From time to time I have shared on Hatrack two of my stories that have been languishing in my files for a number of years, all for the want of a place, and a manner, in which to start the narrative. I have now resolved those issues; for Daisyworld, it is a singing wine glass, and for Æsir Dawn, it is my main character going to the privy--and what happens after that. I can now start to deconstruct my 80K--90K word Draft Zero’s for both stories and agonise over a more detailed development of scene construction, pacing, and structure as it reales to the escalating tensions in the plots.
Great.
For Daisyworld, that’s a pretty simple process. The story takes place on Earth, although the future depicted is a dystopian nightmare. At least the milieu is a fairly simple extrapolation of humanities attitudes and mores as they have adapted to a new socio-political and environmental reality. Æsir Dawn is another matter entirely.
Not only is it not set on Earth, it isn’t even in our universe. The milieu is essentially a coalescence of cherry-picked Viking and Anglo-Saxon cultural practices and, as such, a lot of their rituals and beliefs revolve around the seasons of the year, the equinoxes, and the solstices. Not to mention their relationships with their gods. Which in this case are real.
So, having come to terms with how to open Æsir Dawn, I started planning out the opening scene--and immediately ran into trouble. To develop a major plot point, the day depicted has to be the first day of the start of the Year of Tears; this means it has to take place on the day of the spring equinox, the traditional start of the new year. That’s fine, but there is a wrinkle; another festival is mentioned that occurs on the day of the summer solstice--how many weeks is that from when the scene opens? Oooooooppppss!
As I thought and pondered I realised I had just opened a Pandora’s can of worms. How long is a week, a month, a year, how do they calculate the solstices, the equinoxes, just how do they worship their gods, what signs and rituals do they practice, have I bitten off more than I can chew? What do they call their months, what are the names of other years, and what span is this cycle? Just how far do I have to go with this stuff?
You see; this world isn’t a planet. It has no actual sun, or moons, and there are no stars in the sky despite them twinkling up there when the non-existent sun has set. But the life within this world is still real. This universe exists in the mind of the god whose universe it is--he is this universe.
So the questions are: Just how much detail and depth is needed to create a believable milieu for your fantasy characters to inhabit? Do you resort to creating calendars, pharmacopoeia’s, rules of magic, social mores etc, or do you just wing-it and give the readers a pale imitation of our own world in the dark/middle ages with sorcery thrown in?
Phil.
PS. KDW, if I’ve put this in the wrong place please move it to a more appropriate area.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
For me, a milieu's motifs are best practice developed according to their influence on the action. Alchemy, for example, if an alchemist or a novice's inept alchemy is essential to the action, then alchemy warrants mythology development.
A calender system for a world not this one, for example, might imply pivotal dates that divide a year into seasons or weeks or days related to natural phenomena, say planting day, day for smelting ore, day for fishing, day for rest, day for social events, etc. If a spring date, like an equinox, is influential, then the influence development is warranted and then the calendar date secondary. Then, say a solstice day is a next date of action, the date's relative time can be expressed in terms of anticipating the impending influence of the day. Equinox day, planting day; solstice day, first harvest or celebration day of farm work done until the fall equinox.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Phil, this is the right place for your topic.
So, in response to the topic, do you have to call it "equinox" which is, after all, a Latin term - and your world would not have Latin, would it?
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
Good point, Kathleen. More world building details to add to my ever-growing list.
Thanks for that.
Phil.
Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :
My tactic is to write the story,
then create the details to fit the story..
To make it easy, make the year 360 days, so everything is easily divisible.
In Roman and earlier times, they would have 9 hours in a day, and three at night.
the main thing is to tell a good story and then make the world fit the story. It is good that YOU know what is going on behind the scenes, even if very little of it appears on page.
Some writers spend their time creating worlds and then never write the story. I have seen a few of those here, where they got bored with the world the best idea is to write the story, then world build, then rewrite the story based on what you figured out..
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
Which, rstegman, is what my Draft Zero is all about; getting the plot-line and gross character motifs under my belt, so to speak. The world building is, as you say, coming up with ideas to make the world different and interesting in its own right, but not at the expense of the story.
But, in these days of the Internet, it behooves a writer to ground their world-building in known facts, otherwise they will appear silly. The Saxons and Vikings had two seasons: Summer and Winter. Then there were the celestial calendars for sowing and harvesting, sacrifice and celebration.
Phil.
Posted by r33fking (Member # 10286) on :
While it does depend on which type of story is being told, if a detail isn't mentioned or alluded to, most readers assume the default. Which is a reality similar to our own. A reality with similar rules, probabilities, possibilities and hindrances to the world we live in( or have lived in) or is widely understood, apropos to the milieu.
If you're telling me a story with vikings living on the snow dusted crags surrounding a fjord, and you make no mention of magic or lightsabers, I would assume the story is a historical piece taking place in year 900ish, and I would project a my understanding of that period into the factors/details not mentioned or described.
For me, it's the characters who pull me through the story, not the milieu. So if there is an unusual aspect of their environment that has impact on character decisions, it should be fleshed out and detailed. If it doesn't have impact on the character story you're just stealing time away from what matters. Don't get me wrong, I love a beautiful, exotic world but it better be necessary to the story.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: Which, rstegman, is what my Draft Zero is all about; getting the plot-line and gross character motifs under my belt, so to speak. The world building is, as you say, coming up with ideas to make the world different and interesting in its own right, but not at the expense of the story.
But, in these days of the Internet, it behooves a writer to ground their world-building in known facts, otherwise they will appear silly. The Saxons and Vikings had two seasons: Summer and Winter. Then there were the celestial calendars for sowing and harvesting, sacrifice and celebration.
Phil.
A principle for setting development espoused generally is a double bind ripe for reconciliation; that is, pose familiar settings as exotic and exotic settings as familiar. Between those two extremes is ample opportunity for congruently exotic and familiar setting portrayals.
Tolkien's secondary world theory enumerates the principle most of any I've read. Characters who are native to a setting take their home places familiarly, for granted, and places abroad exotically, wariness at least if not also awe and wonder. Emotional commentary distinguishes exotic from familiar. And, essentially, emotional commentary portrays character interaction with setting influences. Agency, in other words, the essence of setting's event influences.
A Saxon and Nordic culture overlap, maybe Greek too, strikes me as ripe for post neolithic ideas like a calendar attuned to seasons based on a world's axial tilt such that the seasons are distinct climates. Cold winters make for dormancy and limit insect pests. Mild winters would make summers pest ridden, for example. Because axial tilt drives seasons, such a world would have and be recognizable solstices and equinoxes. What words to label them: aye, there's the rub. Simpler words may suffice, like Even day and night for equinoxes. Neolithic cultures considered nighttimes, sleeptimes, small deaths; wintertime a longer death, and actual death the long sleep; and springtime an awakening, though I expect the mythology development would be more essential than the labels.
And length of mythology developed as emphasis proportionate to a motif's degree of agency. More influential, more mythology development, and vice versa for less influence, or excised if of no influence.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
How long is a week, a month, a year, how do they calculate the solstices, the equinoxes, just how do they worship their gods, what signs and rituals do they practice, have I bitten off more than I can chew? What do they call their months, what are the names of other years, and what span is this cycle? Just how far do I have to go with this stuff?