Word Nerd Cafe: Jan 2021 Episode 2 with Dan Kobolt
WriteHive News
Greetings, Hivemind!
When thinking about the second Word Nerd Cafe podcast, yours truly was reminded of A Tale of Two Cities, abridged because Dickens in today’s publishing market would be the king of the run-on sentence. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” Right away we know that the people of this book experience highs and lows, moments of brilliance and stupidity.
Guest Author Dan Koboldt opens the conversation by saying that authors have to bring in the speculative element (far out technology, or magic, or a megalomaniacal cheese sandwich if you’re Codgerspace) early. For starters, the reader can’t be led on to think that the setting is normative to the real world. A taste of magic, some shades of the average tension, or some other manner in which your story is different than our normal world.
Justine chimes in that you want to stay light and easy with the world though. The first chapter is a bad time to get into the weeds of magic types, subtypes, and specializations. Contemporary settings won’t require as much attention to the differences in exposure, but doing that is still important. Think of James Patterson, who creates many current-day-settings. There’s a breakdown of how contemporary fiction, we don’t need to describe a mall. The same cannot be said for ships (space or naval). However, for genre fiction let’s consider…
In Truthwitch, author Susan Dennard only casually goes into what a Voidwitch is. Readers don’t learn about Firewitch Healers until they are two-thirds of the way through. Nor are readers bombarded with Truthwitch lore until a few chapters have settled us into the world. Dennard’s first book in the Witchlands series has a political layer and a magical layer, and she wouldn’t be releasing her fifth book in the franchise this coming June (go read The Witchlands books -S.A.) if she overwhelmed her readers in the first five chapters. In short, pepper your lore. When in doubt, slow it down. It’s easier to condense it in revision than to expand it (watch my editor completely disagree with me) (Editor’s note: I don’t! I agree!).
To this point, Dan says that if a character snaps their fingers to create fire and everyone around them sees that as mundane, that will tell the reader what to expect going forward.
—
Skeptic was found in a sterile surgical preparation room. They were frozen in
thought, focused on the task ahead.
A woman in surgical scrubs walked in backwards through the double-doors, “They’re ready for you.”
Skeptic broke their vigil and followed the surgeon into the operating room. A boy was lying on the table. The machines hooked up to him showed that he was currently stable.
“Please confirm what I’m doing today,” asked Skeptic, a medical check to prevent mistakes.
“15 year old male. GSW near aorta. Before we risk surgery, the hospital is trying a sorcerer.”
“Thank you nurse.” replied Skeptic. They raised their left hand over the boy’s chest, and chanted three times, “Akbar yin ly-SHEE-sai.” Closing their left hand, they reached over to the nearby tool table and placed a bloody bullet in the tray.
With their right hand now placed over the boy’s heart, “Lack-shmee-sai.” The right hand, now cupped, looked as though it was massaging an unseen ball. They exhaled.
“I’m finished. Please do an imaging test to confirm I stopped the bleeding.” Panting heavy. “Please brief the family when you’re done; I need ten minutes to recover.”
—
Closing out the podcast, Jeni and Justine make sure to tell listeners that it’s fine if the worldbuilding isn’t perfect in the draft. That’s something that is common to revise during the revision process.
This wasn’t everything our panelists talked about, so check out Word Nerd Cafe, episode 2 and find out for yourself!
