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So. Monday morning. Hello world.
( Cut because, well, ramblingness )
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It seems like everybody's had intelligent, interesting stuff to say lately, talking about worldbuilding and the like:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/truepenny/396280.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/matociquala/653495.html
Makes me feel all tongue-tied and witless. *g*
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Haven't posted for a couple of days. That's because, well. I've been planning what to do with my college break (Write, of course). Thoroughly. Last night I drew maps, Maps. Of places that exists solely in the nether realms of my imagination, no less. For which crime I can only offer as my defence, But the voices made me do it!
Oh, well. At least I can honestly claim to be using my education. Not to any good end, but I amused myself by mining my ancient Greece history books for authentic-sounding made-up placenames and sufficiently plausible mythical histories for my reality-deviant maps.
By this route I came to the conclusion that ripping off real history and using it as a template and jumping-off point for fictional history is at once a method of world-building both relatively simple and relatively thorough and complete.
I don't pretend - hell, I'd be a fraud if I pretended - to any kind of expertise on either history or writing. This is just me putting my thoughts on paper. Or pixel, so to speak. But it seems to me that what a lot of fantasy - sometimes SF, but more often and more particularly fantasy - ignores is history. The way it shapes the social landscape and changes it over time - through invasions, ideologies, art, innovation, trade. Most of all through trade. Some kind of economy is a given for any society above the level of mere subsistance.
History and economics: to me they're vital to my willingness to suspend disbelief in a particular world and thus in a particular story. Robert Jordan, to pick an example, integrates trade and historical development into his Wheel of Time novels very well indeed - superbly well, in fact. For all his myriad other flaws as a writer, there is a definite and vital sense of a fluid, fluctuating economy and some kind of historical progression in the world of the Wheel of Time. Like the availability of tobacco, or wool, or silk.
It's something, on the other hand, Mercedes Lackey does very poorly in most of her novels. I say this as someone who's bought and read most of them religiously. Despite her skill as a storyteller, her Valdemar novels feel - off - to me, because I can't understand how a country so apparently surrounded - at one point only one bordering country, as far as I recall, is friendly - by enemies, with no apparent trade or significant wealth in natural resources, can afford to support its upper classes. Plus their system of government has been stable for how long?
It's something I was trying to figure out for myself last night. I have a leg up, at least, where it comes to history and trade: I'm studying the history and trade systems of the Meditteranean in antiquity right now. It has to be right, but more, it has to feel right. Feel real. And that's grounding detail, and that's just work. Figuring out which bit is the right grounding detail is worldbuilding.
My opinions are now on paper. Pixel. Whatever.
Do they make more sense there than they do in my head?
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Icon courtesy of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala
( Cut because, well, ramblingness )
--------------------
It seems like everybody's had intelligent, interesting stuff to say lately, talking about worldbuilding and the like:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/truepenny/396280.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/matociquala/653495.html
Makes me feel all tongue-tied and witless. *g*
--------------------
Haven't posted for a couple of days. That's because, well. I've been planning what to do with my college break (Write, of course). Thoroughly. Last night I drew maps, Maps. Of places that exists solely in the nether realms of my imagination, no less. For which crime I can only offer as my defence, But the voices made me do it!
Oh, well. At least I can honestly claim to be using my education. Not to any good end, but I amused myself by mining my ancient Greece history books for authentic-sounding made-up placenames and sufficiently plausible mythical histories for my reality-deviant maps.
By this route I came to the conclusion that ripping off real history and using it as a template and jumping-off point for fictional history is at once a method of world-building both relatively simple and relatively thorough and complete.
I don't pretend - hell, I'd be a fraud if I pretended - to any kind of expertise on either history or writing. This is just me putting my thoughts on paper. Or pixel, so to speak. But it seems to me that what a lot of fantasy - sometimes SF, but more often and more particularly fantasy - ignores is history. The way it shapes the social landscape and changes it over time - through invasions, ideologies, art, innovation, trade. Most of all through trade. Some kind of economy is a given for any society above the level of mere subsistance.
History and economics: to me they're vital to my willingness to suspend disbelief in a particular world and thus in a particular story. Robert Jordan, to pick an example, integrates trade and historical development into his Wheel of Time novels very well indeed - superbly well, in fact. For all his myriad other flaws as a writer, there is a definite and vital sense of a fluid, fluctuating economy and some kind of historical progression in the world of the Wheel of Time. Like the availability of tobacco, or wool, or silk.
It's something, on the other hand, Mercedes Lackey does very poorly in most of her novels. I say this as someone who's bought and read most of them religiously. Despite her skill as a storyteller, her Valdemar novels feel - off - to me, because I can't understand how a country so apparently surrounded - at one point only one bordering country, as far as I recall, is friendly - by enemies, with no apparent trade or significant wealth in natural resources, can afford to support its upper classes. Plus their system of government has been stable for how long?
It's something I was trying to figure out for myself last night. I have a leg up, at least, where it comes to history and trade: I'm studying the history and trade systems of the Meditteranean in antiquity right now. It has to be right, but more, it has to feel right. Feel real. And that's grounding detail, and that's just work. Figuring out which bit is the right grounding detail is worldbuilding.
My opinions are now on paper. Pixel. Whatever.
Do they make more sense there than they do in my head?
------------------
Icon courtesy of
matociquala
