PoB - Editing Day 1, and a rant on worldbuilding
Day 1 brought only 986 words. Considering I have to get in at least 2400 words a day if I want to finish this monster in one month, this is not a good start, but once I’m done with the current scene (a completely new one that didn’t exist in first draft) things should move faster. Also, I know perfectly well what I was doing wrong: now that I have all this new, shiny and awesome worldbuilding/backstory from the revision, it’s hard to resist the urge to cram it all right in chapter one - but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Yes, it’s the return of the dreaded ExpoSyndrome, a word I made up myself because I’m just that witty and cool.
When I started reading Girl Genius, one of the first things that made me say “look out, this is good stuff” - besides the fact that the heroine actually did something other than whine and look pretty, which is much more than what you can generally expect of the average female character - was that the Foglios never stopped the story to explain anything. They just showed how their world worked, and it made sense. Yes, it’s not really the kind of comic you read for the hard science - it’s actually much closer to fantasy, and expect a lot of exaggerations out of comedic effect or for simple coolness - but it gives you an interesting, believable setting and a sense of wonder without being confusing.
Or without running into plainly idiotic deadends, for that matter. There’s a ton of examples I could point out to clarify what I mean, but out of honesty I’ll choose one from my own writing. Back in the Jurassic era of 1995, while I was in junior high I was writing a cheesy fantasy novel that had one of the most blatant examples of Mary Sue I can think of now. It was titled “All For Love” (no kidding), and it had elves, random magic, castles, wolfpeople, evil witches, devastating illnesses, exploding moons, tragic deaths, eternal loves (even a polyamorous relationship - surprisingly open minded for me at the time, given that I was a bit of a prude) and overall ridiculously flat characters. Yes, all of this. It’s actually extremely funny to read, unintentionally of course. In this novel, I had a civilization of wolfpeople that lived in a centuries-long isolation from the rest of the world because of some supposedly impassable natural barriers (that turned out being actually easy to cross, but we’ll get to that in a minute). The wolfpeople had this prophecy that they would be able to break free of their isolation when their king would sire a heiress from an elven woman. The prophecy was of course fulfilled: the princess was born and soon met the Mary Sue and her friends, that studying so-called clues in the legends (because all legends are 100% true as everybody knows) had discovered a way to reach the wolfpeople’s kingdom. They became fast friends and the princess joined their party to go off adventuring in the outside world.
This is all well and good, isn’t it? Too bad that nobody, starting from me, the author, ever bothered to wonder how the HECK an elven woman with a furry fetish even ended up in the wolfpeople’s realm if they were supposedly isolated and impossible to reach. If an elven woman was there, then they were already no longer isolated. It makes no sense, and it gets even worse when you discover that “yes, there’s a mundane, not-dangerous way around the barriers, but how do you know you’re in the right place?”. Excuse me? THIS idiocy is the reason for centuries-long isolation? Ever heard of common ways to orient yourself? And you know you’re in the right place when you meet the scary half-wolf warrior tribe, you huge dork.
I hope that was clear. Especially the “idiotic” part.
Now back to work - back to implying and showing worldbuilding instead of lecturing. Onward!
