1. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Beyond the Fields We Know

    Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by Teladan, Aug 19, 2020.

    The 'otherworld' is my main interest and though I'll admit a large part of this is escapism, the exploration of an 'ideal' realm, I'm also interested in thresholds and the interaction of the fantastic with the mundane. My main inspirations for this would be The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lud-in-the-Mist and the Ryhope Wood cycle. Tolkien counts if I limit this to his Faerie essays and his shorts like Leaf by Niggle. Some of George Macdonald's stories discuss these themes as well. In short, I want to write a novella about entering another world, journeying beyond 'The Gate'. I think I've done enough literary reading to begin, but it's just about the most difficult problem I can think of when it comes to setting development.

    To put it bluntly, I love archaic speech and romanticism, but I don't want this otherworld to be a generic secondary world à la Middle Earth. Certainly not. But I'm also not a fan of overt world-building and don't really have an interest in creating a world with fully fleshed out history and politics for this novella--because I've already done that. Since 2016 or thereabouts I've worked on a personal project which has now reached upwards of 400 pages, has maps, audio-dramas and short films dedicated to it. I want to write a story set half in the real world and half in this new fantasy world, but I can't imagine what lies beyond the threshold. My main character will have already entered beyond The Gate and have come into the ideal world, his problems alleviated, his desires fulfilled, but his brother and his friend will have to find him, seek out the hidden land. I just don't know what that hidden land is yet.

    The concept that's lingering in my mind right now is of a fantasy world which is more ephemeral and fragmentary, the inward desires or fears of the protagonists, moulding its environs. This would be in place of a fleshed out medievalesque world or something similar where the protagonists simply adventure through a secondary world and are changed. It would be more akin to Ryhope Wood which, as some of you may know, exists via mythogenic forces in the observer's mind. But whereas Holdstock's writing is historical and mythical, almost scientific in its terminology, I would have a more vague and esoteric feeling. The three main characters would journey through pockets or microcosms of lands according to their whims or fears. If one is a botanist, he might see trees as large as mountains. A long lost pet might return golden-coated and full of health. But there may also be deeper, darker realms lying in wait.

    But there are many metaphysical processes to consider. How does the world function? How does one enter it? Where did The Gate come from? Is it an arch of stone in a forest or a hole in the ground under a rock the protagonists used to sit upon? In some ways this is much harder than a secondary world.

    Is this in any way interesting? I realise this post is quite vague, but it's been helpful to write out. I wonder if anyone has had similar ideas or loves this kind of fantasy literature and these themes?
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2020
  2. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Very. I am minded of M. John Harrison's words concerning worldbuilding and his disdain for the usual manner in which the idea is approached. Most people who read his essay take away the idea that his stories must take place in a blank white space. Reading his work evinces that nothing could be further from the truth. What he rails against is precisely what you mention, the attempt to create a kind of pedantically rationalized system of cladistics concerning things, happenstances, and phenomena that is then fed to the reader via a primary channel of the narrative. In such a system, all things engaged are known. There is little mystery in this kind of approach, little room for chaos in forms large and small, the smaller version being the difference between real movement of three dimensional objects and the still-too-smooth CGI versions that break our suspension of disbelief.
     
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  3. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Excellent post, Wreybies. Thank you. I've never seen that article before, nor heard of the author. I'll look into both. And yes, whilst I do enjoy Robert Holdstock's stories set in Mythago Wood/Ryhope Wood, at times they're brutally scientific to the put of inducing nausea; far too many terms and explanations. I wouldn't want that. I think I would like to achieve something closer to Dunsany's Elfland where the protagonist steps beyond a kind of magical barrier at the edge of a field then adventures through a timeless realm full of beauty and mystery, nothing explained. Perhaps somewhere in the middle though since my interest is examining thresholds and understanding the power of fantasy. If there's no mention of how things work at all, it might as well be a secondary world where everything in it is taken for granted. I'm thinking at least of a guide figure who previously helped in the initiation of this brother who took the first step into what I'm calling 'The Gate'. Having entered this strange place he realises he can contact his older brother and his best friend, the seekers, by manipulating small pockets in the real world. I'm thinking this other world is linked to memories and old haunts. This is all up the air of course. Thanks again.

    Edit: Essentially I'd want to keep world building to a minimum and have the characters be the main focus otherwise the writing and emotion goes out the window. The problem is trying to justify the otherworld in as few technical words and concepts as possible. I can imagine it'll be hard not to want to go back to the source of things and try to flesh out why all this might exist.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2020
  4. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    That's possibly one of the best essays I've ever read on the subject. I agree with much of what is discussed, but not everything. I don't particularly have a quarrel with secondary worlds as secondary worlds, that is the understanding that reading is not a game. I'm fine with stories being taken as handed down truths since that can be immersive. What I struggle with is the enthusiasm for technical details such as magic systems, different races and their biology, atmospheric variables, etc. All of that, to me, is just pseudo-science which fits more in a phoney journal than a work of fiction. My own world does have history, sure, but it's still about the characters. I certainly don't think worldbuilding needs to be thrown out as some kind of defunct Victorian creator-dictatorship, and I'm not sure I support a postmodern "we're all playing a game" attitude. On that latter note, I like fantasy worlds to be sources of reverence in the minds of the characters, so I don't think I can say I agree with it all being a kind of tongue-in-cheek experiment. But I do think everything needs to be balanced. Perhaps the best type of worldbuilding is elusive and soft, allowing the reader free reign to imagine. That's essentially what the works I mentioned in my first post are like, almost airy and light--like ancient fables or myths--and not at all concerned with giving a reason for every single element in the world. This is what I tried to do in a short story I posted here called The Gate. It was maybe a little too strange, but it wasn't worldbuilding in the usual sense, not at all.
     
  5. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    Hmm. I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but I take an approach with my Dying Earth stories that I make s**t up as I need it to happen. There's virtually no consistency in the overall world but individual scenarios are consistent within themselves. If I need it to happen, it happens. The "why" is not really important, unless it drives the story.

    What that creates in the mind of the reader is a world where *anything* can happen because there are no boundaries. no set limits. I don't need the readers to be wondering if character A can cast spell B because he has component X or enough mana or whatever. If I need him to cast spell X, he just will. If I need a society of people to be in the story who play some weird game of human sex-chess to win the right to be eaten by the living monolith that has to be reassembled from gemstones after every meal, that's what happens.

    I'm actually about to start writing a fantastical short story that blends Arthurian myth with other contemporary folklore - and I call it fantastical, rather than fantasy, because I want to create a air that is more similar to a fairytale than a traditional fantasy story. I don't want the readers to care about where the sea-horse came from, or the whys and wherefores of how its species lives.

    I think the key is to create the appropriate expectation in the readers' minds.
     
  6. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    That's definitely helpful as it tells me others are thinking similar ideas; nice to know that dynamism and free-form creation of worlds in fantastical fiction is acceptable and condoned. I've always felt that modern fantasy is too strict which is why, ignoring my more traditional secondary world, I usually write about people falling from the sky or wandering through a world that hasn't even been created yet. I like the atmosphere and characters to shine, if I can make them, as opposed to glorifying the almost meta process of writing. That's why I can never get behind those sub-Reddits dedicated to world-building where each post is usually like, "What is YOUR elf race like and why is it unique?" or "Tell us your creation myth," or "How can I make this magic system believable?" It's too much like filling out a template. It should be writing (character, emotion, conflict) not world building (details, facts, technicalities). Which is exactly what Wreybies' article suggests. To be blunt, I think everyone's writing should tend toward the literary and focus on human conflicts. Hell, even Ashton Smith, who famously wrote from a cosmic perspective, wasn't even concerned with world building.
     
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  7. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    Oh, I write those as well. It just depends what kind of story I want to write. If you're interested, my Dying Earth stories are in the workshop, called "Rufin's Journey" and "A Tale of a Dying Earth".
     
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  8. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    I look at it like this. If as a reader, I find your story and your characters engaging, then I'll become interested in your world. That's why I can't be bothered with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. The world might be funky and all that, but the characters are cardboard cutouts.
     
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  9. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Maybe take another approach. There was a time when Earth as we know it was NOT known to the people who lived here. Or at least there was the part the world they knew, and the parts they didn't. So stepping outside their known world (and comfort zone) brought them face to face with many things that seemed magical at the time, and for which they had no real explanation.

    If you can get 'back' to that time, back to a time when we not only didn't know everything in a scientific way, but KNEW that we didn't know everything in a scientific way—so we had to make up a story about the things we didn't understand—that might lead you to a mindset you can use.

    Imagine walking hundreds of miles through country you've never seen before, then suddenly a huge fountain of hot water erupts into the air in front of you. Wow. We know it's a geyser, and we know what causes it ...but what if you didn't? That would be something, wouldn't it? Or you journey from your mountain home, through dark forests that teem with animals you've never seen before, and smell of plants you aren't familiar with at all, and then suddenly something assails your nostrils that you've never smelled before ...and the horizon thins, opens up, and everything is water, as far as the eye can see. Water that crashes on the shore. Wow.

    Or you look out onto the sea, from your home in a tropical land, surrounded by jungle, plant and animal life that are familiar to you, and you spot something you've never seen before. A wooden object moving towards you, topped with white squares of cloth. And a small craft leaves the big object, and approaches your shore. And wow. They seem human, but they don't look anything like humans you've ever seen before. They have pale skins, blue eyes. And they carry sticks that make a huge bang. And they seem to be threatening you....

    You would not be able to explain these things. You would just need to accept them and work with them. And learn.
     
  10. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Hi, Jannert. Wonder will certainly play a large role in the story. I do like the idea and it's one of the reasons I've almost always written fantasy, but I think the historical ignorance viewpoint has been played out too much, no? It's quite a common narrative among humanistic or scientific texts generally that the first stories tried to explain what the storytellers had no means of understanding. That's the whole point of comparative mythology, too. I think I could use certain elements of it, but it might not be a major theme, this unknown earth. I'm thinking more a long the lines of the inward struggles or desires of the main characters being made manifest in some way. Thanks for the input and nice inspirational writing.
     
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  11. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Think of how you confront things there is no scientific explanation for at the moment. What happens to 'us' after death, for example? Something obviously will or won't, but at the moment we can only guess. So 'we' as cultures devise stories about what we think or hope will happen, and present them as done deals. Different cultures come up with wildly different 'explanations.' We die and go to heaven, which is everything we've ever hoped for, if we've been good—or the fires of hell if we haven't. We die and go to the Underworld, where everybody still lives. We die and return to earth as something or somebody else. Nobody knows for sure if any of these stories are actually true, so folks rely on 'faith' in the story they prefer.

    See if you can put yourself, as a writer, in the shoes of those whose everyday lives are confronted with these kinds of unknowable mysteries. Why does somebody get so sick so quickly? Today we know it's some kind of virus or bacterial infection. But 500 years ago, they made up stories to 'explain' these things. Humours. Curses. Bad night air.

    In other words, you don't need to construct a foolproof 'world' before you can start to write a fantasy story. Fantastical things exist. There is no (present) explanation for them. So just go ahead and explore what you find 'out there.' :)
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2020
  12. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    Just remember - it's called fantasy for a reason.
     
  13. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Yeah, again, I'm actively in favour of fantasy as fantasy. I've been saying that fantasy should be anti-scientific in the best sense, unrestricted by many of the rules of modern fantasy 'worldbuilding' novels and their accompanying ethos.

    Maybe I read the tone incorrectly? Was it just a helpful general reminder?
     
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  14. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    No, just a general comment. Too many people want to write fantasy as if it was reality.
     
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  15. Aldarion

    Aldarion Active Member

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    Eh, as long as your world makes sense / is consistent internally, it doesn't matter whether it makes sense - if that makes sense. Basically, world you build should not contradict itself; but as long as it does not contradict itself, it does not matter whether stuff is explained or not. I may be obsessive hairsplitter in my worldbuilding, but even I don't try to explain processes behind outright fantasy stuff. Does it matter why dead can walk, why they can only be killed by swords, why dragons can fly, how magic functions? No. What matters is how these elements impact the world itself, how people and society in general react to them. That is what you should be focusing on, and only figure out inner workings of the world insomuch as it would help you to understand relationship of the world to the people living in it or else interacting with it.
     
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  16. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    It's perfectly fine for a fantasy world to contradict itself, if it adds to the story and is believable.

    Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has almost nothing that is consistent.
     
  17. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Indeed. As I say, I have about 400 pages worth of 'proper' world building and I'm fairly used to how it all works. I understand the need for internal consistency--Wonderland aside--it's just that I'm going to attempt to write a story which will not be a secondary world at all. It'll be almost meta in the sense that the protagonists will know, in some way, that what they've entered is not their own world. They will delight in what they see there, but they will also fear what they find as well. The key issues at the moment are 1) how much or how little to delineate terms and give a technical side to things, 2) what exactly is in this world in the first place. I realise I'm talking about practically nothing here since none of this is formulated yet. I just wanted to write this thread to help put my thoughts down and discuss potential ideas with others. Currently, having done a little bit more work on the conception, I'm leaning toward a world closer to Phanstastes, that is a strange realm full of fragmentary visions of knights and wisps and the like. Essentially anything that the protagonists can conjure. But it fundamentally won't be a generic medieval world; any character that comes close to this will likely fade in an instant. No deep history, no politics, nothing. It will, hopefully, give the impression of a dream state. Huge trees with purple leaves for the botanist, a never-ending valley for the painter character, etc. Cheers.
     
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  18. Not the Territory

    Not the Territory Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    I think a reasonable level of tangible world-building can be helpful, but only a small fraction of what people seem to think is necessary. Ideally, yes, the writer would focus on man vs man, man vs nature etc...

    This creation urge, coined as world-building disease, seems to be caused by highly derivative thinking. It doesn't only come from books, either. I think games (video or otherwise) are a major culprit, because they DO have a lot of lore and magic systems and details. It's often that people get inspired by one medium's art and try to cram that into another, but they lack the wisdom to truly understand just how the different media compare. You see this with overlong unnecessary character descriptions that are unloaded as soon as they come into the narrative, unintentional fully omniscient POV, and 'action' scenes that are just... things happening with little contextual meaning.

    It doesn't help that it's a lot easier to catalogue one's several token Tolkein races (no, my orcs are different because they're blue!) than face the complexities of effective long-form storytelling.
     
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  19. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    You're exactly right. I think I know the sorts of books to which you're referring. That's why I tend to stick with old fantasy for the most part. In fact if you look at literary fantasy authors from the 1920s-1950, it's pretty clear they weren't bothered about a particular type of market. They had free reign to write what they wanted. Dunsany's stories are anti-fantasy, that is they're completely distinct from the, dare I say it, edgy magic-wielding anti-hero action epics of the modern era. Hope Mirrlees wrote a story about a middle aged mayor coming to terms with the inevitability of the fantastic... Macdonald's stories were about children and adulthood, sometimes very perplexing, deeply layered and cosmological in their significance.
     
  20. TheOtherPromise

    TheOtherPromise Senior Member

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    It sounds to me like you want your fantasy world to be essentially a dream world. As a big fan of dream worlds (from the aforementioned Wonderland to Silent Hill's Otherworld and Psychonauts' Mental Worlds) I say go for it. Since it's a type of portal fantasy the world is grounded by the real one so the fantasy one can be as ephemeral as you want.

    I wrote a dream world story for one of the short story contests on this site (March's Spring contest if you're curious), but I wouldn't consider it very good.
     
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  21. Aldarion

    Aldarion Active Member

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    Considering what you wrote, I am not certain you need to explain technical side to things at all. Sometimes (oftentimes?) it is better to not explain everything. I am big fan of PoV or pseudo-PoV narrator (that is to say, third person limited) precisely because the fact that the characters don't know everything means the narrator doesn't know everything, which then means that reader too is not well informed - leaving area for speculation. You may try to use similar approach here - give hints, maybe bits and pieces of explanation, but do not try to explain everything. Or, rather, explain only things you have to. Let readers fill in the blanks themselves. Of course, you may still want to work out things "beyond the scenes" for yourself, but you don't need to explain them.
     
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