Too Much Thinking?

[C Hollis]

OMG! You can't have him using sandpaper! They used glasspaper in the time frame your make believe world should be emulating!
He's checking his mailbox? What the heck? Did you not do any research at all? Mailboxes didn't come into existence until...
They clogged up his plumbing? Plumbing? Seriously, you need to look into this, because indoor plumbing wasn't widely used until...
Elves do not have pointy ears!
Crystals that are used to power a hyperdrive vehicle cannot be red. Red crystals are only used for...

So I take a gander at the top of the page and I read The Art of Fantasy Storytelling. Yet, nestled in this wonderful community are threads about the reality of swords, archery, castles, bleeding out, etc. Many of us seem to obsess over staying true to the reality of things in our made up worlds.

Don't take me wrong; I'm not knocking this. I have several texts that cover various historical cultures, with many that go into great detail on their daily lives. I've even gone so far as to have long conversations with my cousin about certain aspects of cultures he has studied and trinkets he's found on his digs.

The artist for my book covers pokes fun at me when I talk about some of the research I do for my fantasy world. But, I have always felt there needed to be some semblance of reality embedded to pull the reader into my made up world.

But, on that same token: This is my world. If you don't like it, move on.

After reading (for the umpteenth time) a mega-fantasy classic, and coming across several things that many of us would cringe at because they were 19th and 20th century inventions, I have questions for the group:

Do we tend to waste too much time trying to make our fantasy worlds too real?
Do we waste this energy in an effort to appease the uber fantasy geek?
Maybe you don't think it's a waste. Maybe you feel it is necessary. Why?

 

[Philip Overby]

OMG! You can't have him using sandpaper! They used glasspaper in the time frame your make believe world should be emulating!
He's checking his mailbox? What the heck? Did you not do any research at all? Mailboxes didn't come into existence until...
They clogged up his plumbing? Plumbing? Seriously, you need to look into this, because indoor plumbing wasn't widely used until...
Elves do not have pointy ears!
Crystals that are used to power a hyperdrive vehicle cannot be red. Red crystals are only used for...

Yes, this looks familiar.

So I take a gander at the top of the page and I read The Art of Fantasy Storytelling. Yet, nestled in this wonderful community are threads about the reality of swords, archery, castles, bleeding out, etc. Many of us seem to obsess over staying true to the reality of things in our made up worlds.

Don't take me wrong; I'm not knocking this. I have several texts that cover various historical cultures, with many that go into great detail on their daily lives. I've even gone so far as to have long conversations with my cousin about certain aspects of cultures he has studied and trinkets he's found on his digs.

The artist for my book covers pokes fun at me when I talk about some of the research I do for my fantasy world. But, I have always felt there needed to be some semblance of reality embedded to pull the reader into my made up world.

But, on that same token: This is my world. If you don't like it, move on.

This is a challenge every writer is going to come across. Even in fantasy writing, there has to be that believability factor to what is happening. If an anachronism jerks the reader out of the story, then you've lost them. However, I lean towards your perspective personally. I think people tend to think anything with swords and dragons is medieval and expect the story to "sound like fantasy." I personally prefer writing in a more modern style. I know people probably didn't say "Yeah" in medieval times, but my story is a fantasy world. So for me, I use the language and settings I want. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Everyone can't be happy.

After reading (for the umpteenth time) a mega-fantasy classic, and coming across several things that many of us would cringe at because they were 19th and 20th century inventions, I have questions for the group:

Do we tend to waste too much time trying to make our fantasy worlds too real?

Not sure if it's a waste of time for some people, but for me, yes it can be. I used to be a hard and heavy world-builder. Maps, histories, the whole nine yards. Nothing is wrong with doing that, but I found myself obsessing over dead languages, old empires and such that had nothing to do with my actual story. Sure, it was fun to write and added some background for myself, but most of it would never make the story.

One thing about fantasy is that it isn't hard science fiction. If you're writing hard SF, you need to know what you're talking about. That fan base can scrutinize every aspect of something and tear it apart piece by piece. A recent example of this might be the movie "Gravity" which a lot of people with knowledge of astrophysics crapped all over. Was the movie entertaining though? Yeah, a lot of people said so.

So for me, time spent not writing my story is time wasted. I world-build as I go now and when I do make more extensive notes, I do it for about an hour and that's it.

Do we waste this energy in an effort to appease the uber fantasy geek?

Again this depends on what audience you're trying to reach. If you're writing something like Arthurian legend, you may want to pay attention to little details. However, if you're writing in your own world and have your own style to it, I wouldn't worry about that as much. I'm technically an uber fantasy geek, but I enjoy fiction for what it is. If it isn't something that I want it to be, then that doesn't make me hate it. I'll just think, "Maybe he or she should have done this instead." That's one thing great about reviews. Even if someone dislikes one part of a story (historical inaccuracies) they may still love the characters and plot. For me, immersion is important, but the best authors do this so well, you don't notice the plumbing, so to speak.

Maybe you don't think it's a waste. Maybe you feel it is necessary. Why?

A certain amount of it is necessary, I think. However, obsessing over tiny details is something best saved for later drafts. I find that a lot of writers may spend loads of time developing a world and when they start writing their story they get this "World>Story" complex where their world is so awesome, no story is good enough or does it justice. I always think it should be the opposite myself. The story should be as awesome as you can make it and then the world-building makes things pop and glitter so people can marvel at all the intricacies along the way instead of being distracted by them or obsessing over them.

So those are my thoughts. Good discussion point!

 

[Svrtnsse]

I think it's not so much about making it realistic as it is about making it believable. By this I mean that I want the world to make sense, at least from my perspective. I've spent a fair bit of time researching various aspects of reality to try and incorporate them into my world in a way that I like.

I believe that I as a reader have a certain threshold for what I will accept when reading something. I don't have issues with dragons breathing fires or gnomes shooting frost bolts or maidens in lakes distributing swords as a means of deciding the leader of a government. These things are fine and perfectly normal.
However, if the author shows normal everyday details that I'm familiar with and gets them wrong I will raise an eyebrow.

Do we tend to waste too much time trying to make our fantasy worlds too real?
Do we waste this energy in an effort to appease the uber fantasy geek?
Maybe you don't think it's a waste. Maybe you feel it is necessary. Why?

1. If your goal is to write a story in the world the time it takes to make the world real is only wasted if it gets in the way of actually writing the story.
2. No, I do it because I enjoy it.
3. I don't think it's a waste, because it's something I enjoy doing.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I think some disciplines are more important than others in worldbuilding, because some rules are harder than others. Inventions are fluid--a device can be invented a thousand years later in one place than in another place. Geography is sticky--Christopher Paolini drew a lot of heat for that world map that showed a river going through a mountain range, because that's just not something rivers do.

 

[Sheilawisz]

My opinion is that many people indeed give way too much importance to creating realistic worlds, believable stories, acceptable geography, plausible magic systems, historically accurate settings and all of that.

This quest for being realistic in Fantasy is something that I do not agree with, and I was very surprised by this type of thinking when I joined Mythic Scribes almost two years ago. I am a writer of unrealistic style Fantasy, after all... I think that the Fantasy literature these days is favoring the realistic style, and that's why many writers want to follow that path.

We can have both styles, why not?

You can find readers that seek very believable and realistic stories, while others want pure escapism and impossible worlds.

Another thing that I have noticed is that world-building is given more importance than the storytelling itself, and in my opinion, that is something that we should change.

 

[Malik]

I'm cool with inventions; this is not time travel. Neither is this sci-fi. But if I'm reading fantasy and somebody does something that simply does not -- ever -- work, it's like a segfault. I tsk tsk the writer. I do. I'm that guy.

- Steel is not an ore.

- You can't make a tourniquet without using a windlass.

- If you wake up after being knocked out, you can't just go on with your day like nothing happened.

- Punching someone in the face with your bare hand is a really bad idea unless you've spent your entire life training how to do it.

- People don't immediately fall down and die with arrows sticking out of them.

- You can't gallop a horse all day. Or run all day like Conan did. Especially if you look like Conan.

I could go on. Perhaps in a future blog post, I will. But these are ridiculous errors, and they are so common that they have become tropes. So yes, to a point, I'm hardcore about realism.

Throw in handwavium. Use pixie dust. "Turn up the Flash Gordon noises and put more science stuff around," as the man says. Make me believe it. But don't insult me by not doing your homework.

I've said it before: writing is academic: you hypothesize, you research, you analyze, you write down what you've found. Whether it's style, grammar, or the political workings of your world, writing a fantasy story is a research project. Do your homework. If you don't, someone who does will bust your work open like a pinata and all your slacking will tumble out onto the floor, and they will lose faith in you as a storyteller. Because you are lazy.

I'm not the only reader who thinks this way.

 

[Philip Overby]

One thing I often say during action movies is "Yeah right!" Like people fighting on the top of a train or someone jumping off a jet's wings. However, I understand they're action movies. If I know what kind of action movie I'm watching, I let myself just say, "OK, I'm watching an action movie. Maybe I should take off my thinking cap." I think there's room for big, dumb fantasy the same way there is for smart, intelligent fantasy.

However, I'll agree with Malik and say if you're going to write fight scenes, perhaps understanding that no, you can't punch someone in the face and not hurt your hand is pretty important. If I know this particular world I'm reading about tends to bend the rules a bit though, I just accept it. I'm not going to toss a book aside personally unless the story doesn't engage me. Bottom line. While I may scoff and say, "What? She just punched that dude like 20 times and didn't even say "Ouch" or anything!" I'm not going to give up on a book for these kind of issues, nor will it ruin my enjoyment if I'm otherwise having a good time reading it.

So there are multiple types of readers out there. Target the ones you want and hope they come to you.

 

[Svrtnsse]

When I write I want a level of believability that I'm comfortable with. If I'm writing something I want to have a reason for it happening and I want to know why something works a certain way. I'm not comfortable just saying "it's magic" or "I'm the writer, I want it to be like that because it's cool". That doesn't mean I want the real world physics/chemistry/biology explanation, but I want a reason that "makes sense" to me.

 

[teacup]

By all means, let fantasy be fantasy. I prefer reasons behind everything, but having something like magic just being an unexplained force in the world is completely fine. Fantasy doesn't have to be real, but the parts which aren't fantasy should be realistic.

For example: If humans go to space and can breathe, there should be a reason within the story as to how/why they can breathe in space. Just because it's fantasy doesn't mean humans should be able to do this. That's just lazy and it doesn't make sense within our world or a fantasy world. But then, having them breathe in space as part of their magic is perfectly fine as long as it is consistent with the magic used in the story as a whole.

I back Malik completely on this, too. Have as many impossible things in your fantasy world as you like, it is fantasy, after all. Just don't have things that would be impossible in the fantasy world, too. You can't justify errors like he wrote by just saying "well it's fantasy" unless there is a fantasy reason for it. Horse galloping for days on end? No way. Horse galloping for days on end due to magic? Okay, fine.

 

[Guy]

I think a little attention to realistic details helps draw the reader in and suspend disbelief, thus making the "fantasy" seem more "realistic." I have a character who is abducted by slave traders and taken to a different region. Once I decided upon the distance, I had to figure out about how long it would take them to get there and how long it would take my character, on foot, to get back home after her escape.

 

[Penpilot]

I try not to over do it on the research. As said above, you don't have to be uber realistic. I think there's a confusion between realistic and grounded. If you want to get entrenched with all aspects of swords, that's fine, but is it needed for the type of story you're telling? The audience can be very forgiving if things are framed correctly. For example, I remember hearing a discussion on sword fighting in movies. When heavy swords connect, they make a ting sound and spark. Two heavy swords wouldn't ting or spark when they connect, but if you were to change the sound, to something more real, the audience, because they come to expect the unrealistic sound, reject the realistic sound as not sounding real.

Same with explosions in space. No air. No sound. But if something goes boom in Star Wars, does anyone really think twice about how that's not realistic? Also gunshots. Movie gunshot from handgun, POW. Real gunshot from handgun, firecracker-like pop. Of course this depends on type of gun.

For me, it's not about realism. It's about being grounded in common sense. I don't care if it isn't realistic that a horse can travel a hundred miles a day for ten straight as long as all horses can consistently do that in the story. But I do care if the characters disregard using a transport spell, that is established as cheap and easy to use, and instead use horses just because.

Also realism doesn't always make for a good story. Most fights only last a few seconds, with who ever makes the first mistake dead or down, but in stories and movies they can go on and on, moving from one end of a castle to the other. It doesn't usually make for a good climax if the hero shows up a the evil overlord's lair and ends things with one punch. The End.

Do we tend to waste too much time trying to make our fantasy worlds too real?

Yes and No. It all dependent on what type of story you're telling and the needs of the story. There's always the danger of getting caught in the cycle of always researching and never writing.

Do we waste this energy in an effort to appease the uber fantasy geek?

Maybe for some, but also maybe for others, if it's their first book, it maybe they just don't know how much they should research for the type of story they're telling, so they go full bore into the rabbit hole trying to learn things so they can get them right. But the more they learn, the more they realize they don't know. So, the research more and again realize how much they don't know... and on and on... until forever.

Maybe you don't think it's a waste. Maybe you feel it is necessary. Why?

It's hard to say if anything is a waste as long as it gets you to the point where you're ready to write and finishing your stories. But if you've spent 5 years researching and haven't written very much on the actual story itself, then maybe I'd suspect that you're overdoing it.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Yesterday Svrt posted a link http://mythicscribes.com/forums/games/10343-future-games.html to a talk from a couple years ago which seems on the surface to be about the future of gaming. The speaker is a professor from Carnegie Mellon University, and about halfway through the talk he said something that made me sit up and really pay attention. To paraphrase, "The consumer today wants authenticity." Authenticity is the word we're dancing around when we talk about accuracy and detail in our fantasy fiction - and make no mistake, we are in the entertainment business and our readers are our consumers.

Now, I'm notorious for my detail research, because we write urban fantasy and if we screw something up, it really stands out. If I mention my MMC didn't know about BLT's during his last sojourn in the Mortal Realm, then yeah, I'm going to spend 5 minutes researching the history of the BLT to make sure it didn't exist in the 1940's. It's about authenticity. It's about establishing a working paradigm within your fantasy world and sticking to it, and not saying, "I can do whatever, because it's fantasy, right?" That's lazy writing.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Some time ago, my father was watching The Return of the King when I walked into his room, curious to know what he would think about the characters and the story.

He did not catch the movie from the start (it was the final seventy minutes or so) and, even though I know that my dad is not an admirer of the Fantasy genre, I was quite surprised by what he said:

"Look at the size of those elephants! Can you imagine how much food one of those would need in a single day? That world does not have enough plants to feed those things, this is stupid..."

I had to admit that he was right: Not only would the Mûmakil soon starve to death in a world like Middle-earth, but their sheer size alone makes them a biological impossibility.

They would simply collapse under their own weight like a whale in the sand, and the same goes for Godzilla and other similar creatures.

Later in the movie, my father commented:

"Look at Frodo and Sam, in that rock, surrounded by the flowing lava... The heat alone would finish them! Come on, the volcanic gases would have killed them already... This is too unrealistic."

Once again, he was right: In the real world, the volcanologists wear protective suits and gas masks when they face similar scenarios, because without protection they would be dead within a matter of minutes.

My dad pointed out even more unrealistic things that I cannot recall now while watching The Return of the King, but the point here is...

Do we stop and think such things while watching these movies, or do we simply enjoy the story and the adventures??

 

[Malik]

I make it a point to overdo it on the research. I want my books to do for swords and mail what Stephen Hunter's books did for the bolt rifle.

 

[Malik]

Do we stop and think such things while watching these movies, or do we simply enjoy the story and the adventures??

I had my face in my hands the first fight with Aragorn and the Nazgul on Weathertop.

 

[Philip Overby]

Do we stop and think such things while watching these movies, or do we simply enjoy the story and the adventures??

I very rarely stop and think these things. I mean, I love giant monster movies. If I said "Well, this is biologically impossible" then that ceases my enjoyment. I don't care if it's biologically impossible. It looks cool. Penpilot listed a ton of things that are unrealistic in movies, but we just accept them. I'd say the margin of people that truly, truly want realistic fantasy are probably pretty small. Most fans don't want inconsistencies more than anything. Make the world you're working in make sense.

 

[Feo Takahari]

In another thread, someone mentioned that they weren't able to get into a book because a character reached directly into a lava flow to get something. I think that's a point where most readers would say "this is too silly." If you think about it, it's equally silly to have the characters fighting right near the lava, but most readers probably wouldn't say "this is too silly." Lack of research is relative.

Mind you, I still say "this is silly" in the latter case. Reader reaction is relative to your readers as well.

P.S. I should note that I'm approaching this from a different direction than most people. I think of stories as thought experiments--"if there existed such a group of people, in such a world, with such a set of natural laws, what would happen?" Different authors with the same characters would give different endpoints, but that's because they believe in different "truths" about our world, which leak into how they depict similar worlds (and a well-depicted world can convince you to believe in a different truth!) If a natural law is broken, but it isn't clearly established how the depicted world is different, the experiment is compromised due to inconsistency. I realize this isn't a common way of looking at things, though.

 

[Penpilot]

I just remember something I saw on Robot Chicken about expecting too much realism in ones stories, specifically Pirates of the Caribbean. I think it applies to this thread. Probably NSFW, but it gives me a smile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HblbpLwC_XA

 

[A. E. Lowan]

OMG that is SO wrong on so many levels.

Yeah, I can't stop laughing and the cat is looking at me funny.

 

[Philip Overby]

Yeah, Penpilot's post sums it up.

If some people really, really want realism, it can get pretty real. I do think there's a place for that in fantasy fiction obviously, but I just wonder why a lot of fantasy fiction doesn't deal with rampant diseases, general bad hygiene, what wearing full plate armor would do to your body, how difficult it is to actually swing a claymore, and other such things. These may feel like a buzzkill when a reader just wants to enjoy a light fantasy story. I say insert what you think makes your world shine more and stand out from the pack, but if you go too far in one direction (either too real or too fantastical), it can ruin the entertainment value of the story.