Fantasy Creature Inspiration!
It’s hard to come up with valid articles that deals with fantasy. The reason being that there isn’t much in the realm of fantasy to really talk about that hasn’t already been discussed to death. I will certainly discuss things if they come up in a comment, but generally I think you can find the myriad of debates already out there with a simple Google search. But I’ve found something interesting that I think will be of use to you fantasy writers out there. It could also be good for an SF or even horror writer, but since I took some influence from a similar thing I would like to point you all to this Top 15 list of unusual deep sea creatures. I know I said no links, but this is an actual post, not just a collection of links for you to check out. The interesting thing about that list is that everything looks so alien, yet they’re really from this planet. You can imagine the bizarre, even freaky possibilities of a fantasy world if you take into account that things don’t have to be ordered, mammalian, or reptilian. Things can defy conventional logic. The Chimaera, for example, looks like something from a Men In Black movie, sort of like a baby alien with those big black eyes. The Fangtooth fish looks like some creepy Halloween mask. My favorite, though, is the Viperfish , although I imagine there are a variety of similar critters out there that have similar features, but for whatever reason aren’t mentioned. Some of you might actually remember this fish. Can you guess from where?…Well if you guessed from The World in the Satin Bag, then you were right. There is actually a scene where a similar fish showed up and attempted to eat the characters. This was right after James, Pea, and James had escaped from Arlin City just before Luthien destroyed the entire city with his army. They took an underground path that passed under the river and when they reached the lowest point they found themselves in a bottomless pit filled with water, which happened to be home to a giant fish-creature that looked remarkably like the Viperfish. I did this intentionally. I wanted something so creepy, but real at the same time that it would be terrifying. I don’t know if anyone was scared while reading that section, but I’m sure some were thinking “oh, that can’t exist” (then again, maybe not because WISB is a fantasy novel). But, it is a real creature. You can tell from the link. I just made it a thousand times its normal size. The great thing about nature is that it is a treasure tome of great ideas. You don’t have to invent every single thing in your fantasy world. Sometimes you can create something that is similar to something that exists on Earth, and it will work just fine. Even if you don’t want to do that, you can still look at nature and find all sorts of ideas. It’s all right here at your fingertips!
Don’t Write Speculative Fiction If…
…any of the following things are true. Science Fiction: You can’t handle the idea that your audience is smaller than fantasy and more specific. You think science fiction is retelling Star Wars or Star Trek ad naseum. You believe that FTL travel is logical and implies ‘hard’ science fiction. You think populating all alien planets with human-like, intelligent, spacefaring peoples, but giving them different cultures, is good creature building. You think that sound actually travels through the vacuum of space and so your characters can hear distant explosions through the hull of a ship. You think that info-dumping in science fiction is normal. Alternately, you believe that it’s okay to confuse the reader by using science that most people wouldn’t understand in such a way that the reader still doesn’t get it. You can’t take criticism of your science or of your story itself. You think it’s okay for your main character to be completely awesome and not have flaws. You believe that your family will be completely honest with you about your writing. Alternately, you think your non-writing, non-reading friends can actually give you worldly advice. You are under the impression that future technology will be perfectly beautiful and not be subject to Murphy’s Law. Fantasy: You think your fantasy story is 100% original right down to the very characters within the story. You can’t take criticism of your work, which will be a lot. You think that just because it is fantasy you can make up anything and expect it to be okay. You think that fantasy doesn’t have to be realistic. You think info-dumping fantasy is acceptable writing behavior. You think that your lively culture of little people is not going to be compared to Hobbits. You believe that your story is better than anything Tolkien could ever come up with. You believe Peter Jackson will turn your unpublished novel into a blockbuster movie. You’re under the impression that fantasy is not derivative by nature. You think your main character can be completely awesome and not have flaws. You believe that your family will be completely honest with you about your writing. Alternately, you think your non-writing, non-reading friends can actually give you worldly advice. You believe that your main character doesn’t have to deal with some sort of conflict and instead can go around being happy and not do anything important. What would you guys add?
World Fantasy Award Winners!
Well, everyone else is talking about it, so I might as well tell all my readers who the winners were at the World Fantasy Awards this year. Lifetime AchievementDiane Wynne Jones and Betty BallantineNovelSoldier of Sidon, Gene Wolfe (Tor)Novella“Botch Town”, Jeffrey Ford (The Empire of Ice Cream, Golden Gryphon)Short Fiction“Journey Into the Kingdom”, M. Rickert (F&SF 5/06)AnthologySalon Fantastique, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Thunder’s Mouth)CollectionMap of Dreams, M. Rickert (Golden Gryphon)ArtistShaun TanSpecial Award: ProfessionalEllen Asher (For work at SFBC)Special Award: Non-professionalGary K. Wolfe (for reviews and criticism in Locus and elsewhere) So there you have it! Congrats to all the winners. Looks like I’m missing out on a lot of great literature here. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this)
Realistic Fantasy Required!
I believe that of all writers, fantasy writers have the hardest job. This is of course excluding textbook writers. I also will not address young adult fiction here because I believe that young adult fantasy is an entirely different genre from regular fantasy simply because the rules on what works are tremendously different. Children and young adults are more likely to believe in things that would otherwise cause suspicion in adults. This is why children enjoy fairy tales and believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the like. They don’t question the reality of these things because, generally, children have no interest to. They live almost in a fantasy world of their own so long as they remain children. Adults, however, have seemingly lost their innocence and become aware of the world around them. For that reason, we generally don’t find the same enjoyment on a literary level of fairy tales and the like. We don’t believe in Santa or the Easter Bunny, or gnomes, elves, or the bogeyman. That’s simply part of becoming an adult. As such, I won’t address young adult fantasy in any way during this post because it is an entirely different beast.Fantasy is, to put it frankly, one of the most fascinating, and most difficult genres at the same time. On the one hand there is a tendency for it to be highly derivative. In fact, the entire genre is derivative, and not just because of Tolkien. Tolkien himself was not an entirely original writer. His world was a product of his education. Fantasy writers, therefore, have been using mythology and history to write some of the fantastic stories we all have come to love and enjoy. On the other hand, however, fantasy also has the tendency to push the boundaries of reality, which can, and is, a problem.Fantasy must, as a rule, be more realistic and believable than any regular fiction story or a science fiction story, barring once again historical texts and the like which are, hopefully, real anyway. This is true because, while fantasy is filled with magic, kingdoms, prophecies, kings, soldiers, and a million other commonly ‘medieval’ ideas, it must present these ideas so that the reader can accept them as being realistic in the context of the world presented. While Tolkien may be a poor example in this post, he is, interestingly enough, the most recognized example. When you read Tolkien you are not suddenly encumbered with magic toting wizards that seemingly throw magic around the same as a non-environmentally conscious human being tosses trash on the side of the highway. Gandalf and Saruman both are powerful wizards, yet their magic is used sparingly. We’re led to believe, then, that magic is not something available in vast, unrestrained quantities, and one cannot simply do magic without extensive knowledge, something which both Gandalf and Saruman have plenty of. Perhaps Tolkien is an example of ‘high fantasy’ rather than an example of fantasy in general, but in the case of fantasy that is intentionally serious, it is clear that magic must have a reason to exist and be balanced. Unless your entire world is built on magic, and therefore everyone uses magic, the magic in a fantasy world must be believable. We can’t think that a knight would have any chance alone against a sorcerer with unimaginable power that seems to be endless and easy for the sorcerer to use.Of course, this doesn’t apply to all fantasy. In the case of fantasy that is intentionally humorous, magic may or may not have a need for balance. We might call these types of stories ‘fairy tales’ for adults. An example might be Stardust by Neal Gaimen. For any that have the read the book you’ll have to excuse me. I am basing this on seeing the movie. However, the magic in Stardust, while with limits, is not necessarily balanced in any traditional sense. Presumably, if the witches manage to get hold of a star, they will be granted youth and amazing power, power which seems to be very hard to counteract without other magic involved. But it doesn’t matter. In context of the story, things don’t have to seem entirely real because that’s not what the story needs to exist. Stardust is a love story with a fantasy twist.Magic, therefore, has two purposes–realism and entertainment. Still, since the majority of fantasy happens to be of a serious nature, I will only address magic in context of seriousness. In serious stories, as I’ve mentioned, magic must make sense. It must be real and believable. If every character can summon the almighty evil monster from the depths, then there is almost no purpose for magic to exist. Magic must have a reason to exist, otherwise it becomes like technologies that we no longer find of use today. We all rarely, if ever, use typewriters since our computers now can do the same thing, but with more functionality.Now that magic seems to have been address, I’ll have to divert my attention elsewhere. Another feature of fantasy that must be taken seriously is race creation. This refers to any sort of creatures you might create, or have been created previously. We have all heard of elves, dwarves, and the myriad of other fantasy races that have already been done before. For that reason, I see no reason to address them since it is apparent that they are all relatively accepted as believable creations anyway. However, I will address creature creation in general. Because a fantasy story deals exclusively with things that do not exist in our world, and couldn’t exist in our world–which takes care of science fiction being included here–it is apparent that whatever you or someone else creates must have a purpose, much as magic has a purpose. If you create a creature that has an arm come out of its head, that arm better have a reason to exist. It would be unbelievable to have such a creature, which we will call
Sacrificing Quality For Style in Spec. Lit.
To say that the idea of sacrificing quality for style applies only to speculative literature would be a severe misrepresentation of the truth. However, speculative literature has one problem that literary fiction seems to either be incapable of addressing or simply never plans to address in the first place: speculative literature must always entertain. This is a stigma particular present in fantasy where the concept of originality, in more ways than one, doesn’t exist. Tolkien created the mold for the genre and as such it becomes increasingly difficult for new writers to come up with considerably profound works of fantasy. World building is often compared to Tolkien, and in a lot of cases when that happens, those comparing typically say that non-Tolkien world building lacks depth–an absurd notion considering that even Tolkien was no divine creator of fantasy tropes; he simply pioneered them. Given this, fantasy must, as a rule, entertain to be considered of any value in our increasingly popularized culture. That’s the truth and that may very well lead to the notion that one does not need to attempt to be original, or at least fresh, and instead can simply write grandiose stories that hinder on the absurd. Speculative fiction as a whole, however, must entertain the masses. The reasons are numerous, but the primary and likely most important reason is that those who place critical acclaim on a novel as literature generally do not read speculative fiction and consider speculative fiction to be of ‘lesser quality’. This leaves speculative writers a very narrow viewpoint to work in, and while certainly that viewpoint encompasses a large portion of the market, there is perhaps some desire there to be recognized among those that have shunned the genre–a sense of acceptance. Taking into account that speculative fiction must always entertain we run into a persistent issue of quality vs. style. One might conclude that in literary fiction quality is in conjunction with style, and perhaps there is some validity to this in the literary theory camp. However, typically, style does not determine quality. One could write a novel that represents truly magnificent ideas and destroy the quality of those ideas by using a style that borders on the unintelligible. A novel, therefore, cannot be based solely on the style of the writing. It must, for its sake and the sake of the author, present itself in a manner that can be read. Readability could probably be broken up into the following categories: Popcorn Fiction ReadabilityThis is basically the simplest, most basic, most bare-bones you can possibly get in terms of writing. Most of the novels in this group are formulaic and so utterly simplistic that one really need not read too deep into what is going on. It’s pretty basic. Ironically, this is also the majority of what shows up on best seller kiosks in the grocery store and many other stores you frequent. General ReadabilityNot too simple and not too hard. The difference here from Profound is that the novels in this section actually do have a profound effect on literature and society without having to intentionally be profound in style. Profound ReadabilityLiterary fiction. That pretty much sums it up. If something is written in such a way that the structure itself leans on the complicated, it’s generally literary fiction. The style here is one that tends to ignore the typical conventions of writing–the ‘rules’ if you will–in order to make some grand statement. The problem? Most of us don’t read this stuff because it’s, mostly, b-o-r-i-n-g. For this reason, I never call ANY speculative literature ‘literary fiction’ because that would mean that 1984 by George Orwell is dull and boring. Now, almost all speculative fiction is intentionally readable. That sounds like a rather stupid statement, but when you think about the dying market of unreadable literary fiction, fiction that tries so desperately to be profound and interesting and is incapable of realizing that the average reader doesn’t read above an 8th grade level, it becomes obvious that speculative fiction is pretty much almost always readable. Here’s where style comes in, though. Now, when Isaac Asimov proposed that we are in an Age of Style in regards to Science Fiction, he wasn’t simply speaking about the actual style of writing–as far as grammar and structure are concerned. He was actually talking very much about the style of science and the style of the stories told. We are seeing a lot more in the genre dealing with quantum physics, string theory, and other advanced sciences that most people probably would have problems understanding even if it were common knowledge. The problem, then, is that science fiction is making efforts to use these sciences in the story, without making it clear what is going on. SF writers have to realize that we’re not all scientists. Certainly science is acceptable and obvious, but if the science seems to get in the way of the story, that is an example of sacrificing quality for style. It also is something we all should be avoiding. Regardless of how much science plays an important role in SF–and I can recognize this and actually enjoy the use of science to add validity to the literary form–when it is used stylistically or, as I like to say, ‘text-book style’, it detracts from the story, from the form, and from the quality of the book as a form of literature. To apply the same ideal to fantasy I’ll have to take something that has probably been done in SF too, but seems more prevalent in fantasy as the use of this particular thing is rather common in fantasy, or at least better presented or useful in that genre. Flashbacks and multiple POVs in the same paragraph section. Stylistically speaking, flashbacks actually can work wonderfully well, if utilized appropriately. But just like with science in SF, some authors use flashbacks poorly and draw the reader away from the story. Transitions are important. You can’t just go to a
A Dialogue of War (in fantasy)
This very subject was brought up by SQT in her recent post. I don’t want to steal the spotlight from her very well drawn analysis, but I did feel like addressing the issue a bit myself.SQT is very right that it seems that fantasy is overridden with novels that focus on war. I can’t think of a novel I have read that didn’t have war as a central theme somewhere. War might not be the primary plot line in a story, but almost all fantasy seems to have it there in some capacity.Some of the issues I see with this is that fantasy writers want to place a lot of focus on the people in war that aren’t ordinary, ignoring those that suffer the most. I addressed this in the comments to some extent, but I think some context here would be great.Look at the historical basis for fantasy. Generally, most fantasy is written in a semi-medieval style time period. We all can generally accept this as true. Whether or not magic, dragons, or other strange and supernatural things ‘actually’ exist in this fantasy setting is irrelevant to this discussion. Medieval societies were violent by nature. Machiavelli handled this idea very well in saying that a ruler could control his people by subjecting them to war. What Machiavelli proposed is that a king or prince, or even queen, would rule the masses by using the fear of war–death, destruction, and loss of livelihood–to keep them in order. This serves several purposes: It reduces the number of impoverished people, the lower class, in situations that would cause them to revolt by placing them, instead, in armies and ultimately into combat. While they may be subject to obviously unlikable conditions, the idea that they are protecting their homeland and doing something that might be considered honorable might hold their complaints at bay. It keeps those living in the impoverished situations from revolting or dissenting by making them believe that they are constantly on the verge of being destroyed by the enemy, whoever they might be. Fear generally results in undeserved loyalty, but as we can see in our current and ancient history, this is an all too common thing. It raises new generations into this cycle of oppression by war. Children raised in this situation are also even less likely than their parents to question authority. Of course, it does happen, but that has much less to do with the people themselves than the failure of the ruling class to make the idea of war more serious than the horrid policies of those in power. Machiavelli wasn’t lying through his teeth when he proposed some of the ideas on The Prince. Medieval times were violent by nature. From 1,095 to 1400 C.E. (current era) there were nine crusades not including any of the Northern Crusades or the various other smaller crusades, which together with the traditional nine crusades numbers somewhere around twenty. This is only a select number of the many wars that took place in the Middle Ages. Also take into account that what is considered the Middle Ages (400 to 1400 C.E.) encompasses all of Europe. In 1100 years of history we can only imagine the number of small and major wars that took place.We have to then take into account the commonality of war in what would traditionally be fantasy fiction, which is most often set in a time much like the Middle Ages anyway. As I said, the problem isn’t that fantasy writers focus so much on war, since war in some form or another would be common anyway, but that fantasy writers instead base their stories primarily around characters which are abnormal. These are the heroes, characters who possess heroic qualities–excellent swordsmanship, magic, etc.–rather than being insignificant in the sense that from the start of the book they aren’t anything special. In most cases these are also the characters who have very little to actually lose. Why would this be such an issue? Because the primary reason that war is such an effective device in fiction is that it represents ultimate loss. People die in war, lands are destroyed, families are broken, etc. Without loss, what is the point of having war? It becomes a device in the story that has no reason to exist. Sure, the abnormal heroes of the story do experience loss, but do they really experience it? Does a king really feel the lost of the hundreds or thousands of men in his army? Not likely. In fact, a king might feel little at all unless someone of great importance is lost. A king may feel anger at the loss of a keep, but the king doesn’t mourn this loss.But the people who live in the towns and villages do. They experience it worse than the ruling class because it is they who are being murdered and slaughtered, and it is they who are driven from their homes and experience the ultimate of losses.Then this begs the question, what would fantasy be without traditional styles of heroes? Very difficult, but better fiction. Ordinary characters can become heroes. It would be more interesting to begin with a character that is in the lower class, has no discernible amazing abilities, but becomes great through his or her own force, rather than through luck. A character doesn’t have to be a captain of the guard, a general, or a king, or anything in royalty at all. A simple scribe could end up a hero. But it becomes far more effective to take war from the eyes of someone who truly experiences it. Kings didn’t frequently engage in battle. They were often preoccupied with the other nuances of war. It was the lower class that saw battle more often.So, what do you think? Do you see some of the same problems in fantasy? Do you disagree? What say you?