Story space
Aug. 16th, 2006 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranOne of the problems with drawing on a real world setting for a story is working out just what you are allowed to change.
For example, if I set my story in China during the Spring and Autumn Period, then I can't just leave up to my imagination what sort of houses people had or which Gods they had painted by the doors. If I change the details a little - say, I base it on a world with an alternate history, or on an alternate plane with a resemblance to ancient China - then I get a bit more freedom. The further from the real world I get, the more room I have to play in. But at the same time, the further away I get, the more resonance I lose. A world that looks and feels like the China of the Spring and Autumn Period becomes less and less plausible the more I change the underlying detail. If I change the geography, would the politics still be the same? If I change the language, would the people still think the same way?
There's the problem too, of deciding where you have a licence to re-imagine and where you don't. It feels like it's only polite, if I'm going to re-imagine a story, to find out what the original was first. And often the original will turn out to be better than what I had in mind in the first place.
Finally, there's also the problem of getting the reader confused between the actual history and the invention. I would feel uneasy if one of my inventions was taken as fact, but the era is probably obscure enough to the average reader that I suspect it would be difficult to tell one from the other.
What I'm trying to do, is to create enough story space to allow a certain amount of invention while still remaining distinct from the original. T.H. White's _The Once and Future King_ is a probably a good example. No-one would read it and assume that no invention or re-imagination had taken place, yet at the same time, its roots and resonances are clear.
P.s. Today at work, I had the headphones on and iTunes pulled out the Sanctus from the Great Mass in C Minor, K427. I've heard it a few times before, but this was the first time I really noticed the antiphony or paid close attention to the structure of the music. It was quite a pleasant sensation, not unlike hearing the voice of God between morning tea and lunch.
For example, if I set my story in China during the Spring and Autumn Period, then I can't just leave up to my imagination what sort of houses people had or which Gods they had painted by the doors. If I change the details a little - say, I base it on a world with an alternate history, or on an alternate plane with a resemblance to ancient China - then I get a bit more freedom. The further from the real world I get, the more room I have to play in. But at the same time, the further away I get, the more resonance I lose. A world that looks and feels like the China of the Spring and Autumn Period becomes less and less plausible the more I change the underlying detail. If I change the geography, would the politics still be the same? If I change the language, would the people still think the same way?
There's the problem too, of deciding where you have a licence to re-imagine and where you don't. It feels like it's only polite, if I'm going to re-imagine a story, to find out what the original was first. And often the original will turn out to be better than what I had in mind in the first place.
Finally, there's also the problem of getting the reader confused between the actual history and the invention. I would feel uneasy if one of my inventions was taken as fact, but the era is probably obscure enough to the average reader that I suspect it would be difficult to tell one from the other.
What I'm trying to do, is to create enough story space to allow a certain amount of invention while still remaining distinct from the original. T.H. White's _The Once and Future King_ is a probably a good example. No-one would read it and assume that no invention or re-imagination had taken place, yet at the same time, its roots and resonances are clear.
P.s. Today at work, I had the headphones on and iTunes pulled out the Sanctus from the Great Mass in C Minor, K427. I've heard it a few times before, but this was the first time I really noticed the antiphony or paid close attention to the structure of the music. It was quite a pleasant sensation, not unlike hearing the voice of God between morning tea and lunch.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 07:22 pm (UTC)I've had a rude awakening when I realised that the Cold War I was living through - more or less in the middle of, sixty miles from the Border with East Germany with the odd excursion behind the Iron Curtain - was not the same political situation that people in the US experienced. Mine was far less vicious and a lot less threatening. I never understood why it was called 'a war' until I moved to Britain and read more contemporary US sources, because out there, people mostly rubbed along.
For the geography - well, the moment you change _anything_ everything else potentially changes. If you can pinpoint what caused a certain development (barrier mountains, connecting rivers, water shortage) then you can adapt your own.
Personally, I feel that unless you write alternate history where your story fits in perfectly with what's already there, you're better off with associations but a world of your own. I am not in fabour of the Guy Gavriel Kay school of taking real world geography, amending it slightly, and pretending its your own, much as I like A Song for Arbonne as a book. (And would like it better without the present tense...)