Pre-Tolkien Fantasy discussion
World-Building: A Plague Upon the Realms of Post-Tolkien Fantasy
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I'm with the OP on this one, although bloat is an observed trend across all genres so it's not quite fair to blame it all on JRRT. Worldbuilding does suck the fun right out of fantasy though.
Well all I can say is that I am almost done Austin Tappan Wright's incredible Islandia which is perhaps the only other book I've read where the world building is anywhere near as complex and in depth as Tolkien's and it is nothing short of an incredible work of fiction. World building doesn't kill books, bad writing does.
World building can be done bad or well, true. But persojnally, I don't like it and it just takes up pages that could be better used in other ways. If I am of a mind to be taking in facts, I should better learn about real life and our history than filling it with imaginary nonsense.
I really like the feeling I get reading moorcock that he doesn't have anything mapped out beyond the next sentence. I don't know whether that's true or not, but that's the feeling I get reading his stuff and it makes it an exciting read.
Simon it sounds like what you're talking about is info dumping which I don't like much either, but I don't think it's the same thing as world building. True, a writer too enamoured of their world building may be guilty of it, but I don't think good world building equals info dumping.
i'm a fan of world building. but then i'm also a fan of historical fiction, which often has a similarly extensive focus on details. i love it! i don't need it - particularly if the author is an interesting stylist (like Moorcock) - but it can definitely part of the fun for me.i really like Garham's description of Moorcock's writing style.
Terry wrote: "Simon it sounds like what you're talking about is info dumping which I don't like much either, but I don't think it's the same thing as world building."Info dumping is just a bad way of going about world building. But, which ever way you cut it, ultimately world building is constructing an array of background facts against which to set your story. And it invariably pads it out, increasing it's length significantly. Some people may get something from that but I invariably don't.
It's just a personal thing I guess.
To me, world-building is what gives fantasy it's, well, for lack of a better word, realism. I don't want to know what toothpaste the main character's cousin's wife uses, or even that they brush their teeth at all, unless it's somehow relevant to the plot. To me, for example, the rules governing magic in a fantasy novel constitute worldbuilding ("only women can use it without consequences", or whatever), and perhaps magic is frowned upon because it only runs in the royal family who have all been tyrannical for three generations... That could be padding, if your character is a miner who can't use magic and whose entire character arc takes place in a mine, but if your character is an illegitimate member of the royal family, then the world-building can be necessary (young illegitimate son of the king gets trapped in a mine and uses magic, causing Consequences!).
I think fantasy writers always have to do a certain amount of world-building, or they couldn't write fantasy. If we're in a fantasy world, the rules are different somehow (even if it's just "magic exists") or it wouldn't be fantasy...
I agree Nikki. I have to admit that I don't understand how you can even have fantasy without world-building...and you better do it well or else the environment your characters inhabit will be pretty weak tea indeed. If I may quote Charles Stross (talking about sci-fi, but I think his point is equally applicable to fantasy):M. John Harrison may condemn the plodding nerdish hand of world-building all he likes: I part company with him at the point where the backdrop behind the characters is exposed for a badly-drawn cartoon. In SF, a huge chunk of what we do as readers is to decode the world the characters exist in, and understand how it affects them, and how it’s different from our own world: world-building in SF should be like the victim in a murder-mystery, passive, perhaps even invisible, but nevertheless they’re a significant character (and the armature around which the complex machinery of the story revolves). It doesn’t matter how brilliant your characterisation is: if you’re setting your story aboard a space station that’s spinning to provide centrifugal acceleration to keep your characters’ feet on the deck, I will be ejected abruptly from the narrative if the “gravity” is highest at the hub and drops to zero at the rim.
World-building is necessary to the genre...it's bad world-building, infodumping, or excessive love for one's creation such that we let it overwhelm the story being told that is the problem. I think Moorcock and Harrison like to use "world-building is bad" as code for "Tolkien is bad and what he did was excellent world-building ergo world-building is bad."
Obviously some world building will always be necessary. I just prefer no more world building than is strictly necessary in order to advance the plot and understand the characters. And if the plot and characters are such that a large amount of world building is necessary in order for it to make sense...that can put me off too.
An interesting bit from China Mieville on this, (and I hope you'll forgive me for taking this out of context a little):"...but Tolkien saw the building of an internally consistent secondary world as central to the project of what he called 'fairy' and what we would now call fantasy.
The sometimes obsessive focus on the secondary world is typical of post-1960s fantasy. It's easy to mock, but I think it can be a very interesting kind of project. It often involves great creativity and inventiveness, and it's a very powerful way for effecting the particularly strong kind of suspension of disbelief that fantasy involves. That's why fantasy fans are often so neurotic about the maintenance of consistency--authors who lose track of their own world and contradict themselves can't get away with it. (It's what I think of as 'geek critique': 'In book two of the Elfmoon Quintilogy you said the Redfang mountains were two days ride north of the city, but in book four it takes Bronmor three days to get there...')"
I think for some readers, complex world building is inherently a negative aspect, no matter how well done. But that is a matter of taste.
Lady Danielle aka The Book Huntress wrote: "I think short stories are an underappreciated format because writing a short story well is not easy. You have to conceive, develop, and conclude a story in a very short time, and there are often ex..."
I'd say that short stories are under-appreciated because of their brevity. At least in the fantasy genre, many of the readers (including me) are looking to get lost in the fantasy world. Short fiction often doesn't have the time to do that- to prolong and detail the glittery candles and the strange foreign culture. Not to say it isn't just as-if not more- meaningful, life-changing, etc...
I myself am a voracious reader, and short stories seem to be snapped up like an alligator eating a duck. They retain their poignency, but I don't stay satisfied for quite so long. That's a short-coming, but it's why I don't read it much.
In a way, I'm a hungry bear. I like your little snacks of fancy, delicious food; but I cannot ignore that the leg of roasted mutton will keep me longer.
I'd say that short stories are under-appreciated because of their brevity. At least in the fantasy genre, many of the readers (including me) are looking to get lost in the fantasy world. Short fiction often doesn't have the time to do that- to prolong and detail the glittery candles and the strange foreign culture. Not to say it isn't just as-if not more- meaningful, life-changing, etc...
I myself am a voracious reader, and short stories seem to be snapped up like an alligator eating a duck. They retain their poignency, but I don't stay satisfied for quite so long. That's a short-coming, but it's why I don't read it much.
In a way, I'm a hungry bear. I like your little snacks of fancy, delicious food; but I cannot ignore that the leg of roasted mutton will keep me longer.
Short story readership seems to be down. As magazine readership went down so did short story readership.http://www.themillions.com/2011/05/pu...
I agree about Bradbury. I would recommend Kenneth Morris The Dragon Path for wonderful short stories that you just can't read quickly.
I am a great fan of brief writing and lord Dunsany is my favourite. I have noticed that world building is a plague that seems very contagious among both fantasy writers and readers. Some seem to think it is a law of writing that a fantasy story has to be at last three books long. And I think this is serious since readers seem to judge the story much from the world that is built and not so much from the genuine quality of the story. So basically, world buildung sucks, in my humble opinion.
To me, the world that is built is part of the quality of the story. Tolkien's world has endless fascination for me, because you can't see any gaps. You can read The Lord of the Rings and forget about this world and its rules. People forget that Tolkien's worldbuilding was far more vast than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings show. Where there's any gap, anything unexplained, he knew the answer -- there's no handwaving there. He doesn't detail each individual brick, but they're there in his mind. He could almost believe in Middle-earth, which grants it a lot of its magic. Which is what makes it great.
It may not be what you're interested in, but creation of a secondary world that feels 'real' is definitely a marker of quality, though it can be let down by characters or plot. (I'm thinking, for example, of Karen Miller's The Innocent Mage. I had the feeling throughout that she knew everything about her world and her heroes, but the plot was so slow and her villains so one-dimensional in comparison that for me, it was spoilt.)
In short; world building seems, among some writers, so important they tend to give the rest of the story less effort. And that is not a good thing.
I would go shorter and say some writers are not very good.
Craig wrote: "I would go shorter and say some writers are not very good."I am disinclined to agree. I get much more enjoyment out of a "poorly" written fantasy story (incorrect syntax, grammatical errors, frequent references to genre cliches) that is 95% plot/dialogue/action and 5% worldbuilding-exposition than a "well written" example of the inverse.
Garham wrote: "I am disinclined to agree. I get much more enjoyment out of a "poorly" written fantasy story (incorrect syntax, grammatical errors, frequent references to genre cliches) that is 95% plot/dialogue/action and 5% worldbuilding-exposition than a "well written" example of the inverse. "I would be interested to hear an example of such a "poorly" written story that you found so enjoyable and an example of its inverse that you didn't enjoy.
Simon wrote: "Garham wrote: "I am disinclined to agree. I get much more enjoyment out of a "poorly" written fantasy story (incorrect syntax, grammatical errors, frequent references to genre cliches) that is 95% ..."Sure. Gardner Fox's clonan type stories (Kothar, Kyrik) or Lin Carter's "original" science-fantasies (tower at the edge of time, tower of the medusa) for the former. Anything by David Eddings or Raymond Feist for the latter. Include the Silmarillion and large chunks of LotR in that latter category for me also.
...You're including David Eddings in the same category as Tolkien? He of only one plot and character set?
nice to see Lin Carter's science fantasies mentioned. I love what I've read of those.
mark wrote: "nice to see Lin Carter's science fantasies mentioned. I love what I've read of those."Yeah they're my favorites of his works, better than his entertaining pastiches. Space barbarians, psy-wizards... what's not to love?
As pertains to the discussion at hand, I really like how casually he alludes to something awesome (infrared fried cave fish, mentalist cult of Beta 9) or some really cool sounding historical event which is never elaborated on because it simply doesn't need to be. It's mention enhances the atmosphere of the story without forcing the reader to learn a complex web of facts that pertain to the author's fictional universe which have nothing to do with the essential story at hand. This is what world building should be imho.
like Jack Vance.although I have no problem with expansive world building either. for me, either style works as long as the prose is competent.
mark wrote: "like Jack Vance.although I have no problem with expansive world building either. for me, either style works as long as the prose is competent."
Yes, Jack Vance's stuff is pure awesome.
'I am disinclined to agree. I get much more enjoyment out of a "poorly" written fantasy story (incorrect syntax, grammatical errors, frequent references to genre cliches) that is 95% plot/dialogue/action and 5% worldbuilding-exposition than a "well written" example of the inverse.'I'm a great fan of genre pulp fiction, with flimsy generic characters, predictable plots, loads of improbable machines and impossible cardboard societies that would collapse a week after they were constructed. On the other hand the meticulously conceived worlds of a very few authors are also worthwhile. Unfortunately, there's not too many love as much as I love the cheap tinsel trash of my youth
Pre-Tolkien Fantasy
Books mentioned in this topic
Islandia (other topics)A Game of Thrones (other topics)
The Stand (other topics)
I know literary professors they dont diss genre greats,classics and fall for mainstream is great only as much as fans like you think. I know experts who compare Tolkien writing to Homer. There are many genre authors who has become mainstream classic. Poe,Stevenson,Shelley,Philip K Dick etc Bradbury Fahrenheit is teached alongside 1800s classics here in Sweden. 1984 is one of the most mainstream modern novels.
You dont have to have great prose to be a great storyteller,writer. Otherwise Asimov,Heinlein for example would be forgotten today.
There are many pulp era authors who are accepted as literary greats by academical world,literary scholars. There are many scholar work about Hammett, Bradbury,Philip K Dick. Like some genre authors have complained, the non-genre world always take the best genre authors like they belong to them.