Let me begin this short rant with a quick plug for my friend's
blog: http://www.derekgingrich.com/
He has a far more indepth and expert examination of fictitious
worlds and creation than I could ever hope to achieve. Discussion
about his own topics is what actually inspired me to scribble my own
thoughts today. Specifically, I want to address world building in a
general sense and possibly detail my own methods for creating
fantastical worlds.
Fantasy fiction, I believe, poses one unique problem not truly
present in any other genre of speculative fiction. To my knowledge,
no other genre offers nearly as much possibility or limitless
imagination primarily due to the audiences looser expectations
towards the realities of the world. General fiction almost
universally takes place on Earth with its implicit histories and
social constructs. The most 'world building' an author is required
for these stories is generating their main characters with believable
histories and motivations.
One step further from general fiction is science fiction. But most
Sci-fi is a speculative look at a future impacted by whatever
technological advancement or theory spurred the idea for the author's
narrative. The world building is more substantive than just
fabricating the main cast but requires the author to adapt and change
her societies to this new dominant invention. However, once again,
the general assumption is that advancement of life followed a
remarkably similar thread to our own history.
Space operas and fantasy fiction, however, can take place on
different planets or dimensions with truly unique and strange people
or races. There is no assurance for the reader that the development
of the society and structures to the point where the narrative occurs
is anywhere close to something from our own lives. Star Wars, for
example, has an entirely different history completely void of planet
Earth and it could be reasonable to believe that the humans of that
universe aren't actually “humans” at all. Likewise, Middle Earth
is truly a world far removed from our own with a past very different
to anything we've ever experienced (even though Tolkien envisioned
Middle Earth to be the lost mythological age of our own world).
This leaves a prominent issue for fantasy writers. How do you
create a world that people can understand and relate to while still
being believably fantastic? I mean, one of the huge draws for these
worlds is that sense of wonder and exploration of visiting places far
different from our own. We don't want to recreate, verbatim, medieval
Europe when we could just place our stories in medieval Europe.
Tolkien is really the founding father of modern fantasy, so it's no
wonder that his approach is so widespread. Tolkien's solution was to
base the underpinnings of his world on real life mythology. Elves and
dwarves were not raw creations of his imagination but legendary
figures and beings from earlier cultures. By adopting these figures
as real, he was able to shorthand a lot of his world's creation by
invoking those myths.
So successful was this method (coupled with his staggering detail
in breathing life to his world) that most fantasy writers just
shorthanded their own mythos from Tolkien himself. This perpetuating
of the same ideals led to the common tropes of the genre: underground
dwelling dwarves with big beards and bigger tempers, lofty elves of a
dying or lost age removed from the petty squabbles of other nations
and peoples, barbaric orcs obsessed with warfare and conquering and
the rest of the lot. One could argue that Tolkien was too successful
as fantasy stories became less and less about adopted medieval Europe
and its superstitions and more about following the founding father's
exacting footsteps.
Which is a shame, since there are so many other nations,
mythologies and legends that could be used as genesis instead. This
leads me to my own D&D stories. They began as a simple thought
experiment, “What would it be like if my friends and I were born in
a universe like Dungeons and Dragons.” Course, obvious obstacles
like copyright infringement and my own personal enjoyment for world
building insured that this wouldn't be indulgent fan fiction but a
universe of my own. And as my collection of shorts grows and grows,
I'm forced to consider the world they inhabit and the rules that
govern them.
Some of these decisions were made early on. I knew I wanted to
avoid the same old race wars common in generic fantasy. To address
the over saturation of dwarves versus elves, I elected to remove race
entirely. My envisioning of the race dynamic was to re-purpose the
long beards and pointed ears that distinguished the fantasy peoples
and instead dress the diverging elements more in cultural clothes and
beliefs. Thus, my barbarian Orc is a large, dominating man that
absolutely denies his 'barbaric' origins (Andre). Likewise, the
peculiar half-elf Aliessa is rarely even mentioned as such for in my
mind being called an elf is an insult and the powerful wizard
commands far too much respect for such things.
But since race is more cultural than physical, it is really easy
for the boundaries to be blurred or outright ignored. Most people
seem to not care about where someone comes from and pointing out
racial differences is really unnecessary unless it's strictly for the
plot. Which is nice that I don't have to describe a new character as
“the dwarf” with all its Tolkien trope baggage and instead I can
focus on describing my characters as individuals first and foremost.
But that element of race can always be brought up later if I decide
it would make a compelling story. The mere presence of race, even if
it isn't a sticking point for most, lays the foundations for future
conflicts if I so choose.
I have no idea where I was going with this so I'll just wrap it up
for now.
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