World Creation

All writers go in for world creation, it comes with the territory. What is contained on the pages is fiction, the product of the writer's imagination. So we all create worlds - that's part of the fun of it. Even novels set in the reader's own time and place are fantasy recreations of the real world.

World creation is also one of the reasons we read. We want to know what life was like in, for example, C18th Paris, or Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War. We want to imagine pretend worlds, such as that created by Tolkien - how many visitors to New Zealand are really hoping they're going to end up in The Shire?

We like world creation as readers, and it's part of the writer's job to re-create a world, whether imaginary or real.

What sometimes happens is that the writer gets carried away by their world. Every little thing, every tiny detail gets given the same loving focus as the main features. If writers are sensible they keep the marvellous details out of their main works, and publish them separately eg The Silmarrillion by Tolkien, or Quidditch through the Ages by JK Rowling. Tolkien and Rowling are both wonderful story tellers and they know that too much detail weighs the story down.

So fantasy novelists have to guard against adding just the right amount of detail - enough to create a fantasy world, not enough to get in the way of the story telling. Any novel which involves research has to watch out for this too - social history is fascinating, but will your description of the manufacture of manglewurzel cutters add anything to your story?

And even contemporary writers have to guard against the temptation to describe every little thing in detail - I once read part of someone's short story that spent two whole pages describing a bureau and its contents, none of which was really relevant to the story but had taken up about 500 words. That's a high percentage of a short story to spend on 'creating atmosphere.'

So if your short story or novel appears to be endless, try going through and marking with a highlighter pen essential bits of action. Then be ruthless and cut the rest.

And Another Rude Poem that Goes Too Far

We can go too far with showing not telling. This is the poem I was originally going to recite at the Get Writing Conference last Saturday:

Mary had a little lamb.

She also had a duck.

She put them on the mantlepiece

To see if they'd...fall off.

It's just not as funny. Yet we're still relying on the audience identifying and then supplying the missing word, exactly as in yesterday's poem. I think it's not as funny for two reasons: the missing word is generally considered ruder and cruder, and the substitution weakens the joke.

When you're writing, you're creating a world. You want to lure the reader into your world and keep them there. They're usually keen to stay, but can be jolted out. By being crude, the reader is startled out of their comfort zone. I was interested to learn that several friends preferred my later novels because there was less 'bad language'. Now, I don't think there's much in any of my novels, but I took their comments on board. The 'bad language' had jolted them out of their comfort zones and away from my story world.

And then there's the substitution. I think this weakens the joke by pointing out that it IS a joke, a contrivance. The reader doesn't feel as clever as they did in yesterday's poem when they did the work and substituted the word. Instead, it's a trick, and they're the ones being tricked. The subtext runs: You're expecting this rude word, but - ha ha - it's something else quite innocuous.

So there has to be a balance. If we use showing not telling, but make what we're showing too obscure and difficult, it becomes too much like hard work and the reader will give up. If we mislead the reader, the reader will turn away. Sometimes telling is the right thing to do. Part of the writer's job is learning about the balance and getting it right.

When I told my partner of my poetry plans for the talk at the Get Writing Conference he said I must have balls of steel (!) to contemplate reading out such material in front of a group of strangers. Yesterday's poem got a laugh, today's wouldn't. On Saturday I got the balance of smut:crudity right. Tomorrow maybe I won't. Who knows? It's all a matter of trial and error and, balls of steel or not, isn't it fun to be playing and experimenting?

Too Many Cemeteries

I had nearly finished the first draft of Adultery for Beginners when school broke up for the summer, leaving me with two children to entertain when I was obsessed with writing. I rose to the occasion. I bought them a computer and gave them unlimited access on condition they let me get on with my novel. Not very commendable, but hey - I got that first draft written! And they became obsessed in turn with a game called Black and White where they were gods, built worlds and populated them with worshippers.

I've never played Black and White, but as a writer I understand the appeal. I spend my days creating fantasy worlds where imaginary people live in imaginary houses and do imaginary jobs. I can see my world clearly in my head, but I've never been one for making notes or drawing pictures of my world - I think the only time was in A Single to Rome where I drew out a complete floor plan of the Tea Museum to make sure that it was consistent throughout. For other writers the creation of a world is one of the joys of writing. If that's you, then be careful. It's all too easy to get caught up in the minutiae of your world, to the detriment of your writing.

There are two problems: firstly, you spend so much time developing your world you forget about writing the story, and secondly you can't resist sticking all your lovely ideas and plans into the story. It's a particular problem for fantasy and sci-fi writers where the creation of a whole new world is very much part of the genre. Think of Lord of the Rings. Tolkein had the sense to put all the elven lore he'd developed into another book, The Silmirillion. JK Rowling is another world builder, and equally put a lot of the more obscure elements of her carefully detailed world into books like The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Quidditch through the Ages.

Not everybody manages to separate the story from the world creation. My heart used to sink when I was teaching undergraduates and yet another slice of fantasy world came up, crammed with detail about the rituals of the Gar'an or the native folklore of the 'Mqardl that only the creator could love.

It's not just fantasy writers though. It applies to anyone who needs to research the background of their novel. Kissing Mr Wrong has a WWI background which led me to spend time on the Somme battlefields prompting the comment, 'Too many cemeteries' from my editor. Oh, how I hated cutting back on the cemeteries, but she was right to be ruthless. I'd written about too many because I'd been overwhelmed by the places myself, but they didn't add to the story. Instead I've put the information up on my website. It's the best place for it.