Heart or mind?

[Gurkhal]

Ok, this is a issue which ahs been bothering me and which I need to settle. I've wrestled with it myself but I've come to the conclusion that I need some other perspectives on this.

The issue at hand is to focus my historical interest, and by extension the type of fantasy settings that I could develop, on either Medieval Europe or the Ancient Near East? My mind is with Europe but my heart with the Near East. But my wallet, time and energy shows me that I can only get a good grip on one of these fanastic areas.

The way I say that my mind is with Europe is because there's so many accessable books about all parts of it. Be it straight history of all kinds, the enviroment and nature, the languages etc. There are tons of stuff and I think that I could do research with less money and effort involved. For example there's no great mystery to find the way to construct Norse names or lists of Celtic names. Or if I want to research northern European nature I can get books about that very easily as well. Therefor I realize that its the most accessable area and would probably be the smartest to focus on.

But when I say that my heart belongs to the Near East I mean it because it kindles my imagination. The names of Assyria, Hatti and Elam draws me in, in a way that England, France or Venice do not. But on the other hand these kind of things are much more veiled from me in that there is less litterature, I have still been unable to actually get how to construct an Akkadian name, and getting information on pre-modern Near Eastern fauna and flora has shown itself elusive, although there are of course things here and there. And while for example I've found plenty of accessable books on wolves the result for searching for lions have been less. Not to mention that much of the additional books that I could want to buy would come from specialized bookstores with shipping costs not of this world. But while its much more difficut my heart is trigged in a unique way by the mysteries of the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean world.

If anyone could help with some advice on how to solve this I would be immensly grateful.

 

[Caged Maiden]

There are many MANY good historical books about the Muslim world, as much of Europe's knowledge came back with crusaders. I think you need to follow what stirs your spirit. Let's be honest, writing isn't easy. If you lack passion for your subject matter, you can hardly expect yourself to enjoy the journey of writing the story. Writing is an undertaking of some magnitude. You have to come up with a story, convincing characters, a quest of some sort. Then you have to commit to writing 100k words about those things, entering them into scenes you can use to grip an audience.

Then there's showing off said work to crit partners, rewriting parts, cutting, revamping. There's the second round of writing, where you have to tear into that story and world and those characters and somehow convince them to work overtime for your benefit.

After all that work and months of sleepless nights and toil, you enter real editing, where you get the manuscript really polished, fix all the writing boo-boos and twist each sentence like you're wringing laundry by hand. I mean...I HATE doing it for stories I LOVE. Imagine going through all that for something you're half-passionate about? I think there's someone out there with that kind of tenacity, but it ain't this guy.

If you love Turkey, Angola, Australia, Japan, or some mash-up of all of it, use what you love. That way, your juices are at least flowing from the get-go. There's nothing worse than having a character or setting you don't really like and trying to whip it into obedience. It hurts, plain and simple. it hurts you as a writer, to punish yourself with more work that isn't fulfilling, and it hurts the manuscript. Maybe its potential doesn't necessarily start out lower, but if you want me to draw a real-life comparison, I can do a bunch.

Would you take up guitar simply because your father has one, even though you really love the piano? Buy an inexpensive keyboard and learn what you need until you can afford something better.

Would you select the puppy wearing the cast, even though the vet can only say, "It should heal properly." when the other puppies don't have broken legs? Take the less cute one that's healthy.

Would you take the path heavily traveled because it looks easy, or would you take the one less traveled because your heart yearns for a little adventure? The worst that can happen is you get lost and have to backtrack (or you get eaten by a bear, but this is hypothetical)

Would you choose a setting because it's easy and tried-and-true, or would you pick something that speaks to you and stirs your creative spirit?

Choose the setting that lends inspiration to your world and story. Where you can't afford the baby grand piano, make do with a keyboard (fill in your own details instead of solely relying on primary cited sourcebooks).

Okay, so there's my advice. Know that as a writer, I would never advise anyone to be a dreamer. By that, I mean, I would never say, "Yeah, do that crazy thing that doesn't make sense and be yourself, man. Screw what people think, do whatever you want and let the pieces fall where they will." I'm all about hard work and I've got stick-with-it to spare. But I fully acknowledge how hard it is to finish a work and get it through all the process to professional editing, and I wholly believe if you start with a broken leg, odds are, it won't ever be good as new (as good a story as it could have been if you had a full dose of drive and passion behind you from the beginning).

Best wishes. I hope you find the answer that works best for you.

 

[Caged Maiden]

As an added note, I often use baby name books online to help me work on consistency issues. I wrote a couple Iron Pens with Polish character and deity names and I loved how they came out. If naming things is an issue, try those kinds of free resources.

If it's about world-building (because I wasn't entirely sure I understood your conundrum), decide from the beginning how closely your world will resemble the Near East. Is it set in an actual Earthly place, in history? Or is it simply "inspired by", meaning you can do what you want with say, cultural issues you don't want to include in your work, but you want to keep geographical features, naming sounds, ruling class titles, etc.?

In one novel, I basically used 1576 Venice but gave it a new name. I changed a few things like the religions, but I kept the political structure in place at the time, used characters that closely resembled a "fantasy trumped-up" version of Venetian people, and I kept all Italian titles for nobility/ officials/ etc.

I think if you can establish that from the get-go, you're cooking on gas. If you select those elements that most inspire you about said culture/ land/ people, go from there and fill in other details with things that to varying degrees, support those things laid down in the history of the world and those elements that "rock the boat". That way, even though it isn't directly out of history, it feels organic. And if you do take things right out of history (as I did in mine, several times), spin it just enough so it looks like your invention. HAHA. I totally ripped off a few lines from a pope's speech. But since I spun it with my own flavor of whipped topping, I don't feel at all guilty. In fact, I feel downright clever for the theft and fencing of that particular scene.

I think setting is a big part of a book. I've written characters I didn't really "feel" and my work has suffered for it, usually requiring full rewrites if I didn't catch the problem early enough. In my novel I mentioned above, two characters in the book completely switched motivations, one got years younger, and their whole sub plot was turned upside down. Sometimes, we can forge ahead with something we half-like. Mostly, it's just a slow poison that eventually leads to the death of the manuscript.

Okay, now I'm done. Hope my words help you.

 

[Gurkhal]

Thank you.

I'm gonna wait for a few more response before I make a full post in response to the advice.

 

[Jabrosky]

I second the recommendation that you go with your heart. The ancient Near East and adjacent regions would fascinate me more than the standard pseudo-medieval European fare anyway.

As for the relative paucity of information for certain settings, I don't know if this is always a bad thing. Research can come in handy when you need to visualize aspects of a setting (e.g. what the buildings look like, what clothes people wear, and of course personal names like you said), but on the other hand extensively documented settings don't leave as much room for the imagination to wander. You can make up a lot more about prehistoric Sudanese than you can 16th-century French. Furthermore, the deluge of information that exists on certain cultures and time periods can sometimes overwhelm you by giving you that many more things you have to look up.

There was one time I wrote a short about a gladiator of German descent fighting in the Roman arena. It got torn apart by history nerds for its myriad inaccuracies, and these were all details I didn't even realize I needed to research in the first place. Honestly that experience must have traumatized me, because these days I'm often intimidated by the sheer volume of research I have to do on certain topics before I write anything.

 

[stephenspower]

why not both? mix and match elements so long as they seem organic (such as armor matching the type of weapons it would face). it's your world.

 

[Gurkhal]

There are many MANY good historical books about the Muslim world, as much of Europe's knowledge came back with crusaders. I think you need to follow what stirs your spirit. Let's be honest, writing isn't easy. If you lack passion for your subject matter, you can hardly expect yourself to enjoy the journey of writing the story. Writing is an undertaking of some magnitude. You have to come up with a story, convincing characters, a quest of some sort. Then you have to commit to writing 100k words about those things, entering them into scenes you can use to grip an audience.

Well, to be honest I'm not very interested in the Muslim world. I'm more thinking pre-Persian Near East. Don't care much of the caliphs or emirs but lots for the kings of Canaan or the Phoenician cities.

But I agree that without a muse whispering in my ear it would be close to impossible to forge a story that can grip people with interest or feel rewarding for myself.

Then there's showing off said work to crit partners, rewriting parts, cutting, revamping. There's the second round of writing, where you have to tear into that story and world and those characters and somehow convince them to work overtime for your benefit.

After all that work and months of sleepless nights and toil, you enter real editing, where you get the manuscript really polished, fix all the writing boo-boos and twist each sentence like you're wringing laundry by hand. I mean...I HATE doing it for stories I LOVE. Imagine going through all that for something you're half-passionate about? I think there's someone out there with that kind of tenacity, but it ain't this guy.

Very true.

If you love Turkey, Angola, Australia, Japan, or some mash-up of all of it, use what you love. That way, your juices are at least flowing from the get-go. There's nothing worse than having a character or setting you don't really like and trying to whip it into obedience. It hurts, plain and simple. it hurts you as a writer, to punish yourself with more work that isn't fulfilling, and it hurts the manuscript. Maybe its potential doesn't necessarily start out lower, but if you want me to draw a real-life comparison, I can do a bunch.

Very true.

Would you take the path heavily traveled because it looks easy, or would you take the one less traveled because your heart yearns for a little adventure? The worst that can happen is you get lost and have to backtrack (or you get eaten by a bear, but this is hypothetical)

Well, I'm a friend of nature (or at least think that I am) and so I won't complain to much if I get returned to nature by a bear. As long as it don't hurt very much...

Would you choose a setting because it's easy and tried-and-true, or would you pick something that speaks to you and stirs your creative spirit?

The thing is that both settings stirs my creative spirit, but the Near East one does so even more.

Okay, so there's my advice. Know that as a writer, I would never advise anyone to be a dreamer. By that, I mean, I would never say, "Yeah, do that crazy thing that doesn't make sense and be yourself, man. Screw what people think, do whatever you want and let the pieces fall where they will." I'm all about hard work and I've got stick-with-it to spare. But I fully acknowledge how hard it is to finish a work and get it through all the process to professional editing, and I wholly believe if you start with a broken leg, odds are, it won't ever be good as new (as good a story as it could have been if you had a full dose of drive and passion behind you from the beginning).

Thank you. I think that you are right in that I need some kind of initial boost to make it through the work of a story.

As an added note, I often use baby name books online to help me work on consistency issues. I wrote a couple Iron Pens with Polish character and deity names and I loved how they came out. If naming things is an issue, try those kinds of free resources.

I know about the free resources, but I really, really want to be able to have a little knowledge about what names and such means and not just shot in the blind.

If it's about world-building (because I wasn't entirely sure I understood your conundrum), decide from the beginning how closely your world will resemble the Near East. Is it set in an actual Earthly place, in history? Or is it simply "inspired by", meaning you can do what you want with say, cultural issues you don't want to include in your work, but you want to keep geographical features, naming sounds, ruling class titles, etc.?

I'd say that I want to be very close to the historical reality. My ideal is to write historical fantasy with an agnostic take on the supernatural. Maybe it exists for there are some hints that it does, but no hard facts, no thunderbolts from the sky to smite the wicked.

I think if you can establish that from the get-go, you're cooking on gas. If you select those elements that most inspire you about said culture/ land/ people, go from there and fill in other details with things that to varying degrees, support those things laid down in the history of the world and those elements that "rock the boat". That way, even though it isn't directly out of history, it feels organic. And if you do take things right out of history (as I did in mine, several times), spin it just enough so it looks like your invention. HAHA. I totally ripped off a few lines from a pope's speech. But since I spun it with my own flavor of whipped topping, I don't feel at all guilty. In fact, I feel downright clever for the theft and fencing of that particular scene.

Nah, that's not really my style. I want to make up as little as I possible can to make it work.

I think setting is a big part of a book. I've written characters I didn't really "feel" and my work has suffered for it, usually requiring full rewrites if I didn't catch the problem early enough. In my novel I mentioned above, two characters in the book completely switched motivations, one got years younger, and their whole sub plot was turned upside down. Sometimes, we can forge ahead with something we half-like. Mostly, it's just a slow poison that eventually leads to the death of the manuscript.

Wise words that I will take to heart.

Okay, now I'm done. Hope my words help you.

Yes, I think so. Thanks.

I second the recommendation that you go with your heart. The ancient Near East and adjacent regions would fascinate me more than the standard pseudo-medieval European fare anyway.

Thanks, Jabrosky. Your support means alot to me.

As for the relative paucity of information for certain settings, I don't know if this is always a bad thing. Research can come in handy when you need to visualize aspects of a setting (e.g. what the buildings look like, what clothes people wear, and of course personal names like you said), but on the other hand extensively documented settings don't leave as much room for the imagination to wander. You can make up a lot more about prehistoric Sudanese than you can 16th-century French. Furthermore, the deluge of information that exists on certain cultures and time periods can sometimes overwhelm you by giving you that many more things you have to look up.

That's true of course. Its also one of the dangers of Middle Ages in that its so used and research its hard to know where to begin and if there's an actual end.

There was one time I wrote a short about a gladiator of German descent fighting in the Roman arena. It got torn apart by history nerds for its myriad inaccuracies, and these were all details I didn't even realize I needed to research in the first place. Honestly that experience must have traumatized me, because these days I'm often intimidated by the sheer volume of research I have to do on certain topics before I write anything.

I'm very sorry to hear that. I'm more of the kind to write my stories as my research comes along. Right now I write stories based on very thin historical knowledge but as I learn more I intend to add that to my stories and get a better and better grip on it all.

why not both? mix and match elements so long as they seem organic (such as armor matching the type of weapons it would face). it's your world.

Well, like I said before I want to write historical fantasy so mixing might not be entirely on the page. As well as the two cultural areas are so far appart that I find a mix hard to make!

 

[Gurkhal]

And I should probably add that based on the respons I've decided to go with the ancient Near East.

Nabu guide for well or else I'm doomed to writer's hell.

 

[Jabrosky]

I'm very sorry to hear that. I'm more of the kind to write my stories as my research comes along. Right now I write stories based on very thin historical knowledge but as I learn more I intend to add that to my stories and get a better and better grip on it all.

That actually sounds like a good strategy to me. That way you know exactly what you need to look up as you go along.