

... but hadn't been working on the setting as a character, and somewhere in the back of my mind I'd wanted the setting to be a character and had been failing at creating that.

I don't think there are a whole lotta authors that really bring character to setting. I like to watch the special features of movie DVDs to watch the "making of" portions --- to see how the set designers build environment with lighting, and music, and positioning etc ...

One of my favourite uses of coloring was The Wizard of Oz for obvious reasons. Dorothy's "normal world" was painted in shades of gray...then we move into Oz and *poof!* technicolor!

Unbreakable uses lighting and set color to "announce" a scene with a hero or villain. The subconscious cues are amazing and fantastic to me. You don't realize that there are purple and blue and red lighting until it's pointed out.

Probably a tad tangent to painting the world as a character but perhaps not?

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I do think your notes are germaine, absolutely.

One of my favorite TV series for using light and palette cues that way is the 1980s series, "Beauty and the Beast." The world above where Catherine lived was always gray and blue and cool colors. She herself pretty much stuck to that palette in her clothing, too. The world below, Vincent's world, was always red and brown--all warm colors and candlelight. It was, in some sense, a character in the series.

My feeling has been that I want the city in the book to give the impression of having its own secret life as a result of the incursion of magic into a formerly unmagical place. This is still a relatively fresh idea to me, the articulation of something that, until now, has been a pretty unformed idea. I've begun to have ideas about how I want to do it, and I think I'm getting there, little by little. We'll see.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

Use things that are incursion-like in nature? Ivy --- but special ivy on the side of a building. Spots of life where there were none?Glimpses and trapses of light (like a refraction off of a crystal) where there was once shadow...