# "But it doesn't happen on Earth!" or "But it's a fantasy!"



## Heliotrope (Sep 4, 2016)

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?


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## Reaver (Sep 4, 2016)

Great start to a thread Heliotrope! For me the answer is simple: the mere existence of fantastical creatures and beings in my world is enough to show that this isn't earth.

 I'll also include peripheral things like multiple moons in the sky at night, trees a thousand feet high and many other otherworldly examples.


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## glutton (Sep 4, 2016)

The way the heroines are presented in my stories are usually enough in my view to show it is pure cathartic fantasy and not meant to be particularly realistic. Girls who wield 20-50 lb weapons often one-handed, beat up giant monsters without magic, and endure attacks that would kill a normal human many times over are bae. In the opening scene on my current WIP one of the characters has her subordinate 'trim' half a dozen arrows that are sticking out of her so they don't get in the way of her movement, then goes on to bisect a 1500 lb armored boar in one hit and then absolutely annihilate a half-angel wielding the artifact spear of a Lucifer analogue. She is high end even for my girls and it is meant to be a major hype scene, but still.

One of my heroines getting up after childbirth and fighting a dragon would be a mid tier feat for them lol.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 4, 2016)

I struggle quite a lot with this kind of thing. I have two sides of me at war; on the one hand, the scientifically-minded side who wants everything to be factually accurate and is driven mad when I have to bend the rules of physics and nature to justify something; on the other hand, the whimsical, imaginative side who wants to go wild inventing strange and bizarre and often illogical things. It can make world-building painful. 

I would like to consider my WIP a hard fantasy. The "magic" (if you even can call it that) isn't in everything. By that, i mean it occurs in a very specific and limited context (in people) and what it can and can't do is very clearly defined. I can't handwave anything by saying "it's magic." My dragons can't be magical, my swords can't be magical because magic isn't something that occurs throughout the world in things like animals or objects...aside from the magic system everything works not much differently than it does in reality. 

BUT. There are rules I still have to break. And i can't explain them away using magic. For example, my dragons and winged people--I have a flight obsession ever since watching How to Train Your Dragon and I have a lot of things that fly. A creature with both forelegs/arms and functional wings is rather impossible (the muscles in both limbs would be competing for space, and the muscles controlling the wings would have to be huge. Also, there would be no place to anchor the wing muscles. If you study a bird's skeleton they have a bone in their chest that the muscles powering the wings anchor to. In a peregrine falcon these muscles are 30% of the bird's body weight. Yes, i'm a nerd.) But, still, I have the dragons and winged people, because they're cool. If I can't use the "it's magic" explanation to handwave them, _should_ i have them? I don't know. 

I have a saying that goes something like this: "It doesn't have to be realistic, it just has to be real." That means that it doesn't matter if something obeys the rules of reality as long as the reader can be made to believe in it. Suspension of disbelief is a tricky thing. You have to resolve the questions that the text brings up. If it can be clearly shown that something works a certain way in this world, the reader will accept it without an in-depth explanation, but if it's just thrown out there...it's different. It seems more important to show what the rules are than show how the rules conform to our rules.


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## SaltyDog (Sep 4, 2016)

Reaver said:


> Great start to a thread Heliotrope! For me the answer is simple: the mere existence of fantastical creatures and beings in my world is enough to show that this isn't earth.
> 
> I'll also include peripheral things like multiple moons in the sky at night, trees a thousand feet high and many other otherworldly examples.



I agree with Reaver, fantastical creatures and strange races say it all.  Only have one moon though.


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## La Volpe (Sep 4, 2016)

I've always seen this issue as a matter of differentiating between something being realistic, and something being internally consistent.

Fantasy, by nature, is unrealistic. But it's important to stay internally consistent. At the start, everything is assumed to be the same as we know it (i.e. Earth-like). But you can change this schema. You describe this perfectly in your caveat bit.

A very basic example of this is magic. Magic is unrealistic, but it can be internally consistent. I.e. it follows the rules the writer sets for it. As the reader goes on, you reveal patterns, and a new schema emerges. If you suddenly stop following the rules you set up, you're being inconsistent, and that's usually not good (unless it's planned).

An example of something that struck me as terribly inconsistent was this: Clark Kent is attacked by a guy with a knife. But he holds up his hand and the knife hits it square in the palm. Then the blade shatters apart.
While we have the new schema of Superman being impenetrable, that isn't enough to shatter the knife. The only way that would happen is if the guy attacking has super strength (which he doesn't). I.e. the scene is not consistent with the rules that's been set up.

@Dragon: I think you have the same understanding about this. I.e. you can do anything as crazy and strange as you want, as long as you apply the rules consistently.


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## Heliotrope (Sep 4, 2016)

^^^ Yes. I think this is very important. 

If it happens once with one character without any explanation it is stretching it for me. 

IF the author SHOWS it happening more than once, with more than one character then it becomes "normal" in the context of the world.


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## SaltyDog (Sep 4, 2016)

Always stick to the rules you have set down in that world, it may be crazy stuff, but if you follow the rules it tends to work out.


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## ascanius (Sep 4, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I struggle quite a lot with this kind of thing. I have two sides of me at war; on the one hand, the scientifically-minded side who wants everything to be factually accurate and is driven mad when I have to bend the rules of physics and nature to justify something; on the other hand, the whimsical, imaginative side who wants to go wild inventing strange and bizarre and often illogical things. It can make world-building painful.



This is so true for me too, yet we fight on.

As a reader, the more a world diverges from ours the harder it is for me to enjoy, think tritation curve.  For me, if your going to have a floating city of one million people you're going to have to do a hell of a lot of work.  I don't mean just the physics, economics, demographics etc...  I mean the subtleties of the entire world.  The thing I hate is a real world transplant with extravagant magic.  If the culture details are not there to act as a foundation I have a very hard time.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 4, 2016)

La Volpe said:


> @Dragon: I think you have the same understanding about this. I.e. you can do anything as crazy and strange as you want, as long as you apply the rules consistently.



You said it much better than me, but yes, basically.


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## FifthView (Sep 4, 2016)

Helio,

I avoided starting the thread because I was worried it could become a War of Polemics.  Or, of Aesthetics.  All of us who are intensely in love with the fantasy genre will have strong feelings about its very nature and, simultaneously, might easily feel that any You Must or You Mustn't could become an unfair manacle on our creativity.

First, the abstract...  

In that other thread I'd broken the dichotomy into this: "the tendency to not follow 'Where there's a will, there's a way' but rather to stop at 'OMG I just can't do this!' " 

My general concern was not about _what_ must or must not be put into a fantasy, _how_ we must or must not put it there—per se—but rather about the effects of internalized inhibition.   Do we limit ourselves, our own creativity, though a fear of seeming ridiculous—or of being misunderstood?

Here's a related Writing Excuses podcast:  11.08: Wonder as a Subgenre | Writing Excuses

Sanderson:  "So the first thing I would say is that if you want to use this in your books, if you want this to be a strength, you need to put awesome things in your books."

Does inhibition limit the awesomeness?  Or let's put it another way:  Does fear of being ridiculous push us toward writing _the average_?

So my primary concern was about how those two guiding principles, Where there's a will vs OMG I can't, come into play in the conceptualization phase, the preplanning, or, if we are pantsing the story, as we write.

I'd say this concern affects everything from basic world building, to creating characters and developing the plot, to creating individual plot points and scenes.

So, putting feet to pavement....

"Where there's a will" can take just about any crazy idea and make it seem plausible, whether by following Earth as a model or through internal consistency for the story.  This doesn't mean the idea won't itself need to be altered.  

So birth while falling:  When I hear, "But let me tell you how birth really happens," I have a kneejerk angry reaction internally because my impulse is to respond, "Let me tell you how it really can happen—in this story."   Perhaps the initial brainstorm, that lightning bolt _Cool!_ idea, would need to be developed further.  Our winged human goes into labor hours before she's abducted by whoever's going to kill her, so it's not a 15 minute gap between first labor pains and giving birth.  She herself doesn't fight her abductor to acquire that hatchet, but rather someone who's shown up to save her is the one who fights the abductor.  When her would-be killer shoves her over the edge of their floating city, this other person flies after her, holding the hatchet that will be used to cut the umbilical cord.  Still not enough?  Well let's consider other ways to make it plausible.

Maybe there's something unusual about this species of winged humans that would further make that birth while falling plausible.  (Internal consistency.)

But the "OMG, I can't do that!" guiding principle automatically removes the idea before it's really weighed and tried.  So we end up with her in a hospital bed with legs in a stirrup.  Or something else we've seen 1000 times in movies, television, or something we've read in books.  Maybe we just kill her in an alley, the baby still inside her.  Y'know, what always happens.

A similar experience for me was reading a recent thread about a 5-year-old's reaction when his grandfather throws up on him.  We are told that the 5-year-old is of a different species, one with fast brain development and isn't quite like the 5-year-olds we know on Earth.  What does he say after his grandfather throws up on him?  The consensus answer seems to be:  Think of how 5-year-olds would naturally react on Earth.  I was thinking he might say something like:

"What the hell, grandpa!"

or

"By Grentor's balls, grandpa!"

And it could be almost anything, unless we want a strictly Earthly experience involving any average child on Earth.

So...To be continued.  I think subgenre, style, and so forth could play a large role in how we decide to go about presenting the fantastical; but I might save that consideration for later.


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## Heliotrope (Sep 4, 2016)

Ahhhhhh, I see where you are going with this. 

Ok,  in my own personal opinion, I find that I write my best stuff when I'm pushing the boundaries of embarrassment. I think this is fairly common, because I've heard the same thing before from many people. I think, that when we can access the scary subconscious of our brains, the stuff that we would be embarrassed to tell anyone else, the stuff that would scare people, then that is the best stuff. 

I always think this after I watch a horror movie... like "Oh my gosh, whoever wrote that must be sick in the head." I think the same thing about Stephen King, but also GRRM... at what point do you become OK with writing about twin incest? 

But I think it is necessary in order to create good fiction that people actually want to read. I think everyone has that deep scary subconscious and when a writer can access that it is gold. But I think the writer needs to overcome that embarrassment in themselves before they can do that. 

Anyway, that is my opinion on that. 

So, I do not have an issue with a winged creature giving birth while falling from a cloud city... BUT like I said earlier, because my schema tells me this is impossible, there would have to be some substantial set up before it could be plausible for me. 

I would need to see another character giving birth before the scene, so I could understand how giving birth is different in that world than what I am used to. I would need to see another creature have his wings hacked off and survive in order to understand that that is plausible in the world. I would need to see another creature fall from the cloud city and survive so that it makes sense that an infant could do so... 

Does that make sense? I say, be as creative as absolutely possible, please! Don't hold yourself back! Go crazy! But understand that your readers have a schema, and in order to make it seem plausible, they need to understand how your world is different then what they know so it makes sense.


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## FifthView (Sep 4, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> So, I do not have an issue with a winged creature giving birth while falling from a cloud city... BUT like I said earlier, because my schema tells me this is impossible, there would have to be some substantial set up before it could be plausible for me.



Let me tell you about my schema. 

As a child, I was told of my aunt's birth several times.  She was born in a car on the way to the hospital.  I recently asked my mother about this, because the topic's been on mind.  Apparently, my grandmother had a normal doctor's appointment that day, and the doctor told her to go home, the baby wouldn't be born for another week or so.  As my grandmother got home, she told my grandfather, "Turn back.  The baby's coming right now."  On the way to the hospital, the baby was born.  My mother, who was 7 years old, was also in the car when her sister was born.

So, that story was in my mind when my first brainstorm of the idea came.  So when reading that story about a labor and birth time of 1 hour, 45 minutes, and that it's called "precipitous labour" and happens in about 2-3% of births, I thought maybe that explains my aunt's birth nearly 6 decades ago.

Another part of my schema:  All those stories in the news about teenage mothers giving birth in restrooms at schools or restaurants and disposing of the child in a trash can.

Plus, I recently watched the second season of _Marco Polo_ on Netflix and saw one of the characters giving birth while squatting...and in the last couple of days, I've read that squatting, standing, or even walking while giving birth can help in the process—gravity may help.  So falling?  Hmmm.

Now none of this is to say that trying to shoot for the average experience, so as not to break the average reader's suspension of disbelief, is a bad strategy.  These are things that probably should be considered in many cases when brainstorming awesome ideas.  But I'm also not sure that we need to follow an Earthly pattern in great detail, or an average Earthly pattern.  I don't know.  Look at a movie like _Gravity_, which gets high marks for realism but doesn't entirely escape criticism either.


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## Heliotrope (Sep 4, 2016)

Totally. I agree. I gave birth to my two standing as well, and quickly. But because it is not the "average" way of doing things on earth, I would feel that if I were to include these experiences in my novel I would need to explicitly show the reader in some way that this is either "normal" by having other characters do things in a similar way, or "not normal" by having characters react in certain ways. 

One of my favorite films is Inception. Hardly reality, and my favorite type of fantasy. The plausibility of a team of characters accessing my subconscious and stealing ideas as if they were confidential documents is pushing it. However, throughout the film they use a variety of purposeful "set up" scenes to make it perfectly clear to the viewer that "this capability is commonly used and normal in this world". 

Late in the film the subconscious of the victim is protected by "guards" or projections of his subconscious. In order for this to be plausible for the viewer (who is already suspending disbelief that Leonardo decaprio can access people's dreams) they had to use a set up scene earlier to show how people can be trained to protect their subconscious with these projections. 

once the idea is set up early in a simple way then it becomes more plausible later on.


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## Penpilot (Sep 4, 2016)

For me, I go I'm in the boat that anything can work as long as you set it up right, which I guess is the key here. Off the top of my head I'd say if it follows common sense, consistency, and cool you'll be fine.

With fantasy, I think you'll get a extra bit of wiggle room to make sense of things to the reader. For the most part I think people will accept almost any type of creature without explanation if they know the story is fantasy. 

Where you begin to lose the reader is if you violate common sense a lot. One or two times the reader will forgive things if the story is engaging, but after that, the story loses credibility, 

You could have knights in full plate doing back flips like a gymnast all day long as long as you establish that it's a thing in your world, and your consistent about this ability, and well because it's cool. But as soon as you have a knight go "I've fallen and I can't get up" there's going to be a long pause by the reader as they decide whether or not to throw the book across the room. Because if your knights can do back flips, then common sense and consistency dictates armor shouldn't prevent them from getting up from a fall.

Any ways my 2 cents.


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## Malik (Sep 4, 2016)

Penpilot said:


> Where you begin to lose the reader is if you violate common sense a lot. One or two times the reader will forgive things if the story is engaging, but after that, the story loses credibility



This. Sometimes I'll be reading a fantasy novel and I'll reach the point where the author is basically telling these aggrandizing lies about all the super-awesome things that his friend can do, and I reach the point where I'm thinking, "Bullshit."

There's a novel out there (and I hope the author isn't reading this; check that, I hope he is) where the hero is jousting (in a battle, but we'll let that slide) and he takes a lance to the chest. With this lance sticking in him, he's able to grab the end and lift the badguy out of his saddle -- levering him using the lance, mind you -- and flip him up over his head like a pole vaulter. That's where I clicked out. "Nope. No way. The hell he did." No magic involved, just a superbadass MC. 

Aaaaaand, no. 

Magic? Sure. Flying pegasi? Absolutely. But I draw the line when the author clearly doesn't know what the hell he or she is talking about.


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## glutton (Sep 4, 2016)

Malik said:


> This. Sometimes I'll be reading a fantasy novel and I'll reach the point where the author is basically telling these aggrandizing lies about all the super-awesome things that his friend can do, and I reach the point where I'm thinking, "Bullshit."
> 
> There's a novel out there (and I hope the author isn't reading this; check that, I hope he is) where the hero is jousting (in a battle, but we'll let that slide) and he takes a lance to the chest. With this lance sticking in him, he's able to grab the end and lift the badguy out of his saddle -- levering him using the lance, mind you -- and flip him up over his head like a pole vaulter. That's where I clicked out. "Nope. No way. The hell he did." No magic involved, just a superbadass MC.
> 
> ...



...that is like a standard fight scene for one of my Baeforce wielders XD

Regarding the last sentence, how obviously absurd would it have to be for you to figure the author knows what they're writing is unrealistic but decides to do it anyway? Is 'girl cleaving straight through the body of a 1500 lb armored boar from mouth to rump in one running swing' blatant enough?


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## Penpilot (Sep 4, 2016)

Malik said:


> With this lance sticking in him, he's able to grab the end and lift the badguy out of his saddle -- levering him using the lance, mind you -- and flip him up over his head like a pole vaulter. That's where I clicked out. "Nope. No way. The hell he did." No magic involved, just a superbadass MC.



Vin Diesel, is that you?


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## FifthView (Sep 5, 2016)

It seems to me that different subgenres will place different requirements on the writer.  

The easy example would be hard science fiction vs space opera of the Star Wars variety.

Also, farcical, comedic fantasy might actually make a strength of the absurd rather than suffering from it.  I can actually picture that jousting event being hilarious, under the right circumstances.  But in an epic fantasy with a serious tone, not so much.

Then there are horror tales in which the strange and unbelievable may become more frightening simply because of the mind bending, mysterious, barely-to-be-believed events and monsters.



Penpilot said:


> For the most part I think people will accept almost any type of creature without explanation if they know the story is fantasy.



I think this is true, and so I wonder if the type of unexplained oddity can make a great difference, and how it is used.  

Are we far less likely to simply accept, without explanation or foreshadowing, a character doing something seemingly preposterous than we are to accept the existence of an odd creature?  (That may dip into the Mary Sue problem.  Or that might evoke the _deus ex machina_ problem if the character also somehow manages to save the day by performing a preposterous action that hasn't been foreshadowed.)

I wonder what limits or requirements we might place on geological oddities, climate oddities, weather oddities?


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 5, 2016)

I kinda think it comes down to how purposeful the divergence from reality seems. 

If there isn't a good reason for the divergence and it looks like the author just had no idea what they were talking about...if it doesn't look intentional...I'll question it. 

But, if it's clear that it was on purpose and if it makes sense why the author did it, my reaction will be different.


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## Penpilot (Sep 5, 2016)

FifthView said:


> I wonder what limits or requirements we might place on geological oddities, climate oddities, weather oddities?



Talking out of my butthole here a bit, but these things along with creatures are setting. So maybe living in a world we don't fully understand with oddities isn't exactly a foreign thing, because our world is full of amazing creatures and fantastic sights, so I don't think it's much of a stretch to accept a different world with equally amazing creatures and sights. 

BUT, I think we're less accepting of characters doing things without foreshadowing because readers understand characters. They are characters, with motivations and abilities that have logical reasons behind them. So when we read about a character doing something unreasonable, it's a lot easier to say "Hey, that's BS. I wouldn't have done something like that."

In Star Wars Episode 4, everyone understands why Han shot first, but does anyone care for an explanation of how the force really works? 

In the Star Wars prequels, how many people really care about the inner workings of the Senate, trade embargoes, etc.? And how many people would have really liked a well thought out reason why the f#ck Padme just died? OR why Anikin just went all darkside at the flip of a switch?


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 5, 2016)

FifthView said:


> Are we far less likely to simply accept, without explanation or foreshadowing, a character doing something seemingly preposterous than we are to accept the existence of an odd creature?  (That may dip into the Mary Sue problem.  Or that might evoke the _deus ex machina_ problem if the character also somehow manages to save the day by performing a preposterous action that hasn't been foreshadowed.)
> 
> I wonder what limits or requirements we might place on geological oddities, climate oddities, weather oddities?



In response to the first question: Definitely, because it's an accepted thing in fantasy to have 

But, for the sake of a functional story, characters have to think and act in a way that's somewhat the same as they do in reality. That's the rule. Characters are such a fundamental point of reference for us. We understand the story through them. Also, we all ARE humans (I assume; genuinely sorry if I have failed to take into account any non-humans that might be reading this...) and human behavior, human traits...are very easily the most universal of all human experiences because we ARE HUMANS. That's why they're hard to handwave. 

As for geology/climate/weather: I've heard that Mirkwood couldn't exist in real life because of the rain shadow cast by the Misty Mountains. It would be a desert. Does anyone care? No. 

Your readers' only grounds to reject an idea as unrealistic or impossible are their own knowledge and experience. On a subject very few people understand, you can do quite a bit of handwaving. But, if it's something a lot of people have experience with, like childbirth, people will notice. And portraying it badly will break your credibility as an author.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 5, 2016)

For me, how much I forgive does have a lot to do with how much I'm enjoying the book. How well the author's doing everything else.

I once read a book where a character jumped out of a third-story window and escaped unharmed. That was annoying (and it wasn't a fantasy story either). That wasn't the only thing that bent logic; there were so many plot points that depended on it. But I liked the book, so it didn't bother me. 

HOWEVER, toward the end, when a character did something that seemed illogical given the circumstances...it ruined the book for me. When authors make characters act out of character to justify something, it ruins everything.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 5, 2016)

Penpilot said:


> Talking out of my butthole here a bit, but these things along with creatures are setting. So maybe living in a world we don't fully understand with oddities isn't exactly a foreign thing, because our world is full of amazing creatures and fantastic sights, so I don't think it's much of a stretch to accept a different world with equally amazing creatures and sights.
> 
> BUT, I think we're less accepting of characters doing things without foreshadowing because readers understand characters. They are characters, with motivations and abilities that have logical reasons behind them. So when we read about a character doing something unreasonable, it's a lot easier to say "Hey, that's BS. I wouldn't have done something like that."
> 
> ...



In Star Wars, I don't care why all the planets are made of only one biome, how the space slug can live on that asteroid, how the Ewoks climb trees with those stubby fingers...What I do care about is why on earth did Padme, an apparently intelligent woman, fall for creepy Anakin? How did Obi-Wan not figure it out until the end of Ep. III? And yes, why did Padme die? 

But, I'm probably going to attract all the prequel-haters this way, so, I'll stop. 

There's nothing I hate worse than when authors hijack characters' autonomy to satisfy plot points...


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## Deleted member 4265 (Sep 5, 2016)

FifthView said:


> I wonder what limits or requirements we might place on geological oddities, climate oddities, weather oddities?



This is actually one of the reasons I've never read ASOIAF. Its not that I mind the seasons being unpredictable, but it does bother me that the plants and animals don't seem to have made any sort of adaptations to it (granted I'm not entirely sure what that would be). Maybe this doesn't bother a lot of people, but it irks me.


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## FifthView (Sep 5, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> On a subject very few people understand, you can do quite a bit of handwaving. But, if it's something a lot of people have experience with, like childbirth, people will notice. And portraying it badly will break your credibility as an author.



Today I read about Mary Gorgens.  Waking up from pains, and giving birth 2 minutes after she told her husband the baby is coming.



I am not giving up on this.

But I think that the story we are telling is important.  Will this fit?  Can I do this in a believable way?  Do I need this?  Will worrying over it, trying to make it work, be more trouble than it's worth?  Will including it without worrying about making it work break my story?  And I think that considering these things in context with a story in development is far more important than following some preordained template.

But sometimes you just have to roll the dice and let your beta readers or editor whack you over the head.


Edit:  Incidentally, this is one of the problems with getting help brainstorming an idea.  So much context is left out in those brainstorming posts.  Sometimes it's not an idea that is bad, per se, but the fact that it doesn't fit within context or for the needs of the story.  Even a great idea that could conceivably fit within the fantasy world might be bad for that particular point in a story.


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## Reaver (Sep 5, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> In Star Wars, I don't care why all the planets are made of only one biome, how the space slug can live on that asteroid, how the Ewoks climb trees with those stubby fingers...What I do care about is why on earth did Padme, an apparently intelligent woman, fall for creepy Anakin? How did Obi-Wan not figure it out until the end of Ep. III? And yes, why did Padme die?



Simple answer to these questions: Shitty writing. How about this: Why is there a kid-sized helmet in that Naboo fighter that Anakin "hides" in in Episode 1? Maybe all Naboo fighter pilots suffer from microcephaly. That must be the reason. 

I could probably write a book pointing out all the plot holes in the prequels but why bother? They are three festering turds that cannot be unshat. I say let the flies buzz around and do their thing. Maybe someday someone will have the decency to bury them.

The funniest thing about Star Wars episodes 1-3 is that Lucas said that they're made for kids. You know, because kids love politics, convoluted plots and the implication of children being murdered. But hey, there's Jar Jar right?


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## FifthView (Sep 5, 2016)

Penpilot said:


> Talking out of my butthole here a bit, but these things along with creatures are setting. So maybe living in a world we don't fully understand with oddities isn't exactly a foreign thing, because our world is full of amazing creatures and fantastic sights, so I don't think it's much of a stretch to accept a different world with equally amazing creatures and sights.
> 
> BUT, I think we're less accepting of characters doing things without foreshadowing because readers understand characters. They are characters, with motivations and abilities that have logical reasons behind them. So when we read about a character doing something unreasonable, it's a lot easier to say "Hey, that's BS. I wouldn't have done something like that."
> 
> ...



For me the great deal breaker was Anakin flipping like that.

I think that a lot of these things having to do with characters can be reduced to the fact that they haven't _earned_ it.  

It's not really that Anakin couldn't have flipped for the reasons he flipped, but that way too many steps were omitted in the telling of his descent into the Dark Side.  It was too easy.  The same sort of thing could be said about characters performing miraculous feats that haven't been foreshadowed.  They haven't earned the right to those feats.

So maybe it's a matter of execution rather than the idea being bad.  Which probably brings us back to Helio's central point.

But another consideration:  

Perhaps the effect that an event or object has on the story makes a large difference in whether we can accept the oddity without explanation.

So here's a problem I've always had with the Star Wars universe.  All these out-of-the-way outposts will have a tavern that is absolutely full of strange alien beings, a great variety, with only 1-3 of each race.  But to my way of thinking, the "realistic" approach would be to have the patrons be about 60% of whatever race is native to that world–or more.  Now sure, you could say that these taverns cater to travelers so....but that's stretching it for me.  But it doesn't matter.  The story doesn't really hinge on the composition of the patrons of those places.  It's like seeing an alien insect hovering around or some alien creature scurrying to hide behind a bush:  I don't need to know its biology, how it can live, because it's not going to matter to the story.  But what a main character can or cannot do?  That's really important to the story.


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## Reaver (Sep 5, 2016)

Here's an important part of the Star Wars story:


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## FifthView (Sep 5, 2016)

Reaver said:


> Here's an important part of the Star Wars story



Maybe Obi Wan was lying.  You know, to make Luke want to take up the saber.


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## Reaver (Sep 5, 2016)

Penpilot said:


> Talking out of my butthole here a bit...



If you could literally do this, even just a bit, you'd be wealthier than Bill Gates.


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## FifthView (Sep 5, 2016)

Devouring Wolf said:


> This is actually one of the reasons I've never read ASOIAF. Its not that I mind the seasons being unpredictable, but it does bother me that the plants and animals don't seem to have made any sort of adaptations to it (granted I'm not entirely sure what that would be). Maybe this doesn't bother a lot of people, but it irks me.



That's something I've never noticed or thought about.  But it's interesting that you have.


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## Reaver (Sep 5, 2016)

FifthView said:


> Maybe Obi Wan was lying.  You know, to make Luke want to take up the saber.



Of course Ben lied. He lied when he said Vader killed Luke's father and then when Luke confronts him in RotJ, being the total douchebag, Ben says:

 "Your father... was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be the Jedi Anakin Skywalker and "became" Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."


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## La Volpe (Sep 5, 2016)

As for Fifth's point of us accepting magical creatures, but not inconsistent characters, I think Dragon is right. We expect the characters to be human and act like humans. That's a given (unless set up otherwise).

Introducing creatures (and weather oddities etc.) depends on how we present the world. If it's an Earth-like world, strange weather would probably catch our attention and become an inconsistency unless it's explained and added to the schema. Why? Because weather (and physics etc.) is standard throughout the world. Yes, there's tornadoes in one part and none in the other, but tornadoes generally act the same way (I think? Or at least, they all follow the same physical laws) anywhere they occur. So we expect them to act the same way in a Earth-like fantasy world.

Having different creatures in a fantasy world is more natural, I'd think, since we're used to really weird animals, and more importantly, new areas having new animals in them. So when we're presented with a new world, we expect new creatures and new plants, because that's what we're used to.

That being said, anything new can be introduced as long as you update the reader's schema to include them.

---



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> What I do care about is



The prequels did a lot of things wrong, but these three didn't really bother me.



> why on earth did Padme, an apparently intelligent woman, fall for creepy Anakin?



What do you mean? Intelligent women fall for creepy and/or 'bad' men ALL THE TIME. It's not weird at all. And frankly, Anakin wasn't 'creepy' at the start. Ergo, after she fell in love with him, she'd ignore his creepy new traits because love-goggles.



> How did Obi-Wan not figure it out until the end of Ep. III?



This was actually something that felt really realistic to me. Obi-Wan raised Anakin from a boy, trained him and loved him like he was his brother. Of course he ignored things that would have led him to the conclusion that Anakin is turning to the dark side. He didn't want to believe it, so he subconsciously ignored the things that led him to a conclusion he didn't want to be true.

We all do that. It's basically confirmation bias.



> And yes, why did Padme die?



Eh, because plot? Yeah, this wasn't explained and didn't really make sense but it didn't bother me.


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## Penpilot (Sep 5, 2016)

Reaver said:


> If you could literally do this, even just a bit, you'd be wealthier than Bill Gates.



Yeah, me, the bearded woman, and all the geeks in the sideshow would be wealthier than all the sheikhs.


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## glutton (Sep 5, 2016)

La Volpe said:


> Eh, because plot? Yeah, this wasn't explained and didn't really make sense but it didn't bother me.



From a more meta standpoint, she was too likable and important a character in the previous movies to be discarded without much fanfare just like that.


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## bdcharles (Sep 5, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> Thoughts on this? How do you guys show your worlds are "not Earth" without hand-holding or getting too deep into exposition?



Ah, this is a great question! I think setup is key, but as you say, excessive infodumping can kill a story. So a good way, in my view, is to just give things a little precedent, almost a throwaway vignette - so let's say a character overhears someone say "Yeah, I got whipped, but, you know, the second skin really helps" it adds a term, _second skin_, to the schema, so we have a frame of reference for it not hurting, if we refer to it later. The trick then is to not make it either too centre-staged when its sole purpose is simply to render the later instance (of the whipping or whatever) more meaningful, but also not to make it so minor that readers don't internalise it and are just as lost when the whipping does actually occur. Maybe a second mention is useful in those cases, just to cement it in readers mind's.

I suppose an additional challenge is to ensure that the first occurrence of the fantasy thing - whipping in this case - needs to be relevant and not totally random, so it has to be sort of smoothed into some actual plot-centric goings on or other worldy-buildy  Eg:



> An unseen hand pulled back the stout oaken door and Boben stepped over the warped threshold into a hundred unrelated conversations.
> 
> - My arm hurts, it really hurts when I swing it -
> - Yeah, I got whipped, but the second skin really helps, they didn't know -
> ...


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## Demesnedenoir (Sep 5, 2016)

Who says they haven't adapted? Adaptations (if any) would be subtle to make sure they survive, and why would tight 3rd POV ever point out such a thing? Plants are extremely effective at surviving wild weather incidents with longevity of seeds, dormancy, and how they are spread, and if animals hadn't adapted they would be dead. Plants would have few issues with long winters or an ice age. Several years of winter really isn't that huge of a deal for many northern animals (on the basis of cold), for those it is a big deal, they move south or die. The bigger issue is food supply, but that's a move south scenario.




Devouring Wolf said:


> This is actually one of the reasons I've never read ASOIAF. Its not that I mind the seasons being unpredictable, but it does bother me that the plants and animals don't seem to have made any sort of adaptations to it (granted I'm not entirely sure what that would be). Maybe this doesn't bother a lot of people, but it irks me.


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## Heliotrope (Sep 5, 2016)

Yeah, I'm NOT talking about using a pre-ordained template. Please don't think that's what this is about. What I'm talking about is execution. If you want to use a precipitous birth, please, by all means, do! Use a precipitous birth attended by midwife bluebirds if you want to, but understand that you will have to do a bit of set up before that scene to make it plausible to the reader. 

I've had more time to think about this and I think that: 

- When introducing something new, you can do whatever you like. If you are introducing a new planet, or a new setting, or a magical forest, or a new species the reader has no schema for, then you can do whatever you like. It is open ended. The reader won't question it as much. 

- If you are introducing something fairly common and mundane, like a whipping, birth, or making pancakes, and you want to shake it up a bit (like introducing midwife bluebirds, or a whip that doesn't hurt) then set up is needed.


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## Heliotrope (Sep 5, 2016)

*Note: 

The difference too, FV, is that because you have second hand experience with precipitous birth, and you have spent some time recently researching it for background knowledge, you would be able to pull it off in a realistic way. If you were to interview your grandma, or read some articles, you would be able to add in small details that make it feel more "plausible" and make the character feel more "alive". 

You've done your due diligence.


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## FifthView (Sep 5, 2016)

Helio,

A lot of this depends on the book in question and simply whether the awesome thing fits.  Whether it fits in general and whether it fits in the story at the particular point you are inserting it.

The idea about a winged human giving birth while falling might easily fit within a fantasy world but might be entirely wrong for the book. I think DOTA mentioned that the character who'd be dying is a secondary character.  Maybe having something that stretches the bounds of believability, something that awesome (or wondrous), happen with this character would be out of place and beside the point for this character.  

Maybe having an overabundance of awesome things happen, like every chapter or even every scene, would be too much.  You want to save the Battle for New York, with a portal opening in the sky and aliens appearing, until the end of the Avengers movie.  Meanwhile, many scenes of that movie involve standing/sitting around and talking.  So pacing matters too.

I guess I'm saying that we pick our battles with reality according to what works for the tale we are telling.

So maybe that birth scene would be absolutely wrong for the book.  

But what to do with the awesome idea?  

Maybe we could use it in a way that doesn't draw the same kind of scrutiny, transplant it elsewhere.  The tale of birth might be a tale about the birth of a legendary hero, a historic founder, a demigod or a god in that world.  This might fit rather well, considering the fact that these winged humans ... are winged.      If Athena can be born from Zeus's head, then our winged humans might have a story about a legendary figure being born as his mother is falling to her death.

Or maybe we can transplant the myth to the present:  The death of this secondary character occurs off screen, but our MC encounters tales of her death.  So it could become like an urban legend.  One old woman says she saw the murder; the poor mother gave birth to her child while falling and was trying to grasp the babe, pull it close, to protect it.  It was a horrible, horrible thing to see.  Another person says, No, the babe was rescued and is now being hidden away somewhere.  Another:  It's the return of Yosep, the legendary hero of yore who was also born that way.  The point of these tales would be to show how the tragic murder is causing reverberations through society; its "realism" is largely beside the point.

So.  I think that eliminating an idea simply because it stretches credulity—i.e., our own credulity because we've never heard of such a thing—preemptively shuts down so many potential paths before those paths are explored.

As an aside, the interesting thing about this topic is how the two options in the title of this thread aren't enough.  There's also, "It happens on Earth—But don't do it!"  Our own Earth is full of wonder and awesomeness and strange things.  I don't have personal experience with LOTS of things that happen on Earth.


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## Heliotrope (Sep 5, 2016)

Yeah, i really feel like we are arguing the same thing here. I don't think I'm making myself clear at all maybe? 

All of what you said above is exactly what I'm saying. 

You wanted to know why I kept coming back to "but that's not how birth works" in that other thread. 

Because given the information I had about the story and the circumstances it came off hokey to me. 

However, given the circumstances you gave above, it might work. 

This is exactly what i've been saying. If you want to use a wonderous idea, do it. But make sure it works in the circumstances of the story. How is that any different then what you are saying? 

But it still needs to be set up. We believe Athena could be born from Zeus's head because we know they are Gods who have done all sorts of other wonderous things, and so it is not a huge stretch. 

If I didn't have that back story, and I didn't know they were Gods, and I didn't know any of the other wonderous stuff or mythology I may not believe it. But it is so culturally ingrained in us that it makes sense. The same could work for birth in midair.

And I really don't understand how it shuts down paths? I've basically said this entire time to open up those paths. Do those things. Make it bigger. Make it more strange and wonderful. 

But make sure it works within the reaches of the story.


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## FifthView (Sep 5, 2016)

Helio:  Aren't we in agreement about 98% of the time, anyway?

I do think we are approaching the issue from slightly different perspectives, but that we aren't in great disagreement.  Part of this is my problem, because the notion that "But—Fantasy!" is wrong when used as an excuse....is low-hanging fruit to me.    So it seems like a thread meant to swat down the obvious or prop up the obvious (depending how you look at it.)  And I have a tendency to desire to drill down on an idea, exploring various issues it raises (for me personally), and seeing what I can learn.  I like scrambling for that higher fruit.

[Edit:  Going higher by drilling down.  I just noticed that.]


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 5, 2016)

Still going on about my midair birth thing? 

I could make something unbelievable like that work. But, there's no real reason to. I don't have to have her die in a super dramatic way, the main thing is to kill her. I think the necessity of the unbelievable thing has a lot to do with how believable it will seem. If I had something like this happen in a minor scene with no explanation, it would be different from if this was a pivotal point in the story (with plenty of setup and explanation.) 

Also, I'm going for as much realism as possible. A close grasp on realistic details and obeying actual laws. Yes, I've already broken them by giving people wings but if everything I build on top of the people with wings is realistic and makes sense, it will be less objectionable. 

I'm working on a set of folklore tales for my world, though, and this might work well for a larger-than-life, Paul Bunyan-type folklore character...


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## FifthView (Sep 5, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Still going on about my midair birth thing?



It's been a convenient example.  Sometimes it's easier to use an example, explore it beyond the bounds of its original use, than to speak only in abstractions.


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## Reaver (Sep 5, 2016)

FifthView said:


> It's been a convenient example.  Sometimes it's easier to use an example, explore it beyond the bounds of its original use, than to speak only in abstractions.



I thought you liked speaking in abstractions FV.


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## Miskatonic (Sep 6, 2016)

ASOIAF is one of the most popular fantasy series out there and the catastrophic winters that take place would essentially wipe out the population. So needless to say they aren't remotely realistic. This doesn't keep fans from reading and enjoying the series.


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## Miskatonic (Sep 6, 2016)

To answer the question, I keep a lot of stuff mundane that isn't the focus of the story. Unless cultural customs are very different than what we have in our world, I'm not going to do anything more than describe them as they take place and not give a reason why it is that way, unless it's just a tidbit of info. that can be slipped in. 

I guess my mindset is "Here it is", without needing to say why all that often. I'm not a fan of info dumps and other long-winded exposition that causes the passing of time to come to a screeching halt. I prefer putting vital information into the dialogue.


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## Demesnedenoir (Sep 6, 2016)

I think this is an overblown interpretation of their winters... at least when not including the Others and hordes of dead, heh heh. All we've really seen of winter is hyperbole in the books. It isn't some instant ice age out of Frozen covering the entire continent, speaking of which, wow, the crops around Arandelle must've looked bad, LOL. Clearly, the people of the 7 kingdoms are capable of surviving an extended winter under normal conditions, with food stores and what have you as GRRM has mentioned more than a few times, the bigger issue comes into play because of the wars destroying so much food, and the debt accrued which will limit the south's ability to provide food for northerner's being wiped out by cold and Others. 





Miskatonic said:


> ASOIAF is one of the most popular fantasy series out there and the catastrophic winters that take place would essentially wipe out the population. So needless to say they aren't remotely realistic. This doesn't keep fans from reading and enjoying the series.


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## Heliotrope (Sep 6, 2016)

Lol, never expected to see an arendelle reference!

Just realized I can play devils advocate to my own argument now...

So, being Canadian and living in the rural wilderness, we have alpine plants that take 25 years to flower because it takes them that long to establish strong enough root systems and store enough energy in a cold, windy climate with long winters. 

I just assumed GRRM world was similar and never questioned it.


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## FifthView (Sep 6, 2016)

In a PM discussion about this topic, I realized that the issue for me is more about poor writing than about using the odd and unusual in fantasy writing.

I think of writing a story as guiding a reader down a path. A multitude of bad books or bad movies that have nothing to do with the fantasy genre exhibit the same signs: The writer/director leaps forward too much, leaves too much out, doesn't guide the reader or viewer down a path so much as insert a lot of things like random points on a map, assuming the reader will connect the dots in a meaningful, sensible way or intuitively understand the reasons for what happens.  Anakin flips on a dime; "Oh, but well, yes someone might flip to the dark side because of the things implied in this movie.  I know what the director's getting at, at least."

Of course, in those cases the writer and/or director probably doesn't realize the work is shoddy.  The image he has in mind is clear even if he's left too many steps out for others or has presented conflicting information like a) this is a normal human who b) can take a lance to the chest and still, while it's in his chest, flip its holder into the air and toss him.  The writer can see it clearly, no problem; so, why not the reader?

Presenting the odd and unusual will certainly be affected and probably exacerbate or highlight the generally poor writing.


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## Heliotrope (Sep 6, 2016)

^^^^ Is what i think I'm getting at. Exactly. 

Right now I'm reading Clive Cussler's The Soloman Curse.  (because I'm a nerd like that). 

The Solomon Curse (Fargo Adventure, #7) by Clive Cussler ? Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

What I'm learning from reading this book is that I'm trying to do waaaaaaay too much per chapter. I'm trying to pack in so much, and what is happening is that everything ends up watered down. I can't get deep enough into anything because I'm worrying about word count, so the result is a lot of confusion for the reader and them not really getting into what is happening. 

Clive Cussler is a master at breaking things down into bite sized peices. 

Chapter One: The couple is in the Soloman Islands helping a friends on an archeology assignment. 

Chapter two: There are crocodiles in the water and a man is bitten. All the locals believe the area is cursed. 

Chapter three: When the locals are asked about a hidden city below the water, no one wants to talk about it. 

Chapter four.... 

You get the idea. 

Bite sized peices. 

What I have really learned is that a "hook" does not mean constant action and stuff happening all the time. It is about a mystery. last night I stayed up reading for hours just because the couple was headed to find an old local on his deathbed that could shed some light on the mysterious sunken city... It took them three chapters to find him. Pretty much nothing happened, but Clive had set it up in such way, feeding me bite sized peices, that I was aware of the danger and the stakes. He takes things very slowly to be absolutely sure that he has the reader on the end of a leash. 

I'm not a fan of his writing style, per se. He is very utilitarian, not in the least poetic or beautiful, but man, can that guy spin a yarn.

So for me, I tried to pack in: 

Girl doesn't like her dad and has been searching for her mother. She goes into the subway where she meets a mysterious busker who seems to know her and her dad and wants her dad dead. 

Too much in 3500 words! 

Clive cussler taught me to do this: 

Chapter one: girl and dad don't get along. Show conflict. 
Chapter two: girl decides to hunt down her mother. Show father grounding her. 
Chapter three: girl chooses to leave despite grounding and enters subway meets strange busker. 
Chapter 4: dad followed girl and encounters her and busker. Sword fight in subway ensues. 

Etc. Bite sized prices.

Then I actually have time to set up the dads antique sword collection and his job st the novelty weapons shop and his fencing skills so a sword fight in the subway isn't so random for the reader. It's plausible.


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## Reaver (Sep 6, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> ^^^^ Is what i think I'm getting at. Exactly.
> 
> Right now I'm reading Clive Cussler's The Soloman Curse.  (because I'm a nerd like that).
> 
> ...




I'm a fan of most of Cussler's work. His Dirk Pitt books are, for the most part, pretty entertaining. I've read most of them at airports or on planes because in my opinion, they're fun, fast paced reads that don't get too bogged down in unimportant or superfluous minutiae.


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## Laurence (Sep 6, 2016)

Consistency is the easiest way to make for a believable world, however if your character is as amazing as ol' papa Gandalf you can have them do whatever you like.


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## Miskatonic (Sep 6, 2016)

Demesnedenoir said:


> I think this is an overblown interpretation of their winters... at least when not including the Others and hordes of dead, heh heh. All we've really seen of winter is hyperbole in the books. It isn't some instant ice age out of Frozen covering the entire continent, speaking of which, wow, the crops around Arandelle must've looked bad, LOL. Clearly, the people of the 7 kingdoms are capable of surviving an extended winter under normal conditions, with food stores and what have you as GRRM has mentioned more than a few times, the bigger issue comes into play because of the wars destroying so much food, and the debt accrued which will limit the south's ability to provide food for northerner's being wiped out by cold and Others.



Hundred foot snows aren't going to make for a good time.


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## AElisabet (Sep 7, 2016)

The most important accuracy to me is emotional accuracy.  While I generally prefer fantasy that has a very "human" world juxtaposed with a mysterious "other," you can do anything with your fantasy world, in my opinion, if you can make the characters, their relationships, and their reactions to the world convincing to me emotionally and internally consistent.  

As to childbirth  Having given birth precipitously myself (65 minutes, start to finish), I can attest that I might possibly have been able to fight a dragon afterwords ... while laughing hysterically.  Those endorphines are ammmmaaaaazing.  Which brings me to this ... sometimes truth is weirder than fiction.  What is not "realistic" might actually be ... realistic.

To often fantasy is full of made up weirdness but then strives too hard to be hyper accurate on other things, as if to make up for the fantasy element.  But sometimes reality is crazy weird.  Embrace the crazy weird in reality as well as the fantastic.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 7, 2016)

It takes more skill and attention to detail to pull off weirder things. Often believability depends on how well the author is able to execute it. A great author who knows their stuff can make even the most wild and unbelievable of nonsense believable.


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## Demesnedenoir (Sep 7, 2016)

Has any character actually seen 100 foot snows?



Miskatonic said:


> Hundred foot snows aren't going to make for a good time.


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## Penpilot (Sep 7, 2016)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Has any character actually seen 100 foot snows?



I live in Canada. That's just another summer day


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## Miskatonic (Sep 8, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> ^^^^ Is what i think I'm getting at. Exactly.
> 
> Right now I'm reading Clive Cussler's The Soloman Curse.  (because I'm a nerd like that).
> 
> ...



This is basically what I do in my outline, chapter after chapter. I have a chapter goal which is what I need to get across, and if I need to end it in a specific manner as things transition into the next chapter. It makes it a lot easier to focus on what is important and avoid wandering off the path too much.


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## Miskatonic (Sep 8, 2016)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Has any character actually seen 100 foot snows?



Well it depends on whether or not the appearance of the Others in the past is mere fable or if it is true. It's not just the snow, it's the weather patterns in general on that planet that don't really follow a logical pattern.


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## Penpilot (Sep 8, 2016)

Miskatonic said:


> Well it depends on whether or not the appearance of the Others in the past is mere fable or if it is true. It's not just the snow, it's the weather patterns in general on that planet that don't really follow a logical pattern.



Some have theories on how seasons like GOT could actually work on a real planet. 5 Scientific Explanations for Game of Thrones' Messed-Up Seasons


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## Steerpike (Sep 8, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> 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.



Yeah, I don't know. I think the style of story and the author's intentions are important here as well. Think of some fantasy works from the past, that have remained popular to this day - Conan, Fafhrd & Grey Mouser, Dying Earth, Elric of Melnibone, and so on. There's not substantial world building going on there. There's no explanation of what the rules are, or any attempt to establish parameters in the mind of the reader. The supernatural events in those stories are treated in a more ad hoc fashion, with the details serving the stories as the author desires. And not only are those old stories still well-read today, you've got a new crop of authors like James Enge, maybe Django Wexler in some cases, and others who are taking that same approach. 

It can work either way, it appears to me. It's down to what the author wants to do with the work.


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## FifthView (Sep 8, 2016)

Sometimes in movies those "set-up" scenes are rather annoying, simply because I know why they are there when they happen.  Aha, so Hero has this high tech gadget!  Gonna be used later....  Quirky sidekick has unusual ability?  Gonna be used later...

But I guess this is just the difference between hitting us over the head and a more subtle foreshadowing.


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## Reaver (Sep 8, 2016)

I tend to write in 3rd person omniscient but I try to avoid foreshadowing when I write. Even though the reader knows what's going on with other characters, I like to throw in the occasional plot twist or abject shocker.

I also like reading books that do this. Not that I'm against foreshadowing mind you. I agree that it can be done well and that when it's done poorly it can ruin the entire experience.


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