worldbuilding: it's what's for breakfast

[lagilman]

note to all writers and would-be writers:

If you let a character describe something as "demonic?" Make sure that the culture you're writing in has demons, first (or has had contact with a culture that has demons).

In fact, make sure that every reference your characters use is culturally suppported. Yes, it's a pain in the ass, and takes time. But the editor will find them and point them out and make you go back and fix them anyway, so why not do it right the first time?

On behalf of all editors, thank you.

Comments

[girasole.livejournal.com]

As a reviewer for decades, I have to have to say this: if you are going to write in a genre, please read a lot of it. Please. So many bad fantasies, mysteries, etc. that I have reviewed show, often abysmally, that their writers have never actually read a high fantasy, a dark fantasy, a young adult title, the fairytales that might have inspired them, etc.

If you want to write, you have to read. And read and read and read.

I hope you don't mind my using your LiveJournal as a soapbox, but I have just reviewed the umpty-millionth YA fantasy written by someone who has no idea what she is doing, and it makes my stomach hurt.

[lagilman]

But then you get the people who try to write X having only ever read lots of X, and that's an equal disaster in a completely different way....

Read everything. Read lots of nonfiction. Read thrillers. Read newspapers. And listen to the way actual people speak, in various situations, for the love of God, and readable dialogue...


(I should mention in passing that the manuscript I'm editing is actually very good, and does not have the above-mentioned problems. There are some, however....)

[girasole.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree with you, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Writers write, and writers read. And read and read. What set me off was a particular title I recently reviewed with fairies and auras in it that showed absolutely no grasp of how such stories might work.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Lord, yes. Knowing what you're writing is, um, helped immeasurably by having some clue as to what makes that genre work in the first place.

One caveat: every once in a while, I'll write something, scratch my head over it, send it along to Agent!Kate, and say ummm, can you tell me what genre this is, please? Because I haven't a clue. And she'll ping back "YA, ten years old and up. You need to look at the second half of chapters three and five - too old for that age group."

So being surrounded by WIP or beta-readers that read voraciously helps, too.

(edited for hiccoughing HTML)

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

I would go crazy if I specialized in historical _whatevers_.
"Okay, I need to switch hats from Ancient Maya to the Victorian Age now..."
I suppose there are fact checkers and specialists out there for everything... I suppose?

[eeknight.livejournal.com]

Coming up with a counting system and a measuring system that would make sense to dragons was a pain in the butt. I still haven't quite cracked how they think about time; I'm always cleverly, or not-so-cleverly, skirting the issue.

[lagilman]

Hand-waving, done well, is a time-honored literary tradition.

[tina-jens.livejournal.com]

One of my students (whom I suspect is a first generation immigrant from an Eastern country) decided to write her first short story about Hell. In class last week, she admitted she knows nothing at all about the mythology of Hell, Heaven, or Lucifer's fall, but thinks maybe her story should have more religion references in it. Further class discussion revealed that she truly doesn't have any knowledge of even the most primary Bible stories.

The only saving grace (pun intended) is that the story is a slapstick humor piece about the Devil being a slacker who wants to live topside because it's more comfortable there.

All 10 of her original story ideas dealt with the Devil, demons, or Hell, so she must be intrigued by the topic, at least.