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reenkaI think being so well-versed in fanfic and coming back suddenly to tons of (well-done) epic fantasy books, it's really been brought home to me just how bloody hard world-building really is, at least for me, because I loathe thinking on group scale rather than about inviduals. It's funny, on some level, because that's what I used to do back when I wrote lots of high fantasy stuff from ages 16-20 or thereabouts-- largely ignore characterization (or just do it sloppily & off-the-cuff) and make stuff up about the world. See, but 'making stuff up' and creating society outlines and weird theologies and odd customs-- I can do that, but I don't think that's what (good) world-building is really about. World-building really rests on group characterization-- because the people largely determine the world. You can't have one without the other. Gah.
I've been turning a halfway-studious eye on Flewelling's 'Luck in the Shadows', and I think-- I think the difficult part is not to make up weirdass environments for the pretty characters to 'play' in, but to always think of the human reasons and the human consequences for every societal or magical thingamabob you come up with-- now that's really hard. It's like... a society, all its ills and benefits, comes from a historical basis, so in order to understand your 'central' society (made-up or just any that's not currently 'yours', time-wise), you have to understand its allies, bordering nations, and of course its enemies. Further, you have to have some idea of what social forces drive it (for subtly different 'issues' drive every society, much as they naturally have in common, depending on the people's ethnic background and the natural resources, etc). Lastly, you have to remember there is always internal as well as external conflict, and all societies have to be non-homogenous-- ie, either naturally diverse or unnaturally stifled.
This seems a task less for unbridled imagination and more just-- for very step-by-step, rigorously logical thinking, and imagining myself doing that sort of makes me a bit green around the gills. Basically, even if I don't have a cast of at least 50 in a high fantasy (or any other-world) novel, I'd have to keep many, many more characters (and groups!) than that in mind, all in the background motivating the say, modestly interconnected group of dozen people I actually write about. And if you're thinking 'just a dozen??' then realize I'm thinking 'OMG A DOZEN WOULD BE 6 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE I GENERALLY HOLD IN MY HEAD AT ANY ONE TIME'.
In other words... I'm generally proud when I remember to put in something about Draco's dad in a fic. ^^;;; Although... to give myself -some- credit, I'd say that the more I write in a story-- in my latest H/D novella, anyway-- the more the characters naturally multiply without much volition; they just sort of seem to 'fit in' where there appears an 'empty spot' that suits that sort of person. So perhaps it's not all conscious logical step-by-step analysis. One can hope that sometimes it's a bit like a puzzle-- gets easier to 'see' the pieces the closer to done it is. And perhaps... perhaps societies are also built by something like a 'fractal' method, the way individuals are-- you start out with something small and simple & complexify outward according to certain basic directional 'arrows' you can follow. Or something. Though it's still really intimidating to look at the 'finished product', looking outward-in, rather than working outward from the inside. Le sigh.
It's not only people & groups interacting, though; years (decades! centuries!) of tiny little knotted threads of conflict and cooperation in human motivation create the tapestry of non-sentient aspects of a society as well-- like the laws, the philosophies, the architecture, the social hierarchy & power-structures; my god... even the language-use (slang) and the type of English you'd use for different sectors would have to shift. Even if this is just a foreign culture and not a made-up one, you have to know all this stuff, which seems about as effort-heavy as making it up (since it seems like if you know enough societies in this amount of depth, I suppose it's not so hard to mix-and-match and make stuff up).
Actually, this feeling of 'I have to know a lot more than I do' is why I feel sooo skittish about writing fanfic in any 'verse (or country!) I'm not naturally familiar with-- that isn't clear. I can't write any fic set in Japan (god no!) or Buffy's California 'cause I'm not familiar enough with it-- but I can write Harry's Wizarding Britain (loosely!) because a) it's not a coherent and densely worked-out enough of an 'other-world' and so has a larger-than-usual margin of error; b) I probably have studied Britain the most of any foreign country ever, so I feel I have at least 70% of the stuff I'd need to know if not in my head then easily acquired; c) any kind of school in any kind of society remains my 'home base'.
I think 80% of the reason I don't write other fandoms is that I'm so aware-- so aware-- that this isn't my culture (like, for either SGA, which I'm mostly unfamiliar with or Star Trek-- my most familiar sci-fi show-- I'd say military-science anything is just-- is totally alien to me even if I've watched similar shows before), and I feel totally lost.
Like, I feel I could imitate the characters and predict their reactions in familiar-enough situations easily enough, but... the scope of any fic I write would be deeply limited (to basically talking heads in a room). It's like, I'd need to really study everything to do with Star Trek and answer any questions I'd have left to my own satisfaction and create graphs and charts and appendixes before I could write a 'serious' story in it. And I've read/watched a huge part of canon in this fandom already! I really don't know how people manage to write long, in-depth fanfics with adventure plots without huge amounts of research. Maybe they're just more technically-minded and/or have different experiences than me to prepare them.
Anyway, I'm pretty aghast at everything I'll have to do (ie, write 3 books of reference for every book I write) if/when I write other-world fantasy/sci-fi myself. And 'other-world' would include historical novels, future-Earth novels, and anything set in a foreign culture or even a foreign social circle in -this- one, to a lesser extent. To make all this more depressing is the fact that I'm not that interested in my own subculture (whatever that might be), at least on an inspiration level. I don't want to write 'what I know'-- like, college-age computer/fantasy/etc geeks in love?-- and I'm overwhelmed by the demands of writing what I don't know. Gah. And of course, of course I can't lower my own standards... so if/when I write an other-world novel, it'll have to hold together tightly or I'll just scrap it. -.-;;;
~~
It's no news to anyone that knows me, but...I really suck with people, man. Ack. I 'forget' to give the pizza-guy his tip and he says in this soft voice, 'next time, don't say you'll give a cash tip on the phone if you won't' and I'm like 'oh, gimme sec' and by the time I come back with the change (having left the door open!) he's gone! I even went outside after him in my thin shirt & pajama bottoms, but he was gone! GAH! So now I'm painfully, painfully guilty and I feel awful (it's the soft voice!!) and mourning my pizza, since now I won't have the guts to call them ever again -.-;; *facepalm* I'M SUCH A MOOOOROONNNNnnnn... ><;;; graaargh. Being softly chastised by a nice person is MUCH WORSE than being told off by an asshole. WAH.
I've been turning a halfway-studious eye on Flewelling's 'Luck in the Shadows', and I think-- I think the difficult part is not to make up weirdass environments for the pretty characters to 'play' in, but to always think of the human reasons and the human consequences for every societal or magical thingamabob you come up with-- now that's really hard. It's like... a society, all its ills and benefits, comes from a historical basis, so in order to understand your 'central' society (made-up or just any that's not currently 'yours', time-wise), you have to understand its allies, bordering nations, and of course its enemies. Further, you have to have some idea of what social forces drive it (for subtly different 'issues' drive every society, much as they naturally have in common, depending on the people's ethnic background and the natural resources, etc). Lastly, you have to remember there is always internal as well as external conflict, and all societies have to be non-homogenous-- ie, either naturally diverse or unnaturally stifled.
This seems a task less for unbridled imagination and more just-- for very step-by-step, rigorously logical thinking, and imagining myself doing that sort of makes me a bit green around the gills. Basically, even if I don't have a cast of at least 50 in a high fantasy (or any other-world) novel, I'd have to keep many, many more characters (and groups!) than that in mind, all in the background motivating the say, modestly interconnected group of dozen people I actually write about. And if you're thinking 'just a dozen??' then realize I'm thinking 'OMG A DOZEN WOULD BE 6 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE I GENERALLY HOLD IN MY HEAD AT ANY ONE TIME'.
In other words... I'm generally proud when I remember to put in something about Draco's dad in a fic. ^^;;; Although... to give myself -some- credit, I'd say that the more I write in a story-- in my latest H/D novella, anyway-- the more the characters naturally multiply without much volition; they just sort of seem to 'fit in' where there appears an 'empty spot' that suits that sort of person. So perhaps it's not all conscious logical step-by-step analysis. One can hope that sometimes it's a bit like a puzzle-- gets easier to 'see' the pieces the closer to done it is. And perhaps... perhaps societies are also built by something like a 'fractal' method, the way individuals are-- you start out with something small and simple & complexify outward according to certain basic directional 'arrows' you can follow. Or something. Though it's still really intimidating to look at the 'finished product', looking outward-in, rather than working outward from the inside. Le sigh.
It's not only people & groups interacting, though; years (decades! centuries!) of tiny little knotted threads of conflict and cooperation in human motivation create the tapestry of non-sentient aspects of a society as well-- like the laws, the philosophies, the architecture, the social hierarchy & power-structures; my god... even the language-use (slang) and the type of English you'd use for different sectors would have to shift. Even if this is just a foreign culture and not a made-up one, you have to know all this stuff, which seems about as effort-heavy as making it up (since it seems like if you know enough societies in this amount of depth, I suppose it's not so hard to mix-and-match and make stuff up).
Actually, this feeling of 'I have to know a lot more than I do' is why I feel sooo skittish about writing fanfic in any 'verse (or country!) I'm not naturally familiar with-- that isn't clear. I can't write any fic set in Japan (god no!) or Buffy's California 'cause I'm not familiar enough with it-- but I can write Harry's Wizarding Britain (loosely!) because a) it's not a coherent and densely worked-out enough of an 'other-world' and so has a larger-than-usual margin of error; b) I probably have studied Britain the most of any foreign country ever, so I feel I have at least 70% of the stuff I'd need to know if not in my head then easily acquired; c) any kind of school in any kind of society remains my 'home base'.
I think 80% of the reason I don't write other fandoms is that I'm so aware-- so aware-- that this isn't my culture (like, for either SGA, which I'm mostly unfamiliar with or Star Trek-- my most familiar sci-fi show-- I'd say military-science anything is just-- is totally alien to me even if I've watched similar shows before), and I feel totally lost.
Like, I feel I could imitate the characters and predict their reactions in familiar-enough situations easily enough, but... the scope of any fic I write would be deeply limited (to basically talking heads in a room). It's like, I'd need to really study everything to do with Star Trek and answer any questions I'd have left to my own satisfaction and create graphs and charts and appendixes before I could write a 'serious' story in it. And I've read/watched a huge part of canon in this fandom already! I really don't know how people manage to write long, in-depth fanfics with adventure plots without huge amounts of research. Maybe they're just more technically-minded and/or have different experiences than me to prepare them.
Anyway, I'm pretty aghast at everything I'll have to do (ie, write 3 books of reference for every book I write) if/when I write other-world fantasy/sci-fi myself. And 'other-world' would include historical novels, future-Earth novels, and anything set in a foreign culture or even a foreign social circle in -this- one, to a lesser extent. To make all this more depressing is the fact that I'm not that interested in my own subculture (whatever that might be), at least on an inspiration level. I don't want to write 'what I know'-- like, college-age computer/fantasy/etc geeks in love?-- and I'm overwhelmed by the demands of writing what I don't know. Gah. And of course, of course I can't lower my own standards... so if/when I write an other-world novel, it'll have to hold together tightly or I'll just scrap it. -.-;;;
~~
It's no news to anyone that knows me, but...I really suck with people, man. Ack. I 'forget' to give the pizza-guy his tip and he says in this soft voice, 'next time, don't say you'll give a cash tip on the phone if you won't' and I'm like 'oh, gimme sec' and by the time I come back with the change (having left the door open!) he's gone! I even went outside after him in my thin shirt & pajama bottoms, but he was gone! GAH! So now I'm painfully, painfully guilty and I feel awful (it's the soft voice!!) and mourning my pizza, since now I won't have the guts to call them ever again -.-;; *facepalm* I'M SUCH A MOOOOROONNNNnnnn... ><;;; graaargh. Being softly chastised by a nice person is MUCH WORSE than being told off by an asshole. WAH.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 08:47 pm (UTC)Sure you're not the first person to be faced with the damn writing would be hard thoughts. My I have yet to finish a novel because I know with my writing style it'd take me 3 times longer to revise it into something that would hold together than to write, and I'm really not sure how able I'd be at holding that those details together while revising.
World building, I cast such a big picture brief eye on it, that I tend to only think up details if they're needed. As long as I know the how and why to the world's differences from now, I let the details flow as that logic would depict while writing, although then yes there'd be a slew of clean up with a novel afterwards instead of before. Also I write almost all science fiction. At least then I'm only extrapolating from now, and I know now, I'm living in it.
Lastly, isn't especially fantasy, but science fiction as well, about making up something completely different and altered than what anyone knows? If I wanted to write about my life I'd write mainstream fiction.
And good luck with that other-world novel whenever you do get around to writing it.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-25 07:32 am (UTC)Theoretically, it'd probably help to write things down-- like, have notebooks full of reference or use one of the newer 'plotting' programs or something... I agree with whoever said above that it's a lot easier to write once you've got the world settled in your head anyway, even if the plot's still loose.
I think... it all depends on what you want from the story, what you're trying to tell. It's easy enough to 'just extrapolate' fast-and-loose from now or use some other time-period you're familiar with, but it all depends how much you care about your characters-- their validity both individually and in their settings. To me, even if I'm writing a plot or idea-based story, it's of manifest importance to interpret the idea using 'human' consequences & motivations to filter it. That's probably because I see -every- story as being basically driven by characterization, ideally, even if it's not written that way, because in real life, in any reality I know of (and given all fiction attempts to comment upon reality in some way)-- all of it is 'about' us by default. But that's a whole, um, philosophical stance.....
And of course, I wasn't denying that fantasy/sci-fi is about 'making up something completely different'-- it's just, it has to have inner consistency, and that means creating interconnections and using known parameters (like 'how do they eat' and 'how do they live' and 'what kind of religion do they have', 'what are their marital/mating rituals', etc). I would say, I guess, that no matter how different a society, if it contains sentient humanoids you could apply anthropological principles to understand it. So of course you're not writing about your life at that point, but you're still writing about people, which means they function in certain ways... some pretty complicated ways, ahaha.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-25 04:25 pm (UTC)It's easy enough to 'just extrapolate' fast-and-loose from now or use some other time-period you're familiar with, but it all depends how much you care about your characters-- their validity both individually and in their settings.
Oh the fast and loose must still be based on how real people, real world, created world and the rest work. If things aren't based in the writer's and more importantly the reader's sense of reality they always fail and usually come off as amature or silly. Me and my own thinking being rather firmly planted in reality is one reason why I think I have an problem writing most fantasy. Yes, it's just as based on reality, but adding magic is too outside my rooting for me to get a logical grasp of things so I can handle writing the world. Now you give me magic technology where I can reason around how lost technology made the magic happen, and a fantasy world makes sense again.
Lastly, yes, the lack of inner consistency is one thing that's likely most able to make fantasy/SF fail. There have to be rules, they have to followed, and the reader will pick up if you're not following them.