 Fantasy: March 19, 2014 Issue [#6215] |
  Fantasy
This week: Climate and Weather Edited by: Storm Machine  
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"All knowledge is worth having." ~Anafiel Delaunay and others by Jacqueline Carey
"The rain may never fall till after sundown.
By eight, the morning fog must disappear." ~Camelot |
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Climate and weather are important in the story, especially if the characters ever venture outside. This might seem less important on the Moon, but what about places you just make up?
I often hear about how Iowa would be a balmy place to live if only our air currents moved differently over Earth's surface. If we got our winter weather from the Gulf of Mexico and our summer weather from Canada, we'd be a lovely 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit year round. However, the Gulf gives us our 100+ degF summer temperatures with high humidity, and Canada gives us our cold spells of 0 degF and below. Yay.
The land masses on your created world will dictate how your climate and weather progress. Will you have hurricanes? Tsunamis? Earthquakes? Volcanoes? Is your island an idyllic place where it never rains before sunset like Camelot? Is your major land mass stretched close to the polar ice cap and act more like Siberia?
In speculative fiction, we can take a lot of lessons learned on Earth and apply them to other places that we make up for our stories. Each star has a habitable zone. If you want to live outside that, like on Mercury or a moon of Saturn, you're going to have to build in more science gadgets for the inhabitants. But within that zone, you also have to decide what makes that place unique.
If your characters also take a long journey through different parts of your world, they're going to notice different climates and weather as well as the landmarks, people, and wildlife. Do you have an ocean? Is it important how the currents move in the water and on land? What if the fish were driven to a different part of the continent away from the major settlement and that resulting shift in the currents brought a new winter or summer the inhabitants couldn't handle? What if the mountain they thought was inactive suddenly blew - spewing lava in the immediate vicinity but also changing the air and much larger surrounding area with volcanic ash?
You don't really need to have a map if you're adverse to them, but you need to have an idea of how often it rains, whether it will snow, if the heat becomes unbearable, and all the other things that come with the weather. It must also be believable for whether your setting is on a coast or an island or inland. How many novels have you picked up where it never rained, but everything around was lush and verdant?
Your climate and weather will make your book more real to the reader. Choose to give them nastier weather at times when it will be more exciting for your plot. Weather may affect the mood of the characters as well as the plot - this long winter has made many on edge. A hot, humid summer can make tempers sizzle. You might have a specific season chosen for your story, but if something isn't working, you can try tweaking it into something else. |
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When the storm brings more than rain.
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Bob DeFrank 
One interesting example of the use of created languages occurs in Greg Keyes' Kingdom of Thorn and Bones series, where the shift of languages over time is a major and intriguing plot point. There are also several coherent dialects featured in the world.
Sounds interesting. I might have to find that series. 
A*Monaing*Faith
The American fika is called water cooler talk :p
I don't believe it is. While Americans have water cooler talk, they lack the camaraderie of breaks that fika represents.
BIG BAD WOLF is Merry 
Sometimes it's a custom that evolved from necessity- On Planet Animalus, the dead aren't exactly buried or cremated due to the presence of a plant that produces a highly toxic gas with the remains. So, just what is the custom? I'll tell you after you eat that piece of mystery meat that you have on your plate that the friends and family of the deceased partake in, in honor of the late person.
Sounds gruesome.
Quick-Quill 
Made up languages are my pet peeve. Most times they make no sense.
The one that has stuck with me is a ST New Gen when Piccard is stuck with an alien and the man keeps saying "Eyes wide open." and the some other sayings. Piccard finally figures out the language is references to events. As when we say "Our Waterloo" or "Its a catch 22" Their language was made up of all these sayings. To this day when the song "Eyes Wide Open" is sung I picture the two men trying to communicate.
That's creative, and it shows a much different culture than ours.
ENB
I liked this newsletter. A lot of people don't think about adding other languages to their book, but I find it essential to make my world more real. Yes, there is one language everyone can understand, but each race (goblin, dryad, faerie, etc.) has their own language that they speak amongst themselves either to keep with tradition or to keep from being understood by people who are not from their kind.
Thanks. Real is what we're going for, so long as we don't overwhelm readers.
Paul D
I have invented some words for my SciFi/Fantasy stories. I think that a few new words can give a story a futuristic feel. I also think that too much can overwhelm the reader, so finding a balance is important.
Balance is very important. Hope we find it. |
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