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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Discworld

Weird Worlds [AW Blog chain for June]

11 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

Deus ex machinae, Discworld, fantasy worlds, g k chesterton, gaming, god, Magic, magic and religion, pedants, Terry Pratchett, World design, worlds of wonder, writing


Worlds are difficult.

On the one hand, writing a story set in the real world has a host of issues involving

One of the strangest fantasy worlds in existence…

research – especially if you want to make sure that all the details are accurate to prevent pedants from picking holes in your creation. On the other hand, setting your tale in a made up world means you have to make up all those details in order to create things for pedants to get picky about. You could sit and debate about which is the most difficult but, in my opinion, they are both as difficult as each other – assuming you do both properly.

In terms of made up worlds, there is a belief that ‘it is only fantasy’ – meaning that you can get away with a lot of things because of the existence of magic or advanced science or whatever. However, this is not true at all. While there is scope for some strangeness in the make up of a world it is actually a really bad idea to mess around with a world higgedly piggedly and then claim that it’s fine because ‘magic can make anything happen’. The truth is that magic can do nothing of the sort.

Or, to be more precise, the human mind which we use to study the world in which we live and which we naturally also apply to the study of any worlds we encounter, including made up ones, likes to see rules in place. From the earliest humans looking up at the stars and wondering what they were right up to modern man sitting at his computer, we have attempted to make sense of everything. In the early days we created the rules of magic and religion to explain some of the phenomena that we could not explain – gods made it rain, therefore it is a good idea to sacrifce to the god of rain to keep them happy so it would rain when we wanted it to and not when we didn’t. In other words, we not only created the rules, we tried to use them to change the universe.

Rules therefore are important. As G.K Chesterton said “Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame”. I take this to mean that, in writing, it is the limitations which drive the story. Characters thrive on the challenge and adversity of not being able to do what they want, drama and emotion spring from their need to achieve something that cannot be had without a great deal of effort. The existence of magic in the world does not mean that you can ignore the rules. Fairy tales tell us what some of them are – there are only three wishes allowed (and no, you cannot ask for an infinite number of wishes), you have to stick to the path when walking in fairie, the ogre can always be outwitted… And what about other occult laws such as the doctrine of signatures or the threefold law of return? Even in worlds that are as outre and fantastic as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld there are limitations on magic. Wizards there have to be careful to avoid using it in case they attract the denizens of the Dungeon Dimensions, they are not allowed to use the number 8 because of a connection with Bel Shamaroth (and coincidentally with the 8th colour of the Discworld rainbow – Octarine) and old magic items like books and scrolls are treated like unexploded nuclear bombs – carefully shielded in lead and buried in case they go critical. This sort of thing does not happen in worlds where magic is free to run riot over the laws of the universe without some payback.

So, the lesson here is to examine your magic system carefully. Is it too easy for characters to achieve things just by using their magic? Is magic too cheap? Too easy? To lacking in consequences? Can every plot line be solved with a character simple waving their hands and declaiming ‘Deus ex machinae’?* Magic is a force which usually requires time, energy, effort, expense and many other things to achieve. There should be expensive materials (gems are common, as are things made of gold or silver or rare herbs and spices that are hard to obtain), lots of confusing and esoteric research in libraries, elaborate preparations (drawing circles, dancing, chanting, purifying yourself and your ritual space), exhausting and dramatic rituals (drumming, screaming vocals to the heavens, blood sacrifice) and all sorts of other gubbins of that ilk. To paraphrase Pratchett, by the time you have spent all your life learning the spell to summon naked women into your bedroom you are too old, tired and have a body too damaged by exposure to dangerous chemicals to do anything worthwhile with them….

Overall, it makes for a far more ‘believable’ magical world than one where ‘just anything can happen’.

*as god does, in fact, do at the end of one Simpson’s episode… but he is god, he is sort of allowed to Deus ex machinae things by dint of his job description. Though, it is best not to use this approach too often save in parody…

Ok, you know the rules on this by now. You have to visit the other people in the chain or little goblins will come out in the night and eat your shoes. And then die of leather poisoning because goblins are not supposed to eat shoes (they have intolerances, poor little dears) and it will all be your fault you heartless gits… So, to save the life of a goblin today, please read and comment on the following excellent blogs:

dclary (comic) – www.hardhobbittobreak.com (link to this month’s image)
orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to this month’s post)
Proach – http://desstories.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
pyrosama – http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
areteus – https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Diana_Rajchel – http://blog.dianarajchel.com/ (link to this month’s post)
writingismypassion – http://charityfaye.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
randi.lee – http://emotionalnovel.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
magicmint – http://www.loneswing.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Sweetwheat – http://gomezkarla.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
AFord – http://writeword.blog.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Nick Rolynd – http://30minfiction.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
dclary (blog) – http://www.davidwclary.com/ (link to this month’s post)
MelodySRV – http://createamelody.com/ (link to this month’s post)

Terry Pratchett: Tracing the evolution of a writer

24 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Captain Vimes, developing as a writer, Discworld, Fafhrd, Fritz Lieber, Havelock Vetinari, Jane Austen, Lankhmar, Pride and Prejudice, Publication, Rincewind, Snuff, Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic, The Gray Mouser, The Patrician, traditional publishers


This is something I have been thinking about for a while now. In fact, I’ve been thinking about this ever since I started reading fantasy and science fiction. I have been pondering the ways in which a writer develops. Not particularly thinking about how they improve their writing to the point where they become good enough to be published but rather considering what happens to your writing after you get published.

After all, none of us are static. No one is born a great writer and it is ludicrous to assume that the progression of the writing craft simply comes to a stop once the first novel hits the shelves. Instead a good writer is always looking to improve on what they did before and this is what I want to discuss today. To do this, I am going to use the example of Terry Pratchett.

Now, for those of you who have been in a cave for the last 20 years or so and don’t know who Terry Pratchett is, I suppose I should enlighten you. Those already up on Britain’s most popular and prolific fantasy comedy writer may feel free to skip this paragraph altogether and move onto the good stuff later…

Terry Pratchett is the writer of far far too many to count novels set in the  Discworld – a fantasy world which sits on the back of four elephants who are sat on the back of a turtle. As a world with such ludicrous metaphysics, naturally strange things happen there (many of them powered by that elusive element never found in the real world – Narrativium) and this leads to comedic situations. Pratchett has also written a number of novels set in other worlds – Strata, the Bromeliad trilogy (Truckers, Diggers and Wings), Nation and, of course, The Carpet People (his first publication in 1971). He has an OBE, a Knighthood and a number of publishing awards to his name. He is largely considered to be a very prolific writer with an average speed of one book a year. In 2007 he announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzeimers and, as well as making generous donations to various charities for that disease he has also stated his support for the right to die. He has stated that he intends to take steps to end his own life before his disease progresses to a critical point.

So, brief biographical information out of the way. If you want to know more, feel free to look him up on his Wikipedia page Time for the real meat of this piece. How has Pratchett developed as a writer since his first publication?

In order to keep things simple, I am not going to discuss The Carpet People or any of the non-Discworld novels. I am keeping thing solely in the province of his best known creation. The first Discworld book was entitled ‘The Colour of Magic’. It was published in 1983 – which totally blows my theory about the origin of its name being due to either a pun on the title of the novel, The Color of Money (published 1984), or the Robert De Niro film of the same name (released 1986). The Colour of Magic introduces us to the Discworld as a vibrant and chaotic fantasy realm and takes us on a travelogue which spans a significant part of the disc. We meet one of Pratchett’s most memorable characters – the cowardly wizard, Rincewind – and are introduced to a plethora of characters and plotlines, each of which parodies an element of fantasy literature. For example, the character of Hrun the Barbarian is your typical  musclebound thug of an adventurer, the classic Conan the Barbarian stereotype, while Bravd the Hublander and the Weasel (two characters who have brief appearances in the story) are clearly derived from Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. A part of the intention behind the Discworld is also to subvert many of the fantasy cliches and so Rincewind, our main hero for the first few books, is a wizard who is neither brave nor capable of casting spells. Admittedly, the last one is due to him being unable to learn spells due to one of the eight, great spells that helped create the universe being stuck in his head, but even after he later gets rid of that impediment he still has a major problem actually using any magic. We also later (in the sequel, The Light Fantastic) get Cohen the Barbarian, the ludicrously wonderful subversion of the Conan schtick in the form of a barbarian hero who is still adventuring well into his eighties.

From these parodies in the early books, there slowly develops a complex and involved world. As the series develops we see more and more of the world and meet more characters. For many of the early books there is still the sense that Discworld is a parody of a fantasy realm and that Ankh Morepork, Pratchett’s fantasy city, is a play on the concept of Lieber’s Lankhmar.

At some point, however, things change. It is a slow change and a subtle one, taking place over a number of novels and with the development of several storylines and characters. I think it begins properly with the first Night watch book, Guards! Guards!, as Pratchett clearly needed a grittier and more realistic setting for the somewhat noirish adventures of Captain Vimes and the members of the Night Watch. This series takes the ruler of Ankh Morepork, the Patrician, and turns him into a more rounded character by planting him in the position of the ‘City Mayor’ as popularised by many a US cop show. It also rounds out the city, letting readers see the seedier side of the streets and goes into more detail regarding the role of the Thieves Guild in enforcing the law. At some point between Guards! Guards! and the latest offering, Snuff, Ankh Morepork ceases to be a parody of Lankhmar. Instead it becomes something more akin to a strange hybrid of Lankhmar with London and New York of the early 19th Century. The characters take on a decidedly Regency cast to them, something which is emphasised in Snuff’s parodying of Austen’s Pride and Prejudce, and there are themes inherent in the storylines which harken to concepts of the industrial revolution and the social, political and economic changes which eventually led to the Victorian era. These issues are especially apparent in the Moist books – Going Postal, Making Money and the soon to be released, Raising Taxes – where Vetinari is seen to be actively in the process of modernising the city and such issues as mobile phone companies and the gold standard are challenged with satire.

In other words, Discworld represents Pratchett’s evolution as a writer from someone who only wants to poke fun at the fantasy trends of the time to someone with the confidence and ability to tackle serious, real world issues by poking fun at examples from literature and history.  I believe that all writers undergo this process of maturation. Initially, in a desire to get published, many writers are conservative about what they want to write about – seeking popular topics which may allow good sales. However, post publication, they begin to gain more confidence and feel as if they can stretch their muscles more and be experimental in what they write. In Discworld, Pratchett gives us the opportunity to see that process in action in a way that is not possible with many writers. We have 28 years of books, all set in the same world by the same writer, to show it.

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