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You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
—Zig Ziglar
If I'm gonna tell a real story, I'm gonna start with my name.
—Kendrick Lamar
What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
—T. S. Eliot |
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There are lots of ways to open a story. Some are more effective than others, and it's usually a challenge to nail that all-important beginning, the one section of the narrative (apart from any back-of-the-book or similar blurb) that is most likely to make or break a reader's commitment to it.
I'm not going to tell you how to begin a story here. What I am going to to is suggest what not to do.
It's a technique that, usually, makes me stop reading and give up on the story before it even starts. It's boring and gets in the way of the actual plot.
I know I've mentioned this before, but I keep seeing it, and it's been a while, so I thought I'd revisit the topic.
I'm referring to the practice of writing your world's creation story up front.
Now, don't misunderstand me: you should absolutely write your world's creation story. But as a reader, I want to connect with the characters in your story, not have it explained to me why things are the way they are and how they're different from those of our own universe. Once the actual plot gets going, then maybe sprinkle in some background. Let the reader wonder for a while.
Yes, I know that some of the greatest works of fiction break this "rule." Star Wars, for example, though it's a movie, famously starts with a scrolling wall of text. It's a thing in all the movies, and I wouldn't have it any other way -- but even there, it's brief, and it still doesn't explain everything, concentrating on the most essential details. But still -- and here, I'm mostly referring to the first one, Episode IV -- would our enjoyment of the movie have been any less if it had just started with the space battle?
But Tolkien didn't start by publishing The Silmarillion. It's interesting for readers of his other works, in that it delves into the background of the world he created, but if one begins reading his stuff with that, it's rather dry and not very engaging, at least not compared to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
This is, of course, my personal opinion, from the point of view of a reader of fantasy and science fiction, both genres that usually involve strange new worlds (to coin a phrase). But consider the possibilities when, instead of front-loading all your essential world-building exercises, you start with the story (be it dialogue, action, a weather report, or whatever), you can gain a reader's attention by withholding some of the more interesting background until a point in the narrative when we're already invested in the characters and plot. Doing so can even provide some respite from the action, or build tension if it's stuck in there right after a cliffhanger.
While this editorial focuses on longer-form works, the same sort of thing is applicable to shorter fiction or even poetry. Many's the time I've given a review that included the advice, "Cut or relocated the first three paragraphs; they're background."
That said, some background up front can work if it's brief and essential, and if you can somehow tie it into the plot.
In short, world-building is important to writing fantasy and science fiction. But you'll find that a lot of it doesn't serve the goal of telling a compelling story. And a lot of your background doesn't even need to make it into the story.
Save it for the sequel. |
Some fantasy that I think starts out well...
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Last time, in "Languages" , I discussed the issue of language in fantasy.
Santeven Quokklaus  : Language is interesting. I recently wrote a book set on a different planet, and, of course, I had the people speaking using English. I made sure there were no references that could be construed as having religious bases as this world has no religion. But my beta reader told me that had to include thw word 'volcano'. Why would they call it a 'volcano' when they had no god Vulcan? So, 'fire-mountain' was substituted. that, and a couple of other suggestions along similar lines, actually helped make the world seem more realised, thriugh such a simple linguistic change.
In general, as a scholar of Latin and ancient Greek (and currently teaching myself ancient Egyptian, as much as I can), when I use made-up languages, they tend to be based on constructs from those three tongues.
Nothing wrong with basing your fantasy languages on real ones. Lots of made-up languages are similar to extant or former real-life ones, such as Greek or Hebrew. Rowling borrowed extensively from Latin, for example.
Elfin Dragon-finally published : I have an Elfin character in my story living in a human world. As you mentioned, language is a tough thing to deal with. Especially since I've got a plethora of races in my story. I deal with it by having everyone speak a common language, but on occasion throwing in a song, or poem from their particular race at just the right time.
I think that's a perfectly good approach. It lets the reader understand what's going on while still expressing cultural differences through language.
So that's it for me for March -- see you next month! Until then,
DREAM ON!!!
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Fantasy: March 09, 2022 Issue [#11250]
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