tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.comments2016-09-09T18:38:07.905+02:00OdinsDayPeter34http://www.blogger.com/profile/11781111248739502181noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-35264071833280175862016-09-09T18:38:07.905+02:002016-09-09T18:38:07.905+02:00Thanks for the compliment, Sybil! What kinds of SF...Thanks for the compliment, Sybil! What kinds of SF do you want to write, and what are your favourite authors?Peter34https://www.blogger.com/profile/11781111248739502181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-4024202379096548362016-09-08T04:56:10.279+02:002016-09-08T04:56:10.279+02:00Very interesting reading for this budding SF write...Very interesting reading for this budding SF writer. Thank you. :)Sibyl ♥https://www.blogger.com/profile/18215220307899659523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-58868040589962150582013-08-13T21:56:26.649+02:002013-08-13T21:56:26.649+02:00Thanks. I hope the entire "Elfland" arti...Thanks. I hope the entire "Elfland" article series can be of use, to GMs and authors who want to increase the historicity of their stuff.Peter34https://www.blogger.com/profile/11781111248739502181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-85824773251273316732013-08-06T07:07:30.944+02:002013-08-06T07:07:30.944+02:00I very much enjoyed this readI very much enjoyed this readAndré Sena Machadohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06506571132872706786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-74251958141443029542012-01-22T16:59:59.783+01:002012-01-22T16:59:59.783+01:00By the way I added your site to my blogroll - hope...By the way I added your site to my blogroll - hope you get a few visitors on that account :)Svenhttp://www.fantasyboger.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-24882938599163779842012-01-22T16:58:52.481+01:002012-01-22T16:58:52.481+01:00Hi again,
It suddenly occured to me, that I didn&...Hi again,<br /><br />It suddenly occured to me, that I didn't get around to thank you for your thoughtfull answers. But consider that remedied now :) "Beacon" sounds interesting, I think. I will probably look into that one at some point (wish I had more time btw) ...Svenhttp://www.fantasyboger.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-88384754345272356072012-01-03T16:43:51.814+01:002012-01-03T16:43:51.814+01:00One not-good-but-better-than-most place to begin c...One not-good-but-better-than-most place to begin could be the works by Gillian Bradshaw, especially her early works such as her "Down the Long Wind"-trilogy and her "Beacon of Alexandria, both available in Danish. "Beacon" might appeal more to your mother since it has a female protagonist, but it's a straight historical so what protocol there is is, strictly speaking, for historical fiction. There IS protocl, though. Bradshaw rarely overexplains, and your mother might derive some benefit from it, especially if you also read the novel and discuss it with her.<br /><br />Clavell's "Shogun" novel might also work, and the Danish translation is divided into four volumes in case your mother has problems with heavy books. It is a historical like Bradshaw's, although Blackthorne is sometimes treated like a hobbit, especially by Mariko who explain a lot to him.<br /><br />For fantasy, try the first "Wizard of Earthsea" novel. It's hobbit-free, and available in a very capable (by movie subtitler and Tintin re-translator Niels Søndergaard) translation.<br /><br /><br /><br />The following other works mentioned by me are available in the Danish library system, all in English only:<br />"The Tough Guide to Fantasyland" by Wynne Jones<br />"GURPS Fantasy" by Stoddard<br />"GURPS Space 4th Edition" (I have not checked for earlier versions)<br />"How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by Card<br />"Wild Seed" by Butler<br /><br />(The Star Wars movie trilogy may also be available on VHS or DVD. The first trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn, which is fantastically good, is in the Danish library system (I just looked), both in English and in translation (but it could well be a cheap rush-job like the first Harry Potter translations). I don't think it is a good place to acquire the protocol, though, but it may do a little good in the unlikely event that our mother is a Star Wars fan; she'll be very disappointed by the usually low quality of all the non-Zahn Star Wars novels, sadly.)Peter34https://www.blogger.com/profile/11781111248739502181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-17616595891430715532012-01-03T16:43:37.318+01:002012-01-03T16:43:37.318+01:00Some years later, I came across the best answer I&...Some years later, I came across the best answer I've seen so far (actually the only answer, but it's quite good anysay, although the prospects for your old mother are poor), in an entry in Jo Walton's blog at the Tor publishing house: < http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/01/sf-reading-protocols ><br /><br />In this blog entry, which is well worth reading (I refer to that entry of hers in particular, and possibly a few others as well, in some of my other blog entries), Jo Walton points out that when you're 12 (sometimes defined as "the golden age of science fiction" - not any specific decade, such as the first decade of Campbell's editorship, but when you yourself were 12), you're used to a lot of things going over your head, so you just keep reading, hoping you'll figure it out eventually.<br /><br />I don't think Walton elaborates on this aspect in particular, but when most people are very young, they don't have much factual knowledge of the world, and so they - at least fairly smart young people - quickly figure out to learn by inference, by implication. Not just when reading fantasy or science fiction, but in all contexts of life. When listening to adults conversing with each other. When watching television news, or movies.<br /><br />Nobody ever told me what a Swiss bank account was; when I was a child I figured it out myself, by inference, due to watching a lot of thriller movies.<br /><br />I saw how some characters talked secretively or excitedly about such accounts. I saw how some characters reacted with interest and suspicion, when they found out that other characters had such accounts. Gradually I began to understand what it was and what it was about. I built a mental model of what a Swiss bank account was, what it could do, what it was good for.<br /><br />While the inability to "get" SF is not usually due to mental inflexibility, it is an obvious and inarguable fact that 12 year olds are on average much more mentally flexible than we adults, and that 65 year olds are on average much less mentally flexible than younger adults like me and you.<br /><br />Orson Scott Card describes the "protocol" usage process very well in his nonfiction "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy", in chapter 4, using as an example the opening paragraphs of Octavia Butler's fantasy novel "Wild Seed", analyzing deeply, deriving much world meaning (meaning that coalesces gradually, as the text move on) from a very few sentences, exactly as a protocol-savvy reader would.<br /><br />If you can get your 65-year old mother to read those 10-or-so pages, that might work (and get her to read Butler's novel afterwards (or get her to start reading Butler's novel first, then when she gets stuck give her the "key" in the form of Card's 4th chapter).<br /><br />Or if you can read them yourself and then explain the process to her, using a good example text that she can read, i.e. a text in Danish, while you guide her through the process. Offhand I cannot think of any such texts that are really good for the purpose. Most of what I read when I was too young to read English, and in the following few years when I was still willing to read Danish, utilized one or several hobbits, or contained much AsYouKnowBobbery.Peter34https://www.blogger.com/profile/11781111248739502181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-19643031468065901792012-01-03T16:42:53.006+01:002012-01-03T16:42:53.006+01:00Hi Sven
That's a very good question!
Do keep...Hi Sven<br /><br />That's a very good question!<br /><br />Do keep in mind, though, that the protocol is not about building the world, but about conveying information, about the world, to the reader (although Walton does describe the process of reading an SF story as building the world of the story in one's head).<br /><br />As an aside, for fantasy worldbuilding, I can recommend Patricia Wrede's "Worldbuilding Questions", which are available several places on the web such as these:<br />< http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/ ><br />and<br />< http://www.larseighner.com/world_builder/ ><br />(I cannot vouch for either of these versions in terms of them not having HTML or internal link problems, but even if they are faulty, they ought to give you an idea of what Wrede's work is about.)<br /><br />To a lesser extent the RPG product "GURPS Fantasy" by Willaim Stoddard is also worthwhile (be sure you get the new version by Stoddard; the original book of that title has a different focus and is not, as I understand it, a world building aid at all). Or if you wish to make a science fiction world, any version of GURPS Space from 2nd edition onwards is very good, especially for a space travel-focused project (presumably the 1st edition is similar in focus to the newer ones, but I have not read it so I cannot speak of it).<br /><br /><br /><br />James Gunn's article on the protocol deals only with science fiction, striclty speaking, but it has long been clear to me that there is a very similar protocol for reading fantasy, excepting that fantasy which takes place in a very well known world, by which I mean D&D fiction, or "extruded fantasy" (mocked by Diana Wynne Jones in "The Tough Guide to Fantasyland"), or faerie-tale land (the folk tales collected by Grimm, and by Asbjoernsen and Moe, and the "kunstmärchen" ("kunsteventyr" in Danish) by Andersen and others) - for such works you don't NEED any protocol.<br /><br />The fantasy procotol, when needed, is pretty much about using the same methods as the science fiction protocol, and historical fiction (excepting that which is infested with hobbits, or which utilizes AsYouKnowBobbery) also requires a very similar protocol, although as with familiar fantasy worlds it can to some extent "lean on" the reader already having some knowledge of the past setting.<br /><br />Originally I assumed that people who could not understand fantasy and science fiction, in the "protocol" sense of the word (not in the sense of understanding any silly literary symbolism), were intellectually deficient. That's always the first step in my figuring-out-why-people-are-broken "sifting process": "Is this person not smart enough?" (if that question seems not to be pertinent, then I move on to other questions). In this case it seemed more like mental inflexibility, rather than insufficient intelligence, but nevertheless I assumed it was a brain problem.<br /><br />Because of that, Gunn's article, which I read about a decade ago, was rather a revelation for me, since it explained to me why some smart people could not understand the fictional texts that I like so much.<br /><br />Ever since then, I wondered about how the protocol was actually acquired. How DO people learn to read this weird and underexplained shit?<br /><br />How did I learn it?<br /><br />I emailed Gunn some years later and asked him, giving as an example of protocol mismatch (although deliberate mismatch in this case, done for humorous effect) the "STAR WARS Technical Commentaries", which try to analyse the Star Wars trilogy as if they were hard science fiction works, and thus meant to be thought about; meant to be asked those kinds of questions of.<br />< http://www.theforce.net/swtc/index.html ><br /><br />Gunn had no answer for me, though. He could not explain to me how the protocol was acquired.Peter34https://www.blogger.com/profile/11781111248739502181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8974531676689047304.post-68619337962495784272012-01-03T10:59:34.752+01:002012-01-03T10:59:34.752+01:00Hi Peter,
I really like this blogpost and I find,...Hi Peter,<br /><br />I really like this blogpost and I find, that you are quite right about the best way to build your world is by using the genre protocol - although as a fantasy writer my experience is, that when you need it most, it seems to be written with invisible ink and you have to probe your way in the darkness ;)<br /><br />I do miss one thing in your blog post: what about the reader? If a reader is unfamiliar with a genre (in this case obviously fantasy) what do you think is the best way to learn the genre protocol? Should the reader just sit down and begin to read learning along the way? Or is it better to research a little beforehand? Since litterature is very much about the reading EXPERIENCE the first option seems the most viable, but if the learning curve is too steep, it may be a problem? Well, to wrap it up: say I would like to introduce my 65 year old mom to fantasy and get her to like the genre. How would you suggest getting her to know the genre protocol and understand it?<br /><br />Nice blog by the way!Svenhttp://www.fantasyboger.comnoreply@blogger.com