How important do you find realism/coherence in fantasy worlds?

[FifthView]

You can establish that your setting is full of unexplained wonders or absurdity, and you can get away with all sorts of incoherence, lack of realism, and so forth.

But I suppose doing that sort of thing well must be incredibly difficult, or at least it's an approach that won't fit most stories.

 

[Gurkhal]

To me its extremely important that the story feels real, and is realistic in things that actually exists in reality. You can absolutely see me read more "fantasy" fantasy stories but while they can be good they seldom if ever becomes a, even temporary, favorite or one that I keep thing positively about after I've put down the book.

 

[Rexenm]

Are you aiming at something like Terry Pratchett , or something at either end of the spectrum, of that sort of thing, or just a general mitzvah?

 

[Jackarandajam]

John Cleese talks about this pretty often. Monty Python was absurd (incoherent, kinda) but without consistency it wouldn't have been funny. The bird is dead, the pet shop owner refuses to admit it. That's absurd and unrealistic, but without consistency (if the shop owner suddenly admitted the bird was dead, or if the birds owner suddenly decided he wasnt mad about it) the joke/story is over.
I don't think incoherence is the right word here. If communication is incoherent it is worthless. Writing is communication, and a story is a very specific style of communication delivered in a package with a beginning, a middle, and an end. If the story has no coherence, the reader has no expectation or investment because nothing they have learned about the story world matters. Deus Ex Machina is a bad tool because of this; none of the information you carefully gathered along the way matters because this thing you had no forewarning of swoops in and takes care of the plot.
A Hitchhiker's Guide is pretty incoherent in a way, but it's a very specific kind of absurd, ironic story told very humorously and very well, in a universe where incoherence, or at least the unexpected, is made to be very expectable and reasonable (coherent).

A lot of Bob Dylan songs are surface-level incoherent, but people love him because they aren't REALLY incoherent, they present a certain mood or theme that he uses random sets of information to present.
Artfully, very artfully done, the same method could maybe be used for a short story, but a novel? I doubt it. And like I said, it still isn't true incoherence.

If you just mean incoherence with the real world, AKA humans eat magma or fish swim through the air, that's fine, and I don't think there's much need to give a realistic explanation for it in fantasy. We have magic and otherworldliness on our side, after all.

Just don't have your humans blowing on their soup or fish flopping on the shore.

EDIT: one of my biggest beefs with alot of recent fantasy is that they should have been historical fiction. The fantastical elements are so limited I don't really get a "fantasy" experience reading them, but I also don't learn anything tangible about the real world because the perfectly believable medieval kingdoms are made up. Nothing wrong with making up a story about knights and politics, but if I sign up for fantasy I'd rather magic not feel like it was sprinkled over in a late edit so the bookstore knew which shelf to put it on.
So yeah, if that's what you mean by incoherence, otherworldliness, I think it's sorely lacking in the industry right now. For Pete's sake, if its fantasy, give me somebody swimming up a waterfall or something. We've subverted the nobility of the middle ages enough, I get it, it was like now except with swords. Gimme something weird.

 

[skip.knox]

>I get it, it was like now except with swords. Gimme something weird.
I agree, but with an addendum. At one time, fantasy was almost nothing but weird. Lovecraft isn't the only one to blame for this, but he figures in the story. It got to the point where anything that was fantasy (or fantastic) was almost indistinguishable from horror. Tolkien came along and did much to lay out a different course for fantasy.

But another path can be found in writers like Peter S. Beagle, who found a place to write fantasy stories that were not horror (though horrible things could happen) but neither were they pseudo-medieval. I very much like that sort, but it's hard to find. Traditional publishing doesn't appear to think much of it, and in self-publishing the search terms just aren't there.

 

[Jackarandajam]

But another path can be found in writers like Peter S. Beagle, who found a place to write fantasy stories that were not horror (though horrible things could happen) but neither were they pseudo-medieval. I very much like that sort, but it's hard to find. Traditional publishing doesn't appear to think much of it, and in self-publishing the search terms just aren't there.

THATS what I'm talking about.

I said weird, but I didnt mean weird genre-wise. Poor word choice on my part.

I mean give me riddle-telling goblins, the Wild Hunt leaping their mounts over the MC, gimme enchanted trees and wicked, old school talking dragons. Giants stomping through the countryside, mermaids dragging down the lovestruck, golden armies and cackling witches... that kinda stuff.
Seems like writers have been doubling down on what Tolkien made realistic and bit by bit discarding what he made fantastical.

 

[skip.knox]

Do you know Thomas Burnett Swann? An odd writer, but definitely one who did not trod the usual paths. I also enjoyed Josiah Bancroft's Books of Babel series. Extremely imaginative stuff.

 

[The Dark One]

Put me in the realism camp. I much prefer stories that start out in the here and now so that the weirdness, when it comes, feels more real.

My sci-fi books certainly follow that principle.

 

[ThinkerX]

Fantastic yet coherent and realistic - I had to wrestle with this in 'Labyrinth.'

In the first draft, it was mostly characters wandering around a giant maze spanning hundreds of miles and populated by an assortment of mundane and bizarre creatures. Then I started asking myself questions - like who built the bloody thing and for what purpose? How can the walls seemingly shift and why does this place keep getting bigger? It took a while, but the solution finally hit me:

The maze was alive, akin to the living buildings sometimes mentioned in SF or elf stories.

Originally, it was a sort of organic factory and city for the 'ancient aliens.' It expanded to facilitate these goals but remained firmly under their control. Back then, the maze was only a few dozen square miles. Then came the demons and the fall. Demons hated the maze because it drained their energy just by being within its confines. But there were vulnerable population centers nearby. So, as a desperation measure, the maze was given a new mandate - expand to protect everything. The maze went from being a servant to a master with near-godlike powers. Its former masters became expendable servitors, as preserving the collective mattered more than saving individuals. But now the demons are mostly gone...

 

[Gurkhal]

Everyone's entitled to their opinion but I will firmly stick with pseudo-historical stuff rather than weird or overly magical stuff. Each to their own, though.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Do you know Thomas Burnett Swann? An odd writer, but definitely one who did not trod the usual paths. I also enjoyed Josiah Bancroft's Books of Babel series. Extremely imaginative stuff.

I just started Senlin Ascends, enjoying it so far. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[Finchbearer]

I don’t think coherence is the issue but more that the worldbuilding is ideally consistent. You have can have incoherence for example, just as long as it’s consistent.

 

[The Dark One]

Like the Gormenghast trilogy?

Boy did I get sick of that...

 

[Finchbearer]

Like the Gormenghast trilogy?

Boy did I get sick of that...

I’ve yet to give that a go! Along with Labyrinths. I’ll give anything a go, doesn’t mean I’ll always enjoy it

 

[A. E. Lowan]

We write Urban Fantasy, "plausible" is a favorite word, and we all three are strongly science-oriented in some way. So for us, yes, working within our own metaphysics is crucial, but making that jive with 'reality' is also crucial. I like to say that there is a difference between suspending reality and taking it bungee jumping. In storytelling, consistency is what keeps that rubber band attached to the bridge, but it can't do it alone.

 

[pmmg]

I knew someone who really enjoyed those Gormenghast books, but I tried it and was not for me. Its one of those stories that shows to me that there is an audience for everything.

 

[skip.knox]

Like others here, I've tried multiple runs at Gormenghast. I don't get its popularity. The writing is monotonal--that sly sarcasm that paints everyone with the same brush. Everyone is self-indulgent, faintly corrupt (or odiferously so), and cartoonishly eccentric. One or two characters, fine, if tedious. But when every character is thus, and the narrative strikes the same arch tone, after a couple hundred pages it just wears a feller down.

Curiously (trying to get back on thread), realism doesn't enter into it. The setting is only mildly fantastic. The characters are more picaresque than fantastical, more exaggeration than magic. No real violations of realism or consistency. Just too much of a muchness.

 

[ThinkerX]

I read 'Gormenghast.' I found many of the characters and situations interesting (the greater world both impressed and baffled me) but I doubt I will be rereading it anytime soon.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Like others here, I've tried multiple runs at Gormenghast. I don't get its popularity. The writing is monotonal--that sly sarcasm that paints everyone with the same brush. Everyone is self-indulgent, faintly corrupt (or odiferously so), and cartoonishly eccentric. One or two characters, fine, if tedious. But when every character is thus, and the narrative strikes the same arch tone, after a couple hundred pages it just wears a feller down.

Curiously (trying to get back on thread), realism doesn't enter into it. The setting is only mildly fantastic. The characters are more picaresque than fantastical, more exaggeration than magic. No real violations of realism or consistency. Just too much of a muchness.

Personally, I think this is among some of the best writing advice out there, and I get the impression that Peake not only didn't pay it much mind, he engaged in a little self-indulgent Look How Brilliant I Am prose, and apparently left the reader behind.

I can do some pretty gymnastics with language, English in particular, but I never assume any reader is less intelligent. That way lies chaos, disorder, and bad reviews. Chaos and disorder I like. It's the bedrock on which the Books of Binding are built on and the path we lead readers down, down, ever down. But bad reviews I'd rather get for having done something so substantially stupid it goes viral, not for being outed as a jerk.

I'm only a jerk for you guys.

 

[Rexenm]

It depends on how social your MC is. There are four ways about it, if depending on how much of a party animal your MC is.