From the Backlist: In What World?

 

Jacek Yerka: Surrealist Paintings – Thoughts on Papyrus

Welcome Sup readers and authors to another issue from the Backlist. Today we explore a particular take on world-building by Margaret Ronald. Join us in this vivid exploration of the heart of storytelling!

Read the whole post here - from May 2011. In What World? 

In what world?

by Margaret Ronald

In a world...

The words might not start as many movie trailers as they used to, but they've become a sort of shorthand for setting up drama. And for me, they sum up one of the things I love about writing: finding that "in a world" moment and drawing it out into a real, complicated situation.

 

 

Say you have a fairly normal setting, only with magic/mythical creatures/mutant superpowers. (In a world where vampires roam the night...in a world where deities lurk in back alleys...) Said powers can range from outright awesome (immortality! control over electricity! telekinesis!) to just above mundane (control over all shrimp no longer than one inch! olfactory invulnerability! keeping a fridge permanently clean!). The first and most important question then becomes "why aren't these magicians/vampires/mutants in charge of everything?"

 

 

 

One answer is "they are, we just don't know it." Okay, then. How much energy does it take to hide something that big? And why not rule openly? Or perhaps in this world, they are already visibly in charge of everything. That's going to make a lot of changes in the governance of this world, possibly even down to who's still considered a person. If vampires are in charge, are humans cattle? If magicians rule, where's the check on their power? 

 

 

There are lots of fun ways to play with this character by character -- say, Mr. Electricity above can only exert his power at great personal cost, and so lives off the grid, away from civilization. Or maybe the fridge-cleaning guy works in a sterile lab, and so that just makes his life a little easier. But on a larger scale, the effects of adding magic to a world are a lot more pernicious.. Read the whole post by Margaret Ronald...

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Speculative Fiction (Fantasy/Thriller/Sci-Fi/Urban Fantasy) for adults and teens.

We are a group of best-selling authors providing news, reviews and interviews from the darker, more speculative side of fiction.

Fiction that makes the heart beat faster...

 

Rediscovering "Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone" via Audio Book

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I first discovered audio books well over a decade ago, when travelling with friends who enjoyed listening to them on the car radio. I did, too, but for some reason never adopted the medium beyond that one experience.

Recently, however, I sustained an injury to my eye, one which has made any sort of reading and screen work very difficult. Even now, it's only slowly coming right enough to write this post, and as you can imagine, with a life bereft of books, television, and the internet ("I know" — grave extremes indeed!) it did not take long for my mind to return to audio books.

As I was not feeling particularly well, my first choice was to opt for an old favorite, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone*.  From the outset, I found myself in love all over again — I believe thanks to the change of medium, from reading (with the risk of skimming if time is short or looking ahead if the suspense cannot be borne) to listening to every word.

What good words they are, too. I found myself consciously enjoying JK Rowling's gift for creating suspense through the opening atmosphere of mystery and the marvel of Harry's survival. The immediate contrast with the mundane world of the Dursleys and 4 Privet Drive, not only in the sense of building Harry's character (as well as his circumstances) works, too, as the reader is introduced to the wonders, but also dangers, of the wizarding world through Harry's marveling eyes.

 I felt, listening to the presence of the magical world unfold within the mundane, from Diagon Alley, Gringotts, and Platform 9 ³/₄, to Hogwarts and the Forbidden Forest, that the heart of JK Rowling's success with the Harry Potter series lies with the truly magical world she has created — and the fact that as reader or listener you believe in it so implicitly.

Quidditch...

Part of the reason for that, I believe, is delight: we cannot help but feel delighted as the layers of the extraordinary and mystical, the absurd and the dangerous unfold. Elements such as the description of the school feasts and quidditch matches add texture that makes the world feel even more believable and real.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is not all about the worldbuilding, though. The Dursleys might be close to slapstick characters in some ways, but the central players of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, feel real and human. As readers, or in this case listeners, we can readily identify with their hopes and doubts, mistakes and successes. Supporting characters such as Neville, the Weasley twins, and Hagrid are all similarly real, while the apparent malevolence of Professor Snape is masterful.

Severus Snape

Arguably, worldbuilding and characters are enough to make any Fantasy story rock. I felt there was one further element, though, that really stood out for me when listening to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Hermione herself says it, when leaving Harry to seek help at the end of the book:  "...friendship, and bravery and — oh Harry ..."  Hermione is in a hurry, so she doesn't add "kindness", and "generosity" to that list, but I think it could be included in her "and —" that precedes "oh Harry."

The friendship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione is the heart of this book. Notably, the three of them are kind to Neville, in particular, when they could as easily ridicule and ostracize his social awkwardness and ineptitude. It is kindness, too, that sends Harry and Ron to rescue Hermione from the troll, when they haven't particularly liked her up until that point. And Harry, who has been emotionally and physically deprived by the Dursleys, is generous in sharing what he has, both in terms of time and energy, but including giving his last chocolate frog to a distressed Neville.

Harry, Ron, Hermione

There weren't many listening moments when I felt my suspension of disbelief tested and I think the main instance (which I don't recall having struck me at all when first reading the book) was Harry and Hermione leaving the invisibility cloak on the top of the tower. "Yeah," I thought, "that's definitely a 'nah' for me..." I found it hard to believe that something as valued and vital as the invisibility cloak, together with the consequences of being caught, could allow it to be so easily forgotten.

Dudley Dursley

Also, although Dudley Dursley is essentially a 'broadbrush' take on a boy who is spoiled and encouraged to be selfish, greedy, mean-spirited and cruel, one of his most significant negative attributes in the story is that he is fat. Personally, I have known several overweight and even very large people who are kind, generous, intelligent, witty, and as morally courageous (in their "muggle" ways, of course) as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. So, children's book or not — or perhaps because it is a children's book — it struck me that equating weight with qualities of character was unfortunate.

In terms of other moments of difficulty, these were not with the story itself but with the adult reflections it sparked. I say "adult" deliberately because of course Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a story written for children. So in that sense, the Dursleys' absurdity works, not least in that it softens the extent of their cruelty to Harry. Yet having recently heard of the specific case of a foster child who was subjected to a very similar from of emotional and physical deprivation as Harry in the early chapters of Sorcerer's Stone, as well as the terrible emotional and psychological effects on this very young individual, I found myself very conscious of our everyday world's realities while listening. I wished, too, that such instances might be confined to the pages of children's literature, with a Hagrid always there to ride to the rescue and the safety of a Hogwarts waiting, only Platform 9 ³/₄ and a ride on the Hogwarts Express away.

To return, though, to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, overall I thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering it through the medium of audio books and may well listen to The Chamber of Secrets very soon...

* In the UK, and also in Australia and New Zealand (where I live) the book was published as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone drawing on the medieval tradition of a stone that could turn base metals into gold, i.e. alchemy. In the Middle Ages, and in fact well into the Renaissance and pre-Industrial eras, alchemy, like astrology, was considered a proper field of inquiry for philosophers. 

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Helen Lowe is a novelist, poet, and blogger whose first novel, Thornspell (Knopf), was published to critical praise in 2008. Her second, The Heir of Night (The Wall Of Night Series, Book One) won the Gemmell Morningstar Award 2012. The sequel, The Gathering Of The Lost, was shortlisted for the Gemmell Legend Award in 2013. Daughter Of Blood, (The Wall Of Night, Book Three) is Helen's most recent book and she is currently working on the fourth and final novel in The Wall Of Night series. Helen posts regularly on her “…on Anything, Really” blog and is also on Twitter: @helenl0we

Opening Spells

Lost in her Thoughts - Samy Charnine

Every story begins with a spell, invoked through the opening line.

Why? According the the Harry Potter universe, an opening spell facilitates the passage between two zones, creating an accessible connection. In the case of fiction, the connection is between the reader and writer, a conduit that transports both to a “secondary world” where the story takes place.

Think of the opening spell as the magic that draws the reader in, convincing them to sets aside their ‘real’ world responsibilities and immerse in the pages. Like any good spell, there are a variety of ways to go about it, but realize this inaugural line is rarely written first. Often the first line, paragraph and chapter are edited and revised for days, weeks and months after the story is completed.

To make this opening spell powerful, you have to be willing to give it your all. It might help to identify your approach. Here are four to consider:

• The plunge
• The mood
• The compel
• The back story

Ingredients required for each will vary. I’ll break it down but note all will require a measure of time, imagination, paper and pen or word processor, and of course, solitude.

However you create the opening line, it must always whisper: Listen to me . . . Stay with me . . .

1) The Plunge

The Plunge

This opening spell is usually dynamic, dangerous and always in medias res. In other words, it starts in the middle of the action, where disaster doesn’t have long to wait.

“It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.” Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races

“Sammy’s voice was low, his fingers warmly persuasive. Terri Garey, A match Made in Hell

“I didn’t realize he was a werewolf at first.” Pamela Briggs, Moon Called - Mercy Thompson

‘Where’s papa going with that axe?’ E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

“Mother, I’m in love with a robot.” Tanith Lee, The Silver Metal Lover

“Screaming, I slashed and kicked wildly.” Jocelynn Drake, Nightwalker

2) The Mood

The Lost Correspondent -
Jason deCaires Taylor.

These opening spells tend to be more world building. They rely on voice, and the promise of what is to come.

"Prince Raoden of Arelon awoke early that morning, completely unaware that he had been damned for all eternity.” Brandon Sanderson - Elantris

“Walking to school over the snow-muffled cobbles, Karou had no sinister premonitions about the day.” Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke and Bone

“By the time the first AIVAS had finished its recital of the first nine years of the colonization of Pern, the sun, Rukbat, has set with an unusually fine display. Anne McCaffrey - All the Werys of Pern

“‘Ark-aawl’ —a hundred voices calling their territory from the treetops. Ly de Angeles - The Quickening

“There was a momentary feeling of pressure against her mind, then the stone door shimmered and disappeared.” Nicole Murphy - Secret Ones, Dream of Asarlai

“In the days following the holocaust, which came to be known as the Great White, there was death and madness.” Isobelle Carmody - Obernewtyn

“It is said, in Imardin, that the wind has a soul, and that it wails through the narrow city streets because it is grieved by what it finds there." Trudi Canavan - The Magicians’ Guild

3) The Compel

Falling by
Igor Grushko Vayne

This opening spell is often a cross between the Plunge and the Mood. It has elements of both.

“What I have chosen to do is shocking.” Traci Harding - AWOL

"Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.” Terry Pratchett - Hogfather

"The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault.” Jim Butcher - Blood Rites: the Dresden Files

"The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.” Ursula K. Le Guin - A Wizard of Earthsea

“The wind blew out of the northwest in dry, fierce gusts, sweeping across the face of the Gray Lands.” Helen Low - The Wall of Night

4) The Back Story

In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit.

Back story as an opening spell is tricky. Readers want to be in the here and now, diving into what is, not what was. But with the right tone and pace, it can work.

Back story first lines deal with the past in a way that draws the reader in. We must be compelled to ask, “And then what?”

“Eight Months ago, I was attacked in the back alley of my home town and rescued by an uber-hot guy named Chaz.” Amanda Arista - Nine Lives of an Urban Panther

“I came to London to write and found myself practicing magic instead.” Kim Wilkins - Angel of Ruin/Fallen Angel.

“I never believed in ghost.” Merrie Destefano - Fathom

“In the early 1800’s a man named Amadeo Avogadro hypothesized a number—a baker’s dozen for chemists, but in his equation hid a paradox, one that could alter reality with a single thought." Kim Falconer - Path of the Stray

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit

Whether the opening begins with fear, shock, surprise, a problem, a question, a character or history, if you keep reading, it has done it’s job.

What are your favorite opening lines? The Plunge? The Mood? Back story? I’d love to hear them in the comments!

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter.

She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month.

Her latest release is "Blood and Water" in Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.

How to Know the Unknowable

Man or Mar?

The adage write what you know works well for how-to manuals, cookbooks, auto repair guides or medical text. With such topics, writers need a certain level of expertise. When it comes to speculative fiction, however, it’s another story.

No one on Earth can know what a newly risen Mar, a Silver Metal Lover, a sympathetic, crazy hot zombi or a post apocalyptic witch is really like until the author creates them, from scratch.

Sometimes that process can be a challenge so I’ve put together some thoughts for writing what you don’t know.

Stefan, Elena, Damon

Tip #1: Research

This is totally fun. If you have a world that is primarily desert, you don’t have to live in the Sahara to write it convincingly. You do have to ‘know’ what it is like to have half and inch of rain a year and dust storms so blinding you can get lost between your camel and your tent. In other words, research the ecology of desert life.

You can’t have bright green grass and furry platypuses, unless you explain a turf that goes eleven and a half months without water and a river mammal that swims in sand. And what about that supernatural man or woman? How to characterize them?

Suggested research includes: Buffy, Angel, Spike, Drusilla, Eric, Sookie, Damon, Stefan, Elena, Klaus, Caroline . . . who else?

Tip #2: Savvy proofreaders

Klaus & Caroline

Research can take the place of direct experience, especially in world building, but there are exceptions. Horses are one. If you don’t know horses, you can learn about them, but if they are going to do more than graze in the paddock, you’ll need a proof-reader with horse sense to check your work. Readers who are also riders will spot ineptitude a mile away. Jolt! If it’s going to be a feature in your novel, get an expert to proof and/or offer technical advice. Same goes for quantum computers, wolves and witches.

Tip #3: Hands on

If you’re going to give a piece of art, animal, dance, ritual, music or machine a big role in your script, immerse in it, fully. As a bonus, your life will become richer for the experience. In my first two series, I researched quantum computing, physics theory, geo-engineering, bio-engineering and were-animal mythologies. I joined a local dojo and learned to wield a samurai sword. I can't tell you how much 'hands on' enhances the writing experience. :)

Tip #4: Start with a grain of truth

No matter how wild and farfetched your story becomes, that grain of truth (from history, mythology and lore) is what you build on and what will give your prose more weight. In my Quantum Encryption series, a main character takes my love of the Gray Wolf, an endangered species, and comes up with a solution to their looming extinction. I also look at possible results from geo-engineering projects that might do more harm than good (solar shields anyone?). It’s all about the speculation, but begin with something real. A truth.

Sookie & Eric

Add these tips together and you'll find your story not only rings true, it becomes a contribution to the future, what is possibly, probably or only ever to be imagined.

Happy reading, writing, dreaming and storytelling, everyone and let me know who your favorite original supernatural character is, from book or film. Right now, I'm leaning toward Orphan Black's Sarah Manning.  Yep, clone club. :)

xxKim

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at kimfalconer.com or on the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter. She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month. Her latest release is"Blood and Water" in Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.