Killing the Minnows to Save the Whale

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

I wrote a lengthy blog post today about realism versus plausibility in speculative fiction writing.  The Cliff Notes version:  the post is based on a quote from Gary Gygax about readers being able to swallow a whale but choke on a minnow.  Readers of speculative fiction are willing to buy into stories about aliens and vampires and ghosts and such, but get your "real world" facts wrong and it can mess up your story.  I give several examples in the article.  The premise of the article is that there is a difference between a story being realistic as opposed to being plausible within the confines of the world you are setting up in your story.

I think that world-building, making sure everything in the story makes sense within the confines of the story, is often overlooked by new writers.  Particularly in speculative genres where we are just "making it up" anyway and people don't want facts to get in the way of the story.  But I point out a couple of ideas to overcome the problems of facts getting in the way, and show a couple of examples of the point. 

I thought it might be a good assignment, so to speak, to do some nuts and bolts craft discussion on the matter.  Maybe folks want to share some of the "minnows" they have come across in stories (either trad published or indie) that made it hard to enjoy the story, and how it could have been resolved within the story itself.  Anyone come across something in a story recently that just didn't seem plausible within the scope of the book?  How do you think it might have been fixed?  Did it distract you enough from the story to make the story unenjoyable?

Or, if you are a writer who has painted yourself into a corner and need some advice on how to fix a "minnow" in your story, you can share your problem and maybe the collective brilliance of KB can help you.

[Chrystalla]

That's an excellent post addressing an issue that is very common in writing. From what characters eat, to what they say or how they react - all can destroy a story.
But as you say, the important thing for us writers is to make sure to address the issue in the story so that the reader is assured that in the story world it all makes sense (if we manage that, if not, then it's another epic failure...)

Also: Krista D. Ball has been writing a book about food and drink in fantasy, which I think can prove invaluable to writers.

Knowledge is very important, research, making sure one knows what can pass for believable, and having as many eyes as possible on a story to catch all those deadly minnows... 

[Edward M. Grant]

This is similar to the recent discussion here about SF writing; SF readers don't care about impossibilities like faster than light travel, but they'll balk at obvious errors with subjects they do understand.

It kind of reminds me of Dan Brown's books: I'm willing to believe that ancient conspiracies still exist in the modern world, but the blatant flaws in his understanding of technology pull me straight out of the story when I run into them.

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

I have a friend who is a professional chef.  All of his RPG characters have the Cooking profession and he gets very serious about what the characters are eating during games.  He once had a twenty minute argument with the game master over how a noble was serving trout at a banquet when they were in the middle of a desert and there was no refrigeration.  

Something I didn't address in the article but probably will in a future article is that if you are going to fiddle with the reader's expectations regarding established genre tropes, state that somehow up front.  When I read a story with "elves" I have a strong visual in my head based on over a decade of reading high fantasy novels.  If you are going to call something an elf, either make sure it resembles the reader's expectations of an elf OR make sure it is clear you are using the term differently in the scope of your game.  Have an understanding of what your audience might expect, and make sure what you present in the book addresses those expectations.  

[JRTomlin]

It's horses that tend to do it for me. There is a well-known series of fantasies where he sticks a staff under his horse's girth! *boggle* I may have thrown it across the room. There was another lesser known one where they didn't even bother to unsaddle the horses when they camped for the night. When the horses were driven off by attackers, my reaction was: SERVES THEM RIGHT!

Absolutely, I can buy fire balls and magical runes that knock out whole cities, but know how to take care of the horse! And that they can't gallop for hours at a time!  

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

When the horses were driven off by attackers, my reaction was: SERVES THEM RIGHT!

Those horses weren't driven off.  They took the opportunity to escape their abusive owners! 

[Krista D. Ball]

Also: Krista D. Ball has been writing a book about food and drink in fantasy, which I think can prove invaluable to writers.

*clears throat*

What would the captain of an airship eat in a Steampunk novel? How would a poor widow use a Baron’s table scraps to feed her children? How did northern people preserve their food?

These questions and more are explored in What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank: A Fantasy Writer’s Guide to Food and Beverages. Canadian author Krista D. Ball takes readers on a fantastical and historical journey through the ages and explores travel, foraging, water, and food security. From how to feed an army in enemy territory to the influence of trade, What Kings Ate gives fantasy writers the tools to create new conflicts and add authenticity to their worlds.

About The Author

Canadian author Krista D. Ball combines her love of the fantastical, an obsession with potage, and a history degree from Mount Allison University to bring fantasy writers and food lovers a new and unique reference guide.

It sounds great, doesn't it? I just need to finish it by the due date on the contract  

[Kevis 'The Berserker' Hendrickson]

if you are going to fiddle with the reader's expectations regarding established genre tropes, state that somehow up front.  

You mean like creating vampires that sparkle and walk around in daylight?

[Krista D. Ball]

Absolutely, I can buy fire balls and magical runes that knock out whole cities, but know how to take care of the horse! And that they can't gallop for hours at a time!  

It's funny you mention that. I'm doing the final edit on my manuscript for a publisher (Tranquility's Blaze - you probably remember that one, JR), and the distance from Point A to Point B is just shy of 24 hours at a full horse gallop. They lament that they will need to keep stopping to change horses and there weren't places every hour to stop and change and they'd waste too much time changing horses every hour, so they'd need to slow it down enough to "only" need to change the horses every four hours so that they could get their horses on the return trip still alive  

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

You mean like creating vampires that sparkle and walk around in daylight?

Ye gods I don't believe I am going to say this and sort of defend her...

There IS a historical basis for vampires walking around during the day.  Several Eastern European folklores involving vampires had vampires out and about during the day.  There is even one vampire variant that is constantly ON FIRE and hunts other vampires. 

But the sparkling thing, yeah, that only works if your market is tween girls that like glitter...

[George Berger]

I can easily swallow all the weirdness and strangeness and insanity in Catch-22... but the line about bit about rescue helicopters scouring the sea looking for survivors catches in my throat, as it were, every time I read it.

Ever since it was pointed out to me, the utterly impractical uselessness of Hogwarts' system of currency disgusts me. Witches, wizards, flying cars, talking hats? No problem. Coinage based around prime numbers? Sorry, just not going to happen.

My partner was playing Skyrim the other day, and was reading a note their character had gotten as part of some quest. "Strange that you can read that," I commented, somewhat randomly, "given your character's background and the lack of an education system." Dragons and magic and so on? No problem. Apparently universal literacy with no infrastructure? Extremely suspicious...

[Chrystalla]

Ye gods I don't believe I am going to say this and sort of defend her...

There IS a historical basis for vampires walking around during the day.  Several Eastern European folklores involving vampires had vampires out and about during the day.  There is even one vampire variant that is constantly ON FIRE and hunts other vampires. 

But the sparkling thing, yeah, that only works if your market is tween girls that like glitter...

In Greek folklore they live just like normal people, have families etc. until someone recognizes them as someone they'd seen being buried... 

But yeah, people know folklore through movies and bestsellers nowadays. Like the werewolf vs vampire thing? In folklore of Eastern Europe, they are often one and the same creature...

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

My partner was playing Skyrim the other day, and was reading a note their character had gotten as part of some quest. "Strange that you can read that," I commented, somewhat randomly, "given your character's background and the lack of an education system." Dragons and magic and so on? No problem. Apparently universal literacy with no infrastructure? Extremely suspicious...

This is something that has been irking me as I play Star Wars the Old Republic.  How many languages does my character actually know?  I mean, every other alien is talking to be in its native language, and here I am only speaking Basic (even when playing an alien species!) and yet I automatically understand everything they are saying to me.

[Rin]

This is something that has been irking me as I play Star Wars the Old Republic.  How many languages does my character actually know?  I mean, every other alien is talking to be in its native language, and here I am only speaking Basic (even when playing an alien species!) and yet I automatically understand everything they are saying to me.

In TOR, the majority of characters Basic and/or Huttese (the PC speaks both, and there are a few exceptions) - so it's not a case of knowing the Bothan languages, Rodian languages, etc - more that they're the two languages used mostly for galactic communication and trade.

[Gregory Lynn]

You mean like creating vampires that sparkle and walk around in daylight?

I am afraid you done touched a nerve. Vampires SHOULD walk around in daylight. The whole thing about daylight killing vampires comes, as far as I can tell, from the film Nosferatu where Count Orlock dies that way.

Bram Stoker researched all the vampire legends he could find very thoroughly and tried to stay as true to them as possible in Dracula. You will note that he has Dracula walking around London in the daytime.

It bugs the ever loving p*ss out of me when people think the hollywood daylight thing is in any way reflective of reality when it isn't.

As for my own contribution, I will note that in John Scalzi's Last Colony, I have no problem with the colonization of space or the advent of skip drives that actually move people into an alternate universe, but the idea that someone would colonize a place called Roanoke without knowing it was going to be a recipe for disaster was a bit much.

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

In TOR, the majority of characters Basic and/or Huttese (the PC speaks both, and there are a few exceptions) - so it's not a case of knowing the Bothan languages, Rodian languages, etc - more that they're the two languages used mostly for galactic communication and trade.

Bowdarr is not speaking Huttese!  lol

[Rejean]

Isn't that sparkly vampire thing done yet?


Meh

*goes and looks in fridge*

[Monique]

The idea that vampires *should* do anything is odd to me.

[Rin]

I know this is probably going to get me crucified, but...modwitch's books make me choke. Not the magic stuff, not the game stuff. There's an MMO in the series that is being written by someone who knows nothing about MMOs (please put the spears away, I'm still a huge fan) - and there's areas described as "levels" like in old-school games, rather than the open world of the majority of MMOs (ie, when a character has a character's level elevated "a whole hour in Level 7 YAY!").

And there's also elements to the game (specifically, witches can spellcode for different effects within the game), and I just can't imagine how the UI looks for that - and there's a UI element, as non-witches are capable of doing it (important character element for a secondary character). Because...if one guy can do it, more than one person could do it, and they'd share - MMO gamers are very social, look at WoWhead and etc, there'd be code sections posted everywhere, which would make the "witch only" areas/levels moot.

The game also has the scope to ensure the family has millions sitting around collecting dust - but numbers like that would mean a massive subscription base, or the world's best cash shop, and yet it seems it's still all home brew (ie, it's done by just a couple of people - I guess it's possible that there's a building holding additional code monkeys, but it's never seen).

*hides in a bunker*

[Rin]

Bowdarr is not speaking Huttese!  lol

Neither does T-7, I guess our PCs are just really good at inferring meaning from the generalised feel of the sentence?

[James Everington]

As it is Dickens' anniversary, I will point out that at one point in A Tale Of Two Cities he has the French Revolution end two years before it started...

[Bards and Sages (Julie)]

The game also has the scope to ensure the family has millions sitting around collecting dust - but numbers like that would mean a massive subscription base, or the world's best cash shop, and yet it seems it's still all home brew (ie, it's done by just a couple of people - I guess it's possible that there's a building holding additional code monkeys, but it's never seen).

Don't hide.  It is a valid point.    I believe I read somewhere that Blizzard has three staff members who are Warcraft "Historians."  Their entire job is to make sure the lore is correct in the game.  That is what they do.  Just keeping the servers up and running for the typical MMO is a huge amount of manpower. 

I wish I could remember the show now, but Mike was watching some USA Network program and one of the characters was a gamer.  We were both very impressed that they got the lingo right in one of the scenes where the character was playing D&D with his friends. 

[Gregory Lynn]

The idea that vampires *should* do anything is odd to me.

Vampires weren't just made up out of whole cloth. There are real legends in real places in the real world upon which vampire stories were originally based. Hell, the name Dracula comes from a real person who was as close to being a real vampire as any human being can get. That's kind of the point of this thread. If you're going to make up an alien race that is essentially a bug eyed monster who thinks that human babies are really really tasty that's one thing, but as soon as you touch on the simple things in real life that people know and understand, you're going to throw people off when you do it wrong.

Which is why, when the dude in my story who is going to be doing a lot of traveling is doing the traveling, he won't be eating stew.

It's different with games where the coherency of the story isn't the only factor. In a game you have to balance things like classes and races and specifically with MMORPGs you want the world to be very big and accessible (mostly) to everyone regardless of class or race so things like realistic languages take a back seat to game play.

[Monique]

Vampires weren't just made up out of whole cloth. There are real legends in real places in the real world upon which vampire stories were originally based. Hell, the name Dracula comes from a real person who was as close to being a real vampire as any human being can get. That's kind of the point of this thread. If you're going to make up an alien race that is essentially a bug eyed monster who thinks that human babies are really really tasty that's one thing, but as soon as you touch on the simple things in real life that people know and understand, you're going to throw people off when you do it wrong.

Which is why, when the dude in my story who is going to be doing a lot of traveling is doing the traveling, he won't be eating stew.

It's different with games where the coherency of the story isn't the only factor. In a game you have to balance things like classes and races and specifically with MMORPGs you want the world to be very big and accessible (mostly) to everyone regardless of class or race so things like realistic languages take a back seat to game play.

I believe that you can do whatever you want in fiction as long as it makes sense in the universe you've created. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a great example. Fun and far from "real" vampires.

I don't play games, so I can't speak to that.

[Rin]

I wish I could remember the show now, but Mike was watching some USA Network program and one of the characters was a gamer.  We were both very impressed that they got the lingo right in one of the scenes where the character was playing D&D with his friends.  

Is it sad that I just automatically expect characters on TV to get stuff wrong, and literally squee if I hear accurate stuff/sounds (like Skype noises?).

And just for the lulz...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRhGPVYRsOY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRhGPVYRsOY</a>

And the Cracked article.