The Realm, The Land, Middle Earth, Narnia – I
presume you have spent some time visiting at least one of them. I know I have.
And, if all goes well with the ‘travel brochures’, Drageverden will soon be
another fantasy ‘tourist’ destination. However, I expect people will only visit
if the place promises immersive adventure!
World-building in fantasy is as critical to a
plot as character development. When done well, it can transport the reader so
absolutely that they yearn for the place long after finishing the book.
I’ll share with you some of my challenges, and
the process I go through in creating a land that I am confident is not only
believable but tangible, tactile and immersive for my readers.
One of the difficulties I’ve struggled with at
times is purple prose. As writers, we sometimes lean to the flowery – long,
buttery descriptives – waxing poetic, sprinkled with a fine, magical dust, like
morning dew settling on the vine and… oh, I beg your pardon!
I have learned to 1) be succinct, 2) alternate between long and short/slow and faster-paced sentences, and 3) avoid overuse of adverbs. Purple prose detracts a reader as much as a similar life scenario. We’ve all been in one of those awkward moments when someone has talked for well over twenty minutes about, say, fruit flies because, well, they’re a fruit-fly expert, and we nod, and nod, and nod and mm-hmm — until we nod off.
Another habit I picked up came from
kindergarten: Show & Tell. I love to tell people things. He saw a dog.
Maggie was angry. The bird was tired. The danger is that by doing so, a writer
creates a barrier rather than an invitation. We must ‘walk’ as we write,
immersed in the land and noting its effect upon our character/s. I must show,
not tell.
Like all trips we take, we discover as we go.
I make an effort to step from character interiority back into Drageverden
regularly, to generate an interaction between the two. It is easy to blurt out
all the details of a place, but that is not how we naturally absorb our
surroundings, and it quickly becomes tedious. Our character must shake as she
enters the darkness of the spider’s lair, snap her head back at the whisper
over her shoulder, brace with teeth clenched as the dust cloud rises from the
horde cresting the last knoll – and we must be there with them.
Tolkien carried his readers along –
experiencing the ground under a hobbit’s foot, smelling the foul mead and men
of the Prancing Pony, and anticipating the Brandywine narrowing near the ferry,
still far too distant to escape the Nazgul. He rarely tells. What’s more
important is that no matter who you talk to, Middle Earth is different for
everyone. Why? Tolkien let the scenes play out as much by emotion as he
did geography and although he painted a vivid picture of the land, he left our
conviction of and immersion in Middle Earth to fill in the deeper details.
So I haven’t provided you much regarding
DrageVerden. Oh, I could talk, believe me – ask anyone who knows me and you’ll
soon discover I rarely shut up — but you must ‘walk’ alongside the giants
crossing the Arvian Plains to understand the shock of it all, or spend a day
with Ka the drakehawk to experience her love for the Swamps
of Ierloquetze. Brochures never do a place justice. You have to book the
holiday.
Okay, okay! I’ll give you a little
foreshadowing prior to your trip: Drage is
Danish for dragon. Verden means land.
Happy Trails!
Simon
Lindley is an author, musician and intrepid explorer in the real world and
along the rolling landscapes of his imagination. His book, Mannethorn's Key,
the first in the Key of Life Trilogy, will be released in print and ebook
formats January 5, 2018 at fine retailers everywhere. It is also available for pre-order now.
