Playing God
by glendalarke on Mar.30, 2010, under Celine Kiernan and Glenda Larke
It looks as if I am the first to the party - I guess because Tuesday starts earlier here; I live in Malaysia. Terry is still in bed in the US and Celine is just getting up in Ireland.
I believe the topic is world-building, which for me is the fun part of writing. Perhaps because it buys into a delusional idea of a writer being god-like? There is something liberating about commencing with a clean sheet of paper and ending up with an entire universe. (“Creation? Sure, I can do that!”) It takes me a bit longer than six days, though, and so far I have drawn the line at going off-world.
In reality, the world-building starts long before I ever put the first word on paper. Just as a story is one little idea at a time, so it is with creating a whole new world. It has to start with an idea that takes me somewhere new, exciting, different. And I build upwards and outwards from that. I spend months thinking about it.
Funnily enough, the concept for the world of my first trilogy was born because I was mad at someone. He made a mocking remark about how he didn’t like fantasy because fantasy novels were all the same – a medieval monarchy or imperial empire surrounded by barbarian wastes; a place where royalty inhabited castles with dungeons, peasants battled wolves and boars in dark forests and heroes went on quests across jagged mountains and hid in caves. And there was no technology beyond a blacksmith’s forge.
Huh, I thought, fuming. I’ll show you! The next book I write won’t have a castle or a mountain or a forest or a cave or a wolf or a king… Dammit, it won’t even have a tree! And it won’t be medieval, either.
And so The Isles of Glory trilogy had as its setting an archipelago about to clash with a developing technology-based culture exploring from a far-off mainland. I envisaged the time period to fall technologically about 200 years ago, let’s say the earth equivalent of British exploration between Captain Cook (1770s), and Darwin aboard The Beagle (1830s). All the ships, and much of the weaponry and other technology falls within this period. The first book, The Aware, took place on a flat sand spit that had no trees, no mineral wealth, no horses or other land animals for transport – and just one ramshackle town.
Which presented its own challenges. How does a writer make a sand spit in the middle of the ocean interesting? Gorthan Spit obviously would have to depend on the sea. Fish and seaweed for food. Shark-skin for leather. Whale bones for all sorts of things. Flotsam and jetsam for building material, naturally cemented sea shells for building blocks, some kind of sea creature for transport…gradually I began to picture that land. I began to smell it, hear the sounds of it. Taste the food. To know the kinds of things people on this sand spit would fear most.
But why would such a society exist in the first place? It sounds a pretty unpleasant island. Smelly with fish, hot with blinding white sands, not enough fresh water for much washing or cleaning, dependent on tides, subject to storms ― definitely not a place for the well-to-do.
Ah, but what if it was a place where other islands, more prosperous, threw their unwanted people ― the criminals, the citizenless, the diseased? Such a place might be attractive to runaways, or to priests coming to succor or convert, to slavers, to bounty hunters looking for the wanted. With that thought, I had my my protagonists: a priest in search of a runaway and a citizenless bounty hunter. And who would have the power on an island like that? Those who could use magic - and those who could see the magic.
And there you have the beginnings of the story.
The way it works for me is that the story and the world evolve together, side by side as the ideas for both emerge, to be taken on board or discarded. And the aim with the world-building is this: it has to feel real ― in spite of its fictional nature. And that means taking care with the details. People aren’t going to be able to eat beef on Gorthan Spit. When you walk the streets of the town, the fish scales are going to scrunch underfoot. The environment is going to impact the inhabitants. If you want a doctor, he’s unlikely to be a good one, not in a place like this. A bounty hunter is going to have to be physically strong and savvy. Scavenging is going to be a way of life.
In the following books, I expanded the world to other islands and other ideas. (A modern equivalent would be the Indonesia, where each island tends to have its own culture and social structure.) In the second book, Gilfeather, I took a look at whether an ecologically sustainable society can really exist, and if it did, wouldn’t it be a very restrictive sort of place to live? In Book 3, The Tainted, it was the idea of a bore tide being used for transport ― sort of the ultimate surfing thrill ― and how would that impact the culture and the hierarchical structure of society.
And the ultimate irony? One of the first reviews of The Aware started with the words: “In this medieval island world, Glenda Larke has…” Sometimes it is hard to shake the perceptions of readers who have preconceived ideas about fantasy novel settings!
I can talk about all this stuff forever, so if you have any questions, ask away, and I’ll do my best to answer.
Glenda
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March 30th, 2010 on 9:55 am
That’s fascinating Glenda, it is well recognised that you are skilled at world building and I find it interesting how you come up with your ideas. Your latest books obviously hark back to Australia and the frequent droughts, but you certainly don’t use the medieval “stuff” in your stories. I have just had an email from an author who says she dreamed her latest book in one night and wrote it down the next morning. That sounds a bit like fantasy to me.
March 30th, 2010 on 10:00 am
I have just received this book, and I am really excited to get into it. This is a really interesting take on the “fantasy” world. I really like the idea of where the world came from, and the story evolving with it. They good old “why” question. Thank you for sharing this with us. It opens my eyes a little more to hear stories like this with where the ideas come from.
May I ask how long you may have been working on the story line?
Thank you for sharing!
March 30th, 2010 on 1:14 pm
I would have just called that guy lazy, and told him to go read more fantasy. But that’s not exactly conducive to the creative process…
Your world does sound pretty fascinating, though.
March 30th, 2010 on 10:11 pm
Melissa - I am now working on my 10th books and I seem to have fallen into a pattern: while I am writing a book, I am actually thinking about the next one. So each book gets a solid year of thought! Weirdly, and I am sure unlike most writers, I tend to make no notes. It’s all in my head.
Jo - I wish I could just dream a book up in a night! So easy…
Adam - maybe I should thank him! Lol… It is odd, though; for past 15 years I would say that most fantasy novels don’t involve medieval worlds, or if they do in a technological sense, then the rest of the world is so twisted that it is certainly nothing like medieval Earth. But this idea is so entrenched in reviewers’ minds that every book of mine receives at least one review that says something like: “This is not your usual medieval fantasy…”
March 30th, 2010 on 10:56 pm
I must admit my very first published book didn’t start with the idea for a world. It started like this:
My sister, niece and I were sitting around a table looking at a chart of part of the Australian outback where we were planning a trip. What we didn’t know was whether the roads so nicely drawn on the map would be passable. There had some recent heavy rains, and in that part of Australia it often means causeways are washed out and rivers uncrossable, while unsurfaced roads become bog heaven, even to 4WDs.
One of us remarked, ‘What we need is a map that shows exactly what it’s like right NOW.’
Bingo. Maps that moved to tell you what it’s like on the ground at the moment. My mind moved into gear…think what you could do! You could see an army approaching. Smugglers crossing your borders.
Next thought: What sort of a world would really appreciate a map like that? One where the very land was unstable. Where the earth itself moved…
And who would be the person especially revered by travellers? The mapmaker!
And the ideas for HAVENSTAR, written under my married name of Glenda Noramly, were off and running…
March 31st, 2010 on 1:32 am
Agreed. Of all the writer’s I’ve read in the past few years, maybe one series fits in that “medieval” type world, but even that is a stretch (for the record, it’s Brent Week’s Night Angel series), because like you mentioned, it’s only “medieval” in the technological sense, with some feudal aspects tossed in for good measure.
Lately I’ve actually noticed quite a lot of renaissance-ish worlds: Pat Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie, and Scott Lynch’s worlds are definitely based on renaissance models, with differing aspects of the worlds much more reminiscent of that than Medieval. Come to think of it, the only world I can think of that is intentionally, heavily based on a medieval European setting is Westeros, and that’s done with such detail that it hardly matters. Not even Tolkien is “medieval”.
I hate to say it, but I really do think a lot of it is a lack of historical knowledge on the part of the reviewers or readers. A “sword” will always be a longsword, even if it’s intended to be a rapier, or kopis, or a cavalry saber, and god help you if you mention chain mail, or plate armor. I’ve written some fantasy of my own, based largely on a pre-hellenistic greek setting, and people who’ve read it consistently misunderstand the setting. Not sure if that’s a failing on my part or their’s, but it all seems pretty clear to me.
March 31st, 2010 on 4:42 am
Yes, I think you are right, Adam. I am a lucky individual - I have lived all over the world, traveled a lot, read a lot. I’m garnered a lot of knowledge in that time, and probably lived longer than most of my readers. I sometimes (often?) assume too much about the knowledge of my readers. Gets me into trouble sometimes!
It is a difficult decision to make as a writer. As a reader, there’s nothing I loathe more than a writer who talks down to me or who oversimplifies the topic, and yet I don’t want to jerk readers out of their belief zone either.
Here’s an example:
In the book I am writing at the moment I wrote of a man meeting his brother for the first time in years. In the dialogue, they dropped back into the village accent of their childhood as they chatted. Now I know this happens in real life all the time because my husband - the scientist with the Ph.D - does this. In fact, Malaysians are constantly doing this all the time, which is exasperating for someone like me who speaks only the standard language and finds the dialects difficult. Linguistically there is even a term for this, and a cultural explanation for it - it is a way of saying: “Look, I am still one of you guys even though I’ve been away!”.
When one of my beta readers read the dialogue she queried me, implying it was ridiculous and of course they wouldn’t do that!
So, do I write the scene the way I know it would happen in real life and be accused of being unrealistic - or not?
March 31st, 2010 on 9:10 am
10 books! That is amazing! I enjoyed reading the comment on the moving map and world. I am going to have to look for Havenstar now at the stores. It sounds like a great idea and book. I visited your site and saw the book over there and thought I would start digging around for it to get more on it and see if I can find a copy here in the US.
Thank you!
March 31st, 2010 on 11:38 am
Melissa, you are unlikely to find it in a secondhand shop in the USA as it was only published in the UK. Try eBay, or Amazon - or wait a while. I am working on having it republished, perhaps as an ebook and/or a print-on-demand.
March 31st, 2010 on 12:30 pm
Adam: I hate to say it, but I really do think a lot of it is a lack of historical knowledge on the part of the reviewers or readers.
Yup, though my novels are set technologically in 1500, they are constantly referred to as ‘medieval’ and not renaissance.