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For no reason other than because it intrigues me, I sketched out a flat earth earier, with a huge waterfall from the heavens, "from whence all water flows", and the world's oceans and lakes spilling over the sides, and it occurred to me to make this the setting for my WIP. Just because, really.
Wo what do you think? Too much?
PS--There's no science, here, no reason for the flat earth, just good ol' made-up magic.
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Concept has been done, if you count "Flatland." Although I don't think the flatlanders considered their one-dimensional world to consist of magic.
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posted
Sounds like a good setting. Don't worry that over a hundred fantasy authors before you have used a flat world setting, yours is still yours and every bit as original as every one that came before you.
A flat world makes for an excellent fantasy setting, it forces you to displace physics as we know them and come up with your own rules.
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The funny thing about all those flat earth fantasy stories that chuck physics to the wind. For some reason, they all seem to think gravity is a good concept to retain. Now, throw away the gravity, too, and you have a truly new idea for a fantasy millieu.
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Sounds like a great setting and world idea to start with. Don't worry about it being done before because in one way or another, someone will find a way to connect or compare it to something already done anyway. Have you ever played the Kevin Bacon movie game where you tie any movie to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less?
A good twist on the flat world idea used in one story, was to make it like a ribbon, but twisted at the ends where it connects so it's continuous. Start walking, and you would eventually travel around both surfaces on the ribbon before coming to your starting point. In the story I read it in, it added a neat twist. If you add little things like that to make it unique, it doesn't matter how close it is to something else because a reader will accept it as new.
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Spaceman: I love that idea! I mean, we pick and choose the laws of physics to ignore...usually the ones that don't interfere too strongly with sanity. But why not chuck away gravity?
So the water comes down from the waterfall and goes up (via some magical force) at the other end instead of falling over the sides.
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As a writer, I'd need to come up with all kinds of things to explain the whole thing. But as a reader, I don't mind as long as it seems like you have some internal consistency.
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It's actually inside a giant spaceship that is accelerating continuously. In a circle, perhaps, or trying to escape from a black hole.
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In my fantasy setting, which is a spherical planet, I decided that magic dominates physics.
To this end, I mention that wheels and every technology derived from them don't work.
I get to mention this because I do have about half a dozen characters who cross from Earth to my world. Otherwise the point would never come up and no one would know.
Gravity also doesn't work the same. There is gravity but it's not what a physicist would recognize. Water can flow up hill because water really just wants to take the easiest path to join with more water (rivers go to oceans, etc.
Physically, its not at all possible. But, being a magical world, it doesn't have to be. There are gods whose job it is to make sure things work for the best, when they get distracted, things can go wrong. I haven't written that story yet, I try to focus on the mundane aspects of living in a high magic world.
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Well, the problem wouldn't be falling into the black hole, the entire system is contained. The problem would be that you'd get sucked through the recycling system along with all that water.
Oh, and the fall itself wouldn't be so healthy either
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I'm like Survivor. As a writer, regardless of what I'm writing genre-wise, I feel I have to know how everything works within the story and why it works that way. To me, reality is most strongly felt when limitations and dimensions are implied even in things that would otherwise not seem to have any. Even if you never blatantly explain how or why things work that way in your story, I would suggest that you at least know.
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Sounds like a good concept I'd like to read about. Much better than a Middle Earth map ripoff.
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Pantros, that reminds me of a variant of gravity, where all like particles are attracted to all other like particles. Thus, water is drawn to water, earth to earth, etc.
I think the 'weirdness' of the setting can be a useful tool for establishing how dominate magic in the setting. If you want a 'realistic' low-powered magic, then make your world more like historical earth (or modern earth, etc.) If you want to establish a world where magic is more dominate than physics, make it as far from normal as you can imagine. That's not a rule, by the way, it's just a trick.
quote:The funny thing about all those flat earth fantasy stories that chuck physics to the wind. For some reason, they all seem to think gravity is a good concept to retain. Now, throw away the gravity, too, and you have a truly new idea for a fantasy millieu.
That sounds . . . intriguing. Don't think I could pull it off, though. I mean, I'm creative, I think, just not enough so to imagine what life without gravity would be like.
I'd buy that book, though, if I ran across it in a bookstore.
quote:So the water comes down from the waterfall and goes up (via some magical force) at the other end instead of falling over the sides.
Well, you're half right. The water comes from the waterfall, and does fall over the sides. It's neverending, and there's no explanation as to why (except for the all-encompassing: "Magic") other than because I thought it seemed like a neat idea.
I'm at a loss, though, as to what happens to ships that get to close to the edge. They go over the side, yeah, but then what?
quote:Heck, I might have to use that.
Feel free.
quote:So does it rain anywhere but the big waterfall?
Yup.
I have a picture, if you'd like to see it, but it is a picture (I took it with a digital camera), because I don't have a scanner, so forgive the poor quality.
quote:I think the 'weirdness' of the setting can be a useful tool for establishing how dominate magic in the setting. If you want a 'realistic' low-powered magic, then make your world more like historical earth (or modern earth, etc.) If you want to establish a world where magic is more dominate than physics, make it as far from normal as you can imagine.
This is a good standard, I think, but flat as the earth is, I think the magic/physics ratio is about 50/50 (right now. It may change later). I mean, up is still up, down is still down, black is black, etc.
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That illustration isn't half bad. Though I'm puzzled by why there wouldn't be water all the way around the edge.
Look at it this way. For the water to spill evenly over the rim, the entire world must be supported on some kind of dish that is effectively immune to erosion. Near the edges, that would always produce a strata effect that would lead to a ledge at the level of the dish. Which is even enough that water would be there.
Of course, now that I bring up erosion (and you brought up sailors) we can see that it isn't just water that has to be replenished. Yes, the waterfall must be mostly water, but it has to contain enough dirt and other such elements for the land to remain. On the other hand, maybe the waterfall is only water, and all the earth elements come up through an upwelling volcano or something like that.
Whether you imagine this as a sort of giant recycling system that purifies the water for the waterfall and melts everything else to come out the volcano, or just have the waterfall and volcano in a dish being renewed from "wherever", the answer about what happens to people falling off the edge is pretty much the same. They drown. In freefall, you can't keep your head "above" water. At that point, you don't much care whether your body gets recycled back to your own world or just falls down onto a larger dish below or perhaps just goes on and on in the vastness of empty space for eternity. Or, maybe you do care, but you're still dead and even if you weren't you couldn't affect the outcome one way or the other.
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Although I don't think the flatlanders considered their one-dimensional world to consist of magic.
