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I've been toying around with a fantasy world for some time now (a few years, actually), and it has mutated from a short story to a roleplaying campaign setting to a novel in my head (and back again several times, actually).
I'm going to give a go at the novel format, and I've come across an essential decision that has me at a crossroads.
I have two options that work equally well for this particular world.
1. Have a main character from our own world who is magically spirited to this fantasy setting. (a la Narnia, The Dark is Rising, the Spellsong books, the Darwath trilogy, and even to an extent Harry Potter).
2. Have a main character who is of that world originally. (a la Dune, Lord of the Rings, Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time, Wyrms, etc)
Each has its benefits, I feel, and I have liked both types of stories equally.
The world itself was originally designed so that people/characters could "fall in" from the outside - so the mechanism is already conceived, should I choose to use it. I'm just pulled in two directions, for what are basically two very different types of stories.
I was curious what input Hatrack had on this issue - if nothing else, it will likely kick start my brain down one or the other of those avenues.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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It depends. I think the first option is one of adolescent wish fulfillment, by and large. Does that suit your theme?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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That's part of my decision - who my audience will be.
The world I've created is pretty far reaching (as it was at one point intended to be a D&D campaign setting) and has a lot of potential for themes.
Part of me leans toward a more young adult novel - along the lines of Beyond the Deepwoods - while the other part of me leans toward a darker tone - more along the lines of Pan's Labyrinth. (and I realize that those examples are opposite - Beyond the Deepwoods is a young adult story with a character born in the world, and Pan's is an adult story with a character born in the "real" world).
This problem stems, I think, from the fact that this had a sort of chrysalis stage as a campaign setting - where everything was developed except for the main characters (who, in essence, would be the players). It can be both fantastical and epic, or it can be dark and somewhat frightening - depending on who was running the game.
Turning it back into a novel, where I supply the main characters and plot, I'm pulled in both directions.
For background, the original short story idea was more YA in flavor with a character born inside the world. The campaign setting was slightly darker (colored by my time writing for White Wolf) and was designed for characters to "fall in" from the outside. It can still work both ways, really.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Well, perhaps it would be useful to think of what you, as an author, would get out of each scenario.
With 1, you would potentially have a character who would have a similar background as your readers. He'd be thrust into a new land, and would be dealing with a lot of new things. Language, culture, lack of home, friends or family... Also, you'd need to consider whether he would eventually return, or whether he'd be stuck there. Would this type of character be useful to the storyline? Would he help explain the background of the world better, as an outsider?
With 2, you could potentially have the same "dealing with new things" if the character was traveling to foreign lands. But he would have a home (unless you destroyed it) and friends and family in the world already. He'd be familiar with the world already, and perhaps wouldn't need as much learning. He wouldn't necessarily be seen as an outsider, either...
Perhaps if you told us more about your universe, we could help more.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I tend to like stories in which the hero comes from the world itself. Except Neil Gaiman books (Neverwhere, American Gods, etc). Wait, and I do like Dark is Rising. Hmm...but in the books where it works well (for me) the hero is not taken completely out of our world; rather, the fantasy world is a type of shadow world that runs very parallel to ours, and touches it in many places. The hero is forced to live a sort of double life, transitioning between the two.
I guess I am not a fan of "down the rabbit hole" type fantasies. If the hero originates in one world, she/he should continue to interact with that world on some level. It strikes me as more exploratory (rather than escapist). It can help to increase internal tension, too, as the hero has to balance who she was (and in the "real" world, still is) with who she has become.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:It depends. I think the first option is one of adolescent wish fulfillment, by and large. Does that suit your theme?
quote:Definitely number 2. It has potential for a more mature theme.
Because I'm deliberately obstreperous, I think you should write a mature-themed novel using number one, just to prove it can be done.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I like the first option. Narnia, Thomas Covenant, The Secret Land, The Family Trade, Amber (that's iffy, but I think it counts), World of Tiers, Landover, etc...
The Covenant books and Stross's Family Trade books definitely deal with mature themes. As do Amber and World of Tiers to a lesser extent.
I've always been fond of putting someone in a situation they're unfamiliar with.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:I've always been fond of putting someone in a situation they're unfamiliar with.
You don't need the first option for that. Much of the plot of Dune is about Paul being thrust into and adjusting to a new, dangerous, and magical world.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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The initial short story idea was definitely YA, with a more adventure theme - a sort of twist on a dragon quest story, of sorts.
This went cold for a couple of years until a friend and I started talking about writing a .pdf roleplaying game using the d20 rules.
From there, the story expanded exponentially, growing ever darker. My friend was making illustrations and providing wonderful ideas for expansion (having been a fantastic Storyteller/DM for our White Wolf - primarily Werewolf and Changeling - games in college).
The world itself was populated by several civilizations that all at some point had "fallen in", for lack of a better word and made their way as best possible. There's even trade and political associates between them, along with all sorts of magic, creatures, races, ancient histories, and the like - as would fit a rich roleplaying environment.
However, this is malleable, of course.
All those civilizations could very easily be native - rather than transplants. The main character could be a native who is thrust into the wider world (akin to the original short story concept), rather than an outsider who stumbles in accidentally.
This is not, however, a "parallel universe" or "shadow reality" setting. It's not like Harry Potter or Neverwhere, for instance. The fantasy world does not exist alongside our own - it is a complete departure. A very alien departure, actually.
The benefits I see are: 1. Outsider - The very alien world can be interpreted through eyes sympathetic to the reader (and writer). Comparisons can be made to the real world, and reactions by the outsider character would be reactions similar to what the reader might feel. The world can be viewed through the lens of a world the reader already knows, that is - and the main character might have values/concerns that align with the reader.
2. Native - The alien landscape can be absorbed by the reader through total immersion, allowing for an easier suspension of disbelief and not having to bother with comparisons to the outside world. The voice would be one of the new world, and the values/concerns of the main character would reinforce the greater setting.
quote:I've always been fond of putting someone in a situation they're unfamiliar with.
You don't need the first option for that. Much of the plot of Dune is about Paul being thrust into and adjusting to a new, dangerous, and magical world.
posted
Personally, I feel Dune is a sort of science fiction/fantasy hybrid.
It's a SF base, with some fantasy aspects of precognition, racial memory, prophecy, etc. It's more SF than, say, Star Wars - but it's sort of the same thing. Trappings of SF, but with a fantasy element.
But, that's neither here nor there. The world I'm looking at is pure fantasy.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I prefer fantasy novels and series that use method 2. I loved Narnia as a child, along with Landover and some other method 1 novels and series, but now I read almost exclusively method 2 stuff when I'm reading fantasy.
I'm not sure why I like it more, though.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I think method 2 is better for making your world seem more authentic, especially since you've spent so much time developing it. Inserting a character from outside the world draws a little more attention to the 'fourth wall' and perhaps makes it a bit thinner.
It sounds like your fantasy world would be all-encompassing, so the insertion would be more Narnia than Dark is Rising and Harry Potter, where the two worlds co-exist in all practical ways. In this case, inserting your new non-native character would mirror the reader's own entry into the world, giving it borders and making it part of a larger multi-verse. If everything in your story is contained within its world, there are no borders and it exists independently.
I'm not saying you shouldn't use approach 1, because I personally enjoyed Narnia, HP and Dark is Rising much more than Dune and Wheel of Time. I just thought that might be something for you to think about.
Then again, I could be completely off base :-p Does this make sense to anyone else?
Posts: 96 | Registered: Oct 2007
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Dune could be re-written as a pure fantasy without much change to the story. The science fiction elements are relatively unimportant in comparison to the fantasy elements.
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I'm working on one where the character from the fantasy world gets transported to a portion of ours. In fact that is how our world got populated in the first place
Posts: 1661 | Registered: Dec 2000
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I used to be a fan of the first option you mentioned, because it seemed to me that so many wonderful things were possible. Then I read Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle series, and was forever converted. With a skilled hand, a person native to the fictional world can provide much more detail and flavor to a story than someone foreign to it because they have a much larger encyclopedia of knowledge to draw from. The only trick, as others have pointed out, is figuring out a way for justifying why that character explains or thinks about things that probably would be commonplace for him.
As a plot device, that is an important consideration, but in terms of the story I think it is rather moot. The most important thing is, what is the best way to tell the story you want to tell? If having to constantly skip over explaining something because it's as normal to your native character as breathing is to us is going to make the story less interesting, go with option one. If you don't want to deal with importing the character, making him naive throughout a good portion of the story, and then eventually dealing with whether or not he can ever make it back, go with option two.
Although I do like Teshi's suggestion.
Posts: 86 | Registered: Feb 2001
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I'd imagine, with a native character, that there would be a displacing circumstance similar to what happened in Dune.
We discovered Arrakis as Paul discovered Arrakis, even though Paul was native to the diegetic setting and not to our own. In fact, when Paul thought about Arrakis in comparison to his own upbringing, it told us both about the new world and about his life in the old world.
This would likely be the avenue I would take, should I go with a native character. He would be displaced from his natural surroundings into a harsher world around him, forcing him to think about things and even compare them to his previous life.
As for story - I have several in my head. Some deal with native characters, while others deal with non-native characters. There are seven distinct cultures within the world already, all of which would make for very interesting characters and plots - but only maybe four of which would provide for good main characters.
This could very easily, in my mind, be a series of books - or a series of short stories, novellas, etc. It would be easily adaptable in comic format (Girl Genius) or even still as a roleplaying game, should I want to expand down that road.
The challenge for me will be to settle on one of the many stories I want to tell and then weave in some of the others as side-stories - but this requires first deciding on whether this will be a closed setting (native characters only) or an open one (characters may enter from the outside - either as a rare or common occurence).
I think I'm leaning more toward a closed setting at this point, though there is also a lot of potential in the open setting that is still refusing to just let me give it up.
posted
I think option 2 makes for a better story. Option 1 is always cheating in some way. Not that plenty of stories don't pull it off well, but option 2 does make for a more mature story, I totally agree with others who said that.
Tolkien used option 2. There is a connection to our world in that Tolkien's world is ours in deep pre-history. We have no other writings from 60,000 years ago or whatever. You see that I betray that I almost think of Tolkien as being actually translated from some ancient writings by the power of God. Wow, I never made that connection before but it's there to be made, isn't it? Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Personally I prefer option two. My current YA novel project is an option 2 story. What I love is the ability immerse the reader and to trickle out information slowly to allow the reader to pick up enough info to get by, but not so much it's a huge infodump.
Although, my back-burner project is a YA novel similar to option one, I'll start it when this one is finished - I think there is still a market for that type of story, but it has to be handled correctly.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I'm leaning more toward option 2, or a "closed" environment, I think.
I think I may give a go at NaNoWriMo, too - though I don't know how far I'll make it. Worth a shot, I think.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Btw, Gene Wolfe's Wizard Knight series pulls off option #1 in a mature and deep manner, if you're interested in seeing an example of that being done.
Posts: 86 | Registered: Feb 2001
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