Tags:
  1. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2014
    Messages:
    2,392
    Likes Received:
    843

    Is this just an absurd idea?

    Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by GuardianWynn, Nov 14, 2015.

    So. All of my current work takes place inside of a universe. I was thinking of a character read a book her mother wrote. What if I wrote that book?

    Thing is. It has no value. It isn't a story. The book in this case is a guidebook. Or something like that.

    As in the mother in this case wrote a book about magic. How she learned to use it. As a guide to help others learn.

    What if I wrote such a book in her voice. Like completely and fully. Her mannerisms, her voice, referring to her life completely as it happened. As in nothing inside the book to give it away. Written exactly as it should be inside the other story.

    Is that just absurd? I mean, obviously a book like this has no value unless I suppose the universe I am writing in became popular. Even then it may have no value. I am curious if anyone has ever done anything like this. Or if you found out a writer wrote a book mentioned in his book. Would that make you curious? Even if it is a worthless book in the sense that it is a guide to something that doen't exist?

    And if did this. I would probably go as far as to have it published under the characters name. :D lol. Because that would be hilirious. lol.
     
  2. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2015
    Messages:
    2,403
    Likes Received:
    1,647
    Location:
    [unspecified]
    Not so far-fetched, really. I'm sure there are well-known authors who have done such things, especially in the fantasy genre. The only example I can think of ATM is Dean Koontz and his Book of Counted Sorrows. I have no idea if he ever wrote it, but he quotes from it in many of his novels. Perhaps he just comes up with a quote that suits the novel on the spur of the moment and attributes it to the Book, kind of his way of not having to pay royalties to a real book he might quote.

    But, if it's something you'd get a kick out of doing, just go ahead and do it.
     
    GuardianWynn likes this.
  3. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2014
    Messages:
    2,392
    Likes Received:
    843
    Probably not something I am going to do any time soon. I mean writing a book as if it a real reference guide book for my world. This sounds extremely hard. lol.
     
    Sack-a-Doo! likes this.
  4. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 11, 2013
    Messages:
    2,968
    Likes Received:
    2,007
    Location:
    Virginia, United States
    The Harry Potter series did it. Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them is a book by J.K. Rowling introduced in Harry Potter as a text book for school. It was just refenced at first, but she ended up writing the book and publishing it. The movie is coming out next year. So there's nothing unusual about what you want to do. If I could give one recommendation, though, it would be to make it either a short story or novella, something not as long as a normal book. If is isn't super important and doesn't have a huge plot, then there's a possibility it could be boring if dragged out too long. Keep it short, and I don't see any reason why it couldn't work.
     
    GuardianWynn likes this.
  5. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2014
    Messages:
    2,392
    Likes Received:
    843
    I am not an expert, but I don't think it has a plot. lol. As in, in the context of her world it would be a non-fiction reference guide. lol. Does that make sense?
     
  6. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 11, 2013
    Messages:
    2,968
    Likes Received:
    2,007
    Location:
    Virginia, United States
    You mean the book in your story is your characters non-fiction reference guide? That's fine. You can still make that interesting. J. K. Rowling literally did the same thing. In Harry Potter, Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them is a text book. They use it to learn about magical beasts. But someone still wrote the text book. So the novel J. K. wrote focuses on that guy -- following him around on his journey to find magical beasts.

    You can easily do the same thing. Don't write the exact book that your character reads. But write a story about the woman that wrote it, as she's writing it. The woman who wrote the book wrote it as a guide, sure. But she had to learn magic somehow. She had to experience it to write the book. So follow her. Make her just another character -- a woman learning how to use magic who keeps a log to help others.
     
    Viridian and GuardianWynn like this.
  7. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2014
    Messages:
    2,392
    Likes Received:
    843
    So you think it is a bad idea if it is the exact book she wrote?

    Funny enough, I was originally thinking of almost like half of that. In the sense that she wrote the book cataloging her experience. I still envisioned writing it like the exact book the character would read. But you think the book should be about her writing the book and not the book? That could be interesting in its own way. :D
     
  8. tonguetied

    tonguetied Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 23, 2014
    Messages:
    566
    Likes Received:
    231
    Location:
    Central Florida: land of fire and sand
    If you don't need to include too much information maybe you could just include it as an appendix to the main story.
     
  9. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2014
    Messages:
    2,392
    Likes Received:
    843
    Well. I don't need to do it. I sort of want to do it. Not now. I know I just could not handle the project now.

    I was just wondering how weird that sounds. I mean. What would you do if you found out a book was written. It was not intended to purposefully entertaining. It was a prop from the fictional universe brought to life in all its detail. Unedited. Not intending to be a story, but being 100% the book within the world. So written like a text book from another world. To the point of it even being published under the name of the character from the fictional world.

    I mean if you liked a series and found out that existed. Would you be curious or turned off by it not being converted into a story that is well a story?
     
  10. Doctore

    Doctore Member

    Joined:
    Oct 25, 2015
    Messages:
    60
    Likes Received:
    34
    First off I should say that I am Mr. Absurdity. Secondly I don't think this is odd in the least. What it is, I think, is something that could give you an extra spark. It sounds like a challenge and I say take it head on. Maybe this will become something, or it may be that this is the seed that grows and becomes something that you can use in the future on another project, similar or otherwise.

    I'm the type of person where if I learn there is extra material floating around about a book, movie, game etc, that I don't have...I WANT IT! So I say, go for it and best of luck when and if you do it!

    Oh and by the way, it DOES have value. If you write it, put your time and thoughts into it, the thing has value and there is a point.
     
    GuardianWynn likes this.
  11. Robert Musil

    Robert Musil Comparativist Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2015
    Messages:
    1,219
    Likes Received:
    1,387
    Location:
    USA
    In the context of a series I liked, I wouldn't be turned off at all. I might even be pretty excited. Of course, I'm the sort of inveterate completist who sits through Star Trek: The Animated Series or that mediocre Dawn of the Dead remake a few years back. What I'm saying is, if I like a certain series/franchise there isn't much it can produce that won't interest me. But of course that's just me. And that's not saying I'd pay money for all that stuff.

    I think the point is that it all depends on what you mean to do with it. Do you want to sell it as a standalone work? Use it as a story bible to help plot out your main narrative? Is it an exercise in world-building? Are you going to use excerpts from it in your "real" story? I think any of these could be legitimate ends. Although my instinct is that if you want to write it, write it and figure out what to do with it later.
     
    GuardianWynn likes this.
  12. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2014
    Messages:
    2,392
    Likes Received:
    843
    I was thinking more like this. At the end of a book. A character buys this book and reads a page. As she was an orphan and discovered that her birth mother wrote the book.

    The thought that hit me was this. "What if that book I had a page of. What if it actually existed!!!" I wondered if such thing exist would excite a reader or bore them. I don't much care about profit. I doubt a publisher would be interested in this sort of thing. At least, not unless the franchise was popular I guess. I was just wondering if this was something that had been done, if there was a standard for it. Or if it a stupid idea and that I should feel bad for even thinking it?
     
  13. Robert_S

    Robert_S Senior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 25, 2013
    Messages:
    876
    Likes Received:
    170
    Did you ever see the movie The Neverending Story or read the book?

    It has a pretty good, far-fetched idea that works within the context of that story.

    I think your idea is not so absurd. Start writing it.
     
    GuardianWynn likes this.
  14. Nikita Rader

    Nikita Rader New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 15, 2015
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Hello all! :D I recently started a novel, I have two unfinished ones, BUT, because I CARE about this story, I am taking some time really analyze it, and so I thought today I would ask for your guys help :D. I'm writing a novel and I'm trying to follow (the Hero's Journey theme by Joseph Campbell).


    Here goes and criticism would be VERY much appreciated: BASH ME, I wanted to be "pied in the face" so to speak. Ultimately, I'm looking for any suggestions of an internal conflict for Olivia and perhaps a blunder to introduce the owl operator or/and Mitchev, (The only one who has retuned from Acbar's Island) :3


    -This story takes place in the present (2015+)

    -The Protagonist is a girl named Olivia Beckett

    -Her Brother is Elliot

    -For the conflict I have that they don't get along, Elliot is very inquisitive while Olivia doesn't have many friends (Elliot is 10, Olivia is 14)

    -Their Parents drop them off at an Amusement Park, and throughout the park they hear about "Acbar's Island."

    -They hear how people have gone there and don't return, that a owl operator keeps their wristbands (since they're not needed for the ride)

    -Mitchev is the one who gives Elliot a flyer for the island of Acbar.


    -Elliot soon learns that Mitchev is the only one who has made it out from Acbar island (He's a man with an owl's head dressed in a business outfit)

    -Olivia trips, falls and has a vision about Acbar Island on her way to Mitchev

    -Mitchev attributes this to "Acbar's calling," and that Olivia is meant to got to Acbar island


    -Because of this they think its a scam and the ride has NEVER been moved because Acbar (the creator himself) has been trapped inside it.

    -It goes ON and ONE, eventually SKIPING WAY AHEAD, Oliva and Elliott go to the island (in search of the thirteen missing wristbands to clean up the Island, task assigned by the owl and also hopefully to find Acbar himself)

    -King Porkenstein is the main antagonist YES HE IS A PIG PEOPLE :3

    -King Porkenstein has a "Fruit Bowl Palace," off the end of the island and

    has a banana forest which he uses to create his banana crusaders

    -When Elliot first goes to the island of Acbar, he sees King Porkenstein’s pluming system cut and finds a torn wristband along with a trail of Jelly (leads him to Jelly Jacket Camp) Elliot gets the wrong idea and is hostile to Jelly Jackets (When they are really the Good guys, from a point of view)

    -The banana guards assigned to the Jelly Jacket camp, find Elliot and Olivia

    -King Porkenstein’s plumbing unit is codenamed “Coaxaca,” (A name King Porkenstein came up with from his crave for chocolate) and was constructed entirely out of sixty four cereal straws.

    -Porkenstein’s guards (banana guards I should say) bring Elliot and Olivia to King Porkenstein’s Fruitbowl Palace.

    -King Porkenstein is delighted to have them, and invites them to a feast

    - Olivia is separated from Elliot and taken into the Queen’s quarters, where she is groomed and given a beautiful dress made from pumpkin spice

    -Once King Porkenstein’s servants leave, Olivia notices that it gets extraordinary hot in the room. The frame of one of the paintings in the Queens' quarters starts to jiggle (A body of a Jelly Jacket pops out of it)


    My main lesson or theme in mind is: Lose Your MIND and COME to your sense, also its a reconciliation of a siblings.


    My ONLY question and CONCERN is how can I include “A blunder—apparently the merest chance—reveals an unsuspected world, and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood.” AND how do I SHOW, NOT tell?


    If you would like a sample I may email it to you. I'm a very aspiring YOUNG teen writer who DESPERATELY wants his book published :3. Often times I just get so discouraged BECAUSE I'm usually not this open to sharing. (It's not even in order yet I'm REALLY bad at putting plot together I have ADHD XD)
     
  15. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2014
    Messages:
    2,392
    Likes Received:
    843
    Why did you post this inside this thread? This looks off topic. Why didn't you start a thread?
     
    tonguetied likes this.
  16. sprirj

    sprirj Senior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 2, 2009
    Messages:
    561
    Likes Received:
    193
    Wtf?
     
    GuardianWynn likes this.

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice