The Hidden Courts (Last update 18.1.2021)

Are you writing fan fiction?

And, regardless, fanfiction is a great example to illustrate my point — the authors spend zero time setting up the world, because you go in with an assumption of reader literacy already in place. Fanfiction is an excuse to just jump right into the meat of the story and ignore all the parts where you set up the lore. There’s actually a lot to admire about the efficiency and grace with which the best pieces of fanfiction pull it off!

Find out what expectations a reader comes into your work with and use that as a jumping-off point. Eragon has a tonne of lore but starts with a contextless action sequence with fire and magic and blood. Lord of the Rings (the movie) starts with a massive lore dump, sure, but it also starts with a badass action war sequence where a demon gets its finger chopped off and we follow a ring through history, all fully animated and acted throughout. Even something like Warhammer 40,000, which is all lore, starts you off fighting for your life against alien forces before you read one word of the context.

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No. I’m writing a religious text and a spin-off of things I know in mythology. Granted I’m filling is some of the gaps, but non the less. Everything is based in something, only the things they’re based in are lacking in emotion and clarity, that’s what I’m trying to provide by writing. They both need the other, and one can’t be written without the other.

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I worry that you’re sliding further away from writing cool sequences.

I feel that I have failed in my mission to get you to write cool sequences instead of lore dumps. For some reason you’ve gone evangelical about how necessary lore is, when my point isn’t even that it’s unnecessary — it’s just not fun. Let the players figure out the lore for themselves. Work it into your story. Don’t dump it all at the start.

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That isn’t all of it, it’s what is necessary for the story to not be completely and utterly confusing, there is still plenty of room for mysteries and twists, but some things need to be made clear.

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I see both sides, but if you have your world set in a world entirely different than our own, isn’t lore absolutely required? Otherwise I feel the reader can get lost or confused as to why these cultures/religions/whatever else exist. I’m not a fan of info dumps, but rather a place where you can go to (a library most the time) where you CAN ask questions regarding lore. Then you have a choice, if you’re confused, got to the library! If not, forget about it

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Yeah, exactly – work it in naturally and believably, in a way that someone within the world would discover these things. Doesn’t have to be a library, but there are huge opportunities to capture that sense of wonder and mythology that human beings have felt as they have created stories over the past hundred thousand years. Don’t tell me the lore in a block of text, have an old woman recount tales of her childhood by a winter hearth, misremembering details, but with an understanding that to her, the details aren’t what’s important. Have a guitarist by the fireside sing a song of the ancient ways, myth mixed with history, the version changed to suit his personality and beliefs, one version among many of the same song. Have children run around, playing as their heroes from the ancient stories, urging you to join in as the spider god, a trickster who disrupts the natural order of their game and steals children away (to wash up for supper before their mom gets worried). Mythology isn’t words, it’s people.

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Ah, so an info dump, but not really. Dress it up in a believable situation, I actually really like that idea! (Don’t mind if I steal that for my own WIP :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:)

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Lovely thoughts, but nothing like the mythology which I grew up to. I was told stories sure, sad little imitations of my gods intended to teach a child. What I actually learned about the god that I live and breath, who I worship, I read in books describing him, telling me who my family had devoted generations to, that lore had no emotion, my family, my grandparents and their parents and so on, are what gave that lore life, what made it real. The lore all exists, now I tell it to you and write a story to go with it, as such there needs to be some room for raw information that allows the story to thrive.

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Just a thought, but what if you took your personal experience and put it in the game? Take the POV of a child like you were, and tell the stories as you remember them. THAT… would be pretty dang cool.

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An excellent idea, perhaps one worthy of it’s own project, I’ll need to think about that. But for the Hidden Courts the stories I was told as a child would provide nothing, the ideas and concepts that I use have developed too far from them, taken too many influences and inspirations for the stories to mean anything for them. Though some of the stories I was told are planned to make an appearance. But that does give me another idea for how to start the story off… I will need to think about this.

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Damn, the act of being told one thing by parents and then conducting your own research to find the truth — that is a REALLY excellent way of tying lore to story without resorting to infodumps at the beginning, and I’d LOVE to read a story that’s based on your experience of self-teaching against the wishes of your authority figures.

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I’m making it sound far more interesting than it is trust me. But there could definitely be a story of some sort there.

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That’s your responsibility as a writer, yeah!

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Crap, now I feel like scrapping my whole start up scene. It could be worth it, but it’s just soooo much work. shitshitshitshitshithshitshitshitshit. Alright I’ll have to see where this goes and how I can make it work without scrapping the entirety of the first chapter and then some.

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You don’t have to scrap what you’ve written, but I think that the start could present your lore in a more interesting, active way!

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I’ve read through your story a couple times now, and I had an idea. What if, (and I now this is a stretch, bear with me) what if your intro started with a third person POV, with some grandma (actually a Fae) telling her grandson/granddaughter about how the world used to be. So your story actually becomes a retelling of the history of the fae. You can have her begin to speak, then have the grandchild ask lore related questions (about stuff kids wouldn’t understand by themselves) then as the grandma delves into her story, the POV switches to 1st person as you take on the role of the MC, who the grandmother’s story is about.

Then you wouldn’t have to scrap your whole intro, just tailor it to fit the new narrative.

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You’re killing me, I’d love to write something like that, but it requires a concrete future in which we always end up, as I see the story now there are going to be at least two major story paths that take you to completely different futures. Maybe if I made the starting sequence really vague it could work. I’m just not quite sure how it would happen.

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I mean, as long as neither of your endings require the total extinction of the fae, then the story could still be told. If you’re ambiguous enough, then you could make it fit any narrative.
(But if it does… well then you’re in a pickle :joy:)
Idk, just a thought

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It’s a great thought, and I think I have an idea about a story structure derived from it.
It’ll need a little work though. If I get in to the flow of writing you might expect a little update in a few hours, if not, then I don’t know, how’s everybody’s schedule for 2022?

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Alright, quick new start drafted. Go see how you like it and tell me if it’s better or worse than the first one.

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