Pamela D. Lloyd (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pameladlloyd) wrote2008-11-17 12:55 pm
pameladlloyd) wrote2008-11-17 12:55 pm
Entry tags:
The Devil's in the Details
I haven't even finished reading ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sartorias' post, YA Writer Interview, yet, because the link she started with, to an interview with Elizabeth Wein (eegatland), has led me on a wild link chase. Wild link chases, unlike wild goose chases, can be very fruitful. In the interview, I found a link to eegatland's post about a dream her daughter had, which in turn brought me to both No to Age Banding, a website "set up by writers and other professionals who believe that the proposal to put an age-banding figure on books for children is ill-conceived and damaging to the interests of young readers," and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
thru_the_booth, aka Through the Tollbooth: Thoughts on Writing for Children and Young Adults. I found the recent post, The D-Word, on thru_the_booth, to be very insightful, and that post led me to Seven Rules for Writing Historical Fiction, written by Elizabeth Crook and published in The Internet Writing Journal. (Hmm, lots of Elizabeths here. I wonder...)
Now, I'm not generally thrilled by rules for writing, because too often they wind up being an attempt by someone to translate what they've learned about their process into a rule about how every one else should go about the writing process. But, this article isn't one of those. Instead, it focuses on helping us to understand how to write about the things we don't know. Her introduction to the essay is as follows:
YES!
Now, here's the tie-in to my life (and the writing lives of many, if not all, genre writers, I think), and why I'm so pleased to have followed that particular set of links. I've been thinking about how to decide what information goes into a story and what to leave out. When we write fantasy or science fiction, we have much the same issue as someone writing historical fiction: we want our readers to see our characters in the worlds we create, but those worlds can be very different from the contemporary world in which we live. Many of us spend humongous amounts of time world-building, not just because we need the information for the story, but because we find the worlds we create compelling and interesting in and of themselves. It can be really tempting to tell our readers everything we know about our worlds. Do we know the names, appearance, habitat, and breeding habits of each and every one of the seven hundred and forty-two species that live on the planet New Earth? Maybe. Do our readers need this information in order to enjoy our story about someone who is participating in the planetary census of the plants and animals? Probably not. But, our readers do need to know how those details affect the character. If Jamie the Planetary Biologist (sorry, I just had to do that) encounters a tetramedal bandersnip, nicknamed a snippy by the biocensus team, what will matter is whether the snippy is friendly, cuddly, and extremely toxic, or whether it wants to take a large chunk out of Jamie.
Crook's article doesn't stop there, though; it goes on to make suggestions about characterization, viewpoint, backstory (a subset of getting the detail right, imo), and the extra time it can take to research a book with a heavy load of history (to which I would add science, technology, or fantasy world-building).
I recommend this article highly to anyone thinking of writing a story with an unusual setting, who doesn't already feel they're an expert on the topic of writing and world-building. And, just thinking about it, I think most of Crook's "rules" are broad enough that they can be applied to any story: know the details that inform your story; use the right details, but be sparing in your use of them; be careful about references to real people; make sure your characters have their own opinions, biases, and values, and don't just parrot yours, or the values of our contemporary society, and remember that even within a cohesive society there will be many perspectives; make sure you're using the viewpoint that works for your story and don't let a first-person narrator annoy your readers; don't dump the entire backstory into the first chapter, and only give the backstory your readers will need and want; realize that world-building can be a lengthy and laborious process.
sartorias' post, YA Writer Interview, yet, because the link she started with, to an interview with Elizabeth Wein (eegatland), has led me on a wild link chase. Wild link chases, unlike wild goose chases, can be very fruitful. In the interview, I found a link to eegatland's post about a dream her daughter had, which in turn brought me to both No to Age Banding, a website "set up by writers and other professionals who believe that the proposal to put an age-banding figure on books for children is ill-conceived and damaging to the interests of young readers," and thru_the_booth, aka Through the Tollbooth: Thoughts on Writing for Children and Young Adults. I found the recent post, The D-Word, on thru_the_booth, to be very insightful, and that post led me to Seven Rules for Writing Historical Fiction, written by Elizabeth Crook and published in The Internet Writing Journal. (Hmm, lots of Elizabeths here. I wonder...)Now, I'm not generally thrilled by rules for writing, because too often they wind up being an attempt by someone to translate what they've learned about their process into a rule about how every one else should go about the writing process. But, this article isn't one of those. Instead, it focuses on helping us to understand how to write about the things we don't know. Her introduction to the essay is as follows:
We grow up being told to "write" what we "know", but history is the unknown. You have to learn almost everything about a period and the social customs just to get your characters out of their beds, (or off of their skins,) and feed them breakfast.
YES!
Now, here's the tie-in to my life (and the writing lives of many, if not all, genre writers, I think), and why I'm so pleased to have followed that particular set of links. I've been thinking about how to decide what information goes into a story and what to leave out. When we write fantasy or science fiction, we have much the same issue as someone writing historical fiction: we want our readers to see our characters in the worlds we create, but those worlds can be very different from the contemporary world in which we live. Many of us spend humongous amounts of time world-building, not just because we need the information for the story, but because we find the worlds we create compelling and interesting in and of themselves. It can be really tempting to tell our readers everything we know about our worlds. Do we know the names, appearance, habitat, and breeding habits of each and every one of the seven hundred and forty-two species that live on the planet New Earth? Maybe. Do our readers need this information in order to enjoy our story about someone who is participating in the planetary census of the plants and animals? Probably not. But, our readers do need to know how those details affect the character. If Jamie the Planetary Biologist (sorry, I just had to do that) encounters a tetramedal bandersnip, nicknamed a snippy by the biocensus team, what will matter is whether the snippy is friendly, cuddly, and extremely toxic, or whether it wants to take a large chunk out of Jamie.
Crook's article doesn't stop there, though; it goes on to make suggestions about characterization, viewpoint, backstory (a subset of getting the detail right, imo), and the extra time it can take to research a book with a heavy load of history (to which I would add science, technology, or fantasy world-building).
I recommend this article highly to anyone thinking of writing a story with an unusual setting, who doesn't already feel they're an expert on the topic of writing and world-building. And, just thinking about it, I think most of Crook's "rules" are broad enough that they can be applied to any story: know the details that inform your story; use the right details, but be sparing in your use of them; be careful about references to real people; make sure your characters have their own opinions, biases, and values, and don't just parrot yours, or the values of our contemporary society, and remember that even within a cohesive society there will be many perspectives; make sure you're using the viewpoint that works for your story and don't let a first-person narrator annoy your readers; don't dump the entire backstory into the first chapter, and only give the backstory your readers will need and want; realize that world-building can be a lengthy and laborious process.