real vs imaginary

[Jo Zebedee]

Real or imaginary?

I have just read an article by an author who says he prefers real world settings as he can't fully immerse himself in an imaginary world, and there is less research for a real world setting(scratching my head a bit at that tbh). I have written both and found equal, but different, enjoyment in each. So which do you prefer writing?

 

[Warren_Paul]

I'm not sure I can really go with any of those choices, Springs. I'd go for the fourth option; a realistic and believable imaginary world.

I disagree with the reasoning behind the author's preference. I think it's back to front.

I've been so engrossed in fantasy for the sake of immersion. You get more from an imaginary world than you do real because it provides you with an avenue of escape from reality - which half of us want after working a whole day dealing with customers and unrealistic expectations. Escapism; real world settings don't offer that. The comment about research alone puts doubt in my mind over the author's opinion - isn't the fact that research has gone into developing an imaginary world a good thing? More effort is put into imaginary worlds. Real world settings are just taking advantage of a world already made for them - quite unoriginal tbh.

It sounds to me like the author doesn't properly appreciate the genre and is biased against it.

There is no way I could ever find immersion in a real world setting, because I've hardly been far from home. I'm not one of the lucky few that has the money to travel around the world and go sightseeing, I've never even been out of NZ. Nothing in a book based in say the US or Europe could ever relate to me, so how could I find immersion in it? I'd be pretty confident I'm not the only one in that situation. Of course real world settings can still have good stories, and I've read a few. I like Bryce Courtenay for instance, but I don't find I'm able to put myself in the character's shoes.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Despite the fact that with reading I would say it's better to use something believable, in my mind I let the imagination run wild. A world with two suns in an infinity-pattern orbit is always something I've liked to imagine, for one. It's just the silly nonsense of a man who refuses to grow into emotional adolescence, but it works for me.


Now in writing, on the other hand, I try my best to research what's actually possible and what isn't, and the consequences of doing whatever I want. To be honest, I really couldn't foresee Morcalia being at all viable, looking back on it, because it was meant to be the size of Jupiter, and the extra mass would mean extra gravity, and yet the life on it wasn't supposed to weigh any more than Earth lifeforms. Before I always chalked it up to divine intervention, but does that REALLY explain anything, satisfactorily?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'd go with Warren_Paul's fourth option, a realistic and believable imaginary world. Of course I care about the characters and story, very much, too. So the imaginary world has to have enough of the real one in it that the author doesn't spend so much time inventing new things that the story gets lost.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Yes, but out of those three, I did choose imaginary. I've always thought that I don't belong in reality.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I should say that while I would choose the realistic imaginary world (with elements of the real world, like, you know, gravity, and horses), in the hands of certain writers, real world places can be as fantastical to me as imaginary ones. Especially when those settings are places where I have never been, which is ... just about everywhere.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Admittedly, I'd have to agree with you there, TE. I'd love a visit to Stonehenge, or some of the ancient Egyptian or Greek religious sites...

 

[Warren_Paul]

Until she turned to porn, I thought Laurell K Hamilton did a very good job of making the real world fantastical. Her spin on the american city of St. Louis with urban fantasy elements was really well done and I enjoyed them greatly. I'd say Obsidian Butterfly might just well be the best Urban Fantasy novel I've read, maybe. It's definitely up there at least. I suppose if you skip the sex, the later books still had those elements in them, they just took a sideline to all the gratuity of the plot. But Urban Fantasy is kind of cheating, and technically it's not a real world setting at all: it's an alternative reality of Earth.

Of course, she actually lives there, so it wasn't hard to use the setting as a base for her novels. I don't have a clue if it's a believable representation of St Louis though.

 

[hopewrites]

I meant to vote for the third, but my thumb slipped. I think imaginary settings take the same amount of thought as any other. I like to use them because I don't have to worry about getting there, sometimes I don't even have to close my eyes.
As for reading, I treat any real setting the same way I do imaginary ones, whether I've been there or not (OK admittedly Brooks is the only author I've read who wrote where I know) because its going to be the authors version of it anyway.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I should say that while I would choose the realistic imaginary world (with elements of the real world, like, you know, gravity, and horses), in the hands of certain writers, real world places can be as fantastical to me as imaginary ones. Especially when those settings are places where I have never been, which is ... just about everywhere.

And vice versa -- in good hands, the imaginary world is as real to me as the real one. Maybe more so, as I don't pay that much attention to the real one! (Err...did I mention that we walked through the house that we're going to be moving into in April, and I realized later that I haven't the slightest idea what the floors looked like anywhere in the house? )

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Oh, i didn't mean a badly drawn fantasy world with my purple rocks option. I was trying to be sparkly and fun with the options and it was late.... No this is the option for a well realised (or badly realised, whichever floats your boat) imaginary world.

I went for option three, but I read a lot of non-genre stuff.


QUOTE=Warren_Paul;1663379]


There is no way I could ever find immersion in a real world setting, because I've hardly been far from home. I'm not one of the lucky few that has the money to travel around the world and go sightseeing, I've never even been out of NZ. Nothing in a book based in say the US or Europe could ever relate to me, so how could I find immersion in it? /QUOTE]

I didn't understand this, sorry. If immersion is possible in a fantasy world we have never seen, and have no relation to, surely another part of the real world we know nothing of could be equally unusual and immersive?

 

[Warren_Paul]

I didn't understand this, sorry. If immersion is possible in a fantasy world we have never seen, and have no relation to, surely another part of the real world we know nothing of could be equally unusual and immersive?

Because real world settings are typically written with the expectation that they don't have to describe the world to you. A general assumption that you already know what it is like. Sure, in a strange part of the world like Stonehenge as previously mentioned, they'd go into detail about description, but I've lost count of how many real world setting books I've read that don't describe one ounce of the world to me and assume I'll just form a picture of it by myself. I do, but how do I know I'm getting it right? I guess it doesn't matter, but that still interferes with my immersion.

Imaginary worlds are described in detail to give you a better understanding of the world. Since more detail goes into descriptions, I find it easier to imagine than some place in the world that I'm expected to know what it looks like.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Because real world settings are typically written with the expectation that they don't have to describe the world to you. A general assumption that you already know what it is like...

...Imaginary worlds are described in detail to give you a better understanding of the world. Since more detail goes into descriptions, I find it easier to imagine than some place in the world that I'm expected to know what it looks like.

Agreed.

I've read so many real-world stories (or urban fantasy or science fiction or science fantasy stories) that simply use New York as a setting. Then they have all sorts of shenanigans going on in, say, Central Park. And the poor out-of-town reader wonders how the hell the alien spaceship/super hero's stealth plane/dragon/whatever is supposed to land in some park and no one sees it happen!

It wasn't until I saw it on a map that I understood just how big Central Park is. But that was me doing my own research; not the author doing it for me.

A fantasy setting makles the author describe it to you. Some writers say New York, and expect you to fill in the blanks.* But when a writer says the setting is the Badlands of Karathoom, beyond the Pillars of Eternity, well, that's probably not going to be shown on any map the reader has access to.

*How successful you are at this depends on how many New York-based TV shows you've seen. Because we all know TV shows are always true-to-life.

 

[Bowler1]

I'm not sure I can really go with any of those choices, Springs. I'd go for the fourth option; a realistic and believable imaginary world.

That saves me some typing...

 

[Warren_Paul]

It wasn't until I saw it on a map that I understood just how big Central Park is. But that was me doing my own research; not the author doing it for me.

Exactly. Here I am all the sudden finding the need to stop reading the book - an instant mistake on the author's part - and go google Central Park. That shouldn't be happening. If I lived in New York, I wouldn't have to google it, but what would ya know? I don't, and I have no clue what Central Park looks like.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Imaginary worlds can be great if well done. I have to admit to a leaning towards historical fiction of late, though, as there's usually an expectation - not always realised - that the author will have carried out significant research to help make the period believable.

However, I think Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes is an excellent example of where real vs imaginary doesn't matter - for much of the story, that battlefield could be almost anywhere in European history, because it's not actually the place that matters, but the characters.

Give good characters a believable setting and the story should work, regardless of genre. An historical setting does not equate with a good story if the characters are weak and the world not engaging.

 

[Boneman]

An imaginary world made real and believeable by the craft of the writer... I love to be taken to somewhere recognisable and then led on a fantastic journey, either by fantastical characters (as Reiver does so well) or fantastical worlds (Nine Princes in Amber springs to mind here). Patrick Rothfuss's books are set in a recognisable world, but the magical elements that exist are weaved so well, you accept it without blinking. Peter Brett's Painted Man is set in a recognisable medieval world, but demons come out at night...

It's the storytelling that counts, not the world it's set in. I saw a play once with only a bare stage and two actors, and within ten minutes their craft had fashioned everything around them, in my imagination. I would say the author had it wrong, because he has denied the reader their own imagination; the opportunity to interpret the words on the page - we all see it differently, don't we? Exercise one: describe any one character from Lord of the Rings. I guarantee you will have different pictures, all shaded with some similarities, because we have the freedom and the imagination to see them the way our brain chooses.

 

[Ursa major]

I like the world to be mostly in the background, except when it's important that it's brought to my notice (i.e. it's important to the plot or to one or more of the characters). In fact, I'd go further: if the author just seems out to show how clever and imaginative they are, it pulls me out of the story. (This happens with other aspects: for instance, if some particular magic works, why oh why will some authors invent ever more esoteric ways to perform the same action? If the first method did the job, why not stick to it?)

Imaginary worlds are described in detail to give you a better understanding of the world. Since more detail goes into descriptions, I find it easier to imagine than some place in the world that I'm expected to know what it looks like.

Perhaps.

But with close PoV narratives where the PoV character is (or PoV characters are) staying close to home, it isn't as easy (or as realistic) to include detailed descriptions of the world: I rarely think about what the house over the road looks like unless there's been a change to it, which doesn't happen very often**. So unless your PoV character is a notorious fourth-wall breaker***, the descriptions of the everyday will come in dribs and drabs of information that the reader will have to add to a scene that's mostly not on the page.



** - Having said that.... This week, they've put up their Christmas lights: lots of dangly plastic containing slowly pulsing pale blue lights strung across the front of their porch (which is open to the world). Even now, though, I'm only paying attention to the appearance of the rest of the house because I happen to be looking closely at it (so it's "plot" related), which I don't usually do.

*** - Thinking about it (now there's a novelty), perhaps I might accept (far) more description from a first person narrative, where the narrator is more directly addressing the reader.

 

[James Coote]

I prefer writing in the real world, because, as others have said, I can focus on the characters. I do purposely obfuscate the location I'm basing the world on, usually by anonymising the place names and being vague about geospatial relationships (where one place is in relation to another).

Typically though, geography is not as important as the environment. The real world does not describe the feelings and emotions it invokes on its own. During a hot summer's day, the forest is a cool retreat, but on a cold winter's night, it is a dark and foreboding place

That applies whether the forest is on present day Earth, or some distant terraformed colony world. I'd class both places as real, even if neither technically exist.

Once you do start introducing geography, you add an extra layer to the world that needs to be kept internally consistent, but you also add another thing for the reader to have to keep in their head.

Travel writing can also be analogous to the imagined adventures of a fantasy story. They are usually economical with place names, because
a) naming everything and how it relates to everything else detracts from the journey, which is the real story,
b) having fewer names helps the reader build a stronger mental picture of a few key places, rather than many vague outlines, and
c) the authors probably didn't know the names of the places themselves! If you don't know the name when you are actually there, it is clearly irrelevant.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Everything is about the characters. If we can't relate to what they are going through, then we get no emotional connection to their circumstances. The setting is a minor issue compared with that. Though on a personal level someone might feel that 'fantastic' settings take them out of the story, that's a personal taste issue and can't be applied across the board. As many have said, Warren Paul hit the nail on the head.