Thursday Technicalities: Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts

February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 Ariel Paiement1 Comment

Last week, we went over dialogue tags and action beats. This week we’re going to talk formatting and the do’s and don’ts when it comes to dialogue! So let’s get started.

Dialogue Do’s

Do make sure your dialogue is paragraphed properly. Each time the speaker changes, the dialogue of the new speaker starts a new paragraph. Ie:

“I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn, Damien.” Lucy crossed her arms.
“Because I can be? Seeing you upset is too much fun to pass up.”

Do use proper punctuation for dialogue tags vs action beats. Ie:

Dialogue tags:
“What do you mean she isn’t here? She promised,” Evan muttered.
or
“I thought you were going on vacation. You,” Jane said, “have a serious issue with sticking to your plans.”
Action beats:
“I don’t understand. You’re leaving?” Maria toyed with the hem of her t-shirt. “Why?”
or
“What’s the problem? You didn’t object before.” Carson leaned against the car door.

The key is that dialogue tags use commas to end the last sentence of dialogue before the tag while action beats use periods.

Do make sure to use action beats and dialogue tags only as needed. They’re not for propping up weak dialogue. For further discussion of this, read my post on Dialogue Tags vs Action Beats.
Do make it sound as natural as possible. You want it to mimic how people speak in real life without including redundant or pointless information. The occasional uh or um is fine, but the key is not to overdo it. We’re simulating real life, not copying it word-for-word.
Do read it out loud! This is the quickest way to catch stiff or otherwise bad dialogue. Your mind might not catch it, but your ear most likely will.
Do realize that dialogue tells us a lot about the character. Make good use of this as a technique to characterize your various characters and differentiate between them.

Dialogue Don’ts

Don’t overdo it with the action beats or dialogue tags. It will make your strong dialogue look weak and the piece overall look like an amateur wrote it.
Don’t use it as a way to tell the reader everything. If you can show it in a scene, do so. Only tell things through dialogue when it’s essential to do so.
Don’t have every character speak in the same way. We should be able to differentiate between at least the main characters by the way they talk and act.
Don’t use single quotation marks for dialogue. As a general rule of thumb, double quotes are the appropriate way to denote something as dialogue.
Don’t italicize or bold individual words in the dialogue for emphasis unless it’s absolutely necessary. And it almost never is because you can usually find a way to word things that will make it clear what is important to the character speaking without the use of italics or bold words.
Don’t have dialogue that stretches over a page in length. As a general rule, readers will lose interest if a character is on a monologue for that long. Besides, pages of dialogue from one character or even a few usually indicates an imbalance in the writing and telling instead of showing, neither of which are good.
Don’t write it exactly how you or someone else would talk. The goal is to write something that sounds like it could’ve been said by a real person without all the extra fluff that often occurs in real, everyday dialogue. Basically, cut all the boring stuff and get straight to the good stuff.
Don’t use semi-colons or colons in dialogue. Just don’t. Dashes or commas work fine. Periods too. But not semi-colons or colons.

Conclusion

These should be enough to get you started on dialogue. There are more advanced concepts that I may discuss later on at some point, but if you follow the rules of thumb given above, you should be alright. Above all, writing good dialogue takes practice. It’s not easy, but it is worth investing your time into. So just spend time listening to how people talk and then translate that into dialogue snippets just to practice.

Have a question I didn’t answer? Feel free to leave it in the comments for me. I’ll do my best to help out!

Thursday Technicalities: Weaving World-Building Into Your Story – Through Your Character’s Eyes

Featured Ariel Paiement

Introduction

This week, we’re going to talk about weaving world-building into the story through your character’s eyes. There are multiple ways to go about weaving your world into the story, but one of the best ways is through your character. So let’s talk about how.

dISCOVERIES

The first way you can go about weaving your world into the story is to allow your readers to discovery it alongside your characters. When you have characters who haven’t experienced the world before, it’s a lot more acceptable to show more of the world in a way that’s overt instead of hidden in the lines between the action. Characters’ confusion over things in their world suddenly make sense because they don’t know anything about what’s around them to begin with.

Interactions

What if you don’t have a character who’s new to the world just like the reader is? You can still world-build and weave that building into the story. One great method for this is to develop the reader’s understanding of the world via interactions between your world and your character.

This method strongly goes back to the idea that your world is its own character with its own personality. No one person or world will interact the same way with each other. This method requires you to know a few things. You need to know your character, know your world, and know how your character views the world. These three determine how your character and your world will interact together.

Interactions can happen a lot of ways. It can happen through the character’s meeting with various creatures in the world. Or, maybe your character is a healer and spends much of their time gathering plants and supplies from nature. They might be an adventurer who has to brave the elements and the difficulties of terrain to reach their goal. Really, the possibilities are endless and allow you plenty of room to show the world to your reader. But the key with this method is that you should treat it the same way you treat an interaction between two characters. You won’t info dump on the reader because an interaction between two characters only reveals bits and pieces of both individuals, not everything. Instead, you’ll reveal only what is relevant to the interaction/scene and the story as a whole. Reveal what needs to be revealed then and no more.

The one difference between this method and an interaction between characters is that you may reveal things about the world that aren’t necessarily serving a specific purpose to the plot. At times, you may choose to reveal things about the world in interactions simply to make the world itself feel richer and more alive or even to reveal something about the person interacting with the world.

Happenings

The final main method for weaving world-building in has more to do with sentence-level inclusions and events. These may not be interactions with your main characters specifically, but they typically affect the character in some way or another. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be seeing it as the readers since you can’t show us what your viewpoint characters don’t see unless you’re using omniscient POV.

With this method, your world-building will be less obvious. It might be a common phrase that’s used by the inhabitants of the world or a common creature that is seen all over the place. It might be some sort of distant report of a creature terrorizing villages on the outskirts of a kingdom. Maybe it’s a brief mention of terrain in an area a character is occupying. One way or another, this world-building method usually doesn’t involve intrusive or overt mentions of the world. This is more subtle and is like the spice added to a dish. It makes everything read better, but your reader won’t notice the individual additions: only the whole of the writing’s flavor.

Conclusion

This type of world-building is more complex than what we often think of as world-building, but it’s also vastly more effective than what we usually see in most writing these days. It takes practice and instinct to do this well, but the instincts surrounding what type of weaving to use and how can be developed the more you write using the methods I’ve given here and in the previous post on this topic.

Thursday Technicalities: World Building Tools – Weaving Together Plot and World

Featured Ariel Paiement1 Comment

Introduction

This seemed like a fitting place to begin a new series on Thursday Technicalities since we talk about world building tools on Saturday Setups and since I was just discussing where I learned most of what I know in my newsletter this week. So, yes, we’re going to talk about more world building tools, but this time, we’re going to start examining ways to really weave world building into your story and how you can bring your world to life.

A lot goes into world building writing. There’s lots of room for failure, but it’s not always so easy to succeed at this. Sure, there are lots of ways to weave world building into the story, lots of ways to show your reader this world you’ve built, and lots of ways to world build and many more tips for world building. But more often than not, those methods aren’t used by authors. Worlds either end up flat because the author decided they wanted to flavor their romance/adventure/thriller/etc with fantasy instead of flavoring their fantasy with those other things, or they end up flat because the author didn’t weave the world into the story well and ended up info-dumping, which drives readers nuts. Neither way is a pretty way to die. So, let’s start into how you can avoid this.

Beginnings

For world building to truly work well, you have to understand that what you choose to do outside the story will probably be way more than what you’ll ever show in the story if you take the conventional approach. Now, it doesn’t have to be that way, but usually it is, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But while a series might have room for you to show your reader a picture of your whole world and all the cool things you put into it, a single book will not. This means that when you’re actually considering your world building in light of your novel, you need to do so with the very beginning of the book: when you start working on that kernel of an idea known as your plot.

There are really two, maybe three, ways this happens.

First, you may have a plot but not necessarily the world. In this case, you’re able to start building the world and the plot together. If you’re taking this approach, you can use an approach that Holly Lisle’s world-building course calls SANE world building. You build what you need when you need it and no more (unless you’re just doing it for fun). This approach is good if you’re the sort of person who feels like you can’t start writing until you have every detail of the world nailed down. You’ll never get anywhere doing that, so approaching world building writing as a part of building your plot can help you to tie the two together without going insane or never writing a single word of the story on paper.

Second, you may have the idea for a world, but not a story. This can happen to those of us who love world building writing because we conceive an idea for some sort of power system, magic system, or other world-based structure, but we don’t necessarily have the characters and the stories that are going to populate it. However, in this instance, the world building itself often gives rise to the story. When I was doing my undergrad in accounting, a friend and I came up with a story idea and were co-writing. However, she was taking a long time to do anything on her end, and I was bored, so I started doing world building writing for a bunch of random things and history-related stuff for the world. (Yeah, I know. Nerdy. But I was in accounting, and that was really, really boring.) Long story short, as I was developing the history, I ended up with the idea for Rith’s Disciple, which led to a vague desire to fill out the history following it. When I joined Wattpad’s ONC contest, that desire combined with a really good prompt resulted in Bane of Ashkarith.

Finally, though perhaps not always as common, sometimes you have the idea for a world and a story idea, which leads to further stories. This happened with Bane of Ashkarith. I already had the world established, as I mentioned above, but the history I’d developed for the world gave rise to Bane of Ashkarith and the rest of the series that I’m working on. All of the stories are literally just histories of the famous people from the world’s past. Readers wouldn’t necessarily pick up on that right away unless they knew me and had read about the background behind the series, but because of the combination of the idea for a world and a story together, I ended up with an entire series. Nice when that happens, right?

Expanding our Understanding

I think the other important world building tip for world building enthusiasts (and those who hate it too) to realize is this: world building is more than creating languages, building races, and making up fantastical creatures or cool tech. It’s way more.

Have you ever thought about how strange it would be to us if metal striking stone made a hissing sound instead of a clink? Or what if, when you stepped on grass in the summer, it crunched like gravel but stepping on gravel was soundless? What if the sky was purple, not blue?

When you’re creating a world, building it includes little details. These details can be split into three areas, really. Set, objects that act as props for the set, and mechanisms/methods by which things work.

tHREE aREAS OF pLOT-oRIENTED wORLD-bUILDING

Set is pretty straightforward. Having a sky that’s purple instead of blue is a set item. It sets your world apart from others. Lots of things could be part of the set. Anything from the color of the sky to the way water looks lapping on the sand to the sand itself could be a part of set. To clarify, set is different from your prop objects in that props are things people bring onto the stage. They’re objects like pens, candles, food on a table, or the table itself. Your set is anything that occurs there naturally like trees, bushes, deer paths, bodies of water, and so on.

Your props and objects are just as varied as set. But they’re also a part of world building writing, something Holly Lisle points out in her course on the topic. People don’t often think that props are as important to the stage you’re building for the story as the story or the big flashy fantasy creatures being installed, but they are. The objects around us say a lot about who we are and why we are the way we are. They are our insight into those around us and even into the world. What is there can sometimes be as important as what’s not. If everyone uses candles and not flashlights, that tells you something about the world. If stone doesn’t exist much of anywhere, but people build everything with wood, it says a lot about the set without you ever having to come out and say anything. Objects can also help us to understand the more immaterial mechanisms and rules in place surrounding the world. Those rules have to act upon an object, person, or part of the set. So we can often see them in action and learn those rules of order by observing what they act upon. This can help us to avoid info-dumping or becoming too obtrusive with our world.

Objects carry a lot of weight in the world, though. In a story, if you show us an object, particularly if you show it to us independent of any human interaction, we’ll assume it’s important. Now, maybe you put it there intentionally to tell us what kind of person occupies the space it’s in. Or, maybe it plays some larger role in the story as a whole. Only you know that and can decide. But, the fact remains that if you put it there, it needs to serve a purpose. If it doesn’t serve one, don’t put it in. That’s what leads to overwriting, purple prose, and bored or confused readers. None of those are good, so just don’t do it.

Mechanisms and rules are far less obvious than the first two, but no less important. Mechanisms and rules are what tell us that on Earth, when you drop a coin on a concrete surface, it clinks or gives off a ringing noise. It doesn’t purr because that would be breaking the rules. Mechanisms tell us that healthy grass should bend under our feet and spring back when we step on it in the summer time. It isn’t going to turn into a bunch of deadly spikes and stab the bottoms of our shoes or our feet. If we didn’t have mechanisms and rules to keep things organized and somewhat predictable, then everything would devolve into chaos. Your world is no different in this regard.

The main method for showing mechanisms and rules, however, is different than it was for the first two categories of practical, plot-oriented world-building. For mechanisms and rules, you generally end up showing them when they’re in use on objects, interacting with the set, or affecting a character. They’re seen subtly, but even though most readers don’t immediately pick up on it all the time, they’ll expect it to be a trend unless you’ve made it clear what just happened was really weird.

For example, in the first chapter of Pathway of the Moon, I show my main character, Leo, scaling a wall using shadows to stick himself to the wall. He proceeds to do the same on the way back out of the castle after a successful execution of his target. This sets a precedent or a rule for his magic. Shadows allow those who can use them to stick themselves to different surfaces. I didn’t represent it as an odd thing or something that other shadow users couldn’t utilize, so the reader will anticipate that it’s normal for the world and the character, and if I use it again, they won’t find it odd. These kinds of encounters help to flesh out and build the world for the readers without them even noticing or realizing that you have.

Conclusion

In upcoming posts, I’ll go into some more specific writing tips for slipping world building into your story and talk about the techniques. The point of this post was simply to help you to understand some basics on how you can begin weaving the two together. It is by no means an exhaustive thesis on the subject. I hope that it’s been useful to you, and I hope you’ll stick with me as we explore some of the various ways myself and other authors utilize to develop worlds that readers can delve into and enjoy in their own rights because of their individuality and fresh perspectives.

Thursday Technicalities – Types of Edits

Featured Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Editing. Doesn’t everyone just love it? Well, some of us do. If you’re like me, one of your favorite parts of the writing process is actually the rewriting and editing stage, at least when there’s not a huge time crunch. I know, I know. It’s weird. Most writers really can’t stand this process, and most writers don’t have a clue how to go about it. Now, most of us are capable enough of catching the stray grammar error or glaring plot hole, but many times, writers–and even published authors–don’t know what it takes to make their book publish-worthy material. That’s the job of their editor.

Which begs the question. How do you know what kind of edit your work needs if you’ve never done this or if you haven’t worked with an editor before? I’m glad you asked because that’s what today’s discussion is all about! Let’s get right into it.

If you’re a beginning writer, chances are you need a deep edit. A deep edit goes through several stages and looks at everything from story structure and big picture stuff to the gritty details of sentence structure and word choice. This is a quite extensive edit, and most freelance editors I’ve spoken to specialize in specific areas, so a deep edit from one editor may be difficult to achieve. This means that, often, a beginner writer may need to find two or even three editors to look at the piece. This obviously isn’t the most fun thing to work with, but if you can find one or two editors who are able to compliment each other’s skill sets to give your piece a well-rounded edit, that’s usually easiest. For those of you in this situation, the key is to look for an editor or editors who note that they’re good with content editing, structural editing, style editing, and presentation editing. For fiction, these areas may not be presented exactly with these titles, so read on to find out what kinds of things fall under each so you have a better idea of what you’re looking for.

If you’re not a beginning writer, you probably know what areas you struggle with frequently. Chances are you don’t struggle with all of them, though you may struggle with more than one. So I’m going to break down the stages of deep editing for both you and the beginners wanting to know what each stage entails. This way, you will have a better idea of what skill set you need to find in an editor to give your book an edit best fit for it.

Content Edit

A content edit is the first step a deep editor takes in editing a piece. In fiction, a content edit is going to take a look at the purpose of the piece, the genre it’s in, and what it contains. The point of this level of editing is essentially to ensure that every major point in the book or story revolves around the purpose, genre, and main idea of the story. This kind of edit gets rid of scenes that might be unnecessary or repetitions of previous scenes that made the point already. It will eliminate rambling and make the piece more concise. It will also focus on adding anything that’s missing. Practically speaking, a content edit is focusing mostly on the plot of the story in fiction and making sure that the book’s scenes make that plot work from beginning to end.

Structure Edit

With this type of edit, the editor is going to shift gears to look at the angle and narrative structure. Depending on the work, there may not be any particular angle, but there will be a narrative structure. This type of editing will make sure that each point in the narrative structure is ordered elegantly and works smoothly with the others.

Style Edit

Here, we start getting into the finer details. A style editor is going to look over the work to remove clutter in your scenes, paragraphs, and sentences. This edit fine tunes and refines the work so that the narrative style really shines. This one is, perhaps, one of the more difficult edits to do because it calls for someone who will really dig down into the piece to look at things like word choices, sentence structure, and pacing using more technical avenues like paragraph and sentence lengths. Having done this before, I can attest to how much work this is. Sometimes, it can be a hard call on whether something is clutter or necessary and whether to use one word instead of another in a specific sentence. However, these changes can make a huge difference in a piece, so if you can’t do this yourself, find someone who can.

Please note that an edit like this doesn’t focus on fixing grammatical errors or presenting things in a clean, professional way on the page. That’s saved for a presentation edit. What this edit will do is improve your narrative style, make your ending resonate with the reader, make your middle flow from paragraph to paragraph seemingly effortlessly, and make your beginning arresting to the reader. If that’s what your book is missing, this is the type of edit you need, so find an editor who specializes in this area.

Presentation Edit

Last editing stage, everyone! In this stage, your editor will worry about the nitty-gritty details of grammar and punctuation. They’re going to look for those pesky misplaced commas or fix misspellings. They’ll read it through to make sure that any leftover sentences that might trip readers up are removed, and they’ll trim the sentences you don’t need if necessary. This stage cleans up your manuscript and makes it ready for presenting in its final form to your reader. If you’re able to do the first three types of edits on your own, it may still pay off to have someone do this sort of edit for a piece. As humans, we’re prone to error, so having someone else take a quick look through our work to clean up any missed problems is usually a very wise decision.

Conclusion

I hope this has been informative for you all! Next week, we’ll start talking about some of the specifics on knowing where your work is at, knowing when to self-edit, and knowing who to hire when you need an editor. This area is one that I see a lot of uncertainty about, particularly with writers new to the editing process, and a lot of mistakes can be made. My hope is that, in the upcoming weeks, I can take some of the stress and confusion out of the process for you!

Sunday Sub-Genres: Dying Earth Fantasy

December 8, 2019 Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Alright, everyone! We’re back this week with another sub-genre to examine. This time, we’ll be looking at dying earth fantasy. This one’s fun if you like apocalyptic fiction with a dash of fantasy or science-fiction. Obviously, the focus here is on fantasy, but science-fiction also has a firm hold on this sub-genre, so that’s a nice crossover if you like both genres.

Defining Dying Earth Fantasy

Dying earth fantasy mainly has to do with the idea of a far-future, apocalyptic world where everything, including the natural laws governing the universe, fails or is failing. It all falls apart in these kinds of novels, and it comes as no surprise to find our heros and heroines struggling to survive in these tales. One important note here, though. Dying earth fantasy is not the same as apocalyptic fiction in that, rather than having some catastrophic disaster occur to cause the dystopian, apocalyptic world, dying earth fantasy has the earth’s depletion as the center driver for everything going wrong in the world. It is the result of long periods of disuse and abuse of a planet, not some unforseen catastrophe like a deadly virus or alien invasions.

Writing Dying Earth Fantasy

Whether you’re writing dying earth fantasy or science fiction, there are some common elements and themes you should consider and include when writing this sub-genre. It isn’t a feel-good type of genre at all, so given that, you have to provide the readers with another reason, some other value to gain, from reading your work. These elements are commonly used to do that and to make dying earth fantasy/sci-fi what it is.

Characterization

With dying-earth fantasy, unlike other sub-genres, characterization doesn’t run extremely deep. The story’s focus is on the dying planet and the struggles faced because of it, not on any one or two characters. The timeline for these books can also end up being quite expansive, so characters can easily come and go, leaving readers with only a bare impression of them.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t spend time developing characters at all. Obviously, characterization and development is still important, but it won’t be your main focus, so if it’s a little more general than it would be with other sub-genres, that’s alright.

Plot and Timeline

Remember what I said about long stretches of time in the previous point? Well, it holds true with your plot and timeline both. Most dying earth fantasies will have broad plots that cover large amounts of time. We’re watching as a planet dies, so we don’t expect to find that the time is small. This is part of what separates this sub-genre from apocalyptic fantasy. A catastrophe can cause these same difficulties and more for characters in a much shorter span of time. It takes a lot longer for a planet to die.

Lofty Ideas or Social Implications

Okay, so this sub-genre is huge on this area. Dying earth fantasy almost wouldn’t be dying earth fantasy if it didn’t contain grand ideas and social implications. We’re talking messages about Earth’s future and the way we’re headed or reflection on our past and what it has done to our future. Really, anything within those realms goes, but dying earth fantasy isn’t itself without a theme on one of these areas. So if you’re looking to write this, you better believe you’re going to need a social impact topic that you’re passionate about and can relate to the story of how the world dies. Maybe the book is reflecting on several of those topics, even. But the book will have to reflect on and remark upon the human state and human history in order to extrapolate out to the grand ideas of our future and why it has become as it has. You’ve got a lot of room to work here though because dying earth fantasy usually happens so far in the future that you aren’t restricted to what we have now or what we know now. Whatever your choices in this area, your goal will be to make the reader think about life and human history as well as where it may lead.

Science

I know, I know. We’re talking fantasy here, not sci-fi. But science often plays a role in even the fantasy stories, so we can’t really leave it out of the discussion. Usually, for this sub-genre, science isn’t really hard science. If you’re not a huge science nerd, this is good news. Pretty much, the tech and science that shows up in dying-earth fantasy is going to be forgotten technology or science that is a novelty or seems magical to those now discovering it. So for those of you who aren’t so fond of hard science, this genre is still accessible to you!

Conclusion

Hopefully this has helped you to understand more about how to write this sub-genre. If you’re the type that enjoys really provoking thought in your audience, particularly on social themes and issues, this sub-genre might be a good fit for you. Try your hand at it. You never know where you might end up! As always, if you have questions, feel free to comment below! The list of further reading is below, as usual.

Further Reading and Resources

**Disclaimer: I haven’t read any of these, and as such, I am unsure of the appropriateness for children. Please exercise good judgment and common sense before giving them to or recommending them for children.**

Jack Vance’s Tales of the Dying Earth

George R.R. Martin’s Songs of the Dying Earth

Wilbur Smith’s Dark is the Dying Sun

M. John Harrison’s Virconium

Saturday Setup: Building Societies – Rank and Gender Factors

September 21, 2019 Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Last week, we discussed how language factors into your society. Now we’re going to talk about how rank and gender can play a role. There are many different ways societies deal with these two things. Just look around at the cultures around the world, and you’ll see that. So let’s take a look at some options you have.

Rank-based Societies

Rank based societies can be set up in a lot of different ways. It could be that the society is similar to Asian societies where elders and family authority figures are to be highly respected and obeyed (as a general rule of thumb). Or, perhaps, it is more a caste system like India has. The options vary and can result in a multitude of arrangements.

Once this is decided, of course, it affects all kinds of things about relationships with people. Since we talked about it last week, languages can be affected by rank. Some languages, like Japanese, use honorifics or have more formal versions of the same word to indicate great respect for those high above you in rank. This also can be done in a variety of ways, such as using prefixes or suffixes on names or using polite tenses. These are just a few options.

In the end, rank-based societies will focus entirely on whatever hierarchy has been set into place, and their rules will tend to center on it too. Many things end up being affected, so you have to consider how rank might affect your society if you choose this option.

Gender-Based Societies

On this one, it isn’t so much rank as it is which gender one is that determines honor, privilege, and part in society. This might manifest in a manner both patriarchal or matriarchal. Or, perhaps there is no organized patriarch or matriarch structure, but perhaps instead women and men have gender-specific roles and don’t step out of them.

This really doesn’t even have to be applied solely to those societies where one of the sexes is suppressed or mistreated, though it certainly could be the case. It may also apply to societies where men and women are equal but simply have different roles to play and things that their counterpart is able to do that they cannot, not because they aren’t capable but because it simply isn’t their place or concern. In this way, gender can be a basis for the society without degrading one gender or another.

Mixed Societies

Some societies may work off a system that mixes gender and rank. These societies may place the two genders into a class of jobs or roles they can play based on gender, give the genders rankings in relation to each other (ie: men outranking women or vice versa), and rank each gender against others of their own gender within the class of jobs and roles they’re filling (ie: one man outranks another within the government or a woman outranks another woman in a midwife practice.

Conclusion

Rank and gender typically do play some role in society. Even in a society that doesn’t focus on gender, rank does usually come into play because some sort of authority structure must be set up, and that necessitates having some people who have higher rank or authority than others. Taking the time to consider this aspect of your growing society will help to round everything out and give you a concrete idea of how the people in your story will interact with others around them.

Arguably, this is one of the most important things to figure out for your society because it affects your characters directly in how they will relate to people of the opposite sex, superiors, colleagues, and subordinates.

Have another way rank or gender can affect a society in world-building? Feel free to share it in the comments! If you have a question, feel free to leave that in the comments too. I hope this helps you and offers a sound place to start in determining these aspects of your society and culture.

Sunday Sub-Genres: Weird Fantasy

September 15, 2019 Ariel Paiement

Introduction

This week, we’re going to talk about weird fantasy. Weird fantasy is a little bit more of an odd genre, but it’s no less popular for it. People who like fantasy and horror will likely find that they enjoy weird fantasy. So let’s take a look.

Defining Weird Fantasy

Weird fantasy is a sub-genre of speculative fiction that started with H.P. Lovecraft. Pinning down exactly what the genre is can be a bit difficult since it’s a mix of several things. Generally speaking, weird fantasy is a blend between horror, paranormal, and fantasy genres. However, it isn’t uncommon for the genre to include strange, nontraditional aliens, so science fiction can be blended in as well.

The genre typically avoids the typical players in the paranormal scene, such as vampires, werewolves, and ghosts, or vastly reinvents them for the purposes of the genre. So if you’re looking for these features in the genre, you won’t find them. At least, not as you may have expected to.

It should be noted that weird fantasy is neither horror or Gothic fantasy but is instead something entirely different that cannot be classified in either genre. This is likely owing to the blending of horror, paranormal, fantasy, and sci-fi.

Writing Weird Fantasy

Weird fantasy can describe a lot of things, but let’s take a look at how you can write any type of weird fiction by using the main elements and moods of weird fiction.

Main Elements of Every Weird Fantasy

Before we jump into the four types of weird fiction or fantasy, let’s cover the basic elements that are present in all of them. First, every weird fantasy must contain some aspect of underlying horror or abnormality, usually in the form of some object or entity. Second, it should contain the general effects of horror. Third, it needs an object to focus or embody the horror or abnormality with. Fourth, it should contain the appropriate fear responses to the horror. And fifth and finally, it should contain the effects of the horror on the given situation.

Mood and Focus #1

The first type is one where the mood and focus is one how the marvel or horror relates to some event, condition, or phenomenon. Usually, these types of weird fantasy work well with a mood focused on a general situation, condition, legend, or intellectual subject. It can also work well with a mood that expresses a pictorial concept.

Mood and Focus #2

The second type focuses on the actions of people in response to the marvel or phenomenon. This one works better with a mood expressing a specific feeling or a mood that expresses a specific dramatic situation or climax.

Pivotal Points of Weird Fantasy

No matter what, weird fantasy should always have a focus on the effects of the weird on the world. The truly weird cannot fail to have an impact, and if people in your novel treat it as though it doesn’t or as if it is commonplace, it ceases to be weird and becomes poorly written as a result.

Conclusion

Weird fantasy is definitely a bit of a strange genre within speculative fiction and fantasy. However, for those who enjoy clear horror aspects blended with fantasy, paranormal, and sci-fi, weird fantasy is a great genre to write. If you’re thinking about experimenting with it, the aspects discussed above should be a good starting place for you to do so. So now, all that remains is to go do it.