World Building and Alternate History
Approaching publication day, we’re counting down the top ten points of interest in the Gas-Lit Empire novels, as revealed in readers’ comments and questions. In the last episode I wrote about the 3rd most commonly commented on topic: Secondary characters.
The second most frequently referred to topic is:
Number 2: World Building and Alternate History
My first trilogy of novels were marketed as contemporary crime. Set in Leicester, England, they followed the impact of a fictional riot on four very different characters. Although the books didn’t sell widely, they did receive some critical acclaim at the time. The first of them, Backlash, was shortlisted for the prestigious John Creasey award of the Crime Writers’ Association.
I find it interesting that in all the reviews of those novels, no one ever mentioned ‘world building’. But world building has been one of the main themes covered in most reviews of the Gas-Lit Empire novels.
World building is usually defined as the construction of fictional worlds on which creative works can be based. The term came to particular prominence in the 1970s with the spread of role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. The games produced an arena of creativity in which the player acting as ‘dungeon master’ could plan and build portions of a fictional world for the other players to inhabit.
No surprise then that the term is most associated with science fiction and fantasy. Reviewers generally don’t talk about world building in contemporary crime. Those stories are set in the real world, aren’t they?
That idea works fine until you start to think about the entirety of the process. Part of the creative work of world building is done by the writer. But part also by the reader, who in their imagination expands from the few details they have been given, creating the fully realised world.
I did have one thoughtful but negative review of the novel Backlash. The reviewer said he found himself unable to imagine the world of red brick terraced streets and wheelie bins that I was describing. Everyone else said the opposite. But, uniquely, that reviewer was from America. For a British audience, familiar with those streets, I was giving sufficient clues for them to construct the world of the story in their minds. But for someone who had never seen such a landscape, I was failing in my part of our world building collaboration.
I didn’t understand any of that when I started writing the Gas-Lit Empire novels. Though I did know I had to design the parameters of the alternate history and work them through. My thinking about the part of the reader in constructing the world came about as I wrestled with the manuscript of the Bullet Catcher’s Daughter. I took 8 months to write it. But then another 10 months to re-write it (twice), trying to get my delivery of the world to work.
In the end, I resorted to a number of different techniques to get the world across without inserting pages of intrusive explanation. But the most helpful technique was this:
I imagined my narrator, Elizabeth, speaking to a small audience few years after the Gas-Lit Empire had finally crumbled. Not all the people she was addressing would have lived through the events. So occasionally she would throw in a few extra words of explanation. But not many, because most of what she was saying she imagined would be known. My job was just to write down what she said.
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
The second most frequently referred to topic is:
Number 2: World Building and Alternate History
My first trilogy of novels were marketed as contemporary crime. Set in Leicester, England, they followed the impact of a fictional riot on four very different characters. Although the books didn’t sell widely, they did receive some critical acclaim at the time. The first of them, Backlash, was shortlisted for the prestigious John Creasey award of the Crime Writers’ Association.
I find it interesting that in all the reviews of those novels, no one ever mentioned ‘world building’. But world building has been one of the main themes covered in most reviews of the Gas-Lit Empire novels.
World building is usually defined as the construction of fictional worlds on which creative works can be based. The term came to particular prominence in the 1970s with the spread of role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. The games produced an arena of creativity in which the player acting as ‘dungeon master’ could plan and build portions of a fictional world for the other players to inhabit.
No surprise then that the term is most associated with science fiction and fantasy. Reviewers generally don’t talk about world building in contemporary crime. Those stories are set in the real world, aren’t they?
That idea works fine until you start to think about the entirety of the process. Part of the creative work of world building is done by the writer. But part also by the reader, who in their imagination expands from the few details they have been given, creating the fully realised world.
I did have one thoughtful but negative review of the novel Backlash. The reviewer said he found himself unable to imagine the world of red brick terraced streets and wheelie bins that I was describing. Everyone else said the opposite. But, uniquely, that reviewer was from America. For a British audience, familiar with those streets, I was giving sufficient clues for them to construct the world of the story in their minds. But for someone who had never seen such a landscape, I was failing in my part of our world building collaboration.
I didn’t understand any of that when I started writing the Gas-Lit Empire novels. Though I did know I had to design the parameters of the alternate history and work them through. My thinking about the part of the reader in constructing the world came about as I wrestled with the manuscript of the Bullet Catcher’s Daughter. I took 8 months to write it. But then another 10 months to re-write it (twice), trying to get my delivery of the world to work.
In the end, I resorted to a number of different techniques to get the world across without inserting pages of intrusive explanation. But the most helpful technique was this:
I imagined my narrator, Elizabeth, speaking to a small audience few years after the Gas-Lit Empire had finally crumbled. Not all the people she was addressing would have lived through the events. So occasionally she would throw in a few extra words of explanation. But not many, because most of what she was saying she imagined would be known. My job was just to write down what she said.
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
No comments have been added yet.
