• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

A world without cows

  • Thread starter Deleted member 4265
  • Start date

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
An author is absolutely free to put in or keep out anything they please. An author is permitted to put world before story or do anything else that strikes their fancy.

That author should not be surprised if no agent shows an interest in the complete story, nor complain if beta or other readers are confused or put off by the author's choices.

I am a teacher of medieval history at a university. As such, I'm free to follow my own preferences in what I teach and how I teach it. If I think peasants are smelly and stupid, and I don't want to talk about them, that's my choice. It's my class. I should not, however, be surprised if my teaching is criticized. I should be even less surprised to find that "it's my class" is not regarded as a viable defense of my methodology. Because in fact, my teaching should serve first the subject matter and second the student (I know others would reverse those priorities), and my own tastes come in somewhere around forty-fifth.

Your mileage may vary. But it shouldn't.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I think it's going a little far to suggest agents and readers won't like a story because the author chose to not include cows.
 

TheKillerBs

Maester
I am a teacher of medieval history at a university. As such, I'm free to follow my own preferences in what I teach and how I teach it. If I think peasants are smelly and stupid, and I don't want to talk about them, that's my choice. It's my class. I should not, however, be surprised if my teaching is criticized. I should be even less surprised to find that "it's my class" is not regarded as a viable defense of my methodology. Because in fact, my teaching should serve first the subject matter and second the student (I know others would reverse those priorities), and my own tastes come in somewhere around forty-fifth.

I don't understand this comparison at all. A teacher refusing to teach a subject matter according to the established curriculum is a completely different topic than an author choosing to put animal or not put an animal in their fictional world. One is negligence, the other is artistic choice.

Remember, everyone writes for different reasons, but your primary audience is always you. Write to please yourself first, because otherwise it becomes a chore and you will eventually hate it. So write what you want, and don't write what you don't want. Something as superficial as this is really not going to make or break a story anyway.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
>the established curriculum

*chortle*
I've never worked at or attended a university with an established curriculum (in my discipline). But we now are wandering in the OT Woods.
 
D

Deleted member 4265

Guest
I am a teacher of medieval history at a university. As such, I'm free to follow my own preferences in what I teach and how I teach it. If I think peasants are smelly and stupid, and I don't want to talk about them, that's my choice. It's my class. I should not, however, be surprised if my teaching is criticized. I should be even less surprised to find that "it's my class" is not regarded as a viable defense of my methodology. Because in fact, my teaching should serve first the subject matter and second the student (I know others would reverse those priorities), and my own tastes come in somewhere around forty-fifth.

Your mileage may vary. But it shouldn't.


Firstly, I don't find that to be a good analogy. You seem to think I just add and subtract things from my story arbitrarily. That is not the case, if I dislike something, I ask myself whether or not it is a necessary element and what would happen if I took it out. Its not me deciding peasants are smelly and gross and then deciding not to teach about them. Its me deciding peasants are smelly and gross and then asking myself whether or not they have contributed anything to history that makes them necessary to teach about. That is precisely why I started this thread, to figure out if removing cows from my story would alter the story in a way I wasn't happy with and I am satisfied that it will not thus I feel perfectly comfortable removing them.

An author is absolutely free to put in or keep out anything they please. An author is permitted to put world before story or do anything else that strikes their fancy.

That author should not be surprised if no agent shows an interest in the complete story, nor complain if beta or other readers are confused or put off by the author's choices.

Secondly, I find the insinuation that I am an inferior author because of this to be minor insulting, but what it really shows me is that you believe your way is the better way of doing things and if I don't subscribe to your standards I have little chance of being published. Even if that's true, I find it more than a little presumptuous, especially since I don't write to publish and I welcome criticisms and rejections.

And so I thank you for your input. Your concerns were valid, your way of expressing them less so.
 

Ben

Troubadour
I wonder how he reader would ever know there are no cows.
Unless the characters sit around discussing how weird it is that there are no cows.
Come to think of it I don't think I've heard cows mentioned in Song of Ice and Fires - there may be no cows in Westeros.
 
I wonder how he reader would ever know there are no cows.
Unless the characters sit around discussing how weird it is that there are no cows.
Come to think of it I don't think I've heard cows mentioned in Song of Ice and Fires - there may be no cows in Westeros.

There are cows in Planetos. Cows are depicted in the the world of ice and fire book.

I'm wondering if there are any other ramifications I need to think about for how this would alter society.

I don't understand why you don't want cows in your world. Do you have some fictional herbivore which is superior to cows , and you don't want it to be outshined by cows.
 
I'm curious as to why you would want to omit cows from your world, but it really doesn't matter why; you have creative control. Also simply don't mention cows, writers don't mention even animal in their world.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
@Devouring Wolf, that's a good reply. I think there's been some good feedback on your original question. I only want to add that I did not mean to imply that you are an inferior author, only that if someone writes only for themselves, they aren't likely to get commercially published. You've clarified that that's not your goal, so no worries. As to quality, I do not presume to judge because I've not read anything you've written.
 
D

Deleted member 4265

Guest
@Devouring Wolf, that's a good reply. I think there's been some good feedback on your original question. I only want to add that I did not mean to imply that you are an inferior author, only that if someone writes only for themselves, they aren't likely to get commercially published. You've clarified that that's not your goal, so no worries. As to quality, I do not presume to judge because I've not read anything you've written.

Thank you. I feel as though I owe you an apology actually. Its no excuse but I've been having a rather bad time of late and I overreacted. Your comments were appreciated, though I don't completely agree, and you didn't deserve my anger.
 
Top