The Purpose of Imaginary Places
[Storytellers Unplugged, April 7, 2009; found via the Wayback Machine by an awesome reader]
Today is the official launch date of my fourth novel, Corambis, about which you, O Gentle Reader, have probably heard more than you would necessarily wish. In celebration, over on my blog, I’m doing a Q&A, and the first question up is such a good one that I’m stealing it for SU for April.
Q: You’ve mentioned what you think a secondary world story should and shouldn’t do a few times, but I don’t think you’ve ever specifically elaborated on the subject, so, to be blunt: What do you think a secondary world story should do for the reader? What shouldn’t it do? Do you think you’ve accomplished this in your writing so far? etc.
A: So, yeah. What is a secondary world for?
This is an enormous and complicated question, and I’m going to break it down into (hopefully manageable) chunks.
1. What A Secondary World Does For An Author
This part is actually fairly obvious: if you invent your own world, you don’t have to play by real-world rules. To use the generic fantasy example, you can have a monarchy without having to research Tudor England or Bourbon France. You don’t have to know about the Habsburgs or the Julio-Claudians. (And these are all examples from Europe--never mind Russia, China, Japan, Thailand, etc. etc. etc.) And you can mix and match bits of cultures to get what you want. You aren’t tied down to historical reality. It’s enormously freeing.
(And, yes, many authors use it as an excuse to be lazy.)
But there’s more to it than that. Because what a secondary world really does, what you have this freedom for, is it lets you use your imagination. It lets you make things up. And really, you shouldn’t be a writer of any kind if you don’t like using your imagination. You especially shouldn’t be a fantasy writer. When I was a teenager and writing was something I did for my own private enjoyment, what I did most was draw maps and make up genealogies, the more elaborate the better. It was the invention that I enjoyed most. (You can also exercise your invention in this way in stories set in the real world, and I don’t mean to imply you can’t, but there’s nothing quite like the rush of a completely blank slate.)
So, for the author, a secondary world lets you maximize the fun stuff: making your own rules, writing your own history. Playing god.
2. What A Secondary World Does For A Reader
Well, first off, obviously a large number of people simply enjoy stories that aren’t set in the real world. Not all people, and I don’t know whether it’s a majority or a minority. But it is a lot. And even though I’m one of those people myself, I don’t know exactly where the attraction is. But since the point of writing stories is for other people to enjoy them, this is an important part of the purpose of secondary worlds. It also follows from the enjoyment the author takes in invention. If the author is enjoying what he/she does, that enjoyment is likely to communicate itself to the reader. Win-win.
Ideally, also, a secondary world should allow and encourage a reader to think outside the box, to see that, because we can imagine a society different from our own, our society itself is not immutable--not reified, to use the fancy theoretical term. Reification--thing-ification, from the Latin res, meaning "thing"--is the process whereby a human construct becomes perceived as a thing, as something impervious to human endeavor, as something that can be neither changed nor destroyed. So–to give two examples off the top of my head--Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness deconstructs the reification of gender roles. Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint deconstructs the reification of heteronormativity (the norm in the world of Swordspoint is bisexuality).
(The social thought experiment has long been considered the territory of science fiction, as with most “serious” endeavors in the amalgamated genre of fantasy/science fiction/horror, but I don’t think the necessary given for it is “science/technology.” I think the necessary given is “a world different from our own”–and fantasy can provide that just as readily as sf. The social commentary may be buried a little deeper because–not being a “serious” genre–secondary world fantasy doesn’t have the leeway to leave out the stuff for the groundlings. Or it may not be there at all–just as it may not be there in science fiction, either. *ahem* I am digressing like a digressive thing.)
3. How A Secondary World Does What It Does
This is where we get into the do’s and don’ts which I may from time to time have promulgated.
The dream, says John Gardner, should be vivid and continuous. He was talking about fiction writing in general, but it applies in spades to secondary worlds. Take your secondary world seriously. Treat it with respect. Remember that for your characters, it is the real world. (I.e., if you aren’t Terry Pratchett and haven’t deliberately set up your secondary world so that it spawns warped reflections of the real world, resist the impulse to be cute. Also, n.b., when Pratchett does it, he isn’t being cute. He’s being consistent to his secondary world as he has established it.)
Also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, think things through. Every decision you make about your world has consequences. Some of them will be obvious; some will not. And it’s the pursuit of the unobvious consequences that will make your world feel rich and deep. Also, consequences that make things more difficult for your characters. Scott Lynch has a brilliant example of this in Red Sails Under Red Skies; it would be a spoiler to discuss it, so I won’t, but it made me believe in the world because, like our world, it doesn’t always work in the viewpoint character’s favor.
And while there should always be a reason that the story is set in a secondary world--something that you can’t get by setting it in the real world--the secondary world should also be a reason in and of itself. It should provide richness to the story, beyond simply being a pretty backdrop. It should be an integral part of the reader’s enjoyment.
I feel like I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of this topic, but I also feel like that’s enough pontificating from me for one post. So on the understanding that I don’t think what I’ve said here is either conclusive or definitive, here endeth the lesson.
Today is the official launch date of my fourth novel, Corambis, about which you, O Gentle Reader, have probably heard more than you would necessarily wish. In celebration, over on my blog, I’m doing a Q&A, and the first question up is such a good one that I’m stealing it for SU for April.
Q: You’ve mentioned what you think a secondary world story should and shouldn’t do a few times, but I don’t think you’ve ever specifically elaborated on the subject, so, to be blunt: What do you think a secondary world story should do for the reader? What shouldn’t it do? Do you think you’ve accomplished this in your writing so far? etc.
A: So, yeah. What is a secondary world for?
This is an enormous and complicated question, and I’m going to break it down into (hopefully manageable) chunks.
1. What A Secondary World Does For An Author
This part is actually fairly obvious: if you invent your own world, you don’t have to play by real-world rules. To use the generic fantasy example, you can have a monarchy without having to research Tudor England or Bourbon France. You don’t have to know about the Habsburgs or the Julio-Claudians. (And these are all examples from Europe--never mind Russia, China, Japan, Thailand, etc. etc. etc.) And you can mix and match bits of cultures to get what you want. You aren’t tied down to historical reality. It’s enormously freeing.
(And, yes, many authors use it as an excuse to be lazy.)
But there’s more to it than that. Because what a secondary world really does, what you have this freedom for, is it lets you use your imagination. It lets you make things up. And really, you shouldn’t be a writer of any kind if you don’t like using your imagination. You especially shouldn’t be a fantasy writer. When I was a teenager and writing was something I did for my own private enjoyment, what I did most was draw maps and make up genealogies, the more elaborate the better. It was the invention that I enjoyed most. (You can also exercise your invention in this way in stories set in the real world, and I don’t mean to imply you can’t, but there’s nothing quite like the rush of a completely blank slate.)
So, for the author, a secondary world lets you maximize the fun stuff: making your own rules, writing your own history. Playing god.
2. What A Secondary World Does For A Reader
Well, first off, obviously a large number of people simply enjoy stories that aren’t set in the real world. Not all people, and I don’t know whether it’s a majority or a minority. But it is a lot. And even though I’m one of those people myself, I don’t know exactly where the attraction is. But since the point of writing stories is for other people to enjoy them, this is an important part of the purpose of secondary worlds. It also follows from the enjoyment the author takes in invention. If the author is enjoying what he/she does, that enjoyment is likely to communicate itself to the reader. Win-win.
Ideally, also, a secondary world should allow and encourage a reader to think outside the box, to see that, because we can imagine a society different from our own, our society itself is not immutable--not reified, to use the fancy theoretical term. Reification--thing-ification, from the Latin res, meaning "thing"--is the process whereby a human construct becomes perceived as a thing, as something impervious to human endeavor, as something that can be neither changed nor destroyed. So–to give two examples off the top of my head--Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness deconstructs the reification of gender roles. Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint deconstructs the reification of heteronormativity (the norm in the world of Swordspoint is bisexuality).
(The social thought experiment has long been considered the territory of science fiction, as with most “serious” endeavors in the amalgamated genre of fantasy/science fiction/horror, but I don’t think the necessary given for it is “science/technology.” I think the necessary given is “a world different from our own”–and fantasy can provide that just as readily as sf. The social commentary may be buried a little deeper because–not being a “serious” genre–secondary world fantasy doesn’t have the leeway to leave out the stuff for the groundlings. Or it may not be there at all–just as it may not be there in science fiction, either. *ahem* I am digressing like a digressive thing.)
3. How A Secondary World Does What It Does
This is where we get into the do’s and don’ts which I may from time to time have promulgated.
The dream, says John Gardner, should be vivid and continuous. He was talking about fiction writing in general, but it applies in spades to secondary worlds. Take your secondary world seriously. Treat it with respect. Remember that for your characters, it is the real world. (I.e., if you aren’t Terry Pratchett and haven’t deliberately set up your secondary world so that it spawns warped reflections of the real world, resist the impulse to be cute. Also, n.b., when Pratchett does it, he isn’t being cute. He’s being consistent to his secondary world as he has established it.)
Also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, think things through. Every decision you make about your world has consequences. Some of them will be obvious; some will not. And it’s the pursuit of the unobvious consequences that will make your world feel rich and deep. Also, consequences that make things more difficult for your characters. Scott Lynch has a brilliant example of this in Red Sails Under Red Skies; it would be a spoiler to discuss it, so I won’t, but it made me believe in the world because, like our world, it doesn’t always work in the viewpoint character’s favor.
And while there should always be a reason that the story is set in a secondary world--something that you can’t get by setting it in the real world--the secondary world should also be a reason in and of itself. It should provide richness to the story, beyond simply being a pretty backdrop. It should be an integral part of the reader’s enjoyment.
I feel like I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of this topic, but I also feel like that’s enough pontificating from me for one post. So on the understanding that I don’t think what I’ve said here is either conclusive or definitive, here endeth the lesson.
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