Things in your work that are clearly non-sensical and inaccurate

I find it pretty insulting that people think fantasy writers aren't "real" writers, though. It also just sounds highly elitist. It's one thing if you try to play off your fantasy as seemingly-realistic, when it violates basic laws of reality (see: Critical Research Failure) but if your story has high-fantasy elements to begin with and no intention on trying to tie it directly with reality, I mean, at that point it's the reader's fault for getting offended. You walked head first into a fantasy story that never once tried to feign realism - get over yourself.

Oh. Well, I don't parse it as anything but Þ anymore.

Wesaþ ge hale means "Be you all whole!", and the singular form is "Wes þu hal". It was a greeting that I guess became "wassail" under the strong influence of Old Norse cognate "Ves heil". This is far from the only time that Old Norse has had an influence on the English language and I actually have a term paper on this that is due in like a week but I have scarcely started auuuuuuugh

Just because I can, I also assume this is what Anglo-Saxons said when people sneezed.

EDIT: Actually, before I go make that assumption, I should check other Germanic languages for similar statements.

EDIT: The Scandinavians say either Prosit (Latin) or a reference to God. Not helpful. The Dutch, Yiddish and Germans say something that is similar in meaning, though not in cognate.

EDIT: Gesundhād!

edited 21st Nov '11 8:27:28 AM by annebeeche

But but... Norsemen yelling "WAASSSUUUUUUUP"

I don't think Noir Grimoir is saying Fantasy/Sci-fi writers aren't real writers. I think he (or she, I am not sure) is saying that many of these writers don't handle their genre well (duh).

This, I agree with. With few exception, a random collection of things the author thought were cool are typically not fun to read for anyone who isn't the author.

If it violates Magic A Is Magic A, then probably not. Sure, I throw in plenty of bizarre ideas for their own sake into my work, but I try to make sure that they always make sense in context. The few times that they initially don't, however, are when I'm setting up the characters or the reader, in which case it's a bit like a setting-based version of O.O.C. Is Serious Business.

That said, the setting itself runs on principles similar to the world at the end of 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius', so I really can't claim any superiority here, other than that my in-story reasons for equipping sapient therapsids with railguns are philosophical rather than mystical.

edited 21st Nov '11 12:33:37 PM by JHM

Noir: There is a difference between

1) Not doing the research, having it show blatantly in your work, and ignoring people who point you out as such.
2) Doing the research, but sacrificing accuracy for the sake of the story on occasion, and acknowledging it.

You are complaining about the former, which would be understandable if everyone here wasn't specifically giving examples of the latter.

Edit: Moreover, you're complaining about the latter when it's taken to extremes. I highly doubt you know everything about everything and can spot single, usually inconspicuous inaccuracies in an otherwise soundly researched work.

edited 21st Nov '11 12:40:07 PM by Leradny

To be fair, I would have Borghildr saying "yo" if her story wasn't being told as a professional translation of an epic she wrote herself.

And here I am the opposite. If you firmly stick to nothing cool, nothing funny, nothing that is not in reality, the work becomes incredibly boring and dry.

There's a big big reason why folks like fantastical and sci-fi works with those inconsistencies and cool things thrown in. It's called Escapism. Why bother reading fiction if you are going to read about things set entirely in the real world or using nothing but real world shit? That formula barely works in the romance and detective literary genres, it doesn't translate into anything else be it adventure, war, sci-fi, fantasy, whatever.

THANK YOU, for accurately summarizing what bugged me about the matter all this time!

There is, of course, a blurry line one can cross when adding too much or too little cool stuff into a story that makes it go from 'awesome' to 'WTF'.

Ontopic: How the country my protagonist is trying to restructure has somehow survived with an Articles of Confederation-esque constitution in place for their equivalent of fifty years. Why the population of said country seems to consist mainly of spineless sheep. And more that I'll have to work out sometime.

edited 21st Nov '11 3:36:23 PM by CrystalGlacia

I might be failing economics in Depression Harmonica, and I did almost no research. But I'm thinking of setting it in a fantasy world in the second draft anyways.

Manifestation Files? Not sure, but the idea of Oxford psychics is a little...

(For the record, I am a girl.)

Scifi and Fantasy are my bread and butter so I'm hardly a literature elitist. I think both genre fiction and 'Literature' have certain problems that seem to hang around their genres. I'm not a huge fan of lit in general, mostly because I just find it kind of...boring? I'm just not really used to reading it. I'm trying to get into romance novels because I am just so over the incredible lack of focus on characterization in most fantasy and scifi novels, but I'm sort of passive-aggressively resisting myself there.

To the person who was talking about escapism and needing cool stuff to find it interesting, I pretty much agree with you. However, there's a difference between fantasy world-building, and throwing in random crap that has nothing to do with anything, simply because it's cool. It's honestly distracting from the plot and characters. Intrinsic in Fantasy and Sci-Fi is a "sense of wonder" that I love. But random cutesy or spiffy crap thrown in for good measure doesn't make me feel uplifted or enlightened or awed, it makes me feel annoyed. Usually it's not cool, either, it's just stupid.

And what the heck am I supposed to think about a thread mentioning "non-sensical and inaccurate" things you throw in a story? Yes, obviously there's a difference between artistic-license or things that are improbable but not outside the realm of believability, and when something is clearly non-nonsensical and inaccurate. The former is necessary to writing. The later has no place in it. If you don't want me to talk about what the thread includes in it's title, the title should be different.

And to the person who said books have been not making sense since however-long. Yes, there are books that make no sense. There are also books that make no sense and are 'literary masterpieces'. There's an exception to everything. Generally though, that stuff was done purposeful to screw with you, not because someone thought it would just be cool. Also the stuff that makes the most sense tends to be more accessible and well-liked. Does Orlando make sense? Well, maybe if you squint...eh, no, still make no sense in terms of actual plot. Is it literately acclaimed and incredibly important to literature? Yes. Is it exactly on everyone's list of favorite books in the general population? Not really.

Also you'll notice in that example that most of the various weird things weren't put in for coolness factor but to make you question time, gender and writing in general.

edited 21st Nov '11 4:37:49 PM by NoirGrimoir

So you basically came here to say "bad writing is bad?"

Well thanks for the update. I looked at this thread more as "things you know don't make a whole lot of sense but are critical to your writing." Not "random ass shit you've thrown in for no good reason." Example of what I thought belonged here: "I know that sail boats aren't exactly well-known for survival damages like this, but I can probably wave it off logically. It wouldn't be the first 'amazing' thing to happen thus far." What I'm sure doesn't belong here: "So in my typical teen romance story, I decided to throw in this laser-shooting dinosaur. I thought it might mix up the formula a bit for that one chapter."

Naw, the cool stuff are just the most obvious things that are nonsensical and clearly shouldn't be there. Things like, you're character acting out of character because its 'necessary' to warp your plot properly, are also included in my idea of what you shouldn't do.

To my mind, "things you know don't make a whole lot of sense but are critical to your writing," clearly describes this. If you guys keep insisting this thread is about artistic license, call it artistic license, people. They are totally different things. A sail boat going over the edge of a waterfall and remarkably being intact enough to repair pretty easily and keep going with it, is unlikely but not necessarily impossible or nonsensical.

(Still though, I'm of the mind that that sort of thing can be worked around without having to resort to stretching the truth too much. People always say they need something that is wildly illogical to happen in their story for it to work and about 99% of the time they are incorrect. There's usually another way and it usually improves the story.)

Also, you act like it's obvious that people shouldn't put rampaging dinosaurs in their stories. I like to think it is, but I assure you it obviously isn't the case to some people, considering stuff keeps getting published with this sort of thing in it.

I'll second Noir Grimoir on this much:

Take the OP, for instance: the policeman can't reasonably win against the mercenaries if he uses tactics they know he's capable of using. However, he has a decent chance if he uses tactics they don't realize he can use. (For instance, they decide that Let's Split Up, Gang! is a stupid trope, and they stay together in a tight group. They don't realize it, but for reasons you've set up earlier, he's managed to get his hands on a grenade.)

I have made quite an effort to make my fantasy peoples biologically possible. The place where I have failed is the harpies - I mean, a mammal/reptile hybrid? One with obviously humanoid features? How am I supposed to explain that?

The scale of plants in my story fluctuates freely in relation to their real-life counterparts. Since the main characters are ants, the setting has a dose of Mouse World to it, but much of the flora seems to have shrunk down to match the dominant sentient race. In other words, there's an entire underground city complex built under a gigantic thistle network, but when a character is shown cooking she'll still be chopping what appears to be a normal-sized carrot.

In my defense, I did try to keep the fauna in check. There aren't any cows or chickens running around in this comic; just huge, bloated caterpillars and small aphids that serve the same purpose.

Say A Wizard Did It. You wouldn't be the first person to write a fantasy story with a magically-created race in it. Or go the way that I did and say a god did it... in the Mythology 101 Cycle, the harpies were handmade, for lack of a better word, by the god of air and wind.

If evolution can create a platypus, I'm sure it could create a harpie somehow.

Yeah, I think I'm going to have to go with 'a deity did it'. It's really the only way.

It's not so much the 'mixing of avian and mammal' bit that gets me, I could work around that. It's the part where their face and torso is almost completely human. It's difficult to see how convergent evolution could bring that about.

Maybe magic altered their evolutionary paths?

At least, that's my explanation for how dragons, merfolk, and other fun creatures manage to come about through evolution.

I've never seen a need to explain dragons.

They are motherfucking dragons. Dragons don't need explanations.

I just settle with "they're not of this world" as an excuse, which works well enough for my purposes.

Certain genre conventions don't necessarily need too much explanation since we expect or at least accept them already when we pick up the genre. For instance we accept that fantasy stories are probably going to have magic, even though we know magic doesn't exist. It's one of those unspoken agreements you and the author have when you pick up a book.

aren't harpies meant to be more brid rather then reptile? Or am I thinking of some other mythical creature.

Oops. I meant bird. It was kind of late when I wrote that post.

In my defense, birds are closely related to dinosaurs?

Yeah, in fact; some later species of dinosaur had feathers. The ratite family of birds (ostrich, emu, kiwi, etc.) looks faintly reptilian.

edited 22nd Nov '11 7:48:12 PM by CrystalGlacia