When I consider the wonderful flights of fantasy I have absorbed and been absorbed in over the years there is a constant: I love the lore being woven through these tales. It is the lore that, for me, anchors the story. The more present the lore in shaping our understanding of what happens with and around the characters, the more relevant and lasting the story becomes.
I don’t even have to be told everything. I want to know it all, but I don’t necessarily need to have the information at once. In fact, putting the pieces together is often more enjoyable and effective to me as a reader. I remember the stuff I’ve figured out better than the stuff handed to me up front.
This matters because I, at my core as a writer, am someone who wants to create wonderful and lasting lore. I want to build worlds in which the histories are so rich that they themselves may spark stories. This is the functional greatness of Martin, King, Tolkien, Erikson and so many others who’ve shaped worlds I find it impossible to forget.
Also core to these worlds is the idea that it has, in a sense, moved on from the time of these histories. Erikson is the one of these listed who stays closest to the battles of these early Gods. Yet the forgetting of historical events or the willful disregard or even obfuscation of these events is often the source of a great deal of the conflicts.
When we forget our history we become unmoored from its lessons. This is the consistent thread of such stories and the type of story I mean to tell as my overall theme and message.
Some Thoughts:
- Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “United Airlines flight to Spain pulls U-turn, apparently over Bluetooth device name” I’m looking at you Shakira-Stalker_819. No, actually the device in question was called ‘BOMB’. Like for real.