worlds of whimsy and of wonder

[marycatelli]

There are a number of good worlds, filled with marvels, that are classics of the fantasy genre.


There's an art to writing them, because the marvels still have to engage with and interact with the viewpoint character.  Colorless and drab though that character may be.  And the character has to be given a lively enough motive to get through the story.  True, if you make it dramatic enough the motive can be "Run for my life!" often, and if curious enough, "Whatever is that?" but something's got to string them together into a story.  In the Alice books, she wants to get into the garden and to become a queen respectively.  In the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wants to get home.  (In the movie, they tried to give her a character arc.  Alas, they tried to make it that she did not want to go home up front.  But she still is sent on the Yellow Brick Road to find the Wizard to get home.  It's not much use thinking of a thing until you think it through.  The Munchkins could have not known whether she could stay, and told her she should check with the wizard to see if she needed permission.)

But the marvels need to be dramatic or wonderful and interactive, even the overriding motive will get the character through teh scene.  A rainbow bridge is lovely, but arguing with the guardian produces incident.  Or even finding the bridge rather slippery.  (Hey, things get wet when it rains.)  Alice does not merely talk with those she meets, she gets into arguments with them.  Dorothy has to work out how to escape the poppy fields -- not by a convenient snow fall, but with the advice of the Queen of Mice.  Which can be fun if the original inspiration was the bright and sparkly setting and not so much conflict.

Comments

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Another example. In Lion/witch/wardrobe, the children travelling with Aslan as the winter breaks up are spectators. The movie script wanted them to engage more, so it put them in danger on breaking ice. (As Rilstone pointed out.)

[marycatelli]

You mean when the children are fleeing the wolves -- and Edmund is the queen's prisoner? Of course, in the book, that was played as information: that Aslan really had arrived.

You have a wider range of interactions in prose, where you enter the characters' heads.

[mythusmage.livejournal.com]

It comes down to our insistence in the West that a scene in a film be about doing. In Japanese films quite often the scene can be about setting, establishing the world and the place of a character within it.

[marycatelli]

Both the scenes were Western, in the book and in the film.

[mythusmage.livejournal.com]

It's the difference between what Western film makers and writers will allow whereto a scene, and what Japanese film makers and writers will allow.

[marycatelli]

Please be more precise about which films you are referring to.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

My memories of the movie are vague. Here's Rilstone's point (among many other good points).

[...] the stupidest scene in the movie – and the only one which has no basis in the book. In the land of Movie, the end of the long Winter represents, not the onset of Spring and the return of the true King, but a Hazard for the movie-hero to overcome. The frozen river they are trying to cross starts to melt. [....] Peter develops an Indiana Jones like ability to, er, surf on lumps of frozen ice. Sticking a sword into the ice would be a good thing to do in the middle of a frozen lake.
http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2006/01/lion-witch-and-wardrobe_08.html

[marycatelli]

Yeah. Just because you need action doesn't mean you need all action scenes, or silly overdone action scenes.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Or action scenes with the wrong kind of conflict. The thawing of the Witch's winter was a good thing, but the movie made it a danger, to be struggled against. Better interactive excitement might have been, if Peter was trying to rescue some NPC and took a chance that the thaw would proceed rapidly enough to make it possible. He could have even surfed toward the goal.

"But you'll be swept right into that ice bank!"
"Not if that ice bank melts before I get there!"

It can be quite a challenge to find ways to interact with the bright sparkly wonder, without having to get into some sort of Bickham-esque conflict with it. Baum was great with that. Even when there was a real danger from real evil creatures (remember the spiders?) he made them beautiful.

Oh, another more conventional 'conflict'. When Jill is lifted through the hole at the top of the tunnel, and seems to be attacked -- but it turns out to be a snowball from a wonderful peaceful dance.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

PS. I wonder if the reason some of Lewis's conflicts with good things work, is that we see the conflict first, and then the apparent menace turns out to be good. Jill's snowball, the grotesque gnomes following the party, who turn out to be allies when caught and questioned. After which, Lewis can spend a whole page or two on how nice the dance or the gnomes turn out to be.

[marycatelli]

yes, and it gives a twist to the story, helping it keep from being montonous.

Sometimes the character can join in and strive to do whatever the marvels are trying to do.

[marycatelli]

Self-sacrifice does help from time to time.

Witty conversation can pull it off, sometimes.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Also in Oz iirc there's a lot of contrast, back and forth, between what something looks like from a distance, and what it looks like (or how it acts) at each step as they approach it.

[marycatelli]

Revelations also can keep things going. Especially if the character must act to discover things.