 Fantasy: June 12, 2024 Issue [#12588] |
This week: Infrastructure and Public Transportation Edited by: Dawn Embers  
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Fantasy Newsletter by Dawn
Taking a look at methods of travel that a character might use to get around a location. Some comparison between the big cities and smaller places. |
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When it comes to world building in a fantasy story there is one big element that sometimes gets pushed aside or done at a whim. Some will do research and others just use what they have read before. That topic is... transportation.
How characters get from one place to another can seem like a backdrop, not big deal or it can be something that really defines the genre for the story. Space ship travel will seem more like sci-fi, for example. While epic fantasy has a reputation for using horses as ways to go varying distances. That can work to a degree but as complaints have pointed out, sometimes that doesn't work. One has to also consider the location. It's much easier to get around a village or small town compared to a massive city. Then there is landscape factors. What if they all live in caves? Is it just railways and those mining carts? Or do they just use dragons to fly around outside? There are a few options if you think about it.
Which brings me to the more city type focus of this newsletter: public transportation.
A little village might not need to group beings together to travel to different locations, but they may have ones that go through the village. Tourism and travel can provide outsider money to keep things running. However, it's in the big cities where you might need to consider some different methods of transportation that can get groups to various locations.
What we do here? Well, when I'm with one of my clients, we have to take the bus. There are also tram systems and trains found within different cities. There is also way too much individual transportation, which leads to traffic. Is there a way to make these methods of travel more fantastical or science fictiony? I would be interested to see how you would use various public modes of transportation in a way that is perfectly at home in a speculative fiction stories.
Magic does give options. In fact, I did have a train within a fantasy story for characters to use in order to travel a long distance over rough terrain instead of the horses and carriage that had been used. The train was powered by magic, which is what helps bring it into the spec-fic realm, though I do need to add more descriptions in the novel rewrite.
Is there a way to make a bus seem magical? Okay, something besides the magic school bus because that was just iconic already. And school transportation is a different animal even if it's similar. How would you handle a city bus? I bet there are some cool images somewhere online of a steampunk bus. Steampunk does seem to be a good option for showcasing technology in a different way that uses some elements of present day but other elements that provide whimsical features and even science based ways for things to actually work. Science fiction also has a few options with the various types of space ships along with other transport systems.
What do you think? How would you handle public transportation in fantasy or science fiction? Let us know and have fun trying to write a story that includes one of those systems.
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Does your fantasy world include any forms of public transportation?
Last month, I rambled about the people in power. More to the point, the discussion included the question of how someone became the manager, leader or even King. Here are a couple comments sent for that topic:
Comment by brom21  :
In my stories I mostly have the one in charge, they are already there. If I reveal the process of how they go to power, it is always passive or latent. Generally, I notice characters who want or aspire for power are evil. On that note, villains are usually overpowered. But the battle between antagonist and protagonist ends with the hero outsmarting or delving deep inside to overcome the bad guy. Thanks for the interesting NL!
Comment by BIG BAD WOLF is Howling  :
Sometimes it's a mixture. Sometimes one is born to power, sometimes it's marriage, sometimes it's a takeover of some sort, sometimes one is appointed, and then there's those who simply have the right genes. Sometimes, it's a crazy mixture of all.
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