Eight years ago, in 2015, I wrote an epic rant about the use of language in fantasy. Unfortunately it was buried in a newsletter about game development, so after a while I couldn't remember where that was anymore. But what is buried always comes out again sooner or later. Here it is, still as relevant.

Let's start with faux-Shakespearean English. TVTropes has an entire article about it, but the tl;dr version is, peppering your characters' speech at random with old verbal forms misremembered from King James' Bible does not count as "medieval flavor". For one thing, the Middle Ages officially ended over two centuries before Old Will's time. (Now, if you're going for a quasi-Renaissance setting, that's different, but how many fantasy writers do that?) Second, you most likely don't know the rules of early 17th-century English, let alone older dialects, and you're making a big ridiculous mess of it.

So what is there to do? One good idea is to do nothing in particular. Just like Captain Picard speaks modern English (because most people can't begin to guess what we'll talk like in a few centuries), your medieval characters can stick to the language of their audience. Of course, you'll want to avoid ultra-modern words such as psychology, but for the most part you should be good. Another would be to read older books — but not too old; 19th century should do fine — and see how writers used to word things back then, because it's more than just a matter of vocabulary. You want to pick just enough mannerisms from times past that your readers might feel the fingers of days long gone clinging to the edge of your utterances. Just don't overdo it, because readers will mock you.

The other issue is imposing on your readers the boring cosmology of yet another Standard Fantasy Setting. How many different ways can you tell people that blah blah orcs, blah elves and dwarves, blah dragons? Don't get me wrong, exposition can be great. It's a tool in the writer's arsenal, and anyone who tells you to avoid it is a fraud. But exposition should give the reader useful information. What is unique about your setting? What does the reader need to know right now that can't be shown through a bit of action down the road?

Speaking of that, the Standard Fantasy Setting is a useful trope. It's the perfect shortcut — the reader will instantly figure out the basic rules, and you can get right on with the story. But that's yet another argument for avoiding lengthy introductions that say nothing new. On the flipside, all the weight now rests on the characters. If they fail to capture the reader's interest and sympathy, there's no sense of wonder to fall back on. Are you a good enough writer?

That is the question (still).

No, this isn't about fictions we construct about the world through software and stories alike. That's a whole other can of worms. This is about work.

When I first started coding, everyone was telling me to draw a flowchart first, and/or write pseudocode. I dutifully tried doing that, but it didn't seem to help me get any code written afterwards, let alone better code.

Later the UML craze started. The only thing I ever managed to do with UML was tie myself into knots with an overly complex class diagram that never became code either.

In the end I learned to simply write code. Because that's what the computer understands. That's how I progress towards getting the machine to play a game, or solve a problem. Everything else is make-believe.

Planning is good, but it's not actually going out there in the field to do the thing you were planning for.

Two three months passed without any post here at all. Not for the first time, either. That's what I get for making it mainly a writing blog and then not doing much writing.

Well, except for one thing. I've been working on and off on a wiki for my new sci-fi setting (caution: large file, requires Javascript). It's been slow going because I keep getting distracted, but also because often it feels very tiring to work on it even as it's also fun and rewarding. A curious contrast.

At least it helps my friends. It's not every day that your work gives birth to a shared setting. Believe me, I tried that on purpose once or twice. Doesn't work that way. All we can do is write, share and hope.

Otherwise, I've been enjoying summer. Getting air, seeing friends and relatives, being creative in other ways... You know, life.

See you around while we still can. Cheers, and thanks for reading.

At the top of my reading page as of this writing is a very nice post about worldbuilding blunders in Harry Potter. By pure coincidence, these days I'm writing my first substantial piece of fiction in two years, which is way too long. And the story takes place in a brand new setting, because I couldn't make it easy on myself. Where's the fun in that?

Moreover, my modus operandi is to make it up on the go, according to the needs of the story (for reasons I explained repeatedly in the past, but briefly: Tolkien was a goddamn genius, and his insistence on building the world first still almost doomed LOTR; you're not nearly as smart, or a tenured college professor). Lacking both the skills and the inclination to do the math on everything, it would be easy for me to mess up just as badly.

The trick? Be humble! As a writer, anyway. Don't pretend you know everything about the world you're building. Who died and made you an all-knowing deity? Your characters are people, so look through their eyes. There's always going to be more of everything, just past the horizon. Leave room for it. Where else will they find mystery and adventure? ( Read more... )

A recent tweet reminded me of this famous adage by J.R.R. Tolkien:

"I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit."

Only... that wasn't wise. Tolkien toiled for 12 years on Lord of the Rings. He struggled with it and almost gave up many times. His job suffered badly due to burnout from working on the book. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason why he didn't give up was fear of the merciless teasing he would have gotten from his good friend C.S. Lewis of Narnia fame.

That's my headcanon, anyway. Fact is, even great men can be wrong. Or, as a friend quickly pointed out, a genius is often the wrong person to learn from. They have extraordinary ability levels, you see. That's why we call them geniuses. Try doing things the hard way like they did, you're much more likely to fall flat on your face, and not even know why so you can learn from the failure.

I tried, you know. Tried doing just what Tolkien advised. It only wasted my creative drive for years.

My first sci-fi setting started out with a (galactic) map, and a grand history of the future. I carefully placed there a variety of worlds, where all kinds of different stories could happen. The technology and politics, too, were designed with purpose.

Can you guess how many stories fell out of it? ( Read more... )

Some speculative fiction authors like high-tech. Others prefer fantasy. Quite a few write both. Not nearly enough combine them, for reasons I can only guess at. It's kind of silly, considering the two biggest franchises ever mix them together freely: Star Wars more blatantly with its Force ghosts and prophecies, Star Trek disguising its gods and spirits as omnipotent beings and energy-based life forms, respectively. But to each their own.

Recently I've been following a couple of fantasy webcomics that rely heavily on magitech. To spare you a trip to TVTropes, that's when magic is so commonplace and reliable it can provide all the modern comforts, such as smartphones and computers, while still being based on glowy runes and wand-waving. (Presumably they have refrigeration as well, not that fantasy authors ever seem to remember one of the most disruptive inventions in the modern era.) It's kind of Clarke's Third Law in reverse, though most such settings settle for less advancement. And something about it puzzles me.

Isn't the whole point of magic in fiction to be a mysterious, fickle force people may be able to use, but never truly master? If you want high-tech, why not use actual tech? Fine, so you'd rather not mix flavors (see Star Trek above), but when your fantasy characters carry glowy screens in their pockets they can use to chat across the planet and look stuff up in magical libraries... I'd say you've already mixed things up. Might as well own up to it.

Better yet, unless it's important for the story, why bother explaining what all those advances happen to be based on in your setting, one way or the other? I tried, and it wasn't at all hard to write the first two chapters of a story without once mentioning a technical or magical term. The setting did end up resembling Dune, not that anyone remarked on it, but I even managed to have obvious elves and dwarfs without using either word once.

For some reason, it's Japanese creators who usually come up with these "weird Earth" settings that are almost, but not entirely unlike the real world. And we only seem to notice the giant robots, or else the magical girls.