The openings of some of the fantasy and science fiction novels submitted to FtQ have not passed the page-turn test because so much of the narrative was devoted to “world-building,” the establishment of what the world of the story is like. Much the same thing can happen in historical novels and stories that take place in an environment unfamiliar to most readers.
The deterrents to page-turning can include: physical description of the setting; description of alien or supernatural creatures; “rules” such as how a magic system operates; mechanics such as how science and machinery operate, and more.
The reason I’m writing about this is correspondence with a writer who recently read my novel, Finding Magic. It includes a race of people right here on good old Earth who have what you might call magical abilities, though there is actually no “magic” involved--in this world, what they do is manipulate energy within the laws of physics as we understand them. The reader wrote:
“I thought you built the world very nicely through the action. So often in fantasy, the opening chapters are a narrative description of the 'world'. I think your approach of leaking the information out through actions is far more effective and engaging.”
The trickle-up approach to world-building
Exactly! My feeling is that, when you’re trying to hook a reader, environmental stuff is secondary to character and action. The features of the world can be woven into the narrative as it occurs in the natural course of what happens. This is not to say, however, that you can discard the very necessary elements scene-setting and context.
I want to illustrate this and will, unfortunately, have to call upon excerpts from my books to do so. Some might consider this to be “self-promotion”--but this what I have to work with.
In this world, these people--and the protagonist, Annie--can manipulate energy to cast an illusion that disguises their appearance. But, since it is an illusion that only affects a viewer’s mind, machines such as cameras see through it. These folks can also perceive an aura of colors around heads that reflect the emotions that are happening in a person. Here’s how the reader learns of those things in the opening chapter:
The winter wind, called the Hawk by the people of this city, whips my long coat and thrusts icy talons under my dress, greedy for my warmth. Last I was here it was a lively summer breeze; now it’s a harbinger of death.
As I start up the steps to the Chicago Art Institute, a lean man in a black overcoat steps from behind one of the snow-blanketed bronze lions that guard it. He eyes me, and then targets me with a video camera.
Hoping to hide my face quickly enough to stop his camera from penetrating my disguise, I pull the sides of my hood close as if for protection from the bitter January cold. All I want to do is go inside to say a last farewell to Graeme, and then end my pain.
But centuries of hiding won’t let me ignore the danger if his camera lens pierces the “Annie the tourist” illusion I’ve created for outsiders to see. Who might he tell if, instead of the freckles and springy red curls his naked eyes see under the influence of my glamére, his objective electronic eye shows him the pale skin and limp brunette tresses of my truself?
The clans cannot risk a breach of our anonymity. Pulling my hood tighter, I trot up the stairsteps. Please, no trouble now.
His lips move, and the wind carries his words to me. “I think I got one.”
I flick a glance at him and he jerks the camera away. I see a lie blossom—bilious yellow-green streams streak through the aura around his head. He wants to hide his purpose.
But how can it have anything to do with me?
Besides, I will die today.
But wait, there’s more!
The heroine, Annie, can also use this energy, a living energy broadcast by all living things, to both “see” inside a person and to heal. Rather than tell the reader about that, it just happens. Annie is inside the museum when:
A voice behind me calls out, “Jimmy! Stop!” A boy of about seven zooms past me and glances back, grinning. His foot hits a spot of melt from tracked-in snow and I wince at the thud when his head slams the marble floor.
One long stride and I kneel beside him. His eyes widen, tears spill, and a loud cry starts. I stroke his head and then slip my sight under his scalp and locate a growing contusion. Drawing on the streams of lledri energy coursing around me, I clear out the damaged cells and stop the inflammation. Soon the injury is on the way to healing and the pain is gone. The boy stops crying just as his mother arrives and drops to her knees beside him.
Note that this is done while keeping within a close third-person point of view, with no authorial info-dumping.
This applies to much more than fantasy and SF
This thinking applies to any “world,” not just fantasy or science fiction--and especially, I think, to historical fiction and any story that takes place in a less-than-familiar environment.
For example, my novel The Summer Boy, takes place on a ranch in Texas, a world that most readers won’t have any knowledge of. So, within the context of what happens, the world is revealed right from the first sentence, but in terms of a character’s actions and thoughts:
The air was as still as it was hot—only the whir of a grasshopper’s flight troubled the quiet. Jesse felt like an overcooked chicken, his meat darn near ready to fall off his bones. Mouth so dry he didn’t have enough spit left to swallow, Jesse croaked, “That guy tryin’ to kill us?”
Dudley’s answer took a while coming. From where he slumped against the other side of the tree trunk, he said, “I’m beginning to wonder.”
The live oak’s skimpy shade was as good as it got there in the south yearling pasture—wherever the hell that was on the Box 8’s ten thousand acres of ranchland. A half-dozen red-brown Herefords, a broad white blaze down the center of their empty faces, grazed on parched yellow grass. Jesse had tried a friendly moo, but they paid him no mind.
Jesse said, “Doesn’t seem like a foreman should be leavin’ people stuck out here with no water.”
“Maybe Buddy ol’ buddy doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not much older than us.”
“Oh, he knows. You hear him laugh when he drove away?”
Dudley chuckled. “You mean right after he said, ‘You ain’t bothered by snakes, are you?’”
“Yep.” Jesse tossed a stone at a prickly pear cactus the size of a laundry basket. A dry rustle started up, whispered through the air, and then faded away.
So, as my Finding Magic reader said, involve your reader in your world by “leaking the information out through actions.”
Please share your experiences and thoughts on world-building.
For what it’s worth.
Ray
Submitting to the Flogometer:
Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):
- your title
- your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
- Please format with double spacing, 12-point font Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins.
- Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ.
- And, optionally, permission to use it as an example in a book if that's okay.
- If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
- If you rewrite while you wait you turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.
© 2012 Ray Rhamey
I think world-building is kind of like working yeast into dough. You spread it around and let it do its work in making the story world seem more three-dimensional.
Posted by: Beth | January 24, 2012 at 02:40 PM