M John Harrinson

I'm always banging on about the fact that in any kind of writing, you have to do the work of constructing the world you want to portray to your reader. This could be a completely imagined fantasy, or a version of a known part of the world. You still need to bring it to life for the reader in some ways.

After China Miéville's workshop last night, we had a little chat and he recommended M John Harrison to me. And, along those lines, I found these posts on MJH's blogs (to be read in this order):

http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/viriconium/1/
http://uzwi.wordpress.com/2007/01/18/licensed-settings/
http://uzwi.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/very-afraid/
http://uzwi.wordpress.com/worldbuilding-further-notes/

From the get go he's saying some fantastic things here - I'm particularly fond of the idea that JRR Tolkien's world relies on a degree of poetry in the style and language to create the correct atmosphere for the reader to 'buy in to' the world of Middle Earth.

This reminds me of a workshop I trialled over summer using the herbalism and chanting, as practised by komboyannites (or 'Vikos Doctors') in Greece, over the centuries. The combination of blessings, preparations, meditation and chanting during the application of herbal medicine helped to create the correct mental state in which healing could take place.

Similarly, Jim Crace's work - Continent, Quarantine - relies on a degree of immersion in the rich language, the atmospherics, to deliver the world environment. As MJH continues, this clarifies in his argument:

"Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism... & in other worldbuilding news: Bush adminstration announces War on Climate Change– “We’ll fight with smoke & mirrors.”"

Perhaps it's more the broad brushstrokes that locate and contextualise the story, its characters. The smell of the landscape, the environmental pressures. Just creating the world isn't enough. This is there in HP Lovecraft's work, in his purple prose: the world is a verbose, graphic, flowery and frightening one, the syntax odd and historical. That's as much a description of the worlds in his stories as the technical specifications, but it's the poetry of his world, not the detail.

George Ttoouli : 17 Jan 2008 16:17 |  Tags: China Mieville Constructing Worlds Creative Writing Fantasy Writing |  Comments (0) |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem