Fantasy - To Research, or Not To Research
We're reading (or writing) fantasy, right? So why should an author bother with research? If it's a make believe world, does 'reality' matter?
Yes.
If the mythscape is to work, it does need to ground itself within the contours of the four seasons, and be consistent with the natural world we know UNLESS there is a reason that the created world is different.
We live in a modern era of electric light, powered transport, refrigeration, and many another convenience that lets us 'ignore' vital rhythms of the natural world. If a fantasy takes place in a simpler time with a less technological backdrop, then food becomes intensely seasonal. What can be moved without spoiling, and the work that can be done in a day by hand raises a major league array of limitations. Not only will such 'differences' from the world we know make a fantasy more vivid, the added hardships imposed on the characters and situations can intensify the action and make the read more memorable, provided the information is integral to the tale and not just there to stuff pages.
The made up parts must fit together seamlessly with the 'real' bits of history, helping to suspend the readers' sense of wonder and belief.
When it's 'wrong' - it can shatter the scene, even drag down an otherwise great tale.
I am a sailor - once I read a story in which the author described a sailing ship becalmed as "unbearably silent" - and that totally ruined the tension, turned on my cynical eye, and made me doubt everything else on the page. Why? A becalmed sailing vessel is NOISY. Everything that is normally under tension by the wind is flopping loose, and the sheer random racket of stuff banging and squeaking totally shatters the nerves. How much more tense and trying for the characters would this scene have been if the author was not lazy and had done the least little bit of reading up on the subject?
Among the most common errors - horses. Few books handle them well, and fewer writers have the least idea of what it takes to ride, care for, and maintain a large animal, far less how far it can go in a day, or how fast, for how long, before losing its stamina. And riding? Lord love the ignorant, I've YET to figure out how in heck you can 'knee' a horse while astride. Anatomically the contortion is plain, ridiculously impossible - yet the phrase, 'kneed the horse' has been made into one of the more comical fantasy cliches.
Don't get me started on weapons, armor, or maps! That soapbox would sink the Titanic.
So many stories could have been that much more creatively alive if the shortcomings and quirks of the subject matter had been taken into consideration - too often, such detail becomes a shamefully missed opportunity.
Fortunately, there is help for the writer who wants to get the details right.
Horace Ponii wrote a lovely, short manual with fantasy writers' research in mind, all brought together from personal experience. Horses and Farms For Fantasy Writers is well worth the read.
The following list of titles have been invaluable to me, over the years:
Seamanship in the Age of Sail: An Account of the Shiphandling of the Sailing Man-Of-War 1600-1860, Based on Contemporary Sources
Arrows Against Steel: The History of the Bow and How It Forever Changed Warfare
Lost Country Life
Albert C. Leighton's Transport and Communication in Early Medieval Europe Ad 500-1100
The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England: From 1485-1649
For working with distances, transport of armies, and general handling of large forces over terrain, I found the shorthand manuals made for serious war gamers a great deal of help, as those books formulated such facts and figures based on historical evidence.
Yes.
If the mythscape is to work, it does need to ground itself within the contours of the four seasons, and be consistent with the natural world we know UNLESS there is a reason that the created world is different.
We live in a modern era of electric light, powered transport, refrigeration, and many another convenience that lets us 'ignore' vital rhythms of the natural world. If a fantasy takes place in a simpler time with a less technological backdrop, then food becomes intensely seasonal. What can be moved without spoiling, and the work that can be done in a day by hand raises a major league array of limitations. Not only will such 'differences' from the world we know make a fantasy more vivid, the added hardships imposed on the characters and situations can intensify the action and make the read more memorable, provided the information is integral to the tale and not just there to stuff pages.
The made up parts must fit together seamlessly with the 'real' bits of history, helping to suspend the readers' sense of wonder and belief.
When it's 'wrong' - it can shatter the scene, even drag down an otherwise great tale.
I am a sailor - once I read a story in which the author described a sailing ship becalmed as "unbearably silent" - and that totally ruined the tension, turned on my cynical eye, and made me doubt everything else on the page. Why? A becalmed sailing vessel is NOISY. Everything that is normally under tension by the wind is flopping loose, and the sheer random racket of stuff banging and squeaking totally shatters the nerves. How much more tense and trying for the characters would this scene have been if the author was not lazy and had done the least little bit of reading up on the subject?
Among the most common errors - horses. Few books handle them well, and fewer writers have the least idea of what it takes to ride, care for, and maintain a large animal, far less how far it can go in a day, or how fast, for how long, before losing its stamina. And riding? Lord love the ignorant, I've YET to figure out how in heck you can 'knee' a horse while astride. Anatomically the contortion is plain, ridiculously impossible - yet the phrase, 'kneed the horse' has been made into one of the more comical fantasy cliches.
Don't get me started on weapons, armor, or maps! That soapbox would sink the Titanic.
So many stories could have been that much more creatively alive if the shortcomings and quirks of the subject matter had been taken into consideration - too often, such detail becomes a shamefully missed opportunity.
Fortunately, there is help for the writer who wants to get the details right.
Horace Ponii wrote a lovely, short manual with fantasy writers' research in mind, all brought together from personal experience. Horses and Farms For Fantasy Writers is well worth the read.
The following list of titles have been invaluable to me, over the years:
Seamanship in the Age of Sail: An Account of the Shiphandling of the Sailing Man-Of-War 1600-1860, Based on Contemporary Sources
Arrows Against Steel: The History of the Bow and How It Forever Changed Warfare
Lost Country Life
Albert C. Leighton's Transport and Communication in Early Medieval Europe Ad 500-1100
The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England: From 1485-1649
For working with distances, transport of armies, and general handling of large forces over terrain, I found the shorthand manuals made for serious war gamers a great deal of help, as those books formulated such facts and figures based on historical evidence.
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Jim
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Aug 27, 2012 06:36AM
You're so right about how poor research can ruin a story. Until the circular saw came along in the early 1800's, planks were at a real premium. The Industrial Revolution made nails plentiful. Up until then, every one was hand made, yet some authors have poor peasants with pounds of them laying around. It really does ruin the story for me.
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Jim wrote: "You're so right about how poor research can ruin a story. Until the circular saw came along in the early 1800's, planks were at a real premium. The Industrial Revolution made nails plentiful. Up..."Funny, I happened to do research on that - there were 'saw mills' - run by water wheels, earlier than that, but man, did I EVER have to dig to find info - and those were Not Common, either! Rip sawed planks, by hand, took two men and a lot of sweat, or one man, and an adze, and lord knows how long, and quite a lot of waste.
Writers: if you ever have a chance to visit a working water mill, DO IT, it's fascinating and wonderful.
And ship builders used 'tree nails' made of oak, below the waterline, and other wood, above.
Oddities: did you know that the term 'black market' came from GRAPHITE? It was mined in the Lake District of England, there was a massive military demand, as graphite was used to line the molds for cannon balls. Stolen graphite, sold on the sly - 'black market' - we found this out on a tour of a pencil factory, of all things.
Oh, Lord Save Us, it's happened again:Yet another author's book does the headbanger....if I see Another Reference to 'kneeing' a horse into a canter or gallop, I will SCREAM.
This is anatomically impossibly STUPID!!! It's like a disease non-riders get from reading fantasy written by folks who have no clue, and a fallacy that should be mercilessly exposed/stamped out for the ridiculous bit of arm chair dreamer's wishful thinking that it is.
Want proof? just TRY straddling your sofa, or a bench draped with a pillow, and then try to rotate your whole leg at the hip so you can DIG YOUR KNEE into the upholstery - your lower leg will flap out at a dangerous angle like a chicken wing, (subject to being swiped by a tree/fence post or other nearby obstacle, not to mention Scaring Daylights out of your horse, who is a prey animal with wide peripheral vision, and who will BOLT at any startling movement glimpsed behind) Note: you won't be capable of nudging anything with your knee, for the excruciating pain to your hip socket, and you will LIKELY FALL OFF, fruitlessly trying, while your sofa horse laughs its padded butt off - you use your HEELS to nudge a horse forward, fer gods sake!!!! This keeps your full leg in contact with your mount, keeps you astride, doesn't uselessly thump (what?) the saddle, or the horse, too high on the barrel to be effective, and delivers a signal the horse can actually notice.
LOL, if knees made the horse move ahead, WHYEVER are spurs in fact fitted on the HEELS of riding boots???
End Rant. ;)
"Want proof? just TRY straddling your sofa, or a bench draped with a pillow, and then try to rotate your whole leg at the hip so you can DIG YOUR KNEE into the upholstery - your lower leg will flap out at a dangerous angle like a chicken wing, (subject to being swiped by a tree/fence post or other nearby obstacle, not to mention Scaring Daylights out of your horse, who is a prey animal with wide peripheral vision, and who will BOLT at any startling movement glimpsed behind) Note: you won't be capable of nudging anything with your knee, for the excruciating pain to your hip socket, and you will LIKELY FALL OFF, fruitlessly trying, while your sofa horse laughs its padded butt off - you use your HEELS to nudge a horse forward, fer gods sake!!!!"
I think I just died laughing.
You touched on a lot of things that I appreciate, Janny. I am in the midst of a MA in medieval history, and I pick up on when authors use a mish-mash of different medieval-sounding names without regard to where they came from. Putting Aethelstan, Erik, William, Harald, Isabella, and Maud all in one socio-ethnic group all together just makes me cringe. Food is another thing I notice, too. An author I really like talked about someone putting cucumbers in a stew. I guess you could do it, but would you want to?
MrsJoseph wrote: ""Want proof? just TRY straddling your sofa, or a bench draped with a pillow, and then try to rotate your whole leg at the hip so you can DIG YOUR KNEE into the upholstery - your lower leg will fla..."
Yeah, me too, when I finished groaning over the text. Certainly shows how many copy editors Don't Ride. :P
Chelsea wrote: "You touched on a lot of things that I appreciate, Janny. I am in the midst of a MA in medieval history, and I pick up on when authors use a mish-mash of different medieval-sounding names without re..."Ah, thanks....cucumbers in STEW? (muffled snort, that IS funny - do that with zuccini and mostly, you get skin rinds, eh?)
I understand your frustration. I was only ever an occasional rider as a child, getting a ride on someone else's horse, but I know that.The sofa horse at my house is chuckling in anticipation.
Can I just mention Judith Tarr's ebook Writing Horses? As the owner and raiser of a herd of Lipizzans I think this collection of some of her BVC blog posts is a really good way to explore all kinds of insights about how to use horses in fantasy or any fiction.
Chelsea wrote: "You touched on a lot of things that I appreciate, Janny. I am in the midst of a MA in medieval history, and I pick up on when authors use a mish-mash of different medieval-sounding names without re..."You have no clue how jealous I am.
I think - if I had to do it all over again - I'd become a librarian or a philologist.
Thank you for this!My least favorite bit of Memetic Fantasy Stupidity is the calculated blow to the head that can knock inconvenient people unconscious for, say, half an hour or so. Blows to the head don't work that way! Either you come to in under a minute (often just a few seconds)--in which case you may still have a concussion--or you probably won't make it, especially with no access to advanced medical care. While I'm sure there are cases in which people have been knocked unconscious for an hour and recovered, nobody, no matter how skilled a warrior, can calculate the amount of force that will do that and then deliver precisely that blow. And with 100% reliability, under less than perfect conditions, to boot. But like with horses, authors seem to pick it up from other books and run with it anyway.
Emma wrote: "Thank you for this!My least favorite bit of Memetic Fantasy Stupidity is the calculated blow to the head that can knock inconvenient people unconscious for, say, half an hour or so. Blows to the ..."
You are welcome, and good point...have you also seen the fauxpas plunge into the divine/miraculous: when a character takes a sword or knife cut ACROSS the muscle fiber, (usually a crosswise slice to a shoulder, upper arm, or thigh) and keeps on using the arm or leg?
(headbanger!!!)
Muscle fibers don't work when severed; and the healing is messy/quite likely to leave a crippling scar without skilled intervention - a wound that runs WITH the fibers may allow a limb to function; a cross cut, nope...and more, if it's a joint cut, slashed tendons will not fix themselves unless they are sewn; the person with a leg wound that severs tendons WILL FALL DOWN. A hero taking a wrist cut that severs tendons WILL drop his weapon. No buts.
