martinH
Acolyte
Hi everyone, I am looking for a bit of advice and a focused discussion, as I am in the state of deep analysis at the moment. So, I apologize in advance for a lengthy explanation.
For some time I have been thinking about writing a comedic fantasy story, as I am a big Terry Pratchett fan. I am a professional stand-up comedian and I have some writing experience as well, so it is not that much of a stretch to try and come at the fantasy genre from the funny side.
I want to aim for the slap-sticky sword and sorcery feel with metaphysical fooling around, as I feel it really matches what I am trying to get at, plus my country is really hung up on middle ages—castles, folk heroes, wise kings etc. This atmosphere would inherently bring up a Discworld in most readers minds, I believe. I don't have illusions of getting anywhere close to quality or depth of Discworld, but I still feel I should try and go with this story, since I am really good at making people laugh. I don't want to make a fan-fiction, I want to go about it my way as much as possible, but I KNOW any and all comedic fantasy like this one, will always be compared to works of Mr. Pratchett, so here are some ground rules I set for myself:
The death of my characters. Death is perhaps the most iconic Discworld character and I believe it is fairly important in the text building and joke building as well. Anytime a character dies, Death comes around and creates a short comical dialogue or sketch that really lightens a relatively heavy atmosphere of someone dying.
And here is my problem, I need to be able to make my characters die and keep the text light-hearted at the same time. Using a personification of Death in ANY way will definitely feel like a very discworldy thing to do. So, even if I use female personification of death from Slavic mythology, it might feel like cheap spin. What do you guys think? Is it worth while trying to create a personification of Death at all? Or of other metaphysical beings, for that matter, that would not feel like Discworld fan-fiction?
I was hoping a discussion might help me get some inspiration on how to deal with this particular problem and maybe give me a key on how to handle other metaphysics in my comedic fantasy.
For some time I have been thinking about writing a comedic fantasy story, as I am a big Terry Pratchett fan. I am a professional stand-up comedian and I have some writing experience as well, so it is not that much of a stretch to try and come at the fantasy genre from the funny side.
I want to aim for the slap-sticky sword and sorcery feel with metaphysical fooling around, as I feel it really matches what I am trying to get at, plus my country is really hung up on middle ages—castles, folk heroes, wise kings etc. This atmosphere would inherently bring up a Discworld in most readers minds, I believe. I don't have illusions of getting anywhere close to quality or depth of Discworld, but I still feel I should try and go with this story, since I am really good at making people laugh. I don't want to make a fan-fiction, I want to go about it my way as much as possible, but I KNOW any and all comedic fantasy like this one, will always be compared to works of Mr. Pratchett, so here are some ground rules I set for myself:
- build a story around current social and political climate in my country (Slovakia)
- build upon Slavic mythology and meta-text mythology of native legends and fairy tales
- openly admit to being a Discworld fan via meta-text references (Same as Mr. Pratchett did with Lovecraft for example)
The death of my characters. Death is perhaps the most iconic Discworld character and I believe it is fairly important in the text building and joke building as well. Anytime a character dies, Death comes around and creates a short comical dialogue or sketch that really lightens a relatively heavy atmosphere of someone dying.
And here is my problem, I need to be able to make my characters die and keep the text light-hearted at the same time. Using a personification of Death in ANY way will definitely feel like a very discworldy thing to do. So, even if I use female personification of death from Slavic mythology, it might feel like cheap spin. What do you guys think? Is it worth while trying to create a personification of Death at all? Or of other metaphysical beings, for that matter, that would not feel like Discworld fan-fiction?
I was hoping a discussion might help me get some inspiration on how to deal with this particular problem and maybe give me a key on how to handle other metaphysics in my comedic fantasy.