So here’s a problem that has been plaguing me for the last few months that I’m hoping for some advice on what to do with:
So I want to write a fantasy story. I want to create a world, based on the late 18th and 19th century – like the Napoleonic Era or the British Victorian Era. Now, I don’t want to write these exact periods, as I’m not too keen on having to write straight-up historical fiction or an alternate history.
I want to create my own little version of these eras to set my story in. I want to define the geography the way I want it, I want to create the various countries and nations the way I want them, I want to define their cultures and their politics and their relations with each other, and I want to set them against one another in a brutal, high-stakes game of realpolitik, with kingdoms and empires vying for supremacy by way of mass armies and black powder. And then, I want to tell a story about the people caught in the middle of all of it and are trying to make their lives in the middle of the storm that is throwing them about.
So, here’s the problem I’m running into.
I want to make just this world. I don’t want any of the ’other’ fantasy elements in this setting, other than it taking place in a different world. I don’t want any magic or mages, or elves or magical beings – I want to write about people caught in a realistic, but complex world where the rulers and leaders basically play chess with their lives on a continent-sized game boards.
When I discussed this with a friend, he raised an issue with my setting being very dry. Aside from a few story-specific ideas, such as an all-girl rifle unit for instance (another problem I may need to discuss at a later time), the entire thing feels little more than a thinly-veiled parallel of 18-19th century conflicts and politics. Now, I’m certainly not going to just transplant Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and the same countries and leaders and change the names, but he raised a valid issue – overall, my setting seems to have nothing special or nothing truly fantastical about it. I could just be writing historical fiction for all the reader knows, but I’m not and it isn’t one, and the setting feels weak because of it.
This also goes back to a rule of sorts my friend and me have read about and agree very strongly on by Lawrence Watt-Evans, that if a story can be written without a fantasy element, then it should be written without one. The setting should matter for the story and especially with fantasy, should involve something ‘fantastic’ that changes that world from ours that could be explored in the story. My idea for a setting especially fails at this.
But then I go and read about Guy Gavriel Kay’s works, such as The Lion of Al-Rassan and how the setting doesn’t have magic and that his stories are drawn very closely on real history – and it all works out extremely well. Or George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, which aside from the implied presence of magic and really strange seasons, mirrors that of the English War of the Roses.
So, where does this leave my idea for my 18-19th century setting? My writing is certainly not as good as Kay or Martin’s, but considering those two examples and the possibility for involving certain themes and doing very careful research and world-building, an optimistic part of me wants to think it could actually work. It would require an ungodly amount of additional work – perhaps more than anything I’m currently anticipating for the near future – but I’m running through some scenarios for stories in the setting and I could see some of them working, but I haven’t convinced myself enough yet.
So, what does everybody think of this? Should I be concerned with my setting? Are these concerns warranted? Is my setting as dry as I’m afraid it is?
Any ideas on where I could or should be going with this? This idea is the one that keeps coming back to me no matter how many parts I'm unconvinced on, and while part of me wants to bury it and move on, another part of me wants to patch it up and get it going.
So I want to write a fantasy story. I want to create a world, based on the late 18th and 19th century – like the Napoleonic Era or the British Victorian Era. Now, I don’t want to write these exact periods, as I’m not too keen on having to write straight-up historical fiction or an alternate history.
I want to create my own little version of these eras to set my story in. I want to define the geography the way I want it, I want to create the various countries and nations the way I want them, I want to define their cultures and their politics and their relations with each other, and I want to set them against one another in a brutal, high-stakes game of realpolitik, with kingdoms and empires vying for supremacy by way of mass armies and black powder. And then, I want to tell a story about the people caught in the middle of all of it and are trying to make their lives in the middle of the storm that is throwing them about.
So, here’s the problem I’m running into.
I want to make just this world. I don’t want any of the ’other’ fantasy elements in this setting, other than it taking place in a different world. I don’t want any magic or mages, or elves or magical beings – I want to write about people caught in a realistic, but complex world where the rulers and leaders basically play chess with their lives on a continent-sized game boards.
When I discussed this with a friend, he raised an issue with my setting being very dry. Aside from a few story-specific ideas, such as an all-girl rifle unit for instance (another problem I may need to discuss at a later time), the entire thing feels little more than a thinly-veiled parallel of 18-19th century conflicts and politics. Now, I’m certainly not going to just transplant Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and the same countries and leaders and change the names, but he raised a valid issue – overall, my setting seems to have nothing special or nothing truly fantastical about it. I could just be writing historical fiction for all the reader knows, but I’m not and it isn’t one, and the setting feels weak because of it.
This also goes back to a rule of sorts my friend and me have read about and agree very strongly on by Lawrence Watt-Evans, that if a story can be written without a fantasy element, then it should be written without one. The setting should matter for the story and especially with fantasy, should involve something ‘fantastic’ that changes that world from ours that could be explored in the story. My idea for a setting especially fails at this.
But then I go and read about Guy Gavriel Kay’s works, such as The Lion of Al-Rassan and how the setting doesn’t have magic and that his stories are drawn very closely on real history – and it all works out extremely well. Or George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, which aside from the implied presence of magic and really strange seasons, mirrors that of the English War of the Roses.
So, where does this leave my idea for my 18-19th century setting? My writing is certainly not as good as Kay or Martin’s, but considering those two examples and the possibility for involving certain themes and doing very careful research and world-building, an optimistic part of me wants to think it could actually work. It would require an ungodly amount of additional work – perhaps more than anything I’m currently anticipating for the near future – but I’m running through some scenarios for stories in the setting and I could see some of them working, but I haven’t convinced myself enough yet.
So, what does everybody think of this? Should I be concerned with my setting? Are these concerns warranted? Is my setting as dry as I’m afraid it is?
Any ideas on where I could or should be going with this? This idea is the one that keeps coming back to me no matter how many parts I'm unconvinced on, and while part of me wants to bury it and move on, another part of me wants to patch it up and get it going.
