This week: Stars Edited by: Waltz Invictus  
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When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really..."Do the stars gaze back?" Now, that's a question.
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde |
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Hopefully, we all know what stars are: large balls of mostly hydrogen that shine because the temperature and pressure in their interiors are high enough to initiate and sustain nuclear fusion reactions, releasing energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, some of which reaches us here on Earth as a tiny point of light that we can sometimes see at night, when it's not cloudy and our own star, the Sun, isn't in our sky.
But of course, this is the Fantasy newsletter, so that's not all that stars are.
At some time in prehistory, we became aware of the stars, but we didn't know all that stuff. So, humans being humans, we made up stories: They are pinholes in the sky, letting a tiny amount of divine light in. They are a visual record of ancient heroes and monsters. They are fixed beacons to let us know when the seasons will change. They govern our fate. And so on.
It's possible that the stars in the night sky inspired some of the earliest stories, and they continue to do so even today. It's right there in the name of one of the most popular fantasy stories: Star Wars. And one of the biggest science fiction stories, Star Trek.
Just because we know more about the physical reality of what the stars are, their probable histories and futures, that doesn't mean our imagination shuts down. Some of the old stories remain -- astronomers use the Western names of the constellations to divide up the sky: This nebula is in Orion. That galaxy is in Andromeda. The center of our own galaxy is in Sagittarius. This is convention; over long periods of time, stars move around relative to us, and even distant galaxies shift, but the mythology endures, embedded even in scientific pursuits.
Some people look up at the vast depths of the star-studded night sky and draw conclusions about how insignificant we are, not even the size of a speck of dust compared to the enormity of the Universe. Even the number of stars we can actually see with the unaided eye -- determined by at least one astronomer to number 9096, rounds to zero compared to the estimated number of stars in the observable universe: on the order of 1023.
I take the opposing view: how amazing it is that we can, from our dust mote, look at the stars... and imagine. |
Some Fantasy for your imagination:
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Last time, in "Starting Out" , I urged against starting your stories with too much backstory.
Santeven Quokklaus  : I think one of my biggest gripes about modern fantasy stories is the author feels the need to info dump their world onto us in the first page (or pages). This volume of exposition as introduction kills a story. As you said, character is far more important. But these authors have spent all this time creating their world and, by Gawd, they are going to show the reader how clever they've been!
Just a quick look through my shelves and my Kindle content and of the 15 fantasy novels/novellas I have bought in the last 10 years not by big-name authors, 11 do this. Only 3 of those managed to get me back into the story. It is a very common issue. Having said that, of the 20-odd science fiction stories bought in the same time-frame by not big-name writers, only 4 do this.
So, I feel this newsletter is a very important one for writers of fantasy. Really well done!
In truth, you can still show off all your clever world-building, and we want to see it -- as the story progresses. Really, we'll think you're clever if you can write compelling characters, descriptions, and dialogue.
Nobody’s Home  : Not beginning your story with an info-dump of backstory and/or world-building is a great issue to bring up. I at first overdid my efforts at avoiding including too much info on "how this world works" in the first chapter, which resulted in confusion for the reader. I've found that the simplest way to do this is to just tell the story, explain what's necessary to keep your audience informed but don't tell more than is needed to understand the scene or story as far as it's been told. That's where I'm at, at least.
A big part of any writing is knowing what to include and what to leave out, and what to leave for later. It's a balance. This is but one example.
And a comment from my December Fantasy newsletter, "Snowflakes" :
oldgreywolf on wheels  : Remember, too, if you're writing science fiction, different atmospheric pressure/gravity combinations produce different results than you'd find on Terra.
This is true. There are many factors to consider, and we don't fully understand all of them -- but that's what fiction is for.
So that's it for me for April! See you next month! Until then, reach for the stars and
DREAM ON!!!
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Fantasy: April 06, 2022 Issue [#11297]
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