Now watch as I hover in place and swordfight...
I would like to bitch.
I've been reading through Limyaael's rants as part of my pre-NaNoWriMo / inter-NaNoWriMo advice, which as usual inspires me, helps me see potential places where I might stumble, reassures me that my work is friggin NEW, and frustrates me utterly with whatever Limyaael does not cover.
This is, generally, not very fair to her. She's a genius. I readily acknowledge that. I am not trying to imitate her here, because I can't- I'm ranting because writing about my life bores me, in general, and I feel a vague duty to update this blog since I have it. Often what she doesn't rant about is just outside of what she does, and I have no reason to suspect she's ignorant of it. Rereading my own rants, they look stupid, because I've left bits out that are important, or complained about something that, in retrospect, wasn't that bad.
There is one place, however, that frustrates me endlessly, and that's Limyaael's general attitude-in the stories she's written-toward flight and flying. She does know, to my eternal relief, that you need MUSCLES to fly. I am sick to death of the idea that you can stick wings on a human / lion / horse / whatever and they'll take off, particularly since said wings are generally tiny. She understands that said wings take up space, though her stories do sometimes leave me wondering how her character-Sylar is the one I'm thinking of-is managing to sleep with another character wrapped in said wings. She understands that the wings can be used for things other than flying, and that they respond to habitual movements and emotions just like any other body part.
But there's these scenes where you can tell she's thinking through everything like it's a ground battle, and I push my computer away, put my head in my hands and groan.
1. Flying is motion; stalling is bad
HEY ANYONE WRITING FLYING CHARACTERS- GET THIS THROUGH YOUR HEADS. YOU CANNOT SIT IN THE AIR. YOU CANNOT STAND STILL. IF YOU STAND STILL, YOU STALL, YOU FALL, YOU DIE.
Now, obviously, any six-year-old could point out this is not strictly true. However, I am assuming that your character is human-sized or larger. I am assuming that your character is not a typical-sized insect, a hummingbird, a tern or a helicopter. If you are writing a fantasy story about insects (of typical size, or in high-oxygen environments), hummingbirds, terns or helicopters, you are exempt from this rule, and by the way can I have a link? Small fairies are probably also exempt- the flower-fairy, sit-on-your-little-finger type. Sufficiently inhuman angels and demons probably as well, as they may well be made out of light, air and good intentions and shadow, flame and bad intentions respectively.
Griffins, dragons, amphipteres, wyverns, eagles Gwaihir-sized or otherwise, pegasi, flying pigs, human-sized winged fae, pterosaurs, Fellbeasts, winged wolves, phoenixes (unless hummingbird-based, and only if you give me a link), hunting falcons, flesh-and-blood type angels and demons, winged cats, and the thousand-and-one fantasy / mythology / D&D "stuck wings on it" creatures are not exempt.
Rant 1.a- Yes, ospreys can hover and falcons, gulls and a lot of other birds can "hover" by facing into the wind. Ospreys are pretty small as birds of prey go, however, and their wings are huge in comparison with their body. Wind-hovering is fine, but that depends entirely on the way the wind is blowing, how strong said wind is, and a fair amount of fine maneuvering to make sure you stay in the correct stream.
Hovering is also EXPENSIVE, and it takes a lot of work. Insects can get away with it because they're light, but it becomes exponentially harder the larger you get. Hummingbirds are substantially larger than most insects, and they are very heavily modified to get to do it. They're also small- the largest being the Giant Hummingbird Patagona gigas, which is 8.5 inches long, or the size of a friggin' starling. They would fit in your hand. Humingbirds are at rest for the majority of their life, and they still drink some of the most energy-intensive food in the animal kingdom. You can get bigger, but you get ridiculously specialized, and need even richer food- namely, rotary helicopter blades, and high-octane fuel. A helicopter-dragon would be fun to hear about, though I want to know his high-octane fuel, but how's that going to evolve, or were the dragons created by a rebellious god who didn't feel like going in line with his fellows' work?
Other birds who hover-ospreys, kingfishers, the bigger terns-are still fairly small, and they don't do it very long or very often. They're also pretty focused on it.
With the exception of the small specialized and fairly small part-time hoverers, and wind-hovering, flight is an act of movement. You're either gliding forward or you're flapping forward. You might be diving, in which case you are definitely headed forward, and down.
But you cannot sit in the air, or wheel around in the air. Particularly not **sigh** if you're still NEW to it.
This is a good reason to have dragonriders, by the way, assuming your dragons are intelligent, and a point that is NEVER BLOODY EXPRESSED. The dragon can see what's ahead and below. The human can keep track of threats from above and behind and off to the sides, and lob things at said threats.
2. There are different flying styles. Learn them, love them, respect them.
You probably don't have helicopter-dragons. But your dragons are still not all alike, damnit.
Take an albatross, a raven, a Red-tailed Hawk, a bufflehead and a grouse. Go, look them up. These birds are all roughly the same size. Are their wings the same shape at all? HELL no. Do they all fly the same? HA! For some of them there's no OVERLAP.
First, the albatross. This bird has what are functionally immobile wings. It is all about placement. They like open areas over the sea, with the winds that come up off the ways, and no matter how amazing a flier-and they are amazing-they are going to be pathetic at maneuvering in the woodland. They are excellent at conserving energy and crossing great distances. They do not flap- everything is accomplished by airfoil, by careful use of the wind, and by tiny maneuverings of the tail and wingfeathers.
Second, its polar opposite, the grouse. Grouse are also not terribly maneuverable, once in the air, though they do live over land and don't always have the option of flying freely in whatever direction they want. But they are fast, and they don't care what the wind is doing. They don't win the marathons, but they can haul ass when they need to. This is expensive flying, also. They flap CONSTANTLY, and their bodies are very heavy compared to their wings.
Now for the third opposite- the raven. Ravens are not as amazingly good at long-distance as albatross, and they aren't dedicated ass-haulers like grouse. But they are far, far more maneuverable than either of them. This is why corvids mob hawks, and don't get crushed by them- they're maneuverable, and they're reasonably fast. (they, of course, get mobbed in turn by songbirds, who are even faster and very small, but the songbirds are driven by desperation, and the ravens are much closer in size to the hawks they're mobbing). Ravens can soar a bit, if the wind is with them, but they mainly flap to get from place to place.
Next, the duck. Ducks are also flappers, but they're endurance flappers. Their wings are much larger relative to their bodies than the grouse, and their tails are much smaller than the raven's. They are endurance birds, built for flying in flocks steadily, rather than teasing every last saved calorie from the wind. Their flaps go through a very shallow arc. They are fairly poor at maneuvering.
Finally, the hawk. Hawks try not to flap when they can. They prefer to sit in thermals, and they tend to be much clumsier flappers than the ravens are, to say nothing of the ducks. They are pretty good at conserving energy on warm days when there are nice thermals to use, or where they can use air currents. They have broad wings and large, broad tails. They strike a balance between the maneuverability of the raven and energy-efficiency.
The other thing to consider is how much time the dragon, griffin, phoenix, Fellbeast or amphiptere spends in the air versus on the ground. A swift spends all their time in the air, practically- they are not too good on the ground, but there is no one better for speed and agility in the air. Chickens spend most of their time on the ground, and only use their very limited flight to get to high places or haul ass; they're good runners and very good at walking. In general, more time on the ground makes a poorer flier, and more time in the air, a bad walker.
Bald Eagles are good in the air and surprisingly fast* on the ground, but they are soaring birds, and their movement on the ground is very different from typical walking- they have kind of an aggressive slump, and a leaping "gallop". This varies within a species as well. Wild mallards have much larger and stronger wingbones, compared to their legbones, than domesticated mallards do- because the domestic variety have their wings clipped, and their legs get a lot more exercise than their wings on that account.
3. The sky is complicated
3.a - something Limyaael does address- flight takes place in a three-dimensional world.
3.b - back to what she doesn't- one position is NOT equal to another. Altitude is very important. If you fly under someone, you're exposed, vulnerable if he should try to fight, and of course there are hard limits on how low you can go, versus much softer than how high. Sure, you probably can't fly straight into the stratosphere, or even attain an airplane's cruising altitude, but the sense of "you can always go higher" is maintained by most flights taking place far below that ceiling, down where the ground and its affairs can be clearly perceived.
To an extent, you have to watch out from attacks from below as well as on all sides, but the huge risk is from above. Birds of prey can look into the sun without getting blinded- can your dragons do so as well, and fly into the sun to attack without casting a shadow? Or perhaps they-flapping fairly noisily-forgo stealth as such, to take human riders by surprised coming OUT of the sun.
3.c There are winds. There are crosswinds. There are updrafts, downdrafts, thermals, turbulence. Fighting the wind is really difficult. Consider studying sailing, if you're trying to write about dragonflight. Obviously, if you have a grouse-like or duck-like dragon, they won't be as bothered by this- they're generating a lot of their own speed on top of that, but a hawk-like or albatross-like dragon is going to need to do some careful flying, to say nothing of how frustrating it is for a soaring animal to have to flap across the sky when the winds are lying low and there are no thermals.
4. Strong wings are useful for more than flight.
Specifically, they make very effective weapons, and are also good for escape attempts. A goose can break your neck with a wing-blow, so I've heard. I recently tried to hold on to a struggling mallard, and those wings made things difficult, even though the bird was much smaller than me. You literally cannot hold a Bald Eagle who has seen the way out- their wings are terrifyingly strong.
There are other things wings can do. Pterosaurs walked and climbed on theirs, which made some of them probably rather scary on the ground, and Dimorophodonts in particular a terror in the trees. Bats also use their wings to get around, and both bats and birds use them to shelter their young. I am sick to tears with hearing about the fragility of wings and how dragons have to keep them tucked to their sides. Perhaps a very large dragon shouldn't wave them about over the heads of a mass of humans with spears, but a dragon closer to human sized, or facing humans who don't have an ideal stabbing weapon are ignoring what must be an enormous part of their strength.
5. Birds are terrifying fighters, when they want to be.
I am so incredibly fucking SICK of reading about how birds have to go for the eyes, and are harmless if grounded. The next time I read something like that, I'm putting whoever said it in an aviary with a flightless goshawk, and laughing my head off when they turn their arms into swiss cheese. Birds are not fragile, as such.
On the reverse of this, however, most flighted creatures attempt to retain this. They will avoid fights with more massively built ground-dwellers, and will indeed go for the eyes, simply as one of the weakest parts. A cornered, angry, desperate or sentient flier, however, may well not care. Breeding goshawks, or just goshawks and owls in general, will often throw it aside for the hell of it.
Keep in mind that birds fight very differently from mammals. An angry hawk will flip over onto his back, so as to leave both talons free, and that beak.
5.a - the beak is not the dangerous part of a raptor, though you don't want to get bitten by it. The talons are the dangerous part. On the other hand, if you're dealing with giant parrots like the Le-Matoran of Mata Nui ride, the beak is DEFINITELY the most dangerous part. Different raptors use it differently- as Dr. Parks, the teacher of my captive raptor course so put it "If you get footed by a buteo, you will have four neat holes through your arm. If you get footed by an accipter, your arm will look like swiss cheese."- accipiters, forest-hawks like goshawks and sparrowhawks, squeeze and release several times, while the larger buteos and eagles just clench and lock. Talons are nasty- a harpy eagle has claws the size of a bear, and those feet are strong.
5.b Birds can be very clever- both goshawks and redtails have been observed drowning troublesome prey. They can also take down prey much larger than you might think- some eagles can kill caribou calves by punching through their chest cavity, or the skull.
5.c Beaks can be very sensitive and dexterous. Damnit.
* I know exactly what I'm talking about here, believe me. They are good walkers, but when they want to haul terrestrial ass they are fast.
I'll probably think of more flight-bitching later.
I've been reading through Limyaael's rants as part of my pre-NaNoWriMo / inter-NaNoWriMo advice, which as usual inspires me, helps me see potential places where I might stumble, reassures me that my work is friggin NEW, and frustrates me utterly with whatever Limyaael does not cover.
This is, generally, not very fair to her. She's a genius. I readily acknowledge that. I am not trying to imitate her here, because I can't- I'm ranting because writing about my life bores me, in general, and I feel a vague duty to update this blog since I have it. Often what she doesn't rant about is just outside of what she does, and I have no reason to suspect she's ignorant of it. Rereading my own rants, they look stupid, because I've left bits out that are important, or complained about something that, in retrospect, wasn't that bad.
There is one place, however, that frustrates me endlessly, and that's Limyaael's general attitude-in the stories she's written-toward flight and flying. She does know, to my eternal relief, that you need MUSCLES to fly. I am sick to death of the idea that you can stick wings on a human / lion / horse / whatever and they'll take off, particularly since said wings are generally tiny. She understands that said wings take up space, though her stories do sometimes leave me wondering how her character-Sylar is the one I'm thinking of-is managing to sleep with another character wrapped in said wings. She understands that the wings can be used for things other than flying, and that they respond to habitual movements and emotions just like any other body part.
But there's these scenes where you can tell she's thinking through everything like it's a ground battle, and I push my computer away, put my head in my hands and groan.
1. Flying is motion; stalling is bad
HEY ANYONE WRITING FLYING CHARACTERS- GET THIS THROUGH YOUR HEADS. YOU CANNOT SIT IN THE AIR. YOU CANNOT STAND STILL. IF YOU STAND STILL, YOU STALL, YOU FALL, YOU DIE.
Now, obviously, any six-year-old could point out this is not strictly true. However, I am assuming that your character is human-sized or larger. I am assuming that your character is not a typical-sized insect, a hummingbird, a tern or a helicopter. If you are writing a fantasy story about insects (of typical size, or in high-oxygen environments), hummingbirds, terns or helicopters, you are exempt from this rule, and by the way can I have a link? Small fairies are probably also exempt- the flower-fairy, sit-on-your-little-finger type. Sufficiently inhuman angels and demons probably as well, as they may well be made out of light, air and good intentions and shadow, flame and bad intentions respectively.
Griffins, dragons, amphipteres, wyverns, eagles Gwaihir-sized or otherwise, pegasi, flying pigs, human-sized winged fae, pterosaurs, Fellbeasts, winged wolves, phoenixes (unless hummingbird-based, and only if you give me a link), hunting falcons, flesh-and-blood type angels and demons, winged cats, and the thousand-and-one fantasy / mythology / D&D "stuck wings on it" creatures are not exempt.
Rant 1.a- Yes, ospreys can hover and falcons, gulls and a lot of other birds can "hover" by facing into the wind. Ospreys are pretty small as birds of prey go, however, and their wings are huge in comparison with their body. Wind-hovering is fine, but that depends entirely on the way the wind is blowing, how strong said wind is, and a fair amount of fine maneuvering to make sure you stay in the correct stream.
Hovering is also EXPENSIVE, and it takes a lot of work. Insects can get away with it because they're light, but it becomes exponentially harder the larger you get. Hummingbirds are substantially larger than most insects, and they are very heavily modified to get to do it. They're also small- the largest being the Giant Hummingbird Patagona gigas, which is 8.5 inches long, or the size of a friggin' starling. They would fit in your hand. Humingbirds are at rest for the majority of their life, and they still drink some of the most energy-intensive food in the animal kingdom. You can get bigger, but you get ridiculously specialized, and need even richer food- namely, rotary helicopter blades, and high-octane fuel. A helicopter-dragon would be fun to hear about, though I want to know his high-octane fuel, but how's that going to evolve, or were the dragons created by a rebellious god who didn't feel like going in line with his fellows' work?
Other birds who hover-ospreys, kingfishers, the bigger terns-are still fairly small, and they don't do it very long or very often. They're also pretty focused on it.
With the exception of the small specialized and fairly small part-time hoverers, and wind-hovering, flight is an act of movement. You're either gliding forward or you're flapping forward. You might be diving, in which case you are definitely headed forward, and down.
But you cannot sit in the air, or wheel around in the air. Particularly not **sigh** if you're still NEW to it.
This is a good reason to have dragonriders, by the way, assuming your dragons are intelligent, and a point that is NEVER BLOODY EXPRESSED. The dragon can see what's ahead and below. The human can keep track of threats from above and behind and off to the sides, and lob things at said threats.
2. There are different flying styles. Learn them, love them, respect them.
You probably don't have helicopter-dragons. But your dragons are still not all alike, damnit.
Take an albatross, a raven, a Red-tailed Hawk, a bufflehead and a grouse. Go, look them up. These birds are all roughly the same size. Are their wings the same shape at all? HELL no. Do they all fly the same? HA! For some of them there's no OVERLAP.
First, the albatross. This bird has what are functionally immobile wings. It is all about placement. They like open areas over the sea, with the winds that come up off the ways, and no matter how amazing a flier-and they are amazing-they are going to be pathetic at maneuvering in the woodland. They are excellent at conserving energy and crossing great distances. They do not flap- everything is accomplished by airfoil, by careful use of the wind, and by tiny maneuverings of the tail and wingfeathers.
Second, its polar opposite, the grouse. Grouse are also not terribly maneuverable, once in the air, though they do live over land and don't always have the option of flying freely in whatever direction they want. But they are fast, and they don't care what the wind is doing. They don't win the marathons, but they can haul ass when they need to. This is expensive flying, also. They flap CONSTANTLY, and their bodies are very heavy compared to their wings.
Now for the third opposite- the raven. Ravens are not as amazingly good at long-distance as albatross, and they aren't dedicated ass-haulers like grouse. But they are far, far more maneuverable than either of them. This is why corvids mob hawks, and don't get crushed by them- they're maneuverable, and they're reasonably fast. (they, of course, get mobbed in turn by songbirds, who are even faster and very small, but the songbirds are driven by desperation, and the ravens are much closer in size to the hawks they're mobbing). Ravens can soar a bit, if the wind is with them, but they mainly flap to get from place to place.
Next, the duck. Ducks are also flappers, but they're endurance flappers. Their wings are much larger relative to their bodies than the grouse, and their tails are much smaller than the raven's. They are endurance birds, built for flying in flocks steadily, rather than teasing every last saved calorie from the wind. Their flaps go through a very shallow arc. They are fairly poor at maneuvering.
Finally, the hawk. Hawks try not to flap when they can. They prefer to sit in thermals, and they tend to be much clumsier flappers than the ravens are, to say nothing of the ducks. They are pretty good at conserving energy on warm days when there are nice thermals to use, or where they can use air currents. They have broad wings and large, broad tails. They strike a balance between the maneuverability of the raven and energy-efficiency.
The other thing to consider is how much time the dragon, griffin, phoenix, Fellbeast or amphiptere spends in the air versus on the ground. A swift spends all their time in the air, practically- they are not too good on the ground, but there is no one better for speed and agility in the air. Chickens spend most of their time on the ground, and only use their very limited flight to get to high places or haul ass; they're good runners and very good at walking. In general, more time on the ground makes a poorer flier, and more time in the air, a bad walker.
Bald Eagles are good in the air and surprisingly fast* on the ground, but they are soaring birds, and their movement on the ground is very different from typical walking- they have kind of an aggressive slump, and a leaping "gallop". This varies within a species as well. Wild mallards have much larger and stronger wingbones, compared to their legbones, than domesticated mallards do- because the domestic variety have their wings clipped, and their legs get a lot more exercise than their wings on that account.
3. The sky is complicated
3.a - something Limyaael does address- flight takes place in a three-dimensional world.
3.b - back to what she doesn't- one position is NOT equal to another. Altitude is very important. If you fly under someone, you're exposed, vulnerable if he should try to fight, and of course there are hard limits on how low you can go, versus much softer than how high. Sure, you probably can't fly straight into the stratosphere, or even attain an airplane's cruising altitude, but the sense of "you can always go higher" is maintained by most flights taking place far below that ceiling, down where the ground and its affairs can be clearly perceived.
To an extent, you have to watch out from attacks from below as well as on all sides, but the huge risk is from above. Birds of prey can look into the sun without getting blinded- can your dragons do so as well, and fly into the sun to attack without casting a shadow? Or perhaps they-flapping fairly noisily-forgo stealth as such, to take human riders by surprised coming OUT of the sun.
3.c There are winds. There are crosswinds. There are updrafts, downdrafts, thermals, turbulence. Fighting the wind is really difficult. Consider studying sailing, if you're trying to write about dragonflight. Obviously, if you have a grouse-like or duck-like dragon, they won't be as bothered by this- they're generating a lot of their own speed on top of that, but a hawk-like or albatross-like dragon is going to need to do some careful flying, to say nothing of how frustrating it is for a soaring animal to have to flap across the sky when the winds are lying low and there are no thermals.
4. Strong wings are useful for more than flight.
Specifically, they make very effective weapons, and are also good for escape attempts. A goose can break your neck with a wing-blow, so I've heard. I recently tried to hold on to a struggling mallard, and those wings made things difficult, even though the bird was much smaller than me. You literally cannot hold a Bald Eagle who has seen the way out- their wings are terrifyingly strong.
There are other things wings can do. Pterosaurs walked and climbed on theirs, which made some of them probably rather scary on the ground, and Dimorophodonts in particular a terror in the trees. Bats also use their wings to get around, and both bats and birds use them to shelter their young. I am sick to tears with hearing about the fragility of wings and how dragons have to keep them tucked to their sides. Perhaps a very large dragon shouldn't wave them about over the heads of a mass of humans with spears, but a dragon closer to human sized, or facing humans who don't have an ideal stabbing weapon are ignoring what must be an enormous part of their strength.
5. Birds are terrifying fighters, when they want to be.
I am so incredibly fucking SICK of reading about how birds have to go for the eyes, and are harmless if grounded. The next time I read something like that, I'm putting whoever said it in an aviary with a flightless goshawk, and laughing my head off when they turn their arms into swiss cheese. Birds are not fragile, as such.
On the reverse of this, however, most flighted creatures attempt to retain this. They will avoid fights with more massively built ground-dwellers, and will indeed go for the eyes, simply as one of the weakest parts. A cornered, angry, desperate or sentient flier, however, may well not care. Breeding goshawks, or just goshawks and owls in general, will often throw it aside for the hell of it.
Keep in mind that birds fight very differently from mammals. An angry hawk will flip over onto his back, so as to leave both talons free, and that beak.
5.a - the beak is not the dangerous part of a raptor, though you don't want to get bitten by it. The talons are the dangerous part. On the other hand, if you're dealing with giant parrots like the Le-Matoran of Mata Nui ride, the beak is DEFINITELY the most dangerous part. Different raptors use it differently- as Dr. Parks, the teacher of my captive raptor course so put it "If you get footed by a buteo, you will have four neat holes through your arm. If you get footed by an accipter, your arm will look like swiss cheese."- accipiters, forest-hawks like goshawks and sparrowhawks, squeeze and release several times, while the larger buteos and eagles just clench and lock. Talons are nasty- a harpy eagle has claws the size of a bear, and those feet are strong.
5.b Birds can be very clever- both goshawks and redtails have been observed drowning troublesome prey. They can also take down prey much larger than you might think- some eagles can kill caribou calves by punching through their chest cavity, or the skull.
5.c Beaks can be very sensitive and dexterous. Damnit.
* I know exactly what I'm talking about here, believe me. They are good walkers, but when they want to haul terrestrial ass they are fast.
I'll probably think of more flight-bitching later.