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Magical creatures
Oct. 7th, 2008 09:50 amFinally starting to get into new novel-thing. Read very useful post that I now can't find (in Tor.com post? In Strange Horizons submission info?) that reminded me that we expect the fantastic to be, well, fantastic in fantastic fiction. At this point, there's no point in having a big reveal unless it serves some other story element, or tells us something internal about the characters and their perceptions, etc.
Of course, thinking back to stories like Lieber's Conjure Wife, and to some of Harry Harrison's stuff, and it occurs to me that (in genre) the reveal was always telling us something about the narrator. It was telling us that the narrator or viewpoint character lived in a world of privilege. And that something had moved him outside of or slantwise to that world of privilege. (Always a him, for big reveal stories, unless it's a kid - I can't recall a single story where a fully adult engaged female is the recipient of a big reveal. I suppose there are or could be stories where an adult white 1st world female is the recipient of a reveal, but can't think of any.)
So I don't need to write a story where the magical creatures are "hidden" from the regular world or city. I don't need to write a goldurn awful scene that I kept trying to write where our heroine "meets a magical creature for the first time and realizes that her job will involve care of magical creatures".
Nor do I need to have my character study real magical creature care in college, or anything like that. In the real world, most of us are ignorant of how to, for example, inseminate a pig or care for a falcon or handle a horse or whatever, unless we do those things recreationally or professionally. We might generally know what a falcon is (though not necessarily, going on conversation with some kids lately). We might know only generic names for some animals (i.e. horse but not mare, stallion, gelding, colt, filly - I can think of that list, but can't do the same list for sheep, for example). A realistic magical-creature world could be very similar, with most people just deeply uninterested in the existence or typology of magical creatures, even though they're sorta aware they exist.
Of course, thinking back to stories like Lieber's Conjure Wife, and to some of Harry Harrison's stuff, and it occurs to me that (in genre) the reveal was always telling us something about the narrator. It was telling us that the narrator or viewpoint character lived in a world of privilege. And that something had moved him outside of or slantwise to that world of privilege. (Always a him, for big reveal stories, unless it's a kid - I can't recall a single story where a fully adult engaged female is the recipient of a big reveal. I suppose there are or could be stories where an adult white 1st world female is the recipient of a reveal, but can't think of any.)
So I don't need to write a story where the magical creatures are "hidden" from the regular world or city. I don't need to write a goldurn awful scene that I kept trying to write where our heroine "meets a magical creature for the first time and realizes that her job will involve care of magical creatures".
Nor do I need to have my character study real magical creature care in college, or anything like that. In the real world, most of us are ignorant of how to, for example, inseminate a pig or care for a falcon or handle a horse or whatever, unless we do those things recreationally or professionally. We might generally know what a falcon is (though not necessarily, going on conversation with some kids lately). We might know only generic names for some animals (i.e. horse but not mare, stallion, gelding, colt, filly - I can think of that list, but can't do the same list for sheep, for example). A realistic magical-creature world could be very similar, with most people just deeply uninterested in the existence or typology of magical creatures, even though they're sorta aware they exist.
