Rant on creating subgenres

[limyaael]

This is the rant on various ways of creating subgenres-that is, small pockets within fantasy, rather than separate genres altogether like science fiction. Most of these are ways I’ve used. Others are ones I’ve seen recommended. Each will have its caveats, of course.

Comments

[olinscarr]

Complexity is my favorite part of fantasy worlds, and I hate seeing so little of it. The fact that person's writing an alien place ought not be as ignored as it is, becuse that, in and of itself, is enough for a story without tacking on some nonsense plot. Even if it does follow plot, and the plot is good, I love the little details, and the by-the-way mentions of legends or history or the current way(s) of thinking among people you're not going to see again (unless the author sticks them back in again a hundred pages later as a passing mention.) I love doing this in my own work, too, which is why I find it so hard to tell short stories, because they turn into long ones.

My favorite authors are the ones with not only complex worlds, but complex people and complex plots. Laziness and sci-fi are the only excuses for making things one-dimensional.

And number two has just solve my current Problem With Plot. Thanks for that.

[limyaael]

Yes. Actually writing a story set in another world is damn hard. And often, I don't mind shortcuts; I know that if a culture is based on Catholic Spain at the end of the 1400's, for example, there's a good reason for an Inquistion-like structure to be there, and the writer doesn't have to spend pages and pages explaining who they are and what they do. But attitudes and mindsets without such justification bother me a good deal more. The sheer weight of a fantasy world ought to be felt- not only for the protagonist, but for everyone. Thus my annoyance with the characters who really do exist only as plot devices, even though they have names, or the ones who vanish from the story the moment they're not needed any more, or the bits of the worldbuilding that are only there to be convenient, not actually to mesh with the rest.

Glad to help!

[hieronymousb]

....

*HUGS point number one tightly*

I adore you. That is EXACTLY what I think should be done with fantasy novels, and what I always try to do with the general ideas that come to me (including the first novel I wrote, which WAS a bildungsroman and which I tried to handle exactly like you advised here).

To this end, I have a question and I was wondering if you could offer any advice:

I find that I am afraid to tell people about my writing when it comes to plotlines such as bildungsromans because--and maybe I'm overreacting here and assuming that everyone will be as critical as I am--I feel that just hitting the overview of the story will make it sound cliche. The details, as you have illustrated in this rant, are what makes the story unique, but it's so damned difficult to explain those in one sitting without making the story sound horribly mangled

[kaigou]

I run into the same thing. I finally went for multicultural urban fantasy, which just sounds so frickin' PC it's not even amusing anymore. But my main themes, constantly, are those of culture clash and isolation in alien cultures, and how people come together (and fall apart) and how they adjust to new places/ways of being. And it's fantasy--which, like you mentioned, often gets connoted as "fluffy" or "fairies". (And if it's not that, then there's the assumption that elves are involved, and as we all know thanks to Jackson, all elves look like Orlando Bloom. Okay, a few authors are cranking that notion, but still, the common person does have this solid link now. Thanks, Jackson. Not.)

But if you boil down a great many plots, it does seem rather mundane. "Young man comes to America and tries to fit in while growing up, trying to find his family, and falling in love for the first time." I suppose what I'm writing, currently, is a type of bildungsroman since it is a journey of self-discovery and growing up. The secondary plotline--

[hieronymousb]

Well, I realize that any story stripped of its interesting details does tend to sound rather stupid. You could take, say, A Song of Ice and Fire, and strip it down to "Some people try to fight for a crown", and it would sound pretty fucking stupid and cliche. Any story should be made golden by the fine details, not its bare bones

[kaigou]

Naw, "read it yourself and find out" is probably a much faster turn-off, whether we mean for it or not. If you can't describe your work, how can you expect a reader to? You wrote it. You should know it better than anyone (but truth is, it's still hard to distill, I know). The best way I found to do a synopsis (which is essentially what we're discussing) is to start with the fifteen-word description. Fr'instance, mine came down to:

A half-Tanuki immigrates to America, seeking his long-lost sister, and finds love.That pretty much sums up the crux of it. Then add one or two details, here and there, fleshing out the conflict a bit more. It's not just that he's looking for his sister, but he's also a DEA agent and dealing with his first case. And it's not just a DEA case, but one that involves humans using magic. I kept adding in what I thought would be the parts that popped (at least to me, and to my inner circle of readers), and then I came up with a synopsis

[cleansingbreath]

Your example in point # 1 scared me a little, as it sounds stunningly similar to the NaNovel I'm writing. I'm almost finished with it -- well, with what may end up becoming the first part of a two-part book. It's named Dragonsbane, it mostly centers around two main characters. The viewpoint character's pretty ordinary, but his companion, the MC, has had Dragonsblood passed down through his bloodline for 200 years. He's trying to resurrect the eggs left behind by the last dragons. They don't do so much traveling through the wilderness -- they go mostly by ship -- but... at first glance, they seem very similar.

Good rant, as always. That just knocked me off guard.

[limyaael]

Believe me, in this case I don't think it's very similar. :) The dragons in my story are weredragons, and the ability simply stopped being common. My protagonist believes, along with her companion, that the ability is still sleeping somewhere in her companion's blood, and has to be rekindled by a journey to a certain place. They're both Dead Wrong, as it happens. But their journey is all through prairie, not across the sea.

[cleansingbreath]

Ahh, that does sound quite different. It's funny how two stories can sound alike when you just do a bare-bones description.

Good luck with yours should you decide to write it =P

[renatus]

Again with the using of words improperly. Your #1 example is NOT a subgenre, it's a convention that can apply to any genre. You seem to be defining the term properly throughout the rest of the post, so I'm really confused as to why you wedged bildungsroman in there as well.

[limyaael]

I think I made it pretty clear, through my mention of magic and the group of characters traveling with the hero/ine, that I meant the fantasy bildungsroman, which is a subgenre of both fantasy and bildungsroman. I find just using the term a lot less clunky than saying "fantasy bildungsroman" over and over, or "the sort of story where a farmboy sets out to save the world and you know he's going to end up wielding the mystical sword, getting the girl, saving the world, and finding out he has royal blood."

[tj_dragon]

Argh! Had to skim past that last paragraph. Just started reading A Game of Throne on the insistence of my boyfriend and he's keen to make sure i don't see any spoilers.
Must say I am loving it so far, the detail is exquisite and it's made me see I have to do a lot of work on building real details my world. It seems slightly 2D in comparison

[limyaael]

I don't think there are really spoilers in there, but just things you'll probably hear about if you know anything at all about the book before you start.

[tj_dragon]

Yes I reread after I posted and realised that you were just writing generally. His writing is great and the details are amazing. Some of the plot threads seem disparate but I'm sure they'll all come together somehow.
I think they just killed Ned, which makes me sad :( but I'm thoroughly engrossed and need to keep reading.

[duckmole86]

Made me sad when Ned died, too. And I still haven't gotten to the third one (grrr.)