So what would people more suggest in a fantasy...
Writing out and creating a whole world and explaining it to people
or
Just getting a general idea and then dropping readers in the middle of it and expect them to deal with it
So what would people more suggest in a fantasy...
Writing out and creating a whole world and explaining it to people
or
Just getting a general idea and then dropping readers in the middle of it and expect them to deal with it
Thank you Mr. Foster!
I will keep that in mind! I am big fan of Stan Nicholls's "Orcs" and he just drops you in. No explanation nothing. It worked in the book, but I am trying to figure out how well that would work for me and what people like. Your answer helped a lot!
Jonathan
I like your answer :-) (Especially the dwarf dragoon).
Both this and the original question raise an issue that bothers me from time to time.
How much do I tell readers about the geography/scenery that elements of the story are set in? ...And how?
I was disappointed that the piece of description I shared didn't get more response. No response is always worse than negative in my view.
However, to deal with the original question...
Why set an either-or choice?
I don't think that being explained to makes for good/easy reading but I do feel that there is both some degree of need to describe both where the reader is and how things work. Having given (hopefully) enough information the reader should be trusted to carry the concepts with them and use them later to understand what is going on.
There can be a kind of "reverse engineering" element to this.
If in an action scene I am tripping over the need to explain not just that a door has jammed but how/why I know that I need to have provided some information about the doors somewhere earlier in the story.
This can be a bit difficult. One of my readers has an unerring ability to pick out these snippets of preperation and ask me "why are you telling me this here?" This is frustrating and can be infuriating. He won't accept that I am building an image for later use. I have even tried omitting the snippets - the result? You've probably guessed it - he wanted to know more detail and how/why etc... But when I showed him the work with the how/why inserted into the action he immediately said that it didn't work - because it interupted the action...
Aaaaargh!
This is a bit around-the-houses but (hopefully) it will give you some idea not just of the extremes of choice but of some of the issues in between as well.
David
I actually watch movies more so then read. Trying to change that.