The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction

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The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction Page 10

by Philip Athans


  GRAMS, POUNDS, KILOS, OR STONE

  You have to decide how much things weigh—grams, pounds, stone, kilograms, tons—and my advice remains the same: Common real-world measurements always trump invented units unless it really matters. If a character is told by an alien that something weighs three bloons, he might think that doesn’t sound like much, then be surprised that a bloon is equivalent to fourteen thousand pounds. In this case you’re having fun with the confusion between different systems of measurement—it’s making your story better somehow. Do that, but if your hero already knows that a bloon is fourteen thousand pounds, so no one is surprised or inconvenienced by it, then for the sake of your readers’ sanity, please just say they have to move 42,000 pounds of cargo and get on with the story.

  HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

  In our own world most countries have their own currency (the exception is the Euro), so readers tend to associate a certain currency with a particular place. If you’re creating an alien culture, it will seem weird if the aliens pay for things in dollars. Near and even far-future science fiction can certainly still use dollars, or yen, or Euros—but even then if one of those currencies has achieved dominance over the others, that could tell us something about your vision of the near future.

  For historical settings, you’ll need to research currencies, but unless commerce is a huge part of your story it’ll rarely be necessary to help your readers with conversions. If a character in your early Roman period historical fantasy—or time-travel SF novel—pays a single as for a loaf of bread and doesn’t find that particularly cheap or expensive, then that’s all we need to know. An as isn’t a lot of money. For created currencies, assume that most people—most Americans anyway—will think of a million units of currency as a lot, a billion a really lot, and one not very much.

  It may sound as though I’ve just advised you not to create your own units of measure, and for the most part I’ve done just that. But at the same time, I encourage you to let your imagination run free. Just be sensitive to the readers who will have to chase after it.

  CHAPTER 22

  SPEAK THE LANGUAGE

  In the previous chapter I stressed the following piece of advice:

  If you’re translating everything your characters do and say from their native language, either real-world foreign, historical, or created, choose with the utmost caution what you choose not to translate.

  Kevin J. Anderson agrees. “I will sprinkle strange alien words or expletives, new terms that convey the alienness of a concept,” he says, “but as a writer—the teller of the tale—I am translating the dialog into the written word. In English. It always reads clumsy to me when characters speak in stilted, overly foreign words. They’re speaking their own language and it should sound as normal to the reader as it sounds to the character. It’s part of the suspension of disbelief.”

  If you’ve been reading science fiction and fantasy for a while, you’ve probably encountered books with too many made-up words or you’ve been confused a few times. But strange names for characters and places is part of the allure of fantasy and science fiction, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t much rather read about Elric of Melniboné’s journey to Nadoskor than Jim’s trip to Toledo—even if he’s going to Toledo, Spain, instead of Toledo, Ohio? It’s the exotic hero in an exotic world that we show up for.

  But as with changing minutes to centons, proceed with caution and always with an eye on what makes your story better. By all means, make up names for people, places, and things, but choose carefully what you want to translate from Zyltariian to English, be consistent, and consider the bigger picture.

  AVOID OVER-LAYERING

  To illustrate this point, here’s a paragraph from an imaginary fantasy novel. You’ll see that though adding exotic detail helps, too much can become overwhelming and drag down your story.

  * * *

  DRAFT ONE

  Bronwyn stared up at the imposing silhouette of the king’s castle. The walls, made of rough-cut granite, were thirty feet tall, and from the shadows at the edge of the Hindrid Forest, she watched as a pair of guards slowly made their night rounds, appearing and disappearing between the battlements. Both were elves, like their king, but unlike Bronwyn they were red elves—more like the dwarves in surliness and general ill humor. As she waited for them to disappear into the watchtower she considered the climb. Her pack weighed almost seventy pounds, so she would need to leave it behind. If anyone happened upon it in the night—and bandits were common enough in the Barony of Gildé—all they’d get away with was maybe a few gold coins’ worth of camping supplies and beef jerky. And in the case of the jerky, she thought, good riddance to bad company. She shrugged the pack off and strung one of the arm straps around the low-hanging branch of a maple tree, though she doubted that would keep the raccoons out. She wanted to bring her lute with her—that was worth more than a few gold coins—but she knew she’d have to leave it behind. She had to get in and out of the castle in less than an hour, or she’d never make it back in time to save her mother’s life.

  * * *

  Pretty clear, but other than the name Bronwyn, the name of the forest, and the name of the barony, it’s written in plain English, with very little else besides references to archetypal fantasy critters (elves and dwarves) to make it “fantasy.” We could make this paragraph more exotic and interesting, so let’s start searching and replacing.

  Back in Chapter 17 we talked about created worlds in which every single animal is imagined, where no real-world flora or fauna exists. If this sample story was set in that world, it would read like this:

  * * *

  DRAFT TWO

  Bronwyn stared up at the imposing silhouette of the king’s castle. The walls, made of rough-cut karnstone, were thirty feet tall, and from the shadows at the edge of the Hindrid Forest, she watched as a pair of guards slowly made their night rounds, appearing and disappearing between the battlements. Both were elves, like their king, but unlike Bronwyn they were red elves—more like the dwarves in surliness and general ill humor. As she waited for them to disappear into the watchtower she considered the climb. Her pack weighed almost seventy pounds, so she would need to leave it behind. If anyone happened upon it in the night—and bandits were common enough in the Barony of Gildé—all they’d get away with was maybe a few gold coins’ worth of camping supplies and beef jerky. And in the case of the jerky, she thought, good riddance to bad company. She shrugged the pack off and strung one of the arm straps around the low-hanging branch of a sipplewood, though she doubted that would keep the chitterbits out. She wanted to bring her lute with her—that was worth more than a few gold coins—but she knew she’d have to leave it behind. She had to get in and out of the castle in less than an hour, or she’d never make it back in time to save her mother’s life.

  * * *

  I’m assuming that at some point previous to this we’ve established what a chitterbit is. The fact that castles are built out of karnstone tells us that karnstone is probably a pretty hard material, and it’s clear in context that a sipplewood is a kind of tree. But what if we also want to avoid archetypal character species and races? We’ll need to get rid of those elves and dwarves. And if there are no cows in this world, how can she be carrying beef jerky?

  * * *

  DRAFT THREE

  Bronwyn stared up at the imposing silhouette of the king’s castle. The walls, made of rough-cut karnstone, were thirty feet tall, and from the shadows at the edge of the Hindrid Forest, she watched as a pair of guards slowly made their night rounds, appearing and disappearing between the battlements. Both were jinarrions, like their king, but unlike Bronwyn they were red jinarrions—more like the rockfolk in surliness and general ill humor. As she waited for them to disappear into the watchtower she considered the climb. Her pack weighed almost seventy pounds, so she would need to leave it behind. If anyone happened upon it in the night—and bandits were common enough in the Barony of Gildé—all they’d get away with was maybe a few
gold coins’ worth of camping supplies and milliak jerky. And in the case of the jerky, she thought, good riddance to bad company. She shrugged the pack off and strung one of the arm straps around the low-hanging branch of a sipplewood, though she doubted that would keep the chitterbits out. She wanted to bring her lute with her—that was worth more than a few gold coins—but she knew she’d have to leave it behind. She had to get in and out of the castle in less than an hour, or she’d never make it back in time to save her mother’s life.

  * * *

  Prior to this scene, we would make clear the difference between a red jinarrion and whatever color of jinarrion Bronwyn is. Even if this is the first mention of the rockfolk, at least we now know that they tend to be surly and of general ill humor. And we fixed that pesky beef thing. Whatever a milliak is, it must be an animal eaten by jinarrions, so that might be all we need to know about milliaks, too.

  Here’s where some authors start slapping on too much detail. Let’s add a system of weights, measures, timekeeping, and currency, each painstakingly detailed in a thirty-page appendix at the end of the novel.

  DRAFT FOUR

  Bronwyn stared up at the imposing silhouette of the king’s castle. The walls, made of rough-cut karnstone, were thirty sixth-hoons tall, and from the shadows at the edge of the Hindrid Forest, she watched as a pair of guards slowly made their night rounds, appearing and disappearing between the battlements. Both were jinarrions, like their king, but unlike Bronwyn they were red jinarrions—more like the rockfolk in surliness and general ill humor. As she waited for them to disappear into the watchtower she considered the climb. Her pack weighed almost seventy ninety-weights, so she would need to leave it behind. If anyone happened upon it in the night—and bandits were common enough in the Barony of Gildé—all they’d get away with was maybe a few Ravenstones’ worth of camping supplies and milliak jerky. And in the case of the jerky, she thought, good riddance to bad company. She shrugged the pack off and strung one of the arm straps around the low-hanging branch of a sipplewood, though she doubted that would keep the chitterbits out. She wanted to bring her lute with her—that was worth more than a few Ravenstones—but she knew she’d have to leave it behind. She had to get in and out of the castle in less than a multicon, or she’d never make it back in time to save her mother’s life.

  * * *

  In the creation of this world, we’ve been devising a rich fantasy culture in which there are various sorts of bandits. Some are steal-from-the-rich-give-to-the-poor types, others are like land pirates, and others are racist mobs who only target purple jinarrions. Your extensive notes say that the most common bandits in the Barony of Gildé are the gold-hungry Apostles of St. Alexandra. A couple pages later in your notebook is the part where we decided that just calling a king a king and a guard a guard was boring so we made up a whole system of ranks for our political and military organizations. Oh, and we also decided that it’s boring to have real-world musical instruments, even period instruments. Bronwyn is a prodigy on the julyun, which is like a lute but with half the number of strings.

  DRAFT FIVE

  Bronwyn stared up at the imposing silhouette of the imperator general’s castle. The walls, made of rough-cut karnstone, were thirty sixth-hoons tall, and from the shadows at the edge of the Hindrid Forest, she watched as a pair of corrinnions slowly made their night rounds, appearing and disappearing between the battlements. Both were jinarrions, like their imperator general, but unlike Bronwyn they were red jinarrions—more like the rockfolk in surliness and general ill humor. As she waited for them to disappear into the watchtower she considered the climb. Her pack weighed almost seventy ninety-weights, so she would need to leave it behind. If anyone happened upon it in the night—and the Apostles of St. Alexandra were common enough in the Barony of Gildé—all they’d get away with was maybe a few Ravenstones’ worth of camping supplies and milliak jerky. And in the case of the jerky, she thought, good riddance to bad company. She shrugged the pack off and strung one of the arm straps around the low-hanging branch of a sipplewood, though she doubted that would keep the chitterbits out. She wanted to bring her julyun with her—that was worth more than a few Ravenstones—but she knew she’d have to leave it behind. She had to get in and out of the castle in less than a multicon, or she’d never make it back in time to save her mother’s life.

  * * *

  Whew! We haven’t even talked about idiom yet, but we should. Every culture has its turn of phrase, its common metaphors, its figures of speech. In Bronwyn’s world, the Garrians were a race of barbaric humanoids who were fond of raping and pillaging everything they happened upon. So Bronwyn grew up around people who were fond of the saying “Wave good-bye to the Garrians,” which means, “Good riddance to bad company.”

  A few more missing elements. The word castle is so been-there-done-that. We want to stress that the imperator general lives in something more fitting his importance, like a star citadel. A sixth-hoon is actually 8 inches long, and a ninety-weight is the weight of 90 newborn babies, so that’s about 720 pounds; round it down to 700, so 70 pounds is really a tenth of a ninety-weight, and the walls are actually 22.5 sixth-hoons tall.

  Bronwyn’s people hold to a sort of “it takes a village” custom when it comes to raising children, so every woman in the village was technically her mother. The woman she’s saving was the woman in whose house she slept, which makes her Bronwyn’s night-mother.

  Here’s our final version:

  * * *

  DRAFT SIX

  Bronwyn stared up at the imposing silhouette of the imperator general’s star citadel. The walls, made of rough-cut karnstone, were twenty-two-and-a-half sixth-hoons tall, and from the shadows at the edge of the Hindrid Forest, she watched as a pair of corrinnions slowly made their night rounds, appearing and disappearing between the battlements. Both were jinarrions, like their imperator general, but unlike Bronwyn they were red jinarrions—more like the rockfolk in surliness and general ill humor. As she waited for them to disappear into the watchtower she considered the climb. Her pack weighed almost a tenth of a ninety-weight, so she would need to leave it behind. If anyone happened upon it in the night—and the Apostles of St. Alexandra were common enough in the Barony of Gildé—all they’d get away with was maybe a few Ravenstones’ worth of camping supplies and milliak jerky. And in the case of the jerky, she thought, wave good-bye to the Garrians. She shrugged the pack off and strung one of the arm straps around the low-hanging branch of a sipplewood, though she doubted that would keep the chitterbits out. She wanted to bring her julyun with her—that was worth more than a few Ravenstones—but she knew she’d have to leave it behind. She had to get in and out of the star citadel in less than an multicon, or she’d never make it back in time to save her night-mother’s life.

  * * *

  Go back and read the first draft of the paragraph again. Then read that last version one more time. Any one or two of these layers we added in the drafts made the paragraph more interesting to read. All of them together made it a terrible mess.

  IS THIS GOOD FOR YOUR STORY?

  Paul Park notes that he tries to “shy away from invented vocabulary, which tends to sound bogus to me. It only works if you take the trouble to invent an entire language, as Tolkien did.”

  Consistency in naming things can be a tough job, and different authors have taken different paths to achieve the illusion of a foreign language. The science fiction role-playing game Traveller had random word-generator tables. By rolling dice and referring to a complex series of charts you ended up with nonsensical words that had certain sounds in common. It was fascinating, really. If you want to come up with something like that, please do. Other authors have referenced real-world languages, though that assumes your readers won’t recognize, say, Hungarian swear words.

  Combine Words to Form New Ones

  Sometimes it’s helpful to combine mundane words to create new forms. Take Skywalker, for instance, an evocative name made from two ordinary wor
ds. Study the pages of baby name books, looking for names that mean something. In a created world, the names for people and places will be entirely yours to choose, so pick something you can live with if you’re lucky enough to still be writing about that character or place twenty years from now.

  And one last bit of advice: Say it out loud. Don’t wait until you have to read it for the audio book producers to find out it’s unpronounceable.

  CHAPTER 23

  RENDER UNTO GORTHAK WHAT IS GORTHAK’S

  Authors of both science fiction and fantasy have long been concerned with the subject of religion. Novelists have written from points of view ranging from the outright atheistic all the way through to the evangelical. It’s a subject that can rarely be ignored. For good or ill almost every human culture has had a religion at its core, though some cultures have replaced religion—the belief in a supernatural/superhuman entity or entities—with something more accurately referred to as a philosophy—a system of ethics based entirely on human behavior.

  If you’re going to write historical, contemporary, or near-future settings you will have to make some careful decisions about real-world religions. Most often your initial choice of a time and setting will determine what role religion plays in your story. If you set your story during the Salem witch trials, you’ve just taken a big bite out of the American Puritanical apple, so to speak—likewise with such periods as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, or the Holocaust. Each is a time when religion was used as an excuse for brutality, but you could alternately find a time and place in history where religion had a calming, civilizing, charitable effect and run with that. The Left Behind series took evangelical Christianity to a sort of SF/fantasy extreme, against the backdrop of the rapture. The writer L. Ron Hubbard used science fiction to create a religion of his own, Scientology.

 

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