{"id":1726,"date":"2007-12-12T13:05:32","date_gmt":"2007-12-12T13:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/?p=1726"},"modified":"2020-09-25T08:39:44","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T07:39:44","slug":"bunnies-worldbuilding-capital-p-plots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/bunnies-worldbuilding-capital-p-plots\/","title":{"rendered":"Bunnies, Worldbuilding & Capital-P Plots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or One Author\u2019s Trip to the Woods<\/h4>\n

To me, writers are mysterious creatures. They make things with words. Pictures are easy, kids do them without thinking. Words are harder, as it implies keeping that gift of spontanteous espression, but using a sophisticated and precise tool most of us can never firmly grasp in out clumsy hands. So, when I meet an Author, I\u2019m always faintly surprised that they seem affable and quite normal, nay, even human.<\/p>\n

Thus, when I met Caitlin Sweet<\/a> in Toronto a couple of years back I only learned that she was actually an Author at the end of a marathon televison shoot. I\u2019ve since read A Telling of Stars<\/a> and The Silences of Home<\/a> and they are thinking person\u2019s fantasy, about the uneasiness of cultures in contact, the inertia of motion, the urgency of stillness.<\/p>\n

So much happens inside Authors\u2019 Heads. (Or so I imagine, since inside my illustrator\u2019s head, thought and reflexion occupy a lower position on the Jacob\u2019s ladder of creativity; image gathering and management being perched precariously atop the topmost rung.) Where do they go to find out where they are going, to what world their steps lead? Also, the scope of story to me seems incommensurable. Pictures have borders, they go in frames. Implicatus or explicandum, that is indeed the question. Pictures don\u2019t need to explain, words do. Pictures don\u2019t require punctuation. Words are harder to corral.<\/p>\n

Add the letter \u201cl\u201d to \u201cwords\u201d, shake well and you get something else entirely, which is what Authors do. It is indubitably complicated, since most Authors are reluctant to explain.<\/p>\n

So, when Caitlin replied positively to my idle but neverthess spontaneous temeritas of asking her to walk a newsletter in my shoes (one size fits all, bring your own socks, map and lunch), I was overjoyed.
\nActually, she said \u201cIf you want more than just a dog\u2019s breakfast of random musings, then arm yourself with patience.\u201d \u201cPatience is my middle name,\u201d I replied, \u201cAnd besides, dog\u2019s breakfasts are my speciality, I have copyrighted the term, am a diligent practitioner of the genre on a bi-monthly basis (this while checking the availability of the domain name in another window) and am bent on cornering the world market. No, I\u2019d love to read something personal and universal, with anecdote and sweeping implication, ubiquity and idiosyncracy, optional applications and deep meditations. Not too long. Not too short. Please. When you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here it is.
\n Prologue<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I met Jimmy and Louise when I was about five years old.\u00a0 They were bunnies, and every night they hopped into the forest to have adventures.\u00a0 It would all begin pleasantly enough: sun shining, sky blue, trees benign, even welcoming.\u00a0 But very soon (and every time!) there would be trouble.\u00a0 My heart would quicken and my blood chill as my father said, in his most sonorous voice, \u201cAnd then they came to a part of the woods where they\u2019d never been before\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

He never knew, before he spoke these words, what would happen to Jimmy and Louise this time.\u00a0 I never knew.\u00a0 Not until that moment that was both so familiar and so full of unexpected possibility \u2013 and at that moment everything changed, and a story was born.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m obviously not five, anymore (though one of my daughters is).\u00a0 But whenever I\u2019m asked about fantasy \u2013 how and why I write it; what it means to me \u2013 I still think of Jimmy and Louise, hopping headlong into wonder.
\n Part One<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Years ago, when I was scouring the Internet for unsolicited manuscript submission guidelines, I came across a sentence that seemed to sum up precisely why I\u2019d written the kind of book I\u2019d just written.\u00a0 The sentence went something like this: \u201cMake sure that your magic system is rigorously defined.\u201d<\/p>\n

I stared at the screen, suffused with indignation and scorn and questions that I was certain, at the time, were rhetorical.\u00a0 The indignation and questions went something like this: \u201cFantasy.\u00a0 Magic.\u00a0 Enchantment.\u00a0 Do these words not ring with endless possibility, wildness, wonder?\u00a0 Can such wonder really be defined, let alone rigorously?\u201d<\/p>\n

Too defensive, as usual \u2013 but I\u2019d just finished a book without chapter breaks, which featured intensely lyrical language and very little capital-P Plot.\u00a0 I\u2019d been driven to begin this book by my frustration with much of the adult fantasy I\u2019d been reading.\u00a0 Too many complicated family trees, too many names with umlauts or without vowels, too many smoky inns and Epic Battles Between Good and Evil, too many mages casting Spells for Specific Purposes \u2013 in short, too many genre stereotypes and not enough wonder.\u00a0 So I wrote a book for myself; a book I hoped that I (and a select few friends and family members) might find wondrous.\u00a0 I sent my young heroine alone into a world I hadn\u2019t yet explored myself.\u00a0 She and I discovered it together, which was sometimes unsettling, sometimes frustrating, and always exhilarating.<\/p>\n

Then, nearly eleven years after I\u2019d begun A Telling of Stars, a funny thing happened.\u00a0 The book was published.\u00a0 And in between the defensiveness of before and the pride of after came much learning and more humility.\u00a0 Working with an agent and then an editor, I inserted those chapter breaks, chopped at least a third of the rhapsodic, hyphenated adjectives and several scenes to which I\u2019d been passionately attached, added an entirely new character.\u00a0 I struggled with concepts like \u201cconflict\u201d and \u201cmomentum\u201d and \u201cshow, don\u2019t tell.\u201d\u00a0 I tried, many years after first-draft completion, to impose a kind of narrative rigour that I either hadn\u2019t been conscious of or had actively rebelled against, before.\u00a0 It was almost indescribably difficult, at times \u2013 but with the help of my wonderful professional guides I managed.\u00a0 And the book was better for it.<\/p>\n

The Silences of Home, my second book, was easy.\u00a0 I was embarrassed to admit this, at first, but now I think of this ease with guilt-free pleasure.\u00a0 I was still writing about the places and people I\u2019d created for my first book, except now there were more point-of-view characters, more plotlines, more momentum \u2013 and anyway, I was conscious of these elements now, in a way I hadn\u2019t been while writing A Telling of Stars.\u00a0 The complexity of the story meant that I needed to plan, so I sketched out chapters before I wrote them, drew diagrams (always rudimentary and entirely unsightly) of character and story arcs.\u00a0 But my world was still \u201cloose\u201d (it never did get named), still defined and driven by the characters within it, and by the sense of wonder that continued to be so important to me.\u00a0 Eureka! thought I as the chapters unfurled before me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve discovered how to do this and the rest of my career will be a breeze!<\/p>\n

And then a couple more funny things happened at once: I became aware of the term \u201cworldbuilding,\u201d and I started my third book.<\/p>\n

Part Two<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWorldbuilding.\u201d\u00a0 The word suggests blueprints, hard hats, ragged-edged parchment maps, dictionaries, compasses and astrolabes, globes set spinning according to careful design.\u00a0 Authors who talk about worldbuilding are usually rigorous and earnest, and will often spend years (even decades) ensuring that every language, island, religious sect, constellation and article of clothing in their world is defined.\u00a0 Often they won\u2019t proceed with the \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d until all of this is in place.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d never paid much attention to worldbuilding until I started planning my third book.\u00a0 I\u2019d seen it as the subject of convention panel discussions, and of analysis on author websites, but I\u2019d always been looking for other things in these places and glossed over it \u2013 and in any case, the idea, when I did spend any time thinking about it, filled me with the same sort of insecure scorn that math always had.\u00a0 Then my third book idea got big.\u00a0 It sprouted characters and plots and subplots; it became the basis of a trilogy.\u00a0 A trilogy!\u00a0 I was reeling, giddy, lost \u2013 and I thought, \u201cWow.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to have to do some serious worldbuilding to get a handle on all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I got down to it.\u00a0 Bought index cards and different coloured highlighters, sticky notes, binders.\u00a0 I did research; bookmarked endless web pages, got actual books transferred to my branch of the public library.\u00a0 I created headings on the index cards: Religion, Geography, Architecture.\u00a0 I was dizzy with distraction and anticipation.\u00a0 This would be something.\u00a0 This would be a breakthrough for me: an entirely different kind of process, and an entirely different kind of product.<\/p>\n

It did end up being a different kind of process, because the story died at 50,000 words.\u00a0 I fought this expiration, which I\u2019d actually felt coming at about the 25,000-word mark, but it was a losing battle.\u00a0 This world was too big, and I either didn\u2019t know it well enough or knew it too well, and there wasn\u2019t any room at all in it for my characters.<\/p>\n

So I came up with another idea.\u00a0 It was a very simple idea, at first, which was exciting because this felt more like \u201cme.\u201d\u00a0 But as I wrote, it did the sprouting thing.\u00a0 I filled yet more notebooks with background and backstory and even a family tree, and very soon this tale too exploded into three-book grandiosity.\u00a0 Over a year after my first failed attempt at book three, my second try went belly-up too (also at around 50,000 words).<\/p>\n

Worldbuilding, I\u2019ve decided, just isn\u2019t my thing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably not the best way to frame the writing of a book: what the process shouldn\u2019t be.\u00a0 So, in order to reintroduce myself to positive thinking, I\u2019m now trying to come up with what it should be.<\/p>\n

My first resolution (which is positive and negative in combination): write a story, don\u2019t build it.
\nMy second: even if it grows some subplots (which any good, rich story will), make sure it\u2019s rooted in simplicity.
\nMy third: enjoy it.\u00a0 Play with it.\u00a0 Let it surprise as well as delight.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll come up with much more advice to myself (and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll ignore some of it).\u00a0 But these three pieces will do for now, as I make yet another beginning.<\/p>\n

Epilogue<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, there is one more recommendation that occurs to me.<\/p>\n

Now, struggling with the creation of words and worlds, I must remember my childhood, when my love of story \u2013 and fantasy \u2013 was born.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came to a part of the woods where they\u2019d never been before.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then?
\nCaitlin Sweet, Toronto, October 11, 2007<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Caitlin Sweet\/All rights reserved<\/em><\/p>\n

MANGA<\/strong>
\nManga remain somewhat of a mystery to me. It\u2019s not my inner Luddite resisting anything and everything new, but I\u2019ve simply never learned to appreciate them. (Yet.)
\nHowever, I can now add to my curriculum vitae a walk-on part in a comic. (The first five pages follow each other, the last is several pages farther along in the story. The curious little black-hatted brigands are from a book by Tomi Ungerer.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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All images \u00a9 La Nu\u00e9e Bleue Editions, Strasbourg<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or One Author\u2019s Trip to the Woods To me, writers are mysterious creatures. They make things with words. Pictures are easy, kids do them without thinking. Words are harder, as it implies keeping that gift of spontanteous espression, but using a sophisticated and precise tool most of us can never firmly grasp in out clumsy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[450,449,451,367],"class_list":["post-1726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles","tag-a-telling-of-stars","tag-caitlin-sweet","tag-the-silences-of-home","tag-toronto"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PY8Y-rQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}