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

Using the World as the MC?(or rotating MCs however you want to look at it.)

I love the DiscWorld books, but the thing I love most is that it's multiple characters that seem to rotate through being MC for a book, supporting cast in another, and maybe cameos if at all in others. Looking at my world and plot ideas I may be forced into adopting this strategy. My first idea works great for a private investigator type, my second works best for a true government powered agent, and the last could be either or better yet both thrown together. Anyone else attempted this, or have thoughts on doing it?
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
We're doing something along those lines with our urban fantasy series, The Books of Binding. We have a very large cast of characters that come together in often surprising ways to form a family (hence the "binding") and as the series progresses towards its climax we follow their adventures as well as the adventures of their children and grandchildren. Each book has several POV characters, not just one MC - if anything the series MC is the family as a whole.
 

Gryphos

Auror
I've been thinking about doing this too, mainly because my world is so large that I haven't found a way to fit it all into the same story, so I'm going to do as Pratchett did.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
This is more or less the approach I've taken with my writing. For example, Titus Maximus is the MC in 'Labyrinth', but has only walk-on roles at best in a couple other stories. Likewise, Cora and Sir Benedict are MC's in 'World Tale' (which is in dire need of yet another major rewrite), but are mere bit players in 'Labyrinth'. And none of these characters figure into the Toki / Hock-Nar tales, mostly because of the sheer distance.

Thing with an epic conflict, is well, it's EPIC. You have a major war with hundreds of thousands of people on either side, you've got a LOT more story stuff going on than just that of the MC and his merry band. You have a lot of potential 'little stories' - people drafted, who see their friends or family get killed in one battle or another, and so on.

Likewise, what all too many fantasy authors don't realize is that a fantasy world is a WORLD - all too often, the various 'world maps' show only a very tiny fraction of the planet. When I realized this decades back, I took to combining my many fantasy worlds, eventually dropping their number from something like a dozen down to about two (major basic geographical differences).

Fiests 'Midkemia', Pratchets 'Diskworld', Erikson's 'Malazan', Tolkiens 'Middle Earth', and GRRM's setting are all full fledged worlds, which is part of what sets them apart from the rest. Other places exist in those worlds, with their own cultures and history.
 
Top