Dr. Frankenstein, or How World-Building Gets Messy
One of the things I love about writing is that it makes me the queen. I rule over my realm of created characters and fictional situations, equal parts merciful and merciless. If my characters act up, I can push them around in the manner of Bill Cosby in Himself: “You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out. And it don't make no difference to me, I'll make another one look just like you.”
Ah… it’s good to be the queen.
When I added paranormal twists to my plot, I started to feel less like the monarch of my own little kingdom and more like Dr. Frankenstein. Before I knew it I was creating characters that were amalgamations of historical uptight misses and butt-kicking witches.
I debated introducing paranormal elements into my WIP for quite a while before I gave in. I admit that part of the reason I had such an internal debate was the sheer work involved. I mean, I already had all of the Regency research to contend with. And, as mentioned in my blog of a couple weeks ago, I still have a ways to go with that. Now I would have to define the limitations of my witches. What can they do and what can’t they do? Can they cast spells? Can they create potions? If not, why not? Can they use their magic whenever or are there rules? What rules?
I also had to think about how these powers will change my heroine’s outlook on the world. Would she be timid, afraid of having others discover her secret? Would she be stronger than the average Regency miss because of her powers? Probably both, I think. So how does all that play out when it interacts together?
Yeah, beats me too.
But, this week I started thinking that maybe I would have to do this sort of world building no matter what genre or time period I wrote in. We all have to figure out how our character’s personality traits interact together and how that interaction then interacts with the “real world.” It’s a matter of answering all the questions, all the hows and whys and what ifs, that makes the world we create the rich place our readers will want to live in for a few hours.
I guess the price of being queen is that I have to be Dr. Frankenstein sometimes too. I think I can handle that.
What questions have you found the hardest to answer in the course of your world building? What questions or obstacles to world building do you think are unique to your subgenre?
Books by the Crew
28 comments:
World building. I love world building, because like you said, I rule this realm, it's my rules, my story, my characters. And no one can build their world but me. Gotta go for now, but can't wait to see what ppl said tonight.
Having those paranormal elements in my own work, I too have to do the world building thing. But I try to keep my world building fairly simple and true to "real life". I think the less complicated I make things, the more "believable" it is, the easier it will be to stay true to, and the easier others will find to follow as they're reading.
However, even with that, especially since I'm writing a series of more than one book, the one thing you can't get around is the HEA at the end of the book, and when your hero is an Immortal, and your heroine is a human, the trouble comes in finding a way for them to spend eternity together.
Oh, I meant to add--you can do it one way for one couple, but when it comes to subsequent books, don't think you'll get away with using the same "device" for any other couples. That's the hardest part
Tiff - thanks for stopping by on your way!
JK - I agree about keeping it as believable as possible. As a reader, I have a hard time with stories that spend more time explaining how it could happen than getting my hero and heroine together. I wanted to create something otherworldy but without having to talk readers into believing me. Sorta the difference between twisting reality and creating another reality.
Lovely pic there, Marn. Kind of like me first thing in the morning.
I write straight contemp and was silly enough to think that didn't require much world building. Then I tried to set my story in a real town. One I'd never visited but could get to in order to do research at some point. Then got there and realized it didn't fit my story at all. *sigh* Back to the drawing board.
So, I created a fictional place which I'm still *developing*. But I cheated it and set it in the region of the country where I live. So sue me.
In addition to location, I have to create the little worlds my characters inhabit. Their perceptions of how things revolve around them. I like that I can make it as big or as small as I'd like. For me the smaller the better. Makes it easier for me to polish the details.
J.K. - I don't envy you that task. That's more like combining worlds and that scares me about as much as writing historical. *g*
Ter - I thought that creating straight contemp looked just as hard as this. And, at least if I write myself in the corner, I can always use her magic (well, with some exceptions) to help me get her out. It's a convenient cop out. LOL!
I agree with you about JK's immortals. I have been reading some of Sherrilyn Kenyon's stuff recently and I am always amazed at the different ways she keeps her people together.
Like Terri, I never expected to do world building since I am writing contemporaries and they are set in a world I already know. But I quickly discovered I was wrong. Shortly after that discovery, someone (I have forgotten who or I would give credit) recommended a site on Patricia Wrede's world building. I love Patricia Wrede's fantasy works. I have lost count of how many times I have given her Enchanted Forest books as gifts. So I decided to check out the site. It is just a list of questions, but the detail is amazing. http://www.larseighner.com/world_builder/
Yep, you really have to put on your creative hat. And we all know what happens when an author cops out on the big HEA *cough*ghosts*cough*
Janga! That is an awesome site! Thank you so much for posting it!
Marn- Funny how I just emailed you about this last night and had no idea you were blogging about it today. LOL
For my suspense novel, not much world building fictionally required from me. It's set in my city. It was perfect because of the wide-open spaces, college town, river near by and the ability to find a place to meet someone in the middle of nowhere and never be found.
My para is another story. I'm just learning to build a world and I've gotta say that's the hardest part of writing for me. Mostly because I've never had to do it before (since I wrote fan fiction, my world was already built). But I kinda like building the para world. Like Tiff said, my world, my rules.
Great blog!
Speaking of paranormals, I'm reading Gena Showalter's The Darkest Night. Anyone else read it?
I'm kinda like Terri. I LOVE historicals and that is the dialogue and story that came to me first. I sat down and starting writing what was in my head. I didn't get very far before I realized that there was more to it than I thought.
Then a contemporary came to me and I started that. I figured, like Terri, it would be easier and require a LOT less research. And, just like Terri, I realized that I was fooling myself. Did the same exact thing - set it in the town I grew up in and eventually realized I didn't know as much as I thought I did about where I was born and raised! LOL Started a ficitional town and realized I needed to come up with details anyway.
I think no matter what path you choose you still have to world build. Basically, I didn't want to do the work. And let's face it - it's work! BUT... and that's a big but... as you so keenly pointed out Marnee, it can be whatever we want it to be because it's our world. That's the key I was missing before. I'm in charge and I get to say what's what.
So, the deal I've made with myself is that the extent to which I want to go into details is negotiable, but I can't be lazy anymore.
Great blog! There is world building in all story writing, I suppose; I hadn't thought of it, since paranormal stories require so much more of it, so much more clear boundaries and stuff.
You know what this makes me think of? It makes me think of the thing where you're supposed to figure out THREE things your character will never do and make sure they do it. I can never figure out the three things until the book is written and I'm going back to make sure everything is decent...
I forgot to answer one of the questions, I think. Go figure.
I think with building a para world you have to decide whether you want to keep it simple or you want to go all fantasy on the idea and change the world everyone knows. I think good para's really blend this together well. I'm trying to find that happy medium and haven't been doing so well.
I suppose we should bring up Rowling here. She created a world that thousands of kids (and adults!) want to inhabit. But since I haven't read the books, nor have I paid much attention to the movies, does she keep it kind of close to reality with some twists or does her world feel like it's totally out of reality?
Rowling: I don't know. It seems real to me, but my boss can't read her. Thinks her world is too crazy and unbelievable. There is something called Apparating, it's how you travel without brooms. You turn on one foot, think of the place you want to go, and boom, you're there.
I can't say they're anything like the real world or twists on it. Because we can't Apparate; we can't use a Portkey. We can't send Patronuses to people that can say short messages.
I don't know how she did it. Other than that adage of Tell a Lie. Tell a BIG lie, and tell it until you believe it happened.
I just always remember the advice that if you're going to lie/make something up try to keep it as close to the truth as you can so you don't trip yourself up. I know for me, remembering day to day facts in my current world is hard enough let alone having to remember a whole new set for a fictional world. LOL
I think with Rowling she has to have some kind of room or something where she keeps everything outlined. I picture some deep dark room in her basement, kind of like the Bat Cave. Each wall covered with pertinent information - one wall plastered with all the words she created and their meanings; another wall would have maps and directional signals of the world she created; another wall would have all the magical people listed with their corresponding powers and weaknesses. JK Rowling is a little above the ordinary. Unless she's found some miracle drug and her memory doesn't fail her like it does all of us, she has to have some kind of map room!
It's already been mentioned, but even in using my own town and changing the name I still pause and reflect on certain aspects of my "world". I also find myself spending a lot of time building the world around the character's situation. Certain scenes pack more punch if the timing and location falls into place. I really don't think I'm getting my point across but I'm strapped for time today, and my mind is going in seven different directions. Sorry!
Great thought provoking blog Marnee:)
"It's alive! Alive!" Cool blog, Marnee! I love Frankenstein. :-)
JK said- When "your heroine is a human, the trouble comes in finding a way for them to spend eternity together." This crops up with every story idea I have. How do you get them together in the end? I even had trouble with that in my Native American novel. We all know the Sioux got the shaft. How can you make an ending happy out of that between a white girl and a Sioux warrior? It takes hard work, especially when you know in a couple of years Custer turns their world upside down.
JK Rowling's books are awesome. Though I admit I've never read them, I've seen all the movies and my kids, including my mom, have read them. She has an uncanny knack of taking things you know and altering them just a bit creating imaginary, visionary spectacles. She's the queen of world building and I wish I had a tiny spark of her talent.
The thing to remember is no matter how far fetched you make your story, emotions, feelings, attractions, are all the same to every human being. To the undead, these are feelings wished for but long denied sparking fits of rage and frustration, or complete delight, depending upon the character, the environment and lives lived. Take what you know and bend it. Wield power over your world. (Sometimes the worlds we build wield power over us.)
I LOVE to world build and often here the words, "It's alive! Alive!" in my head when I hit paydirt.
But Rowling doesn't make it as if everyone is on another planet, I don't think. Harry does sort of jump from *real* world to the *wizardy* world, right?
And I never think of what can be done in the world, I think of the physicality of the world. Another example of my non-para thinking ways. LOL! But that makes sense. I need to stretch my imagination.
The rules of what is and is not possible are a part of the world. Though I don't think is as much of an issue in contemps. Historicals probably have a harder time with that issue since there were so many strictures in society. Makes the parameters of the story even more narrow.
I love the Harry Potter Books and have read them all several times, but I can think of other writers that I think are better to study for woeld building.
Lois McMaster Bujold--The Spirit Ring.
Susan Cooper--Dark is Rising series. (Over Sea, Under Stone; Dark is Rising; Greenwitch; Grey King; Silver on the Tree.)
Barbara Hambly--Time of the Dark, Walls of Air, Armies of the Daylight
Diana Wynne Jones--Dalemark books (Cart and Cwidder; Drowned Ammet; The Spellcoats; Crown of Dalemark) Howl's Moving Castle. Archers Goon. Dark Lord of Dernhelm.
Ursula LeGuin--Earthsea trilogy. (Wizard of Earthsea; Tombs of Atuan; Farthest Shore; Tehanu)
C. S. Lewis--Narnia series (which I won't name since I am sure that you have all read them).
Robin McKinley--Hero and the Crown; The Blue Sword
Tamora Pierce--Tortall-set books (Song of the Lioness, Immortals, Protector of the Small, Daughter of the Lioness, and Provost's Dog)
Janga - thank you for the site! That is a very comprehensive list of questions and information to think on! How fun!!
Sin - I was thinking this morning about your email and how it related to my blog. LOL!! I've read Gena Showalter before and I like her voice a lot. She write's very hot stuff. :) Jewel of Atlantis, I think? It was good.
Irish - Isn't it funny that you think you know someplace and then when you start to describe it, somehow it feels like you really don't know as much as you thought? LOL!
Hellion - The whole three things a character wouldn't do is definitely helpful in world building. Sin just mentioned that to me last night. I still haven't figured it out, but I'm working on it. :)
Ter - I think Rowling's world is believable too. It's basically our world, but the wizards and witches live around us and we never know. Sort of like rats in the sewer, but not quite so skeevy.
I love the idea of telling a big lie, Cap'n. I suppose that works too!
Irish- the Bat Cave! LOL!! I think, though, that she might just be that imaginative and smart. I'm sick with jealousy.
Kathy - you're so right that feelings/emotions are universal and it's just tapping into that universal. :) I love Frankenstein too. Though, that whole crowd, the Shelleys, Byron, etc, a bunch o wackos. LOL!
Lis - Personally, I think building the world around the character has to be the hardest part. It's making things believable that really presses in on me. Keeping them consistent. I always think that once a character acts out of character once, the reader starts doubting their authenticity. It's frustrating.
Ter - Harry definitely does jump from the real world to the fantasy. I think it is part of what makes him so appealing. He's a dork in the "real" world, then one day, he literally finds out he is extraordinary. It's everyone's dream; elevation from the normal to that bit of greatness inside.
Janga - thanks for the recommendations. I've read some of these (love LeGuin and Lewis) but not all.
Marnee, I heard Shelly had moments of hysteria until she died after writing Frankenstein and thought the monster was after her. She could never get it out of her mind. What a scary thought! When you create something, build a world, does it follow you the rest of your days? I'm left wondering how Stephen King sleeps at night.
I think Shelley was a little disturbed prior to Frankenstein. The book just clarified her disturbia. :)
I do wonder about Stephen King. I wonder if he sleeps like a babe while giving everyone else nightmares.
I read somewhere that a romance author, when asked why she wrote romance, responded by saying, "I'd rather write about sex than dismemberment." Soooo true....
What about sex and dismemberment? I seem to remember the Bobit's. *snarkety snark*
You know, I was thinking that would weird if those two came together. NO pun intended. LOL! But as you point out, truth is always stranger than fiction.
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