Fifth View always has great post ideas, and I gave him a few days to post this one, but because it has been something in my mind for a while too I thought I would get the ball rolling on the discussion.
So basically this post is about your thoughts or process, on what stuff you keep as "mundane" in your works, and what stuff you feel OK about stretching beyond a reasonable doubt.
The reason I have been thinking about this lately is because I'm doing a few crits for a few people (and working on my own WIP) and I find that I am constantly toggling between two comments:
"This is too unrealistic." and "This is a fantasy! Jazz this up a bit."
Obviously, the two comments are contradictory. lol.
Here are my thoughts on the subject:
I think that the reader will always revert to "what they know" or their "schema". Basically, when introduced to new information they will try to fit that information into what they already know.
So if you are going to present something like birth, or lighting a fire, or reading a book, or getting punished by a whip, then the reader will automatically imagine the experience in a way they have seen it before.
If what you are showing the reader comes across as too unrealistic (the baby is born very quickly and the mother gets up and fights off a dragon after) or a slave feels very little pain from the whip and then has no problem picking up his sickle and heading back to the fields, then the reader (or me, in this case) will think "That is too unrealistic. Obviously, this author didn't think this through or do her research." Nothing screams amateur to me than this sort of thing.
HOWEVER, there is a caveat:
- IF the author explains why childbirth or the whip are different in this world, and uses enough detail to show how they are different, then I may suspend belief.
- IF the author SHOWS another, different woman giving birth in a similar way, or another slave being whipped in a similar way my "schema" changes to think "Oh, this must be the way this is done in this world."
In my opinion, both of the above are necessary when including something in a fantasy that is "not the way it happens on Earth."
BUT IT'S A FANTASY!
Yes. Yes, it is. And this is why world building and showing, not telling, are so important to fantasy writers and why most fantasy books are two to three times longer than other genre fiction. We don't need to have lanterns, we can have floating orbs of magical light. We can bend the rules of architecture, time and space, gravity, whatever we like. We can create new races... I think we can stretch our imaginations to whatever deep and dark corner we can come up with, and I know for myself when an author throws in something totally strange, or weird, or unknown to me... something so huge and over the top my eyes widen a bit, and my ears prick up and I settle into my seat and think "Cool, this is going to be good."
BUT,
First, they need to show me how their world is different. Change my schema. Include a scene showing me why and how things are different so that I can suspend disbelief. There needs to be a substantial amount of detailed world building and "set-up" scenes so that I understand without a doubt that the scene is not a on-off with inadequate research, but actually how things are done in the world.
Thoughts on this? How do you guys show your worlds are "not Earth" without hand-holding or getting too deep into exposition?
So basically this post is about your thoughts or process, on what stuff you keep as "mundane" in your works, and what stuff you feel OK about stretching beyond a reasonable doubt.
The reason I have been thinking about this lately is because I'm doing a few crits for a few people (and working on my own WIP) and I find that I am constantly toggling between two comments:
"This is too unrealistic." and "This is a fantasy! Jazz this up a bit."
Obviously, the two comments are contradictory. lol.
Here are my thoughts on the subject:
I think that the reader will always revert to "what they know" or their "schema". Basically, when introduced to new information they will try to fit that information into what they already know.
So if you are going to present something like birth, or lighting a fire, or reading a book, or getting punished by a whip, then the reader will automatically imagine the experience in a way they have seen it before.
If what you are showing the reader comes across as too unrealistic (the baby is born very quickly and the mother gets up and fights off a dragon after) or a slave feels very little pain from the whip and then has no problem picking up his sickle and heading back to the fields, then the reader (or me, in this case) will think "That is too unrealistic. Obviously, this author didn't think this through or do her research." Nothing screams amateur to me than this sort of thing.
HOWEVER, there is a caveat:
- IF the author explains why childbirth or the whip are different in this world, and uses enough detail to show how they are different, then I may suspend belief.
- IF the author SHOWS another, different woman giving birth in a similar way, or another slave being whipped in a similar way my "schema" changes to think "Oh, this must be the way this is done in this world."
In my opinion, both of the above are necessary when including something in a fantasy that is "not the way it happens on Earth."
BUT IT'S A FANTASY!
Yes. Yes, it is. And this is why world building and showing, not telling, are so important to fantasy writers and why most fantasy books are two to three times longer than other genre fiction. We don't need to have lanterns, we can have floating orbs of magical light. We can bend the rules of architecture, time and space, gravity, whatever we like. We can create new races... I think we can stretch our imaginations to whatever deep and dark corner we can come up with, and I know for myself when an author throws in something totally strange, or weird, or unknown to me... something so huge and over the top my eyes widen a bit, and my ears prick up and I settle into my seat and think "Cool, this is going to be good."
BUT,
First, they need to show me how their world is different. Change my schema. Include a scene showing me why and how things are different so that I can suspend disbelief. There needs to be a substantial amount of detailed world building and "set-up" scenes so that I understand without a doubt that the scene is not a on-off with inadequate research, but actually how things are done in the world.
Thoughts on this? How do you guys show your worlds are "not Earth" without hand-holding or getting too deep into exposition?