Tying into the fantastic

[Svrtnsse]

Most of my story is rather mundane. It's set in a fantasy world where fantastic themes aren't uncommon, but they don't have too much bearing on the actual story - at least not for the time being.

I'm trying to put in little references to things that don't normally exist in the real world but I also want to make that feel natural and not as if I'm showing things down the throat of the reader. What are your experiences when it comes to this - non-fantasy story taking place in a fantasy setting?

What are examples of where it's done well and where it's done less well? How often do you remind the reader of your world in your stories - if at all? Is it enough that the fantasy setting is established at the start of the story and then just vaguely alluded at now and then or do you put in strange and magical incidents every few chapters.

I understand that it varies from writer to writer and from story to story, but I'm curious about what you guys think about it. Is it even an issue or am I just making things up?

 

[johnsonjoshuak]

Other than 1 of my 4 POV characters, I don't really make a lot of use of fantastical themes either.

I would say one of the best examples of this is actually A Song of Ice and Fire. Especially in the first book. There's mention of dragons, and White Walkers, but other than that the "fantastical" is kept to a minimum. It starts to pick up as the books go on, but George RR Martin does a relatively good job of keeping his world "grounded".

 

[Chessie]

^^ Though I'm not a fan of those books, that is true about them/him. Martin does a fantastic job of making things really appear fantastical when they show up.

One nice tidbit I picked up somewhere is that its best to mention things at least twice before bringing it in to the story. Like...a scene with magic, or a gun, or whatever. Because I'm in love with Steampunk right now, I'll use the example of the Flash Gold series I've been reading. Flash gold is a form of magic in these stories, but in the first book, its mentioned through part of it before its actually used to power machinery. When the author brought it in, it solidified the magic for me and didn't make it confusing.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Good point about Martin. I've read the books, but they didn't come to mind when I was thinking about this earlier. It's quite clear it's a fantasy world, but even so the actual fantasy elements are fairly subtle - for the most part.

The point about mentioning things at least twice before introducing them into the story is probably a good guideline. It makes sense to prepare the reader for something out of the ordinary happening.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

First it's about the story and the characters. And that's what makes Game of Thrones brilliant. The complex interweavings of politics and war and the different characters dealing with them. And there's one other thing GRRM does. He brings in the fantastical very slowly. So almost until the end of the first book you'd hardly know that there's magic and magical creatures. And then in the second he ramps up the magic slowly, and it's like just adding a new colour to a painting. It transforms what was already there but which you didn't really notice because it wasn't really missing. The story and the characters were enough by themselves.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Ayaka Di'rutia]

For me it depends on what kind of characters and story I'm dealing with. For example, I wrote a novel where the character is a normal human girl. She lives in a society that has magic, but she has very little to do with it, and the story itself has little magic involved. In fact, compared to a lot of characters I've written about, she's quite "normal". She's not a warrior, she doesn't practice magic; she's an ambassador for a school and happens to know a few people that do magic.

So depending on the character and the story they're in, the world may not appear as magical or fantastical as it really is, simply based on the character's knowledge and background.

 

[Chessie]

^^So long as its believable. Another example that comes to mind is from the movie 'Matilda', where she lived in pretty much an average world but she had magical powers. Somehow, it all fit together.

 

[Sam James]

I am a big fan of Martin too and agree the magic is subtle in the books, however:

A Game of Thrones opens with an undead warrior killing 2 of the Night's Watch.

Afterwards the magic takes a backseat, but it is foreshadowed right from the beginning, making it all the more exciting when the undead do return. Perhaps you can consider having something in the opening scenes that firmly roots the story in a fantastical setting.

 

[The Dark One]

Of my three published works, only one is fantasy-ish. When I was younger I loved sci-fi and fantasy, but I slowly went off it, because no-one did it 'believably'. My one fantasy-ish novel was an attempt to write that wrong (pardon the pun). The story starts off in the very didactic here-and-now, establishes certain themes of contention, and then gradually moves through various shades of coincidence and surreality to a fairly bizarre conclusion. The book slowly gets stranger and stranger with the reader (hopefully) being acclimatised along the way so that they hardly notice the fantastical weirdness until they get to end and think: Holy F***! What on earth (or anywhere else) just happened?

How did that get so weird without me even noticing?

At least, that's what I hope they think.