Here’s my spicy worldbuilding opinion for the night:
Speculative fiction requires willingness from the reader to LEARN about the world
Please don’t take this as elitist snobbery, but…in the YA world in particular, i’ve seen books with anything above the most simplistic, minimal worldbuilding get criticized for it. Reviewers will describe a book as having too much worldbuilding or being infodumpy because the author had like. more than 3 individual fantasy countries.
But in fantasy, scifi etc, not only is the whole idea to be put in a DIFFERENT WORLD, where technology, culture, society, and reality itself may be different, you’reexploring possibilities for what a different world would be like. How would life be different? How would society’s problems be different? What would politics, everyday life, ethics, religion, race, class, gender, disability, and sexuality be like?
It doesn’t have to be big, complex stuff.It can be as simple as “How would baking cookies and cakes be different if there was magic.” (There is at least one excellent fantasy series exploring this very concept.)
HOWEVER,if you pick up a book set in a non-earth world, about political intrigue between warring fantasy nations, you signed up for there to be several place names.
There are a lot of stories that simply can’t be told well in a way that never requires you to double-check a place name, or take time to remember something, or just be confused for a little while.
Simplistic, low-effort worldbuilding in a story very focused on topics like international conflict, politics, and oppression is bad worldbuilding. Imagine trying to explain real life international politics without mentioning more than 5 place names, or without distinguishing different sects of the same religion, or without any explanations of historical events longer than a sentence.
These are INHERENTLY complex, nuanced topics, and it’s a world you know nothing about. If you expect worldbuilding in a story dealing with them to be as simple and digestible as possible, you’re expecting…either basically fantasy nationalist propaganda, or something equally reductive and useless??
Take Six of Crows for an example. The Grishaverse novels include:
“fantasy” analogs for several European countries
a “fantasy” analog for…either China or just All of Asia (Shu Han) whose inhabitants are I guess, Fantasy Asian
a “fantasy” analog for basically the entire rest of the world (Novyi Zem) whose inhabitants are Black
It’s kind of a problem that vast areas of a world supposed to mirror our own are being treated as one-dimensional, especially since racism and cultural prejudice exist in-story. But there’s no good way to fix it without adding complexity to the worldbuilding.
There’s a huge problem with how people process worldbuilding. They think you’re supposed to understand everything that is introduced and how it fits. But it’s so important for good worldbuilding to be bigger than what you, the reader, can completely understand.
It wouldn’t necessarily have affected our ability to read and understand the story if Leigh Bardugo had split Shu Han up into six different countries but just chosen one to focus on, and mostly name-dropped the others. But readers would have to be able to see six unfamiliar place names listed out and realize that “it’s okay that I don’t understand everything going on in this world, because it’s just one story set in a larger world.”
There’s a huge problem with how people write worldbuilding too—they think the reader needs the Facts, the Textbook Version. But it’s the same thing as above—we’re reading a STORY set in a larger world, and you only need to explain it as it’s relevant to the characters
Imagine in your book there’s a historical figure mentioned, let’s call him Vladimirius Gudge. You don’t necessarily need to know how long ago he lived, what he did, or any of that immediately, even if he’s the most important figure in history. And it’s actually a waste of time to mention that he lived 358 years ago specifically. That is textbook information. This is a story.
It’s better to reveal that the average person loathes Mr. Gudge, but he has a national holiday named after him. This can easily just come up naturally in the story. And it’s not bad worldbuilding to be in the dark at first about what exactly this Vladimirius Gudge person did that made people hate him.
I think a lot of people think good worldbuilding means not being confused. But really, good worldbuilding makes those unanswered questions linger in your mind and returns to them later. Good worldbuilding rewards you for asking questions. Good worldbuilding makes you wonder about things and later say “OH!!!” when more is later revealed. Good worldbuilding makes you notice that there’s a whole world beyond that which is covered by the story, which you may not ever know everything about.
If you later introduce a nationalist faction to your book that WORSHIPS Mr. Vladimirius Gudge, your reader will think, “huh, that’s funny, most people hate that guy” and start to get an idea of Mr. Gudge and why he matters. They’ll start to pick up on the idea that maybe there’s something sordid in this nation’s history that still affects the present. You may not ever have to give your reader the textbook version.
If you’re reading something with worldbuilding, you’re learning about that world. You start out not knowing anything. And if the story’s topics deal with rather complicated things, it’s not fair to be disappointed when things aren’t immediately spelled out in a simple and clear cut way.
Destroy the idea that being confused or having unanswered questions in worldbuilding is bad. It’s a part of the process of being introduced to a new and different world, and a lot of stories require some patience to be able to understand what is going on because of the kind of stories they are, not because their worldbuilding is “bad”
A soulmate au where you constantly vomit out an animal that is your soulmate’s spirit animal. Character X has a chronic coughing problem, but finds out that they are actually vomiting tardigrades.
Man I’d rather have them vomiting fucking hippos or unicorns, what a wild universe that would be, bring back all the extinct animals
writers are pretty good at making original monster, but when it comes to races its just the same 4 guys; humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs/goblins, which are all well and good, except only the orcs actually look like a non-human creature and the elves and dwarves just look like different types of white people, why not give the elves scorpion tails our make dwarves a races of mole-men. fuck it, why stop there? why limit youself? make a major race that is a 6-armed octopus/bristleworm hybrid that lives in buttes and mesa’s in the desert go hogwild.
I’m listening to a BBC interview with a (male of course) author who has written a new Jeeves and Wooster novel. In which Bertie becomes a spy.
“It’s not a pastiche or a parody,” he says. “I tried to capture all the characters’ voices. It’s got a racier plot …”
YOU ARE WRITING FAN FICTION (a canon adjacent AU to be specific) AND BEING TREATED SERIOUSLY ON THE BBC!
It makes me so fucking mad, that when men do it, it gets published and taken as a loving tribute, but when we do it, it’s silly female stuff, good only for a snigger.
You know what’s fun to write? Healthy relationships.
I don’t mean in the sense that healthy relationships are important to portray in fiction–no, I mean, they’re actually enjoyable to scribble down. Think of these examples:
A and B kicking ass together
A and B believing in and listening to each other
A and B communicating their problems (doubles as good scene-setting to further explore the characters’ reactions to stress)
Makeout sessions
Quick kisses that makes one/both smile
One swearing to protect the other and then doing it
A and B both contributing to the other’s character development in sweet and positive ways
One recognizing the other’s faults but not letting the knowledge overshadow why they love their partner
One doing something nice for the other, even if it’s in the middle of a battle for the fate of the world
A and B overcoming all the torture you throw at them but never losing their friendship and sense of peace when they’re together
andmore
There’s something to writing unhealthy relationships, in the sense of drama and conflict, but there’s no reason a healthy one can’t have drama and conflict while the characters still work to make their partner happy. There’s also something to not throwing unneeded drama and conflict at them, allowing them to interact with themselves and the story in positive ways. Honestly, it’s refreshing and puts a smile on your face (or, at least it puts one on mine). It shows everyone else what the characters prioritize: a healthy dynamic with the person they care about most. It doesn’t have to be boring.
(Also applies to non-monogamous and platonic relationships.)
A fight scene should be fast-paced and intense. Unless it’s a final battle with numerous parties, a fight scene that’s too long tends to take away suspense. To speed up your pacing, use active voice to describe movement and don’t overdescribe your characters’ thoughts. Excessive inner monologue will be unrealistic, as people usually have no room to think during intense combats.
2. Character mannerisms
Here’s a point that people often overlook, but is actually super important. Through fight scenes, you should be able to reveal your characters’ contrasting mannerisms and personality. A cunning character would play dirty - fighting less and making use of their opponent’s weakness more. A violent character would aim to kill. A softer one would only target to disarm their enemies, using weakened attacks. A short-minded character would only rely on force and attack without thinking. This will help readers understand your characters more and decide who to root for.
3. Making use of surroundings
Not only the characters, you also need to consider the setting of your fight scene and use it to your advantage. Is it suitable for fighting, or are there dangerous slopes that make it risky? Are there scattered items that can help your characters fight (e.g. nails, shards of glass, ropes, wooden boards, or cutlery)? Is it a public place where people can easily spot the fight and call the authorities, or is it a private spot where they can fight to the death?
4. Description
The main things that you need to describe in a fight scene are :
• Characters involved in the fight
• How they initiate and dodge attacks
• Fighting styles and any weapons used
• The injuries caused
Be careful to not drag out the description for too long, because it slows down the pace.
5. Raise the stakes
By raising the stakes of the fight, your readers will be more invested in it. Just when they think it’s over, introduce another worse conflict that will keep the scene going. Think of your characters’ goals and motivations as well. Maybe if the MC didn’t win, the world would end! Or maybe, one person in the fight is going all-out, while the other is going easy because they used to be close :“D
6. Injuries
Fights are bound to be dirty and resulting in injuries, so don’t let your character walk away unscathed - show the effect of their injuries. For example, someone who had been punched in the jaw has a good chance of passing out, and someone who had been stabbed won’t just remove the knife and walk away without any problem. To portray realistic injuries, research well.
7. Drive the plot forward
You don’t write fight scenes only to make your characters look cool - every fight needs to have a purpose and drive the plot forward. Maybe they have to fight to improve their fighting skills or escape from somewhere alive. Maybe they need to defeat the enemy in order to obtain an object or retrieve someone who had been kidnapped. The point is, every single fight scene should bring the characters one step closer (or further :D) to the climax.
This is a repost because Tumblr buried the old one.
+++ Characters are from a short story I wrote (in elementary school) 11 years ago - holy shit, I’ve never felt so old. It’s basically a standard hero’s journey fantasy odyssey thing, not well written at all because elementary school, but I really liked one of the characters from that story, Ekron, who was basically the Gandalf of the group and I wanted to do something with him again. +++
“I can’t believe you gave away our only bargaining chip to talk to some old, dead crone for five minutes.”
“Wow, you really are an idiot, huh?”
“That’s enough, Gareth.”
Ekron’s tone was cold. The young elf’s insistence on chastising Aeden was gnawing at his patience. Boy’s squabbles were only natural and under other circumstances he probably wouldn’t have minded it. But in their current predicament such distractions could be fatal, morale-wise and literally.
He turned to the farm boy.
“In our current position the letter wouldn’t have helped us much against one of the Imperator’s patrols. It’s much more useful and more importantly save in Sheri’s hands. She already had some interesting ideas as to what to do with the seal and the signature. And through some favors called in and some favors granted, I was able to haggle out this.”
He reached into the bag and pulled out the thing.
It was dark grey almost black and a strange translucent glaze over the surface. It was smooth as glass to the touch, but warm and had the shape of an oversized egg, just large enough to rest comfortably in Ekron’s hand.
Marcilla spoke up.
“What is it?” she asked eying the thing with a glistening in her eyes that only children could have when they see something clearly magical.
“I don’t know.”, he replied. “But I’m sure we’ll find out sooner or later.”
“You don’t know?” Gareth jumped up from the tree stump he had sat down on. “You traded our most valuable possession with a hag for something you don’t even know will help us? Are you insane, human?”
Ekron turned back to him with a smile.
“I am not insane, don’t worry. And I know that this will help us in one way or another. You should’t make impolite assumptions about Sheri either. Not all hags eat children and plot the destruction of whoever may cross their way. The two of us have worked together in the past and I guarantee you that, while not trustworthy, she is quite honorable, so I have no doubt she will keep her side of the bargain if only to collect on the favor I promised.”
“You are insane. Making such a deal with a hag.”
“Consider it a sign of my investment in your wellbeing.”
“Hmph” With that the elf child turned around and began wandering back into the woods. Ekron wasn’t terribly worried. The boy was clever enough not to go to far and even so most larger animals usually gave Sheri’s hut a wide berth.
He stowed the egg-shaped thing in his bag and turned to the farmer’s children.
“Go tell the others to make camp here for the night. Sheri will be moving on from here soon and we can use her protective magic for cover over the night.”
“Why will she be moving on? Does she leave the hut here?”, Marcilla asked.
As if to illustrate the point at this moment the wood of the hut began to creak and rattle as the four toad legs became visible underneath the lifting bottom of the house.
Some other nearby children began crying and the the elder ones rushed to hush them. Soon all the children starred silently fascinated at the small abode as it shook some loam crumbs loose from its backside, tensed its hind legs and with a loud “Vruuup” launched itself across the clearing and into the forest beyond. In the distance the impacts grew slowly quieter as the children unpacked their blankets and lit a fire from the dried undergrowth that litter the forest floor.
Gareth returned after sundown when they where roasting the rabbit and the couple of fat mice Aeden, Ilene and some of the younger boys had caught on the other side of the small stream they had crossed earlier.
After a short prayer Ekron was busy dividing the food into portions for the younger children. In the end everyone except for him and Gareth ended up with a piece of meat and the elf, who said that he had already eaten, only nibbled at his piece of bread.
After dinner most of the children fell asleep immediately, the few that stayed up a while longer were also far to tired for a goodnight story and even Gareth settled into the trance without any further pacing around, so Ekron settled himself into a comfortable position at the foot of a beech tree from where he had a good view over their little encampment.
He pulled out the grey thing from his bag and turned it in his hands. The warmth made it feels almost alive.
Carefully he held it up against his ear and listened.
There almost drowned out by the gushing of his blood in his ears…
Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum…
A smile crept over his face and he was glad the children were asleep because this smile was not warm and understanding.
Fog fidgets faintly across the venting valley. The mountain tops break away paths through its ghost of a structure and the fog aches with agony as my mind wanders to the wonder…Who will heal the me that was broken while healing you?Reaching for relief but my thoughts are at the peak and im at the bottom hoping they dont avalanche down. I bite my tongue and try bleaching out the bad but its not so easy, the storms a bit to breezy for anything to be found.
WHEN the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold; And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It’s pretty, but is it Art?“
–Rudyard Kipling, from “The Conundrum of the Workshops”
Hey all, Some of you know that in addition to this Tumblr blog I also keep a blog on my website. A lot of the posts overlap, but not all of them, so I’ve made this list for your reading pleasure:
I miss when everyone on my dash listened to Welcome to Night Vale so there’s be a good chance that on any ole day someone would reblog a quote that would grab me by the throat and forcibly ascend me to a higher plane where I understood myself and the universe better and with more kindness but also a little spook
“The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first and settles in as the gentle present” are you kidding me this quote has propelled me through at least three emotional crises
“The desert seems vast, even endless. And yet scientists tell us that somewhere, even now, there is snow.” That quote literally got me through grieving my brother like WTNV goes HARD
A List of Some of My Favorite Quotes From This Insane Podcast:
“You are beautiful when you do beautiful things.”
“The present tense of regret is indecision.”
“We understand so much, but the sky behind those lights– mostly void, partially stars– that sky reminds us we don’t understand even more.”
“Be proud of your place in the Cosmos. It is small and yet it is.”
“Believe in yourself. You are an ancient, absent god, discussed only rarely by literary scholars. So if you don’t believe, no one will.”
“Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.”
“Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won’t. That’s what love is.”
“Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that’s not the right question. The question is are we living a life that is worth the harm?”
“When we talk about teenagers, we adults often talk with an air of scorn, of expectation for disappointment. And this can make people who are presently teenagers feel very defensive. But what everyone should understand is that none of us are talking to the teenagers that exist now, but talking back to the teenager we ourselves once were – all stupid mistakes and lack of fear, and bodies that hadn’t yet begun to slump into a lasting nothing. Any teenager who exists now is incidental to the potent mix of nostalgia and shame with which we speak to our younger selves.”
“We are not history yet. We are happening now. How miraculous is that?”
“Wednesday has been cancelled due to a scheduling error.”
“We have nothing to fear except ourselves. We are unholy, awful people.”
“A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A basilisk.”
“There’s nothing under your bed. There’s nothing in your closet. Nothing waits in every darkness. Nothing is the most terrifying thing of all.”
“The night sky is ten miles wide, eight miles deep, and floats three miles up. Its favourite food is grape jelly. It wants to be a drummer.”
“Look to the sky. You will not find answers there, but you will certainly see what everyone is screaming about.”
“Ignorance might not actually be bliss, but it is certainly less work.”
“And now, a special report. Crocodiles: Can they eat your children? *YES.*”
“Lie down and look up at the ceiling and breathe with those curiously fragile lungs of yours and remind yourself: Don’t worry. Don’t worry. All is as it was meant to be. It was meant to be lonely and terrifying and unfair and fleeting. Don’t worry.”
“As long as I’m reminding myself things, I’m a good person, worthy of love – both from myself and others.”
“Guns don’t kill people! It’s impossible to be killed by a gun. We are all invincible to bullets and it’s a miracle!”
“Everything is exciting! Particularly existence. Existence is the most thrilling fact of all.”
“There is a monster under your bed. A monster at your window. A monster any place you imagine one. You project your monsters on the world.”
“You miss 100% of the bank robberies you don’t commit.”
“I like my coffee like I like my nights. Dark, endless, and impossible to sleep through. ”
“A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale.”
“And now, the weather.”
I discovered this podcast at the beginning of high school, and let me tell you, it rewired my synapses.
Not only was it my first experience with positive LGBT representation, it was the show I clung to when everything else went to shit. Whatever was going on in my life, I knew I had this show in my corner, making me laugh, making me cry, making me feel okay about my place in the universe.
I owe the creators of this podcast more than I could express.
“the lights over the Arby’s” is such an intrinsically queer piece of writing that it hits me *hard* every time.
there’s dozens of stories about some kid from our world falling into a different, magical one, being the chosen one or the close companion of the chosen one and saving the world, and then going home where they’re delighted to see their family again and have a new appreciation of their own life. but what about someone who didn’t miss it? what if you save the world and you’re given your medal and stripped of the magic you learned and put back in a world you never missed? and you’re furious.
maybe you gave up a few years of your life. you have callouses and muscles and a few scars and maybe a missing eye or something. you definitely have some blood on your hands. you might have PTSD you can’t talk to anyone about. and suddenly you’re fifteen again, in a body that’s too soft and too short and too complete. you’re always cold because there’s no magic burning in your veins anymore, and even as you grow up the feeling of not fitting doesn’t go away because when you look in the mirror at eighteen you look all wrong: this is not what you’resupposedto look like at eighteen. the sky clouds and you rub at the phantom ache of injuries this body never received. you wake up screaming sometimes remembering the sorcerer who burnt your hand to ashes, or the final battle you almost didn’t make it through, or the moment you felt the magic in you go out.
but here’s the thing: they took you and made you into a weapon that was determined enough and powerful enough to save a whole world. they can put you back where they found you but they can’t undo everything. and there’s this, too: the place between worlds clings to you. you can’t tease fire out of the air but you can feel the pull of the doorways all the time, although none of them so far go to yourworld.
but you try to make it work for a decade, anyway. you’re dutiful. but one night you leave work late and for the thousandth time you catch yourself searching the sky for firebirds. and you break. of the three portals within five hundred miles, one is a howling, frozen wasteland and one is a deep violet void, but one opens into a misty forest that you step into and don’t look back. it’s not your world, but if you keep going long enough, you’ll get there.
(and maybe much, much later, hundreds of worlds later, you climb through a window, or a door of woven branches int he middle a field, or push aside a curtain, and as you set foot on new land you feel the fire in your veins and sparks at your fingertips and finally, finally,you’re home)
this is going around again and I want to add that if you want to think about sad, angry ex-heroes trying and failing to live normal lives, nothing left to say by imagine dragons is a good song to do that to.
I really want to write a novel about thus.
Imagine the families of the people that came back. Imagine seeing your child, kissing them goodnight one night and shutting their bedroom door, or seeing them off to school. When you see them again they’re angry (but they won’t say at what), and a noise that sounds like an arrow whistling through the air makes them turn. For a moment you see their eyes darken.
They left for school with hunched shoulders, slouching over their work; but they come back and hold themselves tall, and even though they’re a teenager you can’t help but think that no fifteen year old should have that kind of posture, that kind of fire that flashes out sometimes. No fifteen year old or sixteen year old should have muscle memory that falters, suddenly, when it realizes it can’t keep up with this body
One lost an eye, in their world (not this empty shell of a world that they returned to) and even though they know perfectly well that their left eye here sees just as well as the right one, they find themself spinning to look at people when they talk to them. Sudden noises make them whirl. Reigning in their intense feeling of self preservation that’s been honed to make them a hero is too hard to do here, where the skidding of tires is frequent. Heroes with missing arms have to explain to their siblings and friends why they are left handed now.
The problem of Susan by Neil gaiman is a great read for anyone into this concept
Fantasy adventure hero veterans are a topic I am willing to throw approximately all of my free money at until they get more love. “What happens next?” is always a fascinating question.
