weird-building

[marycatelli]

Being further pondering on the magic of the last post but one. . . .

Once you chose your magic, particularly if it's exotic, if you chose that it should be popular and wide-spread, you have to always be remembering that it's about. 


Let us suppose that a world has spell-singing, and only spell-singing, and it's not some esoteric art.  Great fun isn't it?

Until you are describing a scene and only with hindsight remember that the cartier should have been singing to get the wheels out of the mud, and a woman sewing on her threshold would have been singing to mend it instead, and otherwise that since it's the background of the world, you have to have it as local color. 

Also, you don't want to annoy your readers by appearing to forget it.  L. Frank Baum was not inconsistent about what the colors of the four quarters of Oz applied to in those areas -- everything?  everything human?  human artifacts and flowers?  -- he kept on mentioning it just to orient the reader and then forgetting it.  This is not a virtue.

And all the other details.  If the world has optical telegraphs, news will get around fast even without so much as trains.  If your world has a dozen moons, the tides will be interesting, and those who live on the seashore will always be aware of them. etc.

Comments

[mythusmage.livejournal.com]

I can understand the desire to have wondrous magic, but common too? Aint gonna happen. As Bob Heinlein once said, "The most ordinary thing is a 90 day wonder on the 91st day." Real pixies show up on May 1st, by August first stores will be selling anti- pixie spray and anti-pixie traps. Pixie poop will be credited with causing millions of dollars in damage to structures and infrastructure.

You can have wondrous magic or you can have common magic, make your choice because you can't have both. Just how we are.

As for magic songs, I can see the following possibilities....

Everybody will get music lessons.

Tone deafness will be selected against in breeding.

Cooperative magic will have complex harmonics.

Some songs will be banned for their destructive qualities.

Perfect pitch will be bred for.

Untuned instruments will be illegal.

There will be songs for tuning instruments.

Restricted musical reproductions (mp3 players for instance) will be outlawed.

All musical instruction will be done using live music.

Using songs to cheat on your utiltiy bill will be illegal.

Same with any other sort of cheating or crime.

Music that overtly affects emotion will be restricted.

Music that hides, instead of repairing, flaws, will be outlawed.

You will learn the lyrics to a song.

Treatment for verbal dyslexia will be free.

All children will be tested for verbal dyslexia.

There's more but I can't think of any.

[marycatelli]

The trick is -- it doesn't take 90 days to read a book. A society soaked in magic can be a wonder for the length of the tome.

Then, you seem to grasp the extent of the weird-building nicely. 0:)

[mythusmage.livejournal.com]

But rememberw I'm talking about the world, not the readers of the book. Magic will not be taken as wondrous in the world of the book.

Then again, I was thinking of the false familiarity we associate with the limited knowledge we so often have of things. So while most will look upon magic in that world is mundane, there will be those who will know enough about dweomercrafting to see it as a source of mystery and wonder.

Consider the crow. Most peole only know of crows as these avian pests who raid crops and pester animals. Those who know more about crows know them to be bright, inquisitive, playful animals who a complex social life and a talent for getting into things.

So you could have a scene where somebody tells a secondary character that all he does is voice a short phrase and the time appears before his face, and she tells the protaganist something like, "That poor ass has no idea what goes into that simple charm, the poor mundane." (Permission hereby granted to use the above passage in a book.)

[marycatelli]

Well, that's a characterization issue, not a weird-building one. 0:)

[mythusmage.livejournal.com]

Isn 't characterization part of weird building?

[marycatelli]

Hmm. I would say that making character not react to the familiar is the most mundanely familar part of characterization. 0:)