Fantasy Evolution question

Sounds fine to me. I don't think anything in fantasy is too big a stretch as long as the world building is internally coherent.

If you can make it sound plausible, I don't see why it shouldn't work. If a writer makes a strange element enough a part of their story, I don't bat an eyelash. It actually sounds quite interesting to me.

Have you read the Aquatic Ape theory? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_theory http://www.aquaticape.org/

Not all that strong as theory but perhaps it contains some stuff you can use.

Vaxil said:

Hey guys, I have a evolution question from a fantasy perspective.

Have any of you ever made your created species 'evolved' from anything?
I know there are some major limits to evolution, but how far can it go in a fantasy story? Specially, I was wanting to make my land-based species (which are in a medieval like time stage) have evolved froma water based lifeform, honestly, I'm talking mermaids here. I know in Fantasy most things are possible, but really does that sound TOO crazy?

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Dude, it's fantasy. You can have your land-based species evolve from flying eggplants. Fantasy is whatever you can get your reader to go along with.

You just have to write well. People will accept practically anything in a fantasy setting, if you write it so that they enjoy reading about it. Be consistent--fantasy that breaks its own rules the minute they get inconvenient tends to be annoying--but beyond that...it's fantasy. Don't be afraid to be fantastical.

As long as you're being consistant, go for it. People that judge fantasy and SF by what's "actually possible" are curmudgeons, and no one listens to them anyway.*

It's like the people who make fun of X-Men's (mis)use of the punctuated equalibrium theory because it's bad science. I'm just like "yeah, and after all that research they did to make absorbing sunlight through the skin and turning it into kinetic eye-lasers plausible, too..." As long as it obeys its own laws, it is under no obligation to obey ours.

*I jest-- please don't kill me.

It's Fantasy. You can use magick if you wish. That's the prime difference between Fantasy and SF in today's genre boxes.

caw.

My co-writers and I have a race that evolved from a feline ancestor into a humanoid. (Still with many feline traits.)

Vaxil said:

Hey guys, I have a evolution question from a fantasy perspective.

Have any of you ever made your created species 'evolved' from anything?
I know there are some major limits to evolution, but how far can it go in a fantasy story? Specially, I was wanting to make my land-based species (which are in a medieval like time stage) have evolved froma water based lifeform, honestly, I'm talking mermaids here. I know in Fantasy most things are possible, but really does that sound TOO crazy?

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If you're using evolution, remember that evolution takes place over long periods of time in small steps. A water based species won't suddenly become a land based one - and there's usually a "trail" in nature showing the development of the species, mainly in the fossil record. Could add an extra dimension to your story, and make it seem plausible.

Evolution is not a directional process. It has no specific end point or goal, so anything is possible. As mentioned, if enough time is allowed, anything is possible as long as the life form has adaptations that allow it to inhabit a specific environment and ecological niche. There is your key. In making up a new species, give some thought to the specific ecology of the organism. To make it even more "realistic" or believable, use that imaginary ecological niche to put limitations on the activities of your species, and to give it special advantages within its niche. Then, you will have a new species that has its own tension-generating limitations, and its own special characteristics that create tense situations (or pleasurable ones) for your characters.

blacbird said:

It's Fantasy. You can use magick if you wish. That's the prime difference between Fantasy and SF in today's genre boxes.

caw.

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I'm sorry, but I just don't agree with that. I think that fantasy (at least, fantasy stories which have strong world-building behind it) really should explore where everyone came from, what this does to their culture, who they are, and so on.

I really think that fantasy would be stronger and more stable as a genre (I realize that sales are through the roof right now, but that's a recent thing; I'm talking about the writing) if people didn't say "Hell, it's fantasy, they can come from magic, or eggplants, or whatever."

In sci-fi, people plan out the entire history of alien races they intend to use. In that most wonderful of all fantasies, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had the Elvish history well mapped out, had all the histories well mapped out. I think that's very important.

It's partially important, because it means that when you go to name places, name mystical swords, stuff like that, you know where the names come from. They may still be made-up words, but they're named after famous events or people in the world. In A Canticle for Leibowitz, a town named after St. Leibowitz himself has its name slowly degrade over the generations until it's the city of Sanly Bowitz.

As for the evolution question: that's really up to you. I generally have a clear idea of where in the world any species of mine have come from, and this affects a great many of the starting points I give their cultures.

Don't cut the magic out of your story, but please, throw in some science. It doesn't have to be sci-fi, but if it's a naturally-deep work of fantasy, then you might find yourself on more stable footing to tell a story in that world, and that might mean that you don't need 10,000 pages to tell that story. And if you DO need 10,000 pages to tell your story, you have a large and varied, and detailed world in which to tell it.

LeeFlower said:

As long as you're being consistant, go for it. People that judge fantasy and SF by what's "actually possible" are curmudgeons, and no one listens to them anyway.*

.

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Fantasy, yes, but SF had better be plausible, and if not possible, then certainly not impossible. Fantasy and SF are not the same thing, and plausible science is the primmary difference. The X-Men are a lot of fun, but science fiction they aren't. It's pure fantasy.

Are they still mermaids? Or are they fully land-based now, with some vestigial scales and stuff?
Are there mermaids that they share a common ancestor with?

It sounds really cool to me, and not at all offputting.


Though... (tangent!)... please don't have anyone spout genetics if you don't understand it. Hopefully your characters don't know anything about it, anyway, in a medieval setting; so shouldn't be a problem, right?

Dawn Cook's Truth series is.. in some ways quite wonderful, but the plot revolves around genetics that makes no sense, and she reveals enough that one can tell it makes no sense.

PeeDee said:

I'm sorry, but I just don't agree with that. I think that fantasy (at least, fantasy stories which have strong world-building behind it) really should explore where everyone came from, what this does to their culture, who they are, and so on.

I really think that fantasy would be stronger and more stable as a genre (I realize that sales are through the roof right now, but that's a recent thing; I'm talking about the writing) if people didn't say "Hell, it's fantasy, they can come from magic, or eggplants, or whatever."

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Here, I agree entirely.

When people "just" make things up it all too often ends up patchy, superficial, and not nearly as weird and interesting as you could get if you grouned it in some science.

I think you need to know what the evolutionary pressures were that affected your species, and such, to get them where they are.

As for the evolution question: that's really up to you. I generally have a clear idea of where in the world any species of mine have come from, and this affects a great many of the starting points I give their cultures.

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I am so glad you said starting point.
I think it is, if anything, even more important to have an idea of how a culture evolved, or you can't write it with a sense of history.

Don't cut the magic out of your story, but please, throw in some science.

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See, here's where I disagree a little.
If you want to have magic in a world, I think you have to do more work. You can't just throw in some science and then throw in some magic and hope they play well together (well, you can, but I think that's a problem with the genre, some.)

Because if there is magic, then it has probably affected everything from primordial goo onwards.

I think if we want to be good fantasy worldbuilders, we need to think about magic as a problem, not a solution; and then we need to come up with solutions.

What evolutionary pressures did magic offer? How did various species adapt to take advantage of it?
Stuff like that.

EDIT: Though, the more dreamlike fantasy (like Patricia McKillip's and some of LeGuin's) probably shouldn't be overscienced; it's getting at a truth that's emotional rather than literal.
Which is different from going for literal and being lazy about it, which too many of us do.

My favorite example of how magic exists alongside the rest of the world is Terry Pratchett's handling of ocatrain (magic) in his Discworld books. I love that it's seen as a somewhat dodgy thing that's probably best left alone.

(after all, Discworld's wizards have the primary responibility to refrain from doing magic. As Terry says, Any idiot can fail to perform magic; that's easy as anything. It takes a Wizard to be able to turn you into a frog, but refrain from doing so.)

And yes, PLEASE make this stuff your starting points. If your species hasn't changed in seventeen thousand years, then you have a major problem in your story. Just because Icelandic language hasn't changed since three thousand years ago, that doesn't mean that the culture is even remotely the same, after all.

I'm not saying haphazardly throw magic and science together like ingredients in a stew. A better analogy would be considering them to be o different types of concrete that you very carefully and delicately use to support different parts of the building you're making.

Shweta said:

EDIT: Though, the more dreamlike fantasy (like Patricia McKillip's and some of LeGuin's) probably shouldn't be overscienced; it's getting at a truth that's emotional rather than literal.

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I agree entirely. After all, I don't scientifically want to know how Mrs. Which transports the kids in A Stitch in Time or A Swiftly Tilting Planet....I just want them to be transported, and sit there and go "wow" at the story.

Jamesaritchie said:

Fantasy, yes, but SF had better be plausible, and if not possible, then certainly not impossible. Fantasy and SF are not the same thing, and plausible science is the primmary difference. The X-Men are a lot of fun, but science fiction they aren't. It's pure fantasy.

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I agree with you that SF has to be plausible. The curmudgeons to which I am referring are the ones that will snidely toss a book aside because the author gives a ship artificial gravity through handwavium. If artificial gravity is somehow the point of the story, by all means an author should explain it. But if it's just a way to get characters from one place to another without serious zero-g related health problems, or just a background part of the setting, who cares? Just don't sell it to Analog and move on.

I suppose this gets into your definition of SF, though. Some people go by Card's definition (If you cast a spell to do it it's fantasy; if you press a button it's SF), but I know that a lot of people are stricter about that. To me, it's more important that a story be internally consistant than that it be right. I like a good Hard SF story as much as the next person, but I don't hold all the SF I read to anywhere near that standard unless the story requires it.

:cheers LeeFlower and PeeDee on:

Some handwaves are always gonna be necessary. But I think we're all in agreement that when everything's handwaved the world can fail to be plausible.

And the point, eventually, is always to get the reader to put the book down (at the end, not before) going "Wow". Right? Not "Man, I just don't see how that desert species can survive".

Anyway, all this goes to say, I love the mermaid idea, and will buy it as a premise no matter what; but I'll find it richer if there is some hint at an evolutionary path or something.

I agree with PeeDee (and others) that you should do the legwork to fill out your background. If you do it right, it will make your world more realistic in ways that readers won't really be able to identify. The details will just 'fit.'

My only word of caution is that while it's certainly a good thing to write with a sesne of history, it is rarely a good thing to shove a bunch of history into the story. You need to know how your characters evolved into mermaids. Your readers probably do not (unless the plot somehow revolves around their biological evolution). Toss cookie bits in here and there for the biology geeks to pick up, but don't put your story on the backburner to make room for a history of the world.

No matter what name one gives the type of story (fantasy, SF, speculative fiction, whatever), what I look for as a reader is internal consistency. Does the world of the story hold up? It doesn't really matter to me if the story world does not match what we know of the real world. It's the "what if?" factor which draws me.

To answer the OP, yes, in my fantasy WIP I've considered the origin of species and also how this society evolved over the millenia. What I'm still trying to figure out is how much the characters in the story actually know about how their world works. Magical disasters have caused other species to be created. Also, random magic causes individual people to change into other forms, not always for the better.

A land-based lifeform evolved from a water-based lifeform, I'd accept in a story. I'd wonder how their evolution affects them. Do they still yearn for the water? What do they look like? And from a writer's perspective, what does defining their evolution like this do for the story?

Don't be afraid to steal from the real world, either.

Amphibians evolved from aquatic ancestors, and there are lung-fish today that can walk onto land. Whales and porpoises went the other way, from land animals to sea-dwelling. Seals and Sea lions are halfway in-between. So there's lots of source material already without having to wave your hands too much.

In the fantasy novel I have recently finished (and now am trying to sell), I built my non-human species by speculating about the evolutionary pressures which would cause a close human relative to develop the physical traits we normally associate with elves and dwarves. Then I applied evolutionary psych theories to these evolutionary pressures to develop behavioral social structures that are truly different from the human norm.

It's a lot of work, but I think the results are quite interesting.

I also developed a realistic method for dragons to breathe fire, and created a unique life cycle for this classic species that I have never seen before. (The beauty of this idea is that it also fit the symbolic theme structure).

I don't "explain" it outright, but any biologist or naturalist should be able to deduce from the clues in the text.

Of course, it helps if you have studied molecular biology in graduate school, have the technical proficiency to read journal articles on socio-biology, and a lot of patience. I have over 40,000 words in pre-writing notes for this novel, including rough evolutionary histories for my races as well as theories of warfare built around socio-biological concepts.

I am not entirely sure this method is worth all the work. I also wonder if my time might have been better spent by honing my writing craft.

In my urban fantasy, I have Man descending from the apes.

I know, I know. Far fetched you say, but I said it was a fantasy.

So anything is possible.

One thing to remember is that saying species B is descended from species A does not necessarily mean that species A no longer exists. And it doesn't necessarily mean that only species B descended from species A. There could be descendant species C, D, and E as well.

What this means is that you can add depth to your proposed evolutionary path by including other species that are related to your dominant species, at least as similar to them as other primates are to humans.