One of the reasons that got me to start writing fiction was my dissatisfaction with the way that magic in Harry Potter was never properly described or explained. The promise of it being dissected into fine details of exotic ingredients, carefully balanced measures and dramatic incantations and movements was there with the premise of a school of wizards and witches. Alas it was not to be. Harry Potter was still an excellent story, smartly written with plenty going for it and managed to still do quite well for itself at the end of the day. It also motivated me to create my own fantasy, one where details were just as important as the events in which they took place and the people responsible for them.
In essence I love world building.
Jeff Gerke, author of "Plot versus Character" claims early on that: '[people who tell him that they are setting-first novelists] are 1) really thinking of plot ideas triggered by a location or 2) really thinking of the setting as a character. Which means they're still in [his] two groups.' I find a certain fault to this reasoning.
One could argue that any good story, whether it be a book, movie, play or other form relies on a balance of certain elements to be deemed 'good' in the first place. There is a natural gut-feeling if you will that every audience has when witnessing a story that feels unbalanced. And in order to put labels to these feelings, one only has to look at the common elements all stories share. Characters are certainly one of those core elements. Plot or events is definitely another one. The first is a subject who is shaped by or shapes the second in order to create movement. It's like going from one dimension to two dimensions. One dimension is a dot. Nothing happens. But when the dot moves, it forms a line. Two dimensions.
But to say that every story only has two dimensions or two elements that shape it is simply too simplistic.
And when you look at very popular stories, one could argue that neither characters or plot drives the story forward. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings certainly follow that reasoning. But what do both sagas have in common? Mythology or world. The setting in which characters are plotted. The third dimension in which a dot not only creates a line, but does so with direction (up, down, sideways and all around).
Now what about Jeff? According to him 1) a location creates plot (which indicates that there is still an element responsible for establishing the plot element) or 2) a location is really just another character. If the latter is the case than what about the truest quality of a character, the measure by which we judge a story to be a great character piece or not: character development? A location cannot evolve. Not by its own volition. It's not a sentient being and decisions and motivations are beyond it's realm of capabilities.
My theory is that every story rests on three pillars: Character, Plot and World. With all of its exotic locales, both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are World dominant. Twilight is Character dominant. Indiana Jones and James Bond? Plot dominant. And Harry Potter? There's a little magic of all three, but as great as it was what I felt was missing was not that the characters barely grew over the course of seven years, or that the main events of every book basically boiled down to a who-dunnit, while gradually working towards a Voldemort climax. No it was the element I value most: there was a lot of promise, but too little delivery on the World element. Like Philip Pullman's excellent 'His Dark Materials' or the late Robert Jordan's engaging 'Wheel of Time' in the end the loose strings of mythology, of what could have been, were never resolved in a satisfying way.
As a little sidestep into wishful thinking: I like to think that Harry Dresden of the namesake series delivers on the promise of: what if Harry Potter grew up, fully developed into a richer tapestry of events and settings?
I may not be anywhere as good as a storyteller as any one of the fine creators of the works mentioned above, but I do like to think that I have a keen eye for the mechanics of what makes a story tick, and the World element is one of them. When a story is told well, characters will grow in ways you can't predict, buffeted by events both surprising and insightful in a world, lush with colorful history and settings of contrast. This is my aim for my Aelemental Journey series and the passionate engine behind my writing. And if that all fails, well, perhaps I can bring out a book not unlike Jeff Gerke's about Plot versus Character versus World.
Jeff Gerke, author of "Plot versus Character" claims early on that: '[people who tell him that they are setting-first novelists] are 1) really thinking of plot ideas triggered by a location or 2) really thinking of the setting as a character. Which means they're still in [his] two groups.' I find a certain fault to this reasoning.
One could argue that any good story, whether it be a book, movie, play or other form relies on a balance of certain elements to be deemed 'good' in the first place. There is a natural gut-feeling if you will that every audience has when witnessing a story that feels unbalanced. And in order to put labels to these feelings, one only has to look at the common elements all stories share. Characters are certainly one of those core elements. Plot or events is definitely another one. The first is a subject who is shaped by or shapes the second in order to create movement. It's like going from one dimension to two dimensions. One dimension is a dot. Nothing happens. But when the dot moves, it forms a line. Two dimensions.
But to say that every story only has two dimensions or two elements that shape it is simply too simplistic.
And when you look at very popular stories, one could argue that neither characters or plot drives the story forward. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings certainly follow that reasoning. But what do both sagas have in common? Mythology or world. The setting in which characters are plotted. The third dimension in which a dot not only creates a line, but does so with direction (up, down, sideways and all around).
Now what about Jeff? According to him 1) a location creates plot (which indicates that there is still an element responsible for establishing the plot element) or 2) a location is really just another character. If the latter is the case than what about the truest quality of a character, the measure by which we judge a story to be a great character piece or not: character development? A location cannot evolve. Not by its own volition. It's not a sentient being and decisions and motivations are beyond it's realm of capabilities.
My theory is that every story rests on three pillars: Character, Plot and World. With all of its exotic locales, both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are World dominant. Twilight is Character dominant. Indiana Jones and James Bond? Plot dominant. And Harry Potter? There's a little magic of all three, but as great as it was what I felt was missing was not that the characters barely grew over the course of seven years, or that the main events of every book basically boiled down to a who-dunnit, while gradually working towards a Voldemort climax. No it was the element I value most: there was a lot of promise, but too little delivery on the World element. Like Philip Pullman's excellent 'His Dark Materials' or the late Robert Jordan's engaging 'Wheel of Time' in the end the loose strings of mythology, of what could have been, were never resolved in a satisfying way.
As a little sidestep into wishful thinking: I like to think that Harry Dresden of the namesake series delivers on the promise of: what if Harry Potter grew up, fully developed into a richer tapestry of events and settings?
I may not be anywhere as good as a storyteller as any one of the fine creators of the works mentioned above, but I do like to think that I have a keen eye for the mechanics of what makes a story tick, and the World element is one of them. When a story is told well, characters will grow in ways you can't predict, buffeted by events both surprising and insightful in a world, lush with colorful history and settings of contrast. This is my aim for my Aelemental Journey series and the passionate engine behind my writing. And if that all fails, well, perhaps I can bring out a book not unlike Jeff Gerke's about Plot versus Character versus World.
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