Just to let you all know, the blog may take next week off. I’ll be vacationing, tra la, and I don’t know if I’ll get to it. <\/p>\n
On August 29th, 2011, Charlotte wrote, ….I’ve got the plot set down pretty well in the novel I’m working on, but what I’m having trouble with is the world itself. It’s fantasy, and it’s set in a world other than this one, and I don’t want it to come off quite as modern as our world–e.g. skyscrapers, cars, etc. But there are some modern aspects that I do want to use–e.g. Polaroids but not digital cameras, flashlights but not streetlights, pianos and acoustic guitars but not keyboards and electrics, trains but not cars, etc. And there are also period aspects that aren’t necessary to get into, such as how people wash their clothes or go to the bathroom, which are never significant to the story, but I feel I have to put in anyway because I know I’m wondering how these things work, though I don’t remember ever wondering that when reading any other book.<\/i><\/p>\n
Is it okay to have only some modern inventions, and even more in the background? Or do I need some major reason why there aren’t highways and a million electric appliances–like how in Harry Potter<\/u> they explain that Muggle inventions tend to “go haywire” around heavy concentrations of magic, which is why there are no computers or electric lights at Hogwarts?<\/i><\/p>\n
If it works, it\u2019s fine. If the reader accepts whatever you\u2019ve laid down, you\u2019ve done well. But not so well if your reader starts scratching her head and loses interest in your story because she doesn\u2019t understand why your zebras are plaid not striped but they\u2019re still called zebras.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re writing about a sort of modern world, like ours in some respects, different in others, readers will assume that details not mentioned (toilets, laundry, banks) work in the regular way. You don\u2019t have to haul them into your plot just to show them in operation. Even if they\u2019re different, if the differences don\u2019t influence events, you can omit them. When they\u2019re needed, say in the eleventh volume of your series, you can bring them in. If you\u2019ve set the stage for a world in which mattresses turn sleepers over like pancakes at two am every night, the reader will go with the flow, or, in this case, the flip.<\/p>\n
You mention Polaroids as a kind of camera you want to keep. The trouble I have with that is simply the name. Polaroid<\/i> seems to belong solidly to planet earth, because of the link to Polaroid Corporation. I\u2019d look for a generic term, like instant-image camera<\/i>. In my fantasy novels I avoid references to our reality. Of course this is impossible to do entirely. Gnomes and ogres, for example, are our invention. Still, we\u2019re not going to meet up with them at the supermarket. In another example, when I write dark-skinned characters I don\u2019t call them African, and I don\u2019t call light-skinned characters European. There is no Europe, no Africa. Dark-skinned characters don\u2019t have to come from a warm climate or fair-skinned from a cold. In my world the effects of sun on skin color are up to me.<\/p>\n
It can be helpful, as in your Harry Potter<\/i> example, if you know why some features of modern life were invented in your world and others weren\u2019t. Knowing can guide your future choices. But it\u2019s okay if you don\u2019t know. In our real world modern inventions come about because people think them up. Sometimes new technology makes the thinking possible, but sometimes someone just comes up with a fresh way to use old materials. I believe post-its are an example of this. Alas, there must be myriad potential devices that could help us that no one has dreamed up so far.<\/p>\n
If you do know the reason behind the state of technology and tell the reader, you may enhance her pleasure. Here\u2019s a small detail from Terry Pratchett\u2019s Discworld series: The trolls in this universe are slow thinkers, actually stupid. The reason, we discover, is that room temperature isn\u2019t their natural climate. The colder it is the smarter they get. At sub-zero they\u2019re brilliant. I love having that explained.<\/p>\n
The Discworld series is written in third-person. Most books begin with a short preface about the world, explaining that it rides on the back of a giant turtle. Once the reader sees that, she\u2019s ready for anything. If this kind of approach suits what you\u2019re doing, you can introduce your world in this sort of way even if the rest of the book is told in first person. It\u2019s a quick way of bringing the reader in.<\/p>\n
But you don\u2019t have to do this. I never have.<\/p>\n
Still, the reader will have a leg up if you introduce your world quickly. I discuss this in Writing Magic<\/i>, so you may want to take a look. Your beginning sets up expectations for the whole book. Beginnings are hard because you have to do so much: start the conflict, introduce the major characters, begin to establish the world. You can bring on the fantasy after the first chapter, have your main character borrow Grandma\u2019s pearls in the third and get transported to her sixteenth birthday party. Readers may enjoy the surprise but it\u2019s nice if you can work in a tiny hint that such a switcheroo is possible. The reader will remember the earlier brief mention of culottes and be happy.<\/p>\n
I often don\u2019t know what my world is going to need until I\u2019ve figured out my whole story, sometimes after hundreds of pages of looking for signs in a forest of plot possibilities. So soldier on!<\/p>\n
As always, it can be helpful to show your story to someone. Based on the comments following last week\u2019s post, some of you are nervous when fresh eyes read your writing. I am too! But it\u2019s usually worth it. You can ask a friend or another writer to read the first couple of chapters while looking only at your world building or only at your technology. You can say you don\u2019t want to hear a word about your plot or your characters, just this one thing, and you\u2019re feeling a tiny bit fragile, so please be gentle.<\/p>\n
Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n
\u2219 I sometimes wonder how progress happened, especially early human progress. For instance, how did somebody realize that metal could be extracted from ore? How did farming start? Who invented shoelaces? I once read that in the Middle Ages buttons were purely decorative, sewn on clothing just to look pretty; they didn\u2019t fasten anything. How did buttons migrate from decorative to useful? Imagine how something was invented without looking it up. Who was there? What was the dialogue? Was there an argument? Write the scene.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Invent a new imaginary creature, not a fairy or an elf or an ogre. Describe it. Put it in a story.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Consider Rumplestiltskin, who is described by Wikipedia as an \u201cimpish creature.\u201d Where does he live? What\u2019s the technology in his culture? How is it that he can spin straw into gold? Write a scene from his backstory.<\/p>\n
Have fun and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just to let you all know, the blog may take next week off. I’ll be vacationing, tra la, and I don’t know if I’ll get to it. On August 29th, 2011, Charlotte wrote, ….I’ve got the plot set down pretty well in the novel I’m working on, but what I’m having trouble with is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[144],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":413,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}