  Fantasy
This week: Edited by: Colin Back on the Ghost Roads  
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This newsletter is for everyone who enjoys the magic and mystery of a good Fantasy, be it Tolkien, Jordan, Rowling, or a host of others. I will also be attempting to give some time to other types of fantasy, as written by the likes of Asimov, Wilson, Clarke and a galaxy of talent.
I hope to present some information that will be useful to other fantasy authors on site, and entertaining to all our subscribers.
So, let the wonder and glory of all that is fantasy engulf you.
The Fantasy Editors:
Colin Back on the Ghost Roads
billwilcox
The Milkman 
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Historical Fantasy
What if Saint George really did fight a dragon? What if the Spear of Destiny really had made Hitler invincible? What if Merlin really were a wizard in Britain? What if Crowley were right about everything he wrote about? What if horrible creatures lived on for eternity trapped by ancient and incomprehensible prisons and a cult in New England sought nothing less than their complete freedom? All these questions are the stuff of historical fantasy. Note that the advice in the letter also applies to Science Fiction authors writing altered history stories, a sub-genre that has become fairly popular recently.
At its core, historical fantasy is a simple concept. You take a period in history and add some fantasy elements to it. Like all fantasy stories, historical fantasy centers on a "What if..." question like the ones outlined above. Always keep the main question in the front of your mind while writing to keep the story consistent. It is important to consider all aspects of the answer, which may stretch well beyond the initial confines of the setting. For example, if Saint George really did fight a dragon, that means dragons were real. How would this impact the world? Was the one George killed the only dragon in the world? If so, where did it come from? Why is it alone in the world? What purpose did it serve? If not, then what of the other dragons? How do their presences affect the local inhabitants? How do they survive? Do other regions hunt them as well, or have some people learned to live in harmony with them? Once you settle on your base question, you have to look at all the ramifications of it. That is why you should restrict yourself to a single main concept. One will give you more than enough work to do.
Once you've gotten your key idea down and clear, the work is just starting. In order to do historical fantasy properly, you need to know the period of history the setting is in. You'll need to know lots of details to make it jump off the page. It is almost a guarantee that some of your readers will be interested in the time period, and will know a lot about it. If you are sloppy in your research, they will notice, and they won't trust you again.
Language is a particularly tricky part of any historically based fiction. There are many expressions that we use every day and take for granted that will render suspension of disbelief impossible if used in the wrong context. It is particularly important to avoid cliches, since they may be completely inappropriate to the time frame or the location selected. Research, research and more research are the keys to success.
Once you know your chosen time period and place setting well, you can begin looking at how life would change in the story as a result of the "What if..." question that is forming the basis of the story. Again, this can result in some surprising changes for the world. If Hitler had died before World War II began, then how long would it have been before the US reduced its isolationist policies? If the Anglican Church had rejoined the Catholic Church, what effects might that have had on middle ages Europe? Even the simplest and most seemingly mundane alterations can have wide reaching ramifications. Make sure you consider everything before you write the story. You won't be able to highlight all the changes, perhaps, but you should throw in two or three that you think won't occur to your readers. They will thank you for it.
Historical Fantasy does have some advantages that other types of fantasy doesn't. While you will have to make the reader aware of the changes that have resulted, many of the fundamentals of the world won't have to be altered. People will still know what a wolf looks like, where England is in relation to France, or what the New World means in relation to European expansion. This means you won't have to design the world from the ground up. If the point of divergence you choose is modern enough then you may have centuries of history to work with that you won't have to invent.
You also won't have to design entire ecosystems to accodate your changes in most cases. There's no need to worry about where lions in Africa get their food, since we all know they've been doing it for years. You won't have to create a bunch of strange and exotic animals and plants, in fact doing so might hurt your story more than help it, so the extra research takes the place of a lot of design from scratch work.
In closing, Historical Fantasy is not something every writer will want to try, but if you can do the research and collate facts, and then determine how a small change in events could impact the world, you may find you enjoy writing these sorts of stories. |
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From: schipperke
Colin:
My first fantasy newsletter! If they are all as excellent as yours, I will be sure to read it first!
Thanks for the excellent ideas for creating 'place'. It can be useful for all types of stories.
Glad you enjoyed it. Place is necessary in all stories since every story has to happen somewhere. I do hear people say that they could never write fantasy, since they just can't make stuff up like that. But people do forget that they know a lot more than they think. Thanks for the comments.
From rose_shadow
Wonderful newsletter, Colin! I'm actually writing a traveling section in one of my fantasy stories now and as my characters come upon their destination, a city foreign to them, I've had to think of a lot of the things I could use to make this city "come to life". This newsletter will help.
Glad you found it useful. Being in an exotic location now, it seemed an appropriate topic. Making an invented place real to the readers is one of the harder tasks in fantasy, but any author has a store of information that others may not know, so using it will make things more real. Thanks for the feedback.
From billwilcox
Colin, aka, The Traveling Gnome  .
Another great edition and filled with some very helpful ideas and tips. Researching your local is extremely important. Write On!
W.D.
Thanks for the feedback, Bill. Glad you liked it.
From John~Ashen
more feature picks please! 4 isn't enough. 6-10 is standard
I'm very picky about the items I feature. I will only put in things I think are among the best examples of Fantasy and SF. I do, however often take requests so I will try to include a wider variety. You can help, of course, by submitting the best items of the genre that you've read or written to the newsletter submissions, or email me directly if you prefer.
From Christine L.
I learned from and enjoyed this newsletter and just wanted to say 'thanks'! Write on!
Peace,
Christine L./sheflower
Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for taking time to let me know.
From
I have a question that has been bugging me ever since I started to read: what's the difference between science fiction and fantasy? I know that in general art doesn't need to be labeled, but if you do, how do most people choose?
That's a very hard question to answer, not least of which because there are so many sub-genres to each one. I've heard one quote that says if you wrap someone in metal and put him on a horse its fantasy, but if you wrap many people in metal and fling them into space its science fiction, but of course that ignores many types of stories that are clearly one or the other.
For me Fantasy and Science Fiction are two sides of the same coin. Both deal with things that cannot happen in the world today. For Fantasy the cause of the impossibility is magic of some sort. For Science Fiction it is technology. I also believe that the differences are fundamentally cosmetic, as magic and technology do essentially the same things in the two genres.
As a quick example, what is the original Star Wars? Most would say clearly Science Fiction. I would argue Fantasy. Not only does it have Magic (The Force) but it draws on many classic fantasy bits. We have the old wise wizard who is more than he first appears, the brash youth who starts as a farm boy but goes on to fight an empire, the likeable charming rouge, with his large brutish companion who really has a heart of gold, a kidnapped princess, a dark lord (who wears black armor no less). The presence of space ships and blasters just confuses the issue.
Ultimately, however, I think every reader will have his or her own definitions as to what defines each genre.
Well, that's all for now. Be sure to tune in next time.
Colin Neilson |
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Fantasy: September 14, 2005 Issue [#606]
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