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For a while now, and after several unsuccessful attempts, I have tried to somehow connect my fictional world to my real world as an author. I still haven't got it! I mean, my Storyworld, it was made from scratch, without any connection to this world; All to serve the story. The laws of nature were even forgotten -- I created others, all in favor of the theme | message | topic | premise | high concept. All good! But, how am I supposed to "blur the lines between fiction and reality" * if planet Earth, or for that matter, the whole Universe as we know it!, don't even exist in my story!?!

I'm not there yet.

My goal with that blur is "Media Blurring" -- "Blurred IP," "Blurred Merchandise," "Blurred Business."



* in page xiii, 227-231, YOU'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER WORKBOOK (2021) by Houston Howard.
 
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pmmg

Myth Weaver
Is it important to connect the two?

I would think there are plenty of models that would make this possible. Alternate realities, other planes of existence, alternate times lines, simulation theory....

You have one place that you intentionally gave no rules to, and want it to comply to the rules of another? Sounds like something from lovecraft to me ;)
 
Is it important to connect the two?

Yeah, otherwise, doesn't make any sense to me. ...to blur the media. It has as well, in a way, to make sense to them [my characters] -- or else, why would they care? ...to cross "the line" to my reality.
 
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pmmg

Myth Weaver
Not gonna buy that book to find out what the reference means. What do you mean by blur?

Would it be such that even though the world in intentionally un-designed for the author, it is not actually undefined if I were a character living in it?

If I was an unworldly type in this world, say had no knowledge beyond my own island, and I was sucked into an alternate universe that had a big planet where everything was understood, I am not sure that would be a show stopper for me. I would just adapt and see the world as bigger.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
I wrestled with this issue for a long while.

The problem, as I saw it, was that we have Earth, with a convincing evolutionary history as to how humans and other races came to exist here. Muck around a bit in the fossil record, and you could kind of sort of maybe justify 'giants' and 'hobbits' in the not-so-distant past.

Contrasted with this are the usual fantasy worlds, chock full of humans, goblins, dwarves, elves, and other races - plus magic.

Problem is, the humans, at least, almost certainly had their distant origins on Earth, and at least some of those other races almost certainly began as human offshoots. Yet, the majority of fantasy worlds are low tech - so how did these remote ancestors get from Earth to Fantasy World?

Other authors have grappled with this and come up with solutions with varying degrees of plausibility:

1 - The transformation - science ran amok, or there was a bizarre cosmic event. This collapsed or greatly stressed Earth civilization, and effectively created elves and dwarves and bestowed at least some folks with magical ability.

2 - The Intervention/Portal - Some other race opened a portal to Earth and came through enmass, maybe hauling large numbers of people elsewhere. Fairly similar to the first option, except more planets. In some versions, this option kills most advanced technology.

3 - Parallel Evolution - Possible, but unlikely. Highly unlikely. Might explain the presence of humans with magic and the other races - evolutionary offshoots that survived.

4 - The Grand Collapse - Humans went to the stars, settled other planets...and then interstellar civilization collapsed - and the tale takes place thousands of years after that event. Before the collapse happened, genetic modifications run amok created humans with magic and races that could be deemed elves (former elite with longevity treatments), and goblins (mutants) and maybe others. This scenario might also allow for portals - highly advanced technology - and maybe a few star ships venturing between solar systems.

5 - The Lovecraft Option - Monstrosities from beyond warped time and space to reach Earth in the distant past, snatched a few tribes of humans, then casually dropped them elsewhere with maybe a few modifications.

6 - The God/Super Science option. A powerful entity or highly advanced race acquired human DNA (and presumably DNA) from other Earth life, and used it to grow 'test-tube humans,' some of them modified.

Then there is the magic. I see three main options that allow for crossovers between the conditions on Earth now and those typical to fantasy worlds.

1 - Magic is psionic ability (and presumably at least partly hereditary). Go this route....and most wizards are going to be on the wimpy side.

2 - Magic requires 'something extra' - the wizard needs special gems or potions or whatnot to work their spells. This might also be planet specific - there are conditions that apply only to the fantasy world that permit the use of magic.

3 - Magic is an intrusion upon 'normal reality' - magic shows up, things go haywire, but some people can manipulate this.

Combinations of these three are definitely possible.

For myself, I went with the 'ancient aliens' route. These utterly inhuman but naturally psionic beings came to Earth tens of thousands of years ago, and snatched tribes of humans as pets, test subjects, and servants. One set of tests involving 'spirits' resulted in large numbers of the test subjects becoming 'possessed,' eventually becoming elves. Goblins are another race altogether, superficially human in appearance, but with a different biology. Wizards began as favored servitors who were imbued with psionic ability - a necessary prerequisite to operate their masters' machines. Portals are part tech, part psionic. They are also damn dangerous because Lovecraftian abominations lurk in the spaces between - in fact it was a Lovecraftian intrusion that destroyed the ancient alien's civilization. (The ancient aliens snatched their last major group of Earth Humans from the late Roman empire and a couple other places roughly 1700 years ago, centuries after the Lovecraftian event and just before their civilization completely collapsed)
 

Queshire

Auror
Hrmmm... there's a lot of fun stuff that you can do with that, but I don't think it's for me. I generally prefer to have the reality subordinate to the fantasy rather than the other way around, ya know? Have some sufficiently godlike being poke the laws of reality in shape in order to promote the evolution of humanoid species or something.
 
Muck around a bit in the fossil record, and you could kind of sort of maybe justify the not-so-distant past.

Parallel Evolution

crossovers between the conditions on Earth now and those typical to fantasy worlds

Magic requires 'something extra' - the wizard needs special gems or potions or whatnot to work their spells. This might also be planet specific

These caught my attention.

Especially, "Parallel Evolution" made me write down this, It's like Doctoress Evolution!?! *

And, "whatnot" reminded me of a note I made a while ago regarding pmmg in this post Portals .

* Number "9" on the listing, https://mythicscribes.com/community/threads/main-character-names-in-4-grams-of-reason.24131/
 
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pmmg

Myth Weaver
I generally prefer to have the reality subordinate to the fantasy rather than the other way around, ya know?

I think this is always the case anyway. I dont think you can get two people to agree on what reality is ;)

3 - Parallel Evolution - Possible, but unlikely. Highly unlikely.

Humans themselves are highly unlikely, and so is every other species on Earth. But if evolution was to take place somewhere else, Humans are slightly more likely to evolve than anything else. In the realm of alternate realities, or as we see often, extra dimension with alternate us's, there wont be many who will question humans there, they are required. If we accept the universe in infinite, it is a certainty that there is an exact duplicate you somewhere else in the universe. In fact, an infinite number of them.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
Well....

I could as the author make a world where I decided not to draw a map, so I could just have my character wander to a lake one day and a mountain the next, and the reader could never go....hey author, there is no lake on your map.

But if I was a character living in that world, I would probably have local knowledge and know if there was a lake nearby or not.

For me the author, it is undefined, but me the character, it is defined.

So....I was asking more around the lines of, just because it is undefined for the author is not the same as undefined for matching the two realities together.
 

Queshire

Auror
Humans themselves are highly unlikely, and so is every other species on Earth. But if evolution was to take place somewhere else, Humans are slightly more likely to evolve than anything else. In the realm of alternate realities, or as we see often, extra dimension with alternate us's, there wont be many who will question humans there, they are required. If we accept the universe in infinite, it is a certainty that there is an exact duplicate you somewhere else in the universe. In fact, an infinite number of them.

I've toyed with the idea that everyone has sort of a dimensional resonance that makes it easiest to travel to alternative universes that share features with their native universe (like having humans) but aren't too close to their native universe (so you don'tworry about taking a wrong turn and winding up in a universe identical to your own but the national bird is a turkey instead of a bald eagle or something). I think of it as like music notes and octaves. If you are from universe A then traveling to universe B won't be stable because you'll be pulled back to universe A, but you can travel to the universe A an octave higher or lower and you'll slot in there without getting pulled back. Maybe that'll be the ever popular evil twin universe or maybe it'll be a classic fantasy world with elves & dwarves? Who knows.
 
What do you mean by blur?

In the book I mentioned (in page 227), its author, writes, "Social and Web - describe what kind of online presence they would have if they were actually real".

By "they" is meant, characters, organizations, locations, and issues in my Storyworld.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
If you are from universe A then traveling to universe B won't be stable because you'll be pulled back to universe A, but you can travel to the universe A an octave higher or lower and you'll slot in there without getting pulled back. Maybe that'll be the ever popular evil twin universe or maybe it'll be a classic fantasy world with elves & dwarves? Who knows.

I hope you know ;) Cause you are the author.

But I might have to question how anyone would know the universe was not a match and they got snapped back. Having never arrived, it would be nothing they will experience.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
In the book I mentioned (in page 227), its author, writes, "Social and Web - describe what kind of online presence they would have if they were actually real".

By "they" is meant, characters, organizations, locations, and issues in my Storyworld.

That sounds like an exercise similar to the interview threads we have here. Just for character development and writing them better.
 
whatnot" reminded me of a note I made a while ago regarding pmmg in this post Portals .

It follows my note:

"Maybe Jorginho finds a portal, in General R.I.P. Home! Or, he has already found it, and it's somewhere in Jorginho's Place at Tablet Tree [he's building a palisade to push back the past* as the past grows | the past is a living being weaved with the soil; actually, the past is the conscience [ego] of the Earth Monster] or inside Jorginho's dungarees chest pocket to keep company with the Gold Coin. Or, one goes to the Frying Pan and asks Doctoress Evolution."

* then, the past turns into the present.



The italicized words are Primary Locations or Main Characters Names. You may find a complete list, in the links that follows,

Primary Locations
: https://mythicscribes.com/community/threads/primary-locations-in-4-grams-of-reason.24135/
Main Characters Names: https://mythicscribes.com/community/threads/main-character-names-in-4-grams-of-reason.24131/
 
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For me the author, it is undefined, but me the character, it is defined.

Ok. Think I got your reasoning. Difficult to say which is which, who or what. ...Since there's a third-way -- The two are one and no-one else; but that option is still an aside. An old thought.
 
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