# Fantasy worldbuilding frustrates me



## Jabrosky (Aug 23, 2012)

I got interested in writing fantasy fiction in the first place because fantasy, with its "anything goes" spirit, is the only genre out there that allows me to combine my various interests. For example, as I've said before, it's the only genre which would allow me to write about sexy African warrior chicks fighting dinosaurs in the jungle. Few genres are more favorable to the Rule of Cool which I deeply cherish.

Unfortunately, as an atheist and a metaphysical naturalist, I tend to take a highly scientific approach to world-building. I want my worlds' physics, geology, and other mechanics to resemble the real world's as much as possible, because I believe that a world with completely different mechanics would end up incomprehensibly alien to us. I could never write a disc-shaped world balanced atop giant elephants for instance. Everything in my worlds must make sense from a scientific and mechanical point of view. For that reason I usually don't like to have magical, supernatural, or any other scientifically implausible elements in my world-building.

This causes me major headaches because keeping within the limits of plausibility precludes certain creative ideas or at least makes them harder to justify. Take for instance the sexy dinosaur huntresses I described in my opening paragraph; even if humans and dinosaurs could co-evolve in the same ecosystems, in most pre-industrial cultures women have the burden of producing and nursing children from the moment they reach fecundity at ages 13-16, so most can't really afford to hunt big and dangerous game. The only way I could get around this is to give my tribal chicks implausibly modern attitudes about gender roles or distort their biology to the point where they don't resemble humans any more.

I really wish I could take more creative liberties with the world and revel in fantasy's "anything goes" spirit, but on the other hand I understand the need for consistency and a certain degree of realism so that readers don't feel completely weirded out. Am I thinking too rigidly about this?


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## FireBird (Aug 23, 2012)

You are thinking much too rigidly because your worrying about it way too much. If you don't like writing about something then don't write it. I am an Atheist as well and I have no problem writing about religion. I like an incredible sense of realism in my stories as well and they include magic. Realism simply implies that everything that does happen plausibly could happen in the world you have created. Also, have you ever heard of the Amazons?


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## FatCat (Aug 23, 2012)

Why do gender roles have to be "modern" for you to have sexy huntresses? It's all about adjusting culture to make your ideas seem logical, that's the fun in my opinion. Create a class system where only some women bear the burden of child birth, or have deity worship that states its the mans job to care for the children. I could see a pagan style worship of lions as one example, if i'm not mistaken its the female lions that hunt, seems plausible to me, right? Take your awesome ideas and forget about how things worked historically and twist them into how they could be seen as making perfect sense.


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## Jess A (Aug 23, 2012)

You can play around with your society. Are males and females grouped into jobs, chosen when young, apprenticed into a role? For example, warriors, hunters, maybe even breeders. 

Could some males and females be set aside for breeding? Or could women bear young and then the male raise them, or by women grouped into, say, wet nurse type duties? Do all women have to be huntresses? Or are they an elite group trained for that purpose, but not the majority? Could women be considered better hunters because of their apparent grace and agility, mental abilities etc, whereas men are generally seen as workers instead? Were women made in the image of the goddess and seen as individual goddesses themselves, as they 'create' life? One could go forever.

I agree with FireBird - look up matriarchal societies and Amazons.

Edit: I also agree with FatCat - lions are an interesting example; you could tweak that system.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 24, 2012)

As a matter of fact, after further reflection on this topic I've decided that I could make my dinosaur huntress idea work. I would have this all-female monastic cult centered around the worship of a hunting goddess (think Sekhmet or Artemis), similar to a nunnery but with a focus on the martial arts and hunting. They would function as the society's primary defense against large and dangerous animals, though some could also sell their services abroad as anti-cavalry mercenaries. These Amazons wouldn't constitute all the society's women though, only those who could afford the monastery's fees.


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## FatCat (Aug 24, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> As a matter of fact, after further reflection on this topic I've decided that I could make my dinosaur huntress idea work. I would have this all-female monastic cult centered around the worship of a hunting goddess (think Sekhmet or Artemis), similar to a nunnery but with a focus on the martial arts and hunting. They would function as the society's primary defense against large and dangerous animals, though some could also sell their services abroad as anti-cavalry mercenaries. These Amazons wouldn't constitute all the society's women though, only those who could afford the monastery's fees.



Sounds right on to me, you just gotta loosen up a little and let yourself have fun


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## ThinkerX (Aug 24, 2012)

Heck, just take my approach - at erratic intervals down through the millenia, aliens swoop in and latch onto samples populations of earth lifeforms and take them away to another planet, where they run tests for a while before turning the loose. Dinosaurs may be a bit ancient even for that - but presumably well within alien cloning technology.

Magic?  Aliens mucking about with their human captives, awakening psionic talents, which the then released humans developed further on their own.

Once 'released into the wild', the aliens pretty much utterly ignore what the abducted lifeforms and their descendans do.

Might want to leave out the Lovecraftian things behind the scenes I have in my world, though.


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## Feo Takahari (Aug 24, 2012)

On the specific subject of warrior women, I went so far as integrate magic into the evolution of humanity--that is to say, human offshoots with magical abilities, which they rely on heavily in combat, have no reason to select for physical brawn. Throw in that magic isn't sex-linked, and you get a society where men and women are about equally competent at fighting. (Of course, this made a society of bishies, but there are different directions you can go if you'd rather have brawny females.)


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Aug 24, 2012)

I wouldn't worry too much about making your world perfectly logical and scientifically justifiable. If the story is good enough, people will forgive things that might not make perfect sense on deeper inspection. The point of the story is to entertain, not to survive deep scrutiny.


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## Chime85 (Aug 24, 2012)

If you're worried about aspects of your world making logical sense, I'd like to introduce to you a wonderful friend of writers (and movie makers) canne, suspension of disbelief. If your story and world is exciting enough and rich enough to captivate the reader, they will overlook something that perhaps doesn't make immediate sense.

Take Harry Potter for example. Now we all know that if you run at a wall on platform 9 at Kings Cross station,, you're going to hurt your head. However, when we read the books, we take it as red and acdept that there _is_ indeed a platform 9 and 3/4.

It's all on your presentation. If you present your world well, the reader will accept that infact, this story is really happening, in this very setting.


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## CupofJoe (Aug 24, 2012)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> The point of the story is to entertain, not to survive deep scrutiny.


I forget that too often. I can tell you the layout of the kitchen cupboards of the MC's home in Chapter 1 [the good glass is in the little annex next to the larder but a long way from the boiler and the ice room] but I have no idea about how to let the readers work out that one of the characters is gay...


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## Steerpike (Aug 24, 2012)

Jabrosky, I think you are expending too much time and effort on world building to the detriment of getting the story written. This is common among fantasy writers. I'll second what Benjamin says, above.

I think you have to ask yourself why you need to have all of that information sorted out. Are you planning on putting it all in the story? Because if you are, you're going to lose a great number of readers, most of whom will not want or need to know about 98% of the sort of things you mention. If you aren't going to put the information in the actual story, then you should think about whether knowing it is vital for you, as the author, to make the story better. Again, for much of it I'd say the answer is no. The question then becomes this: why are you bothering with it? If it is just because you love world building and want to do it whether it is useful to you or not, then that's fine. But you say you are frustrated by it. My recommendation is to stop with it and just write the story. Your story should not be a slave to the fantasy world you are developing. If anything, it should be the other way around.


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## Philip Overby (Aug 24, 2012)

As a recovering Obsessive World Builder (OWB), I can attest that coming up with intricacies of cultures can be a bit overwhelming.  I got to the point though, that people were liking some of my stories and most of them had little or no world-building.  It was all done "as you go."  Meaning most of the ideas I have about race, cultures, religions, etc. are just made up.  I do draw rough maps just so I can keep track of cities, but I wouldn't call that major world-building.  Like Steerpike said, most readers don't really care about stuff you may care about.  Even if you think you must include details about certain aspects of your world, you can do it by just weaving it into the story itself.  

If you're big into Robert E. Howard (like I'm guessing you are since you mentioned you like sword and sorcery), then most of his world-buiding is very lean and seems to just give glimpses into Hyborea.  However, he did tons and tons of research to build his world, most of which is not shown in his writing.  So world-build for yourself and do the reader a favor and keep most of it out of your story.


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## ShortHair (Aug 24, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> I got interested in writing fantasy fiction in the first place because fantasy, with its "anything goes" spirit, is the only genre out there that allows me to combine my various interests. For example, as I've said before, it's the only genre which would allow me to write about sexy African warrior chicks fighting dinosaurs in the jungle. Few genres are more favorable to the Rule of Cool which I deeply cherish.
> 
> ... I believe that a world with completely different mechanics would end up incomprehensibly alien to us. ... Everything in my worlds must make sense from a scientific and mechanical point of view. ...
> 
> ...



Asked and answered, really. Give yourself permission, just once, to throw the rules out the window. Write a story you would enjoy. Don't hamstring yourself with artificial constraints.


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## Mindfire (Aug 24, 2012)

I think part of the problem is that in your compulsion to make your world scientifically probable, you are unconsciously attempting to force your rigidly atheistic worldview not only on the world, but the reader as well. Don't do that. In general, dragging the reader by a leash to the one and only conclusion you want them to come to does not go over well. Resign yourself to the fact that the reader might intuit something mystical into your world even if you don't want them to. It is impossible to have complete control over what a reader thinks as the read. Also resign yourself to the idea that alternate worlds don't have to follow the same rules as ours. Relax. Breathe. Let go. Rigidity will only close your mind to creative possibilities.

Incidentally, why are you so anti-magic? While my Christianity makes it impossible for me to stuff a purely naturalistic world. (Perhaps my imagination's only limit. You probably wouldn't like my world too much. It's quite Abrahamic as far as the supernatural goes.) However, I don't see how your atheism necessarily implies there must must be no magic in your world, or even no gods. I'd thought an atheist fantasy writer would have a field day by making their gods ineffectual, incompetent, or malevolent in order to show that the humans are better off on their own. I strongly dislike this idea, but it surprises me that you haven't considered it as a possibility.


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## FireBird (Aug 24, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> I'd thought an atheist fantasy writer would have a field day by making their gods ineffectual, incompetent, or malevolent in order to show that the humans are better off on their own. I strongly dislike this idea, but it surprises me that you haven't considered it as a possibility.



If anything being a non-religious person helps you when you write about religion or magic. I write all the time about religion, both about how effective and ineffective it was, is, or can be. I feel like I have an outside view of the subject since I don't immerse myself in the middle of it. I have no prejudices when it comes to writing about the topic, whether it be in condemnation or absolute praise. This, from the point of view of an atheist.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Aug 24, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> I really wish I could take more creative liberties with the world and revel in fantasy's "anything goes" spirit, but on the other hand I understand the need for consistency and a certain degree of realism so that readers don't feel completely weirded out. Am I thinking too rigidly about this?



Yes. Or rather, you are limiting yourself too much. Of course fantasy needs to make sense, but the whole point is that it only has to make sense within its own context: Fantasy doesn't owe the real world anything. That's why dragons can fly, even though in reality they would be far too big.

Heck, for my new project, I'm planning to redefine the natural laws completely, right down to what gravity and energy is, or how solar systems work.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Aug 24, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> I'd thought an atheist fantasy writer would have a field day by making their gods ineffectual, incompetent, or malevolent in order to show that the humans are better off on their own. I strongly dislike this idea, but it surprises me that you haven't considered it as a possibility.



I don't think it's at all surprising for atheist writers to write stories that contain religions that are not mocked or belittled. In THE QUEEN OF MAGES the primary civilization worships a god they call the Caretaker, and they derive a great deal of comfort and guidance from their beliefs.

This doesn't mean I'll never write a story that has a theme of humanism triumphing over religion, but it doesn't mean I'm incapable of doing otherwise.


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## Mindfire (Aug 24, 2012)

Impossible to write a purely naturalistic world.* 

I hate autocorrect.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 24, 2012)

Steerpike said:


> Jabrosky, I think you are expending too much time and effort on world building to the detriment of getting the story written. This is common among fantasy writers. I'll second what Benjamin says, above.
> 
> I think you have to ask yourself why you need to have all of that information sorted out. Are you planning on putting it all in the story? Because if you are, you're going to lose a great number of readers, most of whom will not want or need to know about 98% of the sort of things you mention. If you aren't going to put the information in the actual story, then you should think about whether knowing it is vital for you, as the author, to make the story better. Again, for much of it I'd say the answer is no. The question then becomes this: why are you bothering with it? If it is just because you love world building and want to do it whether it is useful to you or not, then that's fine. But you say you are frustrated by it. My recommendation is to stop with it and just write the story. Your story should not be a slave to the fantasy world you are developing. If anything, it should be the other way around.



While you are probably right that I spend too much time on perfecting my worldbuilding, I believe that I need to know at the very least the basics of my settings before I start writing. Setting does dictate the range of possibilities for stories or scenes; for instance, if I wanted to write about the Roman Empire, I couldn't exactly write about election fraud without taking a lot of creative liberties with Roman culture. Now to be sure, certain details can be researched on the fly during the writing process, but a little beforehand knowledge of the setting's general mechanics is necessary before plotting.

As a matter of fact, although drawing maps can be fun, the researching part of worldbuilding is not my favorite part of the process. I want to start the actual writing as soon as possible, but there is often so much I need to know about my subjects before putting pen to paper. It can overwhelm me.


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## Jared (Aug 24, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> While you are probably right that I spend too much time on perfecting my worldbuilding, I believe that I need to know at the very least the basics of my settings before I start writing. Setting does dictate the range of possibilities for stories or scenes; for instance, if I wanted to write about the Roman Empire, I couldn't exactly write about election fraud without taking a lot of creative liberties with Roman culture. Now to be sure, certain details can be researched on the fly during the writing process, but a little beforehand knowledge of the setting's general mechanics is necessary before plotting.
> 
> As a matter of fact, although drawing maps can be fun, the researching part of worldbuilding is not my favorite part of the process. I want to start the actual writing as soon as possible, but there is often so much I need to know about my subjects before putting pen to paper. It can overwhelm me.



Are you writing in the real world? Historical fantasy, as it were?

If not, if you're generating your own world, then I would suggest only worldbuilding enough to get you going, then worldbuild as you write. Figure out the basics (gender roles, class structure, clothing, basic area map), then let yourself just write and think up the rest as the need arises. You will be editing your novel anyways, so you can always make notes of what you worldbuilt as you wrote, then add it back in later.

I would suggest that you do that first. Writing historical fantasy in cultures significantly removed from your own has many pitfalls. Researching that takes longer.


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## Lorna (Aug 24, 2012)

You're being way too rigid. So long as you can imagine an explanation for the way your world's set up and it remains coherent and you write a good story, readers should be way too involved in the story to question the 'science' (or lack of it) of your world.



> Take for instance the sexy dinosaur huntresses I described in my opening paragraph; even if humans and dinosaurs could co-evolve in the same ecosystems, in most pre-industrial cultures women have the burden of producing and nursing children from the moment they reach fecundity at ages 13-16, so most can't really afford to hunt big and dangerous game. The only way I could get around this is to give my tribal chicks implausibly modern attitudes about gender roles or distort their biology to the point where they don't resemble humans any more.



In bronze and iron age societies in ancient Britain many of the leaders were female warriors. Northern Britain was ruled by a warrior queen called Cartimandua until the arrival of the Romans. Presuming this set-up shows continuity it can be conjectured stone age cultures also had women warriors, many of them rulers. And therefore there were many women warriors and rulers in pre-historic times too.


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## Saigonnus (Aug 24, 2012)

I think this discussion goes to show just how people approach the idea of world building. I personally try to keep it balanced, detailing just enough that the story can flourish within the construct but not do much that it limits the story in some way. I think of the basics that make a society work (as I have commented on many world building threads) and it leaves plenty of room for expanding the idea and letting the story thrive. 

Using the example given above about the dinosaur huntress; I would personally think that while it would limit the huntress to bear children; she'd only be "out of action" on hunting the big game for perhaps the last trimester, probably gathering the smaller game like birds, squirrels etc... Like through history, the villagers would care for any children born, freeing her up once the baby is weaned to going back to the hunt. A society like that would have to be fluid to accommodate birth/death, so the hunters remaining would have to work a bit harder. 

Also take into account that man has raised domesticated animals and planted crops for the last 10,000 years at least, it wouldn't be that big of a stretch that they raise chickens/rabbits or whatever right in the village beyond the crops grown. It would be perfectly reasonable that the village could produce much of their own food and only use hunting to give them variety. Depending on population; there would need to be only something like 10-15% of the population as full time hunter; which would do double duty in protecting the village.


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## Zero Angel (Aug 24, 2012)

I hope this hasn't been addressed yet, but I had to reply to this after reading the original post without catching up.


Jabrosky said:


> Unfortunately, as an atheist and a metaphysical naturalist, I tend to take a highly scientific approach to world-building. I want my worlds' physics, geology, and other mechanics to resemble the real world's as much as possible, because I believe that a world with completely different mechanics would end up incomprehensibly alien to us. I could never write a disc-shaped world balanced atop giant elephants for instance. Everything in my worlds must make sense from a scientific and mechanical point of view. For that reason I usually don't like to have magical, supernatural, or any other scientifically implausible elements in my world-building.



I'm not sure what science you are referring to, but it seems like you are also assuming that your characters have circumnavigated the globe or have satellites or something similar. Science means accepting things as far as we can test them and theorize about what else we might be able to someday test/observe. There were long periods of time in real life Earth where scientists used SCIENCE to prove that the planet was flat and that everything revolved around us. We even talked about wandering planets that would sometimes rotate backwards and then forwards again because our model had perfect circle orbits. 

So just because the world is actually round, doesn't mean that your characters don't think it is balanced on a bunch of elephants or bunnies or whatever and it doesn't mean that you have to worry about whether it is balanced on those bunnies or not. Let the world develop--if characters believe something, you don't have to make sure that your readers know that they are wrong.

For instance, I have a character in my first book remark that half-elf/half-hume creatures are called "halflings." He's totally wrong, but I don't tell anyone that until like Book 5 when I have other half-elf/half-hume characters. Although it might work its way into Book 2 maybe.

Anyway, it just seems like although you're worried about characters having modern views on gender (which you can argue aren't modern at all), you have them have super modern views on (and knowledge of) science.

I believe that everyone else already addressed how to overcome your other difficulties just off what I saw on the first page.


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## Penpilot (Aug 24, 2012)

As others have stated above, just build enough for you to get going and fill in the rest later. Chances are while you're writing the story you're probably going to want change stuff anyway. Sometimes the structure of a world has to be adjusted to make it fit in line with the story. 

If you need to go into great detail fine, but realize that a lot of well thought of stories ignore a lot of sensible science for the sake of the story. Take Starwars for example. They have Hoth, the ice planet, Dagoba the Jungle planet, Tattoonie the Desert planet. To my understanding, no planet has only one environment/ecosystem like those planets, but why did they do it in Star Wars? Because it's cool and it's fun. Cut yourself a slack to BS some stuff. Most readers will accept it as long as your consistent with your own rules.

Like someone mentioned above, The scientific problems with Dragons flying. Also think about comic book characters, no way in real life could any of them exist, not even Batman. He'd probably be dead as soon as the first criminal decided to run him over with their get away truck. 

It's all about creating a semi-plausable mumbojumbo hand waving explained world with semi-arbitrary rules that make sense enough for the reader to suspend disbelief.


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## Saigonnus (Aug 24, 2012)

Penpilot said:


> Take Starwars for example. They have Hoth, the ice planet, Dagoba the Jungle planet, Tattoonie the Desert planet. To my understanding, no planet has only one environment/ecosystem like those planets, but why did they do it in Star Wars?



While technically this is true by everything we know; it would be plausible that a planet could be MOSTLY one ecosystem; especially with the extreme temperatures. Imagine the planet earth as a few degrees hotter; likely there would still be life here in the form of trees/plants, but probably in isolated pockets. The same could be true of a planet like Tatooine; it is just never mentioned in anything I have ever read or seen about Star Wars. 

On the opposite end of the scale, a planet like hoth, if it is still in that "sweet spot" for life within it's solar system (likely it would be on the fringe of being too cold for life) there could be temperate zones in isolated pockets or even tundra where there is no snow; but again it isn't mentioned; so maybe that was George Lucas's way of not dealing with the scientific aspects. 

I think fantasy though requires a certain suspention of belief and you shouldn't try to explain things scientifically.


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## Shockley (Aug 24, 2012)

You're applying distinctly real concerns (concerns, I might add, that developed through our own cultural concerns and structures) to define a world that is distinctly unreal. 

 I'm not a fan of philosophical post-modernism, but I'm thinking your world (and your struggles with creating it) could benefit from a healthy dose of it.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 25, 2012)

Good news, everyone: I've put the worldbuilding aside and started actually writing a story about my huntresses (500 words into it as of this post, but I have a mental outline of the whole plot). However, their prey has changed from dinosaurs to dragons, mainly so I don't have to confine myself to paleontological accuracy.


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## Saigonnus (Aug 25, 2012)

I would think you can have them hunt dinosaurs... I don't think for a moment that the paleontologists of the world will mind one way or another for scientific accuracy of a single book by a relatively unknown (for now) author, especially considering it's a fantasy novel. The readers will have to suspend their disbelief anyway so I wouldn't see any big deal if you created a new type of dinosaur for them to hunt or even used preexisting ones since just putting humans together with dinosaurs could never happen. I would think literary license would work just as well on dinosaurs as on any other mundane creature; which have been around for a long time. Whether based on something that possibly existed once or just stories or legends, many of the common fantasy creatures are simply a different take on normal animals. Why should dinosaurs be off-limits for changes when regular creatures, or ones that once existed aren't?

Pegasus: Horse with wings
Unicorn: Horse with a horn and magical powers
Cerberus: Dog with three heads
Minotaur: Half man/ Half bull
Faun: Half man/ Half goat
Harpy: Half human/ half bird
Phoenix/Roc: Birds with magic 
Hippogriff: Half horse/half eagle.

Why not a Velociraptor that can change colors like a chameleon and lives in the jungle?


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## Jabrosky (Aug 25, 2012)

Saigonnus said:


> I would think you can have them hunt dinosaurs... I don't think for a moment that the paleontologists of the world will mind one way or another for scientific accuracy of a single book by a relatively unknown (for now) author, especially considering it's a fantasy novel. The readers will have to suspend their disbelief anyway so I wouldn't see any big deal if you created a new type of dinosaur for them to hunt or even used preexisting ones since just putting humans together with dinosaurs could never happen. I would think literary license would work just as well on dinosaurs as on any other mundane creature; which have been around for a long time. Whether based on something that possibly existed once or just stories or legends, many of the common fantasy creatures are simply a different take on normal animals. Why should dinosaurs be off-limits for changes when regular creatures, or ones that once existed aren't?
> 
> Pegasus: Horse with wings
> Unicorn: Horse with a horn and magical powers
> ...



The problem with dinosaurs in particular is that many laypeople accept any portrayal of dinosaurs, no matter how fantastical, as rooted in paleontological knowledge. For example, the reason certain _Jurassic Park_ fans get upset over real Velociraptors having feathers is because that contradicts the scaly JP raptors they grew up with. Needless to say, widespread media perpetuations of such misconceptions frustrate paleontologists and paleo-enthusiasts (or at least the ones I've corresponded with on the Web) to no end.

You do raise a valid point about how people normally accept distortions of living animals in fantasy as obviously fantastical, but the difference is that very few people seriously believe that cats can talk or that dogs can fly or whatever. I guess the mysterious and unfamiliar nature of dinosaurs makes people more likely to take fantastical portrayals of these creatures as paleontological fact.


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## Saigonnus (Aug 26, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> I guess the mysterious and unfamiliar nature of dinosaurs makes people more likely to take fantastical portrayals of these creatures as paleontological fact.



It's possible, but I personally don't base Jurassic Park on it's accuracy of the dinosaurs since I know that what we do know about them changes day to day. The dinosaurs I grew up with aren't the same ones we have now; why should they be arrogant to that degree, thinking that what we know about dinosaurs is the end all be all of scientific study. Why even worry about whether your depiction is based in fact? 

I guess I just have a sense of detachment from what people will think when I am writing since I know with 100% certainty that whatever I write will likely be criticized by someone. You can't please everyone, so I just don't try. I just think about whether a creature fits within the framework I made for the story and in the depiction I used for said creature. If it works for the story, who cares what those "narrow-minded literature fundamentalists" think.

Bottom line... I write my story for ME and if I like it, forget what anyone else thinks.

EDITED: Also, I would think that people who believe that movies or books have to be grounded in fact; especially where dinosaurs are concerned are just deluding themselves and deserve to be disappointed when they google actual scientific articles about dinosaurs and find what they thought they knew was wrong.


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## Mindfire (Aug 26, 2012)

Well as far as Jurassic Park goes, their inaccuracies can be handwaved by saying the scientists filled in the genetic gaps with frog code or whatever. Similarly, any inaccuracies in your world could easily be explained by saying that those dinosaurs/dragons/thunder lizards evolved (seeing as your world doesn't have a creator) independently from earth's. As long as your creature fits reasonably with your environment, no one will be put off. Even paleontologists. Just don't make a really obvious error like making Triceratops a carnivore or something.


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## Zero Angel (Aug 26, 2012)

Mindfire said:


> Just don't make a really obvious error like making Triceratops a carnivore or something.



How about evolving into an omnivorous race that can freely mate with all non-protoceratops ceratopsians?

I call them, wait for it......ceratops! 

Super-original, I know.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 26, 2012)

Actually some dinosaur enthusiasts have speculated that ceratopsians were generally omnivorous like pigs rather than total vegetarians. If I recall correctly, this notion stems from finding carrion bones inside a Psittacosaurus skeleton. Of course Psittacosaurus is a much more evolutionarily basal ceratopsian than Triceratops, so I don't find this particular argument very persuasive, but it has been thrown out there.


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## SeverinR (Aug 29, 2012)

OP:
You can build a world totally different then ours, or almost the same with a different society or changed in some small way.

You are in control, you can change the world to your way or keep it almost the same. You don't even have to explain why the dinosaurs didn't die off.

You are setting limits on yourself that aren't needed. 

I think the extremely religious or the opposite have trouble creating because their beliefs limit them, but you don't have to make "gods" or create glorious magical forces that go against your idea of the world. (Not trying to make light of your beliefs with being vague, but trying to use words that fit both thiest and a-theist.)


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## SeverinR (Aug 30, 2012)

There was a short time when I wondered if I as a Christian could create a fantasy world without God in it, and not break a comandment or commit a sin.
I decided that God gave us imagination to build things, improve things, and to entertain ourselves.  Just because I write about dragons, unicorns and mention gods that the created beings worship does not distract from the real God. 
I will not pretend to know the train of thought of a person that does not believe in a god, but I know there are things in your belief that guide your beliefs and your understanding of the world, so work within your limits, but know they are your limitations and that readers do not feel the same restrictions you do, so straying outside your comfort zone will probably bother you more then your readers.
That said, go out and make the world of your dreams, and populate it with the beings you want.  It might be some mirror image to the world we live in, or one so different we sit amazed at the splendor(like the world of Avatar).


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## Zero Angel (Aug 30, 2012)

SeverinR said:


> There was a short time when I wondered if I as a Christian could create a fantasy world without God in it, and not break a comandment or commit a sin.



I actually go a step farther because a lot of my fantasy worlds coincide with our world (just a long time ago or a long time ahead). But I rationalize this with just saying the people screwed up, not God. If people stop being Christian in a world, that doesn't mean they should have done that. Just that they did. 

In my one world, people stop believing in God and (all other world religions) because of an apocalyptic event that did not result in "the Second Coming" or "Salvation" or whatever, but people that later evolve from animals have a racial memory of God. 

I avoid any value judgement though. People can make up their own minds as to whether things are correct or wrong or whatever. I just want to tell good stories.


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## Ireth (Aug 30, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> I actually go a step farther because a lot of my fantasy worlds coincide with our world (just a long time ago or a long time ahead).



My vampire novel takes place during the medieval era. Historical differences, vampires and Fae notwithstanding, it is blatantly obvious that the world is our own. However I, as a Christian, knowingly made Celtic paganism the working religion of the story, with a goddess being the catalyst behind the creation of vampires, and manifesting as such to the vampire protagonist (as well as every other vampire at the point of his/her turning). I don't have qualms about this, since it is purely fantasy, and I don't preach about either paganism or Christianity being the "right" religion. It's just there, and that's the way things are. It was a means to explore a different facet of vampire lore beyond the heavily Christian crosses-and-garlic set of weaknesses, and it turned into a story I loved to develop.


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## Mindfire (Aug 30, 2012)

In some works, people make pagan gods out to be angels/demons/lesser spirits that people worship simply because they don't know any better. I think C.S. Lewis implied something to that effect in his Space Trilogy.


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## Vinegar Tom (Sep 4, 2012)

This entire thread is a great illustration of how people who may be perfectly good writers go slightly off the rails when they try to write fantasy. Michael Moorcock once said that the only unbreakable rule that good fantasy absolutely must follow is that it must be internally consistent. So if the basic point of the story is "sexy African warrior chicks fighting dinosaurs in the jungle", which obviously isn't a very plausible real-world scenario, all you need to ask yourself is "In what kind of world would this not be totally absurd?"

Well, first off, the dinosaurs were wiped out by a catastrophe 65 million years ago, so in your world obviously that didn't happen. Unfortunately, if it hadn't, mammals wouldn't have had the opportunity to take over that ecological niche, and therefore wouldn't have evolved the way they did, meaning that there wouldn't be any humans. So presumably, unless time travel or cloning or aliens are involved, humans and dinosaurs evolved at the same time. So that's a pretty major difference between reality and this world, and we might not be looking at precisely the same human race.

Then there's the question of the sexually attractive young women requiring implausibly "modern" attitudes to free them up for dinosaur-hunting purposes as opposed to staying home and having babies. Actually, a more important problem is why African women would be hunting incredibly dangerous animals at all. There's a reason why, in primitive societies, men and not women do the hunting, which is that men are physically much stronger than women, and if you're using stone age weapons, how hard you can throw a spear matters a great deal. Particularly if the animal you're hunting is capable of killing you if you don't kill it first.

But never mind, it's fantasy - and this world has dinosaurs and humans at the same time, which, unless you're a Creationist or your surname is Flintstone, is a lot less implausible than a bit of women's lib amoung primitive tribal chicks living in the middle of a jungle. So let's decide that in this world, it's perfectly normal for women to be hunters. Why? Well, there are plenty of species where the female is considerably bigger than the male, often because she needs to be because she's the one who sits on the nest or whatever and has to protect her little ones. So humans who've evolved in direct competition with the most terrifying predators the world has ever known would have adapted to that if they survived at all.

Maybe human males are quite small, and survive by being stealthy and quick, and not trying to compete with those monsters at the top of the food-chain for the big game. So their instinctive reaction to dinosaurs is to hide if possible, and run away very quickly if not. Women, on the other hand, might have a straight choice between trying to run with a young but fairly heavy child, possibly several, weighing them down, leaving their children to be eaten, or going into such a berserk defensive fury that the velociraptor or whatever decides that this small mad creature that doesn't know how to give up and be eaten just isn't worth the trouble.

In some of the more warlike African tribes, men were raised apart from women, and had to prove themselves true men by killing an enemy warrior (in some tribes, murdering him by stealth and bringing back his head was acceptable) before they were allowed any wives. Which was a great way of ensuring that only men who were good at killing other men ever get to breed. In the situation I suggested above, women, who are bigger, stronger, and more aggressive than men, and who instinctively hate dinosaurs more than they fear them, might spend their early teens in an isolated girls' camp learning dinosaur-slaying techniques. And they wouldn't get to have babies until they'd proved what a dutiful mother they could be by slaying a dino all by themselves (presumably a small one would do - if you somehow killed a T Rex with a pointed stick, they'd probably make you a goddess). Indeed, if some women were such dedicated dino-slayers that they voluntarily decided not to settle down and become mothers for a certain number of years - perhaps even the rest of their lives - it would be useful to the community, because they'd be an Ã©lite band of protectors who never got out of peak sauropod-slaying condition until old age caught up with them. Or a T Rex.

See? Just off the top of my head, from somebody else's idea, I've got an internally consistent world where the "sexy warrior chicks" are not behaving in an implausibly "modern" way. They're behaving exactly like normal women do in the primitive society in which they live, It just so happens to be a society I made up, and if I say they can do that, of course they can. And since men would be much more inclined to plan ahead and weigh up the options instead of doing something impulsive, they'd probably make much wiser leaders, so it wouldn't simply be a case of straight gender rÃ´le-reversal. Male characters, especially nasty ones, could be very dangerous, but in a sly, furtive way, and since female aggression would be tied into their maternal instincts, they could be extremely feminine and ultra-violent at the same time.

See? If you start by saying "I have a ludicrous fantasy premise - in what kind of world would it not be ludicrous?" instead of "How can I somehow fit this concept into something very close to the real world without it being absurd?", it all goes so much easier! And yes, I did notice that dinosaurs have been replaced by dragons (which doesn't make the whole scenario any more realistic, by the way!). but the basic situation is still precisely the same, just slightly more mythical.

Oh, by the way, atheists are allowed to invent gods, so long as they don't go all L. Ron Hubbard and pretend they're real. H. P. Lovecraft was an atheist, and he invented loads of gods. Mind you, they were all horrible. And he had a sly dig at Christianity along the way. Religion is never in any way helpful to his usually doomed protagonists, churches repeatedly turn out to secretly harbor some hideous cult, and "The Dunwich Horror" is a deliberate parody of the Crucifixion, with a vampire octopus from another dimension standing in for Jesus Christ.


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## Architect_of_Aurah (Sep 6, 2012)

I have the same rather objective and scientific approach to worldbuilding as you, but have told myself not to get too hung up on things.  If you overanalyse your work, you're bound to find fault with it somewhere.  I remember an article in _Empire_ once that tore holes in the plots of some of the best movies ever, for example, in _Jaws_ all the shark attacks take place near the shore.  Why then do Quint and the others go all the way out to sea?
Build a world in your own way and worry later if it doesn't make sense.  Set a few rules, but don't be super-rigid.


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## It's a Squirrel...Moose? (Sep 8, 2012)

I am sympathetic to the view in the OP. I dislike the notion of world building for fantasy (crazy I know) - simply because I feel people go to the extreme in trying to build a 'different' world to our own in their (in my opinion) misbegotten opinion that our world is boring. Or, they commit (in my mind) the sin of trying to 'spice' up our own history by transplanting dinosaurs/magic/fantasy into actual historical events - whilst managing quite successfully to completely misunderstand the event in question or portray it in a deeply childish light - the most common being the crusades.

I personally dislike worlds that are built around a single premise. Now, I'm not trying to be harsh to the original poster, but a book about a hot female hunting dinosaurs would be one that I would immediately put down - it's not my forte at all - I like my fantasy to be very realistic. Oh, I like magic, dragons, etc - but I find that such things have to handled in such a way that I can _believe_ in it. A world has to feel real - it has to feel that it exists because it does.

What do I mean by this? All too often I read stories where it feels fake -that characters, events and magic exist solely to answer a question that the writer has posed. For example: 'I want a city deep underground' - so I've written a story about a city underground. This sort of writing infuriates me, simply because I can not believe that a city could exist underground in the way they are describing. Such a world to me doesn't feel real - unless it's done in such a way that makes sense - for example if the city is in terminal decline because by some odd disaster it's found itself buried underground.

The OP idea of huntress hunting dinosaurs strikes me in the same way. I can't help but think 'why?' - is this story existing solely so I can read about a women hunting dinosaurs? Why would they be dinosaurs? Why not mammels - like mammoths? We know that humans hunted mammoths - why do we need a story about humans hunting dinosaurs? 

I'm not trying to be offensive here - and I understand the reasoning 'well, why not?' - but in my mind that is simply not the fantasy I like to read.

And it brings me back to a previous point: why do writers feel the need to be utterly inventive? Just because our world doesn't have flying dragons and orcs running everywhere - doesn't make the world suddenly boring. The world as it currently stands is a heinously complicated structure - with natural laws that in many ways go beyond the imagination of even the greatest of writers. 

Just because the natural world is the thing we experience every day doesn't mean that in order for an exciting and worthwhile fantasy story we suddenly need giant lizards who can fly. Blantent breaks in the laws of physics (a lesser understood concept by most, including me) limits realism - and limited realism nearly always goes hand in hand with an unsatisfactory story.

Let the reader do the work for you! Work within the laws that surrond us, there is no need to completely rewrite the world around you!

My argument would be: _don't even bother in world-building_ - or if you do - make the world building so subtle that for all intensive purposes you are using the world around us just with one or two different things. Or go for the other extreme: and add magic, etc _but don't go into too much detail_.

What do I mean? I find that any stories that use magic, then try to explain it, nearly always falter on the simple point that what they are talking about is by its very nature unnatural. I don't care how the rune works - because I'm fairly sure it can't - but I can accept that in this world, it can! If you try and explain something, you are in dire straits of writing complete gibberish. 

There is a level of this 'believable-disbelief' - most commonly shown through Mary-Sue antics like shooting an explosive cannon-ball from a 200 year old cannon through a helicopter front-shield (and the 900 other pieces of utter stupidity from _Sahara_).

But, another issue in world-building is that it often involves writers forcibly putting their moral opinions in their writing. _This is the greatest single sin of writing in my opinion._ There is _nothing_ more infuriating then having a character in a medieval fantasy setting suddenly splurging into a diatribe against monarchy using modern language of freedom and democracy. Or a knight in the crusades suddenly shifting from <shudders> ye olde speech into the atheist writer's voice gleefully pointing out the evils of religion.

Why is this so annoying? Because it breaks the flow. You are forcing your ideals onto the world - the world no longer feels natural but instead now feels like an extended metaphor for your own morality. _Keep your world realistic!_ I quite generally don't care when I'm reading a book about the evils of dictatorship - esp. when the image of the dictatorship is so misconceived that it demonstrates the writers lack of thorough and objective research.

An example: Goodkind's Sword of Truth series: it started ok... then completely destroyed itself in the later book with a horrific combination of Mary-Suism, diatribes against communism, borderline-offesnive black and white morality and around 5 books endlessly repeating Goodkind's opinions on the state of women throughout our history.

Another example in this very thread: The belief that the world is round. I've read so many stories of historical-fantasy that portrays everyone thinking the world is flat - when _there is more evidence to suggest that people thought the world was round_ - to the point that whenever I see a scene of a group of greek scholars laughing at the (often young) genius who says the world is actually round I throw the book away as an example of someone simply repeating myths.

A world should _never_ simply be a vehicle for morality - because whenever it does you get the idea that the world is a fantasy world being described by someone in the 21st Century.

This has become something of a rant - and for that I apologise. But, in core:

1) Keep it realistic - you're saving yourself a lot of work if you just use the current world laws, etc. Remember: we have the perfect example of a functional world around us - with the added advantage that all your readers already know the basic details

2) Keep it subtle - the less details you give, the better. One doesn't need a guidebook to magic. Good examples of magic handled well are Game of Thrones, Farseer and Tawney Man. Excessive rules = waffle.

3) Don't be stupid - just because you are writing fantasy doesn't mean that the laws of making sense need not apply.

4) It's _not_ our world - keep the characters and circumstances true to the world in question. Don't force 21st century thoughts and opinions into your story - only use opinions that _make sense_. A world is not something to do as you please with - it has to be a self contained unit within itself. Remember: the reader doesn't know what you know, and will be judging the story and world on purely it's own.

and

5) Avoid the crusades. Otherwise I will have to hunt you down.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 8, 2012)

Wow, someone seems to misunderstand the point of fantasy. The whole point of fantasy (and I say this as someone who doesn't bother with "scientific realism" when worldbuilding anymore) is "anything goes". If I wanted to write about the real world, I wouldn't write fantasy in the first place, would I?


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## Mindfire (Sep 8, 2012)

It's a Squirrel...Moose? said:


> [RANT]"..."[/RANT]



I sense an argument coming on.


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## It's a Squirrel...Moose? (Sep 8, 2012)

My point was that excessive world building often results in a decrease in realism, which (again, in my opinion) is a very, very bad thing; and that a fantasy book need not necessarily be based around magic, dragons and excessive amount of Gods. I enjoy Game of Thrones as much as the next man; and I know that dragons feature quite heavily in it; and I _love_ the work of Robin Hobb which, also features dragons and magic quite a bit - but in both examples the lack of 'realism' is countered by an otherwise immensely sense of realism, and the unrealistic elements are handled with enough tact and skill that the 'suspension of disbelief' is easy to cross.

Stories I personally dislike however is when the sense of disbelief is so strong that I struggle to enjoy the story.

This is not say that the world has to be a perfect replica of our own! When I say realism, I mean it that _one could possibly consider that it is real_ - that one can reasonable suspend their disbelief and work within the world - to believe in it. As soon as I stop believing in a plot/story - BAM, lost reader - bad reviews. Now, I understand that some people are fine with such escapism - and I'm fine that people want to write it - but I personally dislike it.

It is normally not the simple act of casting spells that is the problem. Magic, instead, suffers from the problem of MarySuism - it's the classic 'why don't they just fly to Mordor' plot hole that magic nearly always brings into the problem. It comes to the point where the writer has to place limits on their world _simply because they need them to solve a plot hole_ - for example, in a world of magic transmution - the law that 'wizards can't make food' rears its ugly head as the fact that wizards should be able to make food brings into direct question why your plot is about a famine. Or, the wheel of time issue - when Rand can do everything, except when the plot demands that he can't - for instance raising the dead.

I find that the most simple way around these plot-holes that result from magic is to massively downscale magic in all my writings.

I can accept a flying dragon (albeit grudgingly) - I can also accept a runed sword that can melt through ice (again... very grudgingly) - but it's not my personal taste at all. Nor do I think that fantasy needs that outlandish edge to make it effective. 

My point was simply that the world around us is already such a powerfully concepted world - simply because it exists! It's a world we can work with, and indeed, a world we all work in! My point against worldbuilding is that often the world that exists is _less_ wonderful and complex then the world around us - that in trying to develop their own 'take' writers are needlessly complicating a story so it becomes more about the world and not the story.

The real world is also so vast that a multitude of fantastical events can take place! A giant lizard doesn't need to fly for there to be majesty, a wizard need not draw fire from a rune or a word to invoke power - a city need not be in a cave for there to be strife. 

Also: excessive world-building nearly always requires more work for the writer; and I'm a firm believer that the least amount of background you need for your world to work, the more you can focus on plot. The best fantasy books are, in my mind, when the writer walks a narrow line between 'anything goes' and 'what is real.'


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## Mindfire (Sep 8, 2012)

I think you're conflating "realism" with _believability_. Fantasy must be believable- that is, internally consistent- but it doesn't have to be realistic-that is, conforming to the rules of our own world. Increased amount of worldbuilding does mean an increased amount of internal rules that the author must remember and stick to, meaning the opporunity for plot holes and inconsistencies is multiplied. But I don't think that's a very compelling reason to give up worldbuilding altogether. Imagination for imagination's sake is a great thing, after all. Rather, an author should be careful, efficient, and elegant in their worldbuilding.


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## ThinkerX (Sep 8, 2012)

> I am sympathetic to the view in the OP. I dislike the notion of world building for fantasy (crazy I know) - simply because I feel people go to the extreme in trying to build a 'different' world to our own in their (in my opinion) misbegotten opinion that our world is boring. Or, they commit (in my mind) the sin of trying to 'spice' up our own history by transplanting dinosaurs/magic/fantasy into actual historical events - whilst managing quite successfully to completely misunderstand the event in question or portray it in a deeply childish light - the most common being the crusades.
> 
> I personally dislike worlds that are built around a single premise. Now, I'm not trying to be harsh to the original poster, but a book about a hot female hunting dinosaurs would be one that I would immediately put down - it's not my forte at all - I like my fantasy to be very realistic. Oh, I like magic, dragons, etc - but I find that such things have to handled in such a way that I can believe in it. A world has to feel real - it has to feel that it exists because it does.



You are touching on things which bothered me at a background level for a long, long while, and finally prompted me to my current solution:

'The aliens did it.'

I finally decided that a race or races of 'aliens' had been visiting earth now and again over a period spanning tens of millenia - at a minimum, collecting frequently very large 'sample populations' of earth flora and fauna - including humans.

For reasons of thier own - utterly alien reasons, because these beings are most emphatically NOT human, they terraformed a dead or nearly dead world somewhere else for their own purposes.  This is where they brought the vast bulk of the life forms they picked up on earth.  Much of what they brought back they simply turned loose, with some of the rest they conducted long strings of occassionally brutal experiments.

Some humans ended up being 'transformed' into elves or dwarves by these experiments.  In others, dormant psionic abilities were awakened (magic).  I should point out that by fantasy standards, most of these wizards are wimps.

They also imported flora, fauna, and even sapients from other worlds to this terraformed world as well. 

And then the aliens went away, and are barely more than a legend among the races they brought to this world.

Now...I have no plans for dinosaurs in this world, but this model would phausibly let me include them: the ancient aliens made them from ancient DNA, using superior technology to fill in the gaps...then simply turned them loose when their experiments were finished.  

Characters learn bits and pieces of this backstory in the various tales.

Sound a bit more phausible, Squirrel Moose?


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## Zero Angel (Sep 8, 2012)

My dinosaurs were created from the relics left behind in their ancient citadels and warped/twisted to the ends of the race of creatures that created them.

That is, in the beginning there were saurians, a civilization that was overthrown and all but wiped out. Then about 65.55 million years later, their closest genetic relatives discovered the remnants of the civilization and went, "Hey, we can create a bunch of slave/animal creatures out of these guys and use them to our own ends!"

Unfortunately, hot females do sometimes hunt them, but hot females also hunt mammals if this helps...or anything else they want to do I guess (unless they're slaves too! and FORCED to hunt dinosaurs! Gasp!)


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## J.D. Hallowell (Sep 8, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> I got interested in writing fantasy fiction in the first place because fantasy, with its "anything goes" spirit, is the only genre out there that allows me to combine my various interests. For example, as I've said before, it's the only genre which would allow me to write about sexy African warrior chicks fighting dinosaurs in the jungle. Few genres are more favorable to the Rule of Cool which I deeply cherish.
> 
> Unfortunately, as an atheist and a metaphysical naturalist, I tend to take a highly scientific approach to world-building. I want my worlds' physics, geology, and other mechanics to resemble the real world's as much as possible, because I believe that a world with completely different mechanics would end up incomprehensibly alien to us. I could never write a disc-shaped world balanced atop giant elephants for instance. Everything in my worlds must make sense from a scientific and mechanical point of view. For that reason I usually don't like to have magical, supernatural, or any other scientifically implausible elements in my world-building.
> 
> ...



I don't necessarily think that you are thinking about this too rigidly, but you may need to be willing to look more deeply at the underlying reasons why things are the way they are, and what the consequences would be of changing them. Women were tied to child-bearing and child-rearing roles in most pre-industrial societies primarily because they didn't have control over their fertility. Give your tribal women birth control, and you solve the problem of rigid gender roles inside of a few generations without the need to turn them into aliens. The story of the social upheaval that results from the discovery of the birth control herb, dinosaur gland preparation, or other biologically active substance might even make great fiction.  So would the story of the struggle to control access to it. The ancient Greeks knew of an herb, native to a single island, that was reputed to prevent pregnancy - they harvested it into extinction. There is a lot you can do and still stay within the bounds of the reasonable.


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## Saigonnus (Sep 9, 2012)

For the most part, I disagree. I think a certain amount of worldbuilding is necessary in "fantasy writing "; even if the writer purposely leaves it obscure to the readers; he/she should still have that working knowledge of his world to avoid the annoying plot mistakes/holes. The only way that no worldbuilding is needed is if it uses earth for the world, then it becomes common knowledge to reader and writer both.

As for the whole idea of writing something just for a specific something to happen; that is the basis of MANY fantasy novels. The author has an idea in the shower or on the way to work or whatever and decides it would be a cool idea to have a story based off of a walk to work that goes terribly wrong... or a psychotic pizza delivery man. Boiled down far enough EVERY story comes down to a basic premise; most can be said in a single phrase or even question. 

For example: Jurassic Park: What if man brought dinosaurs back from extinction?
                   Harry Potter: A young boy goes to a wizard's school. 

I think it's HOW the story is told, the characters and environment that makes the story good or not. I myself prefer a world of rich characters, immersive background and world I can sink my teeth into a escape reality; the reason I enjoy fantasy and science fiction. 

I do agree with most others however, in there is a such thing as TOO MUCH world building (I have been guilty of this myself in the past) as it tends to create unnecesssary restrictions to the story that perhaps could limit the story within the framework. A fantastically intricate world populated by bland, lifeless characters would be a tragedy of infinite proportions.


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