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bloodyrosemccoyHey guys! Got a worldbuilding question for you.
So while the Obligatory Giant Young Adult Fantasy Epic languishes in despair of finding an agent, it's mostly ready to be looked at--probably it could use an editor to point out things I've missed, but I've got it pretty polished. But I can't resist making a few tweaks while I wait, and there's one tweak that isn't so important for the actual book, but for the world.
The OGYAFE is portal fiction because, hey, I like portal fiction, but I'm trying to make OGYAFEland as independent as possible anyway. I want there to be a balance between their world and ours--some things are better there, others here. This extends to people, cultures, technology, and ecology and geography and so forth.
But one thing that's pretty darn fun about OGYAFEland is the dragons.
I really like the idea of dragons as a biological clade--not just a species. Not even a few varieties of intelligent creatures, like in the Dragonology books or similar pretend field guides. I'm thinking of them as but a whole dang taxonomic group distinct from reptiles, birds, and mammals--and with as much diversity, because dragons have been speciating just like all the other animals have. In OGYAFEland, dragons (with the exception of one notable species) are as commonplace, and as varied, as birds.
Which got me wondering.
Should OGYAFEland even HAVE birds?
I admit to going back and forth on this. It wouldn't take much to change it around in the story--a couple of place names would have to be changed, and one character's feathers (don't ask) would have to be specified to look like "dragonfeathers" (a modified scale that many dragon species have evolved--which is more or less how feathers work anyway), but that shouldn't be hard. And I like that our world would then have a biological clade completely foreign to OGYAFEland. Plus, while I'm not going for a one-to-one correlation between bird and dragon species, it's really fun to have them fill similar ecological niches that have the displaced characters from our world trying to make analogies and referring to "chickendragons" and "hawkdragons" and "hummingdragons" and "penguindragons."
But ... to be honest, I'd sort of miss birds.
I guess the whole idea is to have something be better in our world. But I wanted some other input. What do you guys think?
So while the Obligatory Giant Young Adult Fantasy Epic languishes in despair of finding an agent, it's mostly ready to be looked at--probably it could use an editor to point out things I've missed, but I've got it pretty polished. But I can't resist making a few tweaks while I wait, and there's one tweak that isn't so important for the actual book, but for the world.
The OGYAFE is portal fiction because, hey, I like portal fiction, but I'm trying to make OGYAFEland as independent as possible anyway. I want there to be a balance between their world and ours--some things are better there, others here. This extends to people, cultures, technology, and ecology and geography and so forth.
But one thing that's pretty darn fun about OGYAFEland is the dragons.
I really like the idea of dragons as a biological clade--not just a species. Not even a few varieties of intelligent creatures, like in the Dragonology books or similar pretend field guides. I'm thinking of them as but a whole dang taxonomic group distinct from reptiles, birds, and mammals--and with as much diversity, because dragons have been speciating just like all the other animals have. In OGYAFEland, dragons (with the exception of one notable species) are as commonplace, and as varied, as birds.
Which got me wondering.
Should OGYAFEland even HAVE birds?
I admit to going back and forth on this. It wouldn't take much to change it around in the story--a couple of place names would have to be changed, and one character's feathers (don't ask) would have to be specified to look like "dragonfeathers" (a modified scale that many dragon species have evolved--which is more or less how feathers work anyway), but that shouldn't be hard. And I like that our world would then have a biological clade completely foreign to OGYAFEland. Plus, while I'm not going for a one-to-one correlation between bird and dragon species, it's really fun to have them fill similar ecological niches that have the displaced characters from our world trying to make analogies and referring to "chickendragons" and "hawkdragons" and "hummingdragons" and "penguindragons."
But ... to be honest, I'd sort of miss birds.
I guess the whole idea is to have something be better in our world. But I wanted some other input. What do you guys think?
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no subject
Date: 2014-06-21 08:36 am (UTC)"No birds!" The reader will share the Our World characters' astonishment and weirdly bond over their outrage at the lack of birds. It'll become emblematic of just how "Otherworldly" the "Other World" which has dragons is, an easy way they could convey its outlandishness to other Our Worlders - "No birds! How do they manage?" Yet just as other cultures we wonder this about regarding so many things - how do they manage? - on some level they'd manage just fine, and when the reader would accept that, it'd be like they'd be accepting a wider part of the in-world reality along with it.
Plus, if you're trying to come up with dragons that will catch the reader's imagination, I think it will force your own mind to go in directions in which it normally wouldn't if you're forced to navigate around a lack of birds, giving it extra motivation to come up with more specific dragon subspecies functions. But, as I said that's just my opinion at first whiff, without having read the story itself of course, so make of it what you will and take it with a shaker of salt. :)
no subject
Date: 2014-06-21 11:54 am (UTC)I'm also reminded of this scene from Erfworld.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-04 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 05:19 am (UTC)Also, somehow your comment made me realize just how I could make this into a useful plot point. So thanks!
no subject
Date: 2014-07-18 05:06 pm (UTC)On a random note I've been writing a lot recently, more stories in Boko's, Diaz's and Mandrake's universe, in case the mood should ever strike you to peruse any of them:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13901456/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13917513/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13937343/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13952714/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13998177/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14006721/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14017205/