Finally got a chance to finish this video, and I just wanted to thank the two of you for the wonderful conversation. You were good company for my lunch!
I wouldn't say great advice. Knowing your limits and how far you can fake it is an important aspect of that. I wouldn't want to bluff people about knowing what to do in a medical emergency.
These conversations between you two are a delight! Thank you so much for taking the time to record this, it was a pleasure to watch you. Time flies when I'm listening to you two talking :)
Hi Rox, I am glad that you enjoyed it. I can't speak for Erikson, but i genuinely enjoy discussing this stuff with him, so it is really nice to hear that other people enjoy it too.
These conversations are always so informative. Thank you gents for the opportunity to learn. Regarding the discussion about travel logging and character focalization, I’d be interested to hear more of your thoughts about how a writer can navigate balancing between the two. I find it a struggle but perhaps that’s just a “me” thing. Thanks as always!
A Travelogue tends to place the focus on describing the different locations that the character moves through. For example, in Lord of the Rings, if the purpose of the story was to show off what Moiria and Lothlorien were like, instead of using those as settings for what happens. So a travelogue makes the place visited the focus, a story tends to use the place visited as a location in which the story happens. Focalisation is about using the character perspective to provide their view of the setting which may be different to another character standing beside them. For example, a prisoner in a cell and the jailor. They would regard the cell differently, they might focus on different things. The jailor might look to see if the restraints are still strong, but the prisoner might view them as heavy shackles.
Great conversation. I'm actually working on annotations for a Tehol and Bugg scene analysis video right now, and this particular scene (as do others) opens with Tehol saying some pseudo-intelectual platitude, I suppose to annoy or maybe amuze Bugg. AND THEN we get the setting of the rooftop, the mosquito net, and so on. So just really cool to hear experts talking about this - thank you both so much. ALSO ALSO, quick shoutout to symbolism via setting with all of the winter imagery in Fall of Light. Brilliant stuff. 👏
I look forward to the discussion. I am glad that you are enjoying these discussions with Erikson. Hearing writers' perspectives over the years has certainly made me a more eagle-eyed reader.
Great conversation that gave me a ton of ideas for potential videos and stuff. One aspect of the highly descriptive, almost travelogue worldbuilding stuff: I wonder how much of that is also rooted in gaming, tabletop or video. Showing off a cool world to gamers is very different because there is a level of interaction. The exploration and discovery are experienced directly by the players whereas in television or reading that changes. Yes you can surprise or impress viewers with an impressive shot but the control of what they perceive and how is still very much in the hands of the narator.
You can wed that point to the prevalence and love of quest/adventure fantasies that track the progress of a hero from one location to the next as they slowly explore the world and have an adventure in each new location. Then add in a discussion of first/third person PoV in games, and how technically they are viewed from that PoV but typically narrated in second person. There are a host of interesting overlaps and points involving interactive narrative, levels of authority in narration, and the encyclopaedic explorer impulse.
@@ACriticalDragon As someone who has run his share of tabletop games in worlds of their own devising I do know the impulse to go and show off all the cool ideas put into the world to the audience which makes for bad gaming as well as bad stories in a lot of ways. But the temptation is very strong to show off all the cool bits.
Yup, whipping out your cool bits to show everyone is not always appropriate nor appreciated by every audience. Hmm I may have wandered into a different topic here.
Thanks for another very interesting chat. I'm enjoying them and learning a lot, as well as your other videos on narrative. I also believe most of these things apply to real life, not only when we try to communicate but also when we try to understand the world. So, thank you for helping me learn more about both literature and life.
Very interesting discussion AP! One thing I noticed lately with the difference between books and film is with the Winnie-the-Pooh books. Many of AA Milne's jokes don't really work in a visual medium, because the visuals spoil the joke before it is made. Milne made the kind of jokes where you suddenly realise what is going on only after the animals have been talking for a while, but on screen you immediately see what is going on.
This was quite nice to watch too. I have always found it hard to distinguish between setting and world building. In a way, they are pretty much the same thing, but where one applies to the scene, the other one applies to the entire world. Or at least that's how I used to understand it. It was nice to hear Steve's view on it. Please do continue to get abused by your friend :) And I think we all love to hear his stories of youth and the places he has been to, so dig them out of him whenever possible.
Great video and very insightful discussion! Interesting to hear about your opinions about setting and subtext. As I reader I am very much into the subtext as well as the mood and atmosphere of every scene. Long winded descriptions of setting and character have always bored me, even thinking back to the days when I read young adult fiction which was often guilty of providing pages upon pages of character and landscape descriptions.
@@ACriticalDragon had the chance to complete this. Very fun. As a Florida native, I embrace the wet, palpable, slap in the face of arriving back home! Have a Great Day!
I really enjoy listening to these conversations, and I always gain insight to things I like to read. Your discussion around the small details that can be picked up and used later was fantastic, and I think is a lot of the reason why Realm of the Elderlings works so well for me. Everything I learned in later books was grounded by things in the early ones, and you both phrased it wonderfully - it IS incredibly reassuring as a reader, it definitely leaves us the ability to believe that the writer truly had EVERYTHING in mind from the beginning, even if, as you say A.P., they're flying by the seat of their pants. Thanks again to Steve, always a fascinating guest, though if his humour was any drier, I may die of dehydration! Cheers
While you two were talking about character interaction with setting and world-building, I kept thinking of the Gentleman Bastards (I've only read books 1 & 2), and then you mention thieves running away to another location for the second book! 😂This whole discussion was fascinating, and I'm now often curious to what extent various authors intentionally filter setting or world-building descriptions through character perspectives. It's another one of those areas where prose, characterization, and setting/worldbuilding can blend together!
I found this discussion very enlightening. Personally, as much as a description of setting provides other details like tone, worldbuilding, subtexts, etc, I have always found it distracting at times, especially when the dialogue is either the most important part of that section, or an unbiased attention to the dialogue is essential. For instance, the very first chapter in Malazan Book of the Fallen begins with three words: "Prod and pull...." This is later followed by a description of the setting. In my opinion, this brings more of our attention to those words than where they were uttered.
@@ACriticalDragon well, this seems inevitable. May take awhile but you find it at some point along the journey. It’s kinda like the thought experiment regarding that one monkey out of a million who will eventually write Shakespeare.
As a novice fantasy writer, these conversations are an absolutely indispensable resource which have changed how I think about both my writing and the world at large, listening to the two of you analyse is just such a joy. I was particularly interested in the distinction you made between mythic and realist narratives in this video - would you happen to have any recommendations for videos/other resources that discuss the difference between the styles and what each can be used to achieve? Thanks in advance! ^^
The prose level of descriptions of world building always trips me up. And I’m coming to realize that, mostly (probably), this is due to me being able to interact with so little of it, I never really had much value placed on knowing what certain types of rock faces might be called, or like I only just learned within the last few years (I’m almost 38 soon here) what you call the literal worst kind of man made walkway (?) construction imo, which is cobblestone. Things like that, there seem to be so many of them. I wonder if Steve has ever had to go back and find the name of something that basic (or perhaps more accurate to say “granular”) in an encyclopedia or dictionary. Bc I feel like I’m failing every time I have to try to do this. Especially when I can’t find it, for any of a number of reasons.
That would be a fun thing to ask Mr. Erikson indeed. I was surely very confused and had to look up some words reading the first 50 or 100 pages of Gardens of the Moon. Luckily you get used to an authors writing style eventually, even as a non-native speaker trying to read English on the level of the Malazan books.
Maybe I'm fanboying a bit but Mr. Erikson has put into words what I've never been able to put my finger on about stories. The way some scenes and character interactions with their respective environments are written makes the world (and therefore the story) FEEL like a real place even if a fantastical place with weird creatures. The Malazan series feels real, feels alive, even if there are dragons and fucking sea monsters. I love these conversations.
I think GRRM does that a lot (planting details or seeming forshadowing) that ended up NOT being used or actually being used and turned into a big plot twist or enlargement of the original story or character arc in later books when to begin with it was just a seed that was planted (he talks about being a gardener after all) all the way in earlier books; but there are countless examples of this and not everything ended up being used and those details are actually in the text. (I talk about GRRM because I think I know ASOIAF pretty well by a normal reader standard so that's why I pick that example.
@@ACriticalDragon How does he go about writing soft magic? What is his process? How does he go about defining what magic does alongside it's limits and costs? What is his advice for a beginner writer like myself on how to write magic? How does he make magic be well magic? How does he avoid making magic like a system? How does he go about interconnecting multiple kinds of magic?
I do like the distinction between setting and worldbuilding. The former as passive and the latter is how the characters interact with the setting. In a lot of stories the setting is practically another character. For the overly exposited for no partiular reason, I recall the example of a 2 page description on how the Gorian calendar works. Methods of time keeping is not what that series is known for. Robert J Defendi published several game modules and was very proud he included correctly named garderobes. And lastly, they fought the American Civil War that way because they were still using strategies based on Napoleonic times where that was the norm. Weapon technology had increased a great deal since then but not tactics.
Finally got a chance to finish this video, and I just wanted to thank the two of you for the wonderful conversation. You were good company for my lunch!
Glad to keep you company, my friend. A good conversation always improves a salad.
@@ACriticalDragon Knowing Philip he had sautéed student for lunch.
@@jeroenadmiraal8714 Not fricasseed?
@@marsrock316 That's not alliterative
@@jeroenadmiraal8714 fricasseed freshman
Create the illusion of knowing what you're talking about. That is a great line and really good advice.
I wouldn't say great advice. Knowing your limits and how far you can fake it is an important aspect of that. I wouldn't want to bluff people about knowing what to do in a medical emergency.
@@ACriticalDragon Oh too true. I meant strictly when writing fiction. Don't try it in real life folks! ha
These conversations between you two are a delight! Thank you so much for taking the time to record this, it was a pleasure to watch you. Time flies when I'm listening to you two talking :)
Hi Rox, I am glad that you enjoyed it. I can't speak for Erikson, but i genuinely enjoy discussing this stuff with him, so it is really nice to hear that other people enjoy it too.
Thank you Steve and AP for making these! Such a wonderful and insightful listen. I appreciate you both taking the time to record these interviews. ❤
Our pleasure! Thanks for watching.
These conversations are always so informative. Thank you gents for the opportunity to learn.
Regarding the discussion about travel logging and character focalization, I’d be interested to hear more of your thoughts about how a writer can navigate balancing between the two. I find it a struggle but perhaps that’s just a “me” thing.
Thanks as always!
A Travelogue tends to place the focus on describing the different locations that the character moves through. For example, in Lord of the Rings, if the purpose of the story was to show off what Moiria and Lothlorien were like, instead of using those as settings for what happens.
So a travelogue makes the place visited the focus, a story tends to use the place visited as a location in which the story happens.
Focalisation is about using the character perspective to provide their view of the setting which may be different to another character standing beside them. For example, a prisoner in a cell and the jailor. They would regard the cell differently, they might focus on different things. The jailor might look to see if the restraints are still strong, but the prisoner might view them as heavy shackles.
It’s wild to hear these guys talk about writing. ✍🏻 thank you
Great interview. As a rookie/hobby writer this was a wealth of information.
Subbed
Thank you very much, I am glad that you enjoyed it.
YES! I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!
I've been 'building' a fantasy world for years. Love this stuff!
We might tackle worldbuilding more directly in a future discussion, but I hope at least some of this was useful to you.
@@ACriticalDragon it always is! Thank you.
Gracias Steven!!!
Great conversation. I'm actually working on annotations for a Tehol and Bugg scene analysis video right now, and this particular scene (as do others) opens with Tehol saying some pseudo-intelectual platitude, I suppose to annoy or maybe amuze Bugg. AND THEN we get the setting of the rooftop, the mosquito net, and so on. So just really cool to hear experts talking about this - thank you both so much. ALSO ALSO, quick shoutout to symbolism via setting with all of the winter imagery in Fall of Light. Brilliant stuff. 👏
I look forward to the discussion. I am glad that you are enjoying these discussions with Erikson. Hearing writers' perspectives over the years has certainly made me a more eagle-eyed reader.
I've been looking forward to this! Thanks for bringing us these wonderful discussions, A.P.
You are very welcome. Although I think most people are here to see Steve make fun of me. The educational aspect is secondary.
Thank you AP and Steven! It was a great discussion and it was very entertaining! cheers!
Thank you, Diego. I am really happy that you enjoyed it.
Great conversation that gave me a ton of ideas for potential videos and stuff. One aspect of the highly descriptive, almost travelogue worldbuilding stuff: I wonder how much of that is also rooted in gaming, tabletop or video. Showing off a cool world to gamers is very different because there is a level of interaction. The exploration and discovery are experienced directly by the players whereas in television or reading that changes. Yes you can surprise or impress viewers with an impressive shot but the control of what they perceive and how is still very much in the hands of the narator.
You can wed that point to the prevalence and love of quest/adventure fantasies that track the progress of a hero from one location to the next as they slowly explore the world and have an adventure in each new location. Then add in a discussion of first/third person PoV in games, and how technically they are viewed from that PoV but typically narrated in second person. There are a host of interesting overlaps and points involving interactive narrative, levels of authority in narration, and the encyclopaedic explorer impulse.
@@ACriticalDragon As someone who has run his share of tabletop games in worlds of their own devising I do know the impulse to go and show off all the cool ideas put into the world to the audience which makes for bad gaming as well as bad stories in a lot of ways. But the temptation is very strong to show off all the cool bits.
Yup, whipping out your cool bits to show everyone is not always appropriate nor appreciated by every audience. Hmm I may have wandered into a different topic here.
@@ACriticalDragon I'd say that is a general rule for life.
Thanks for another very interesting chat. I'm enjoying them and learning a lot, as well as your other videos on narrative. I also believe most of these things apply to real life, not only when we try to communicate but also when we try to understand the world. So, thank you for helping me learn more about both literature and life.
You are very welcome. Thank you so much for the very kind comment, and for watching the videos. I am glad that they are useful to you.
Very interesting discussion AP! One thing I noticed lately with the difference between books and film is with the Winnie-the-Pooh books. Many of AA Milne's jokes don't really work in a visual medium, because the visuals spoil the joke before it is made. Milne made the kind of jokes where you suddenly realise what is going on only after the animals have been talking for a while, but on screen you immediately see what is going on.
And yet that is precisely what the opening of Shaun of the Dead plays with to create that joke. It can be done, but it is unexpected.
This was quite nice to watch too. I have always found it hard to distinguish between setting and world building. In a way, they are pretty much the same thing, but where one applies to the scene, the other one applies to the entire world. Or at least that's how I used to understand it. It was nice to hear Steve's view on it.
Please do continue to get abused by your friend :) And I think we all love to hear his stories of youth and the places he has been to, so dig them out of him whenever possible.
Great video and very insightful discussion! Interesting to hear about your opinions about setting and subtext. As I reader I am very much into the subtext as well as the mood and atmosphere of every scene. Long winded descriptions of setting and character have always bored me, even thinking back to the days when I read young adult fiction which was often guilty of providing pages upon pages of character and landscape descriptions.
A nice long one! Looking forward to today's lecture.
Hopefully it was more relaxed and fun than a lecture.
@@ACriticalDragon of course! Just as enlightening.
@@ACriticalDragon had the chance to complete this.
Very fun. As a Florida native, I embrace the wet, palpable, slap in the face of arriving back home!
Have a Great Day!
It's always great to see the two of you discuss things - I love the back and forth and the friendly badgering!
I always enjoy chatting with Erikson, at the very least he puts up with me. 😁
I really enjoy listening to these conversations, and I always gain insight to things I like to read. Your discussion around the small details that can be picked up and used later was fantastic, and I think is a lot of the reason why Realm of the Elderlings works so well for me. Everything I learned in later books was grounded by things in the early ones, and you both phrased it wonderfully - it IS incredibly reassuring as a reader, it definitely leaves us the ability to believe that the writer truly had EVERYTHING in mind from the beginning, even if, as you say A.P., they're flying by the seat of their pants.
Thanks again to Steve, always a fascinating guest, though if his humour was any drier, I may die of dehydration!
Cheers
While you two were talking about character interaction with setting and world-building, I kept thinking of the Gentleman Bastards (I've only read books 1 & 2), and then you mention thieves running away to another location for the second book! 😂This whole discussion was fascinating, and I'm now often curious to what extent various authors intentionally filter setting or world-building descriptions through character perspectives. It's another one of those areas where prose, characterization, and setting/worldbuilding can blend together!
I found this discussion very enlightening. Personally, as much as a description of setting provides other details like tone, worldbuilding, subtexts, etc, I have always found it distracting at times, especially when the dialogue is either the most important part of that section, or an unbiased attention to the dialogue is essential.
For instance, the very first chapter in Malazan Book of the Fallen begins with three words: "Prod and pull...." This is later followed by a description of the setting. In my opinion, this brings more of our attention to those words than where they were uttered.
That is why how all the different aspects of narrative are integrated is just as important as the elements in and of themselves.
Great point about reading things literally.
Occasionally I stumble across a good point. It is one of the advantages of talking too much, sometimes what I say accidentally makes sense.
@@ACriticalDragon well, this seems inevitable. May take awhile but you find it at some point along the journey.
It’s kinda like the thought experiment regarding that one monkey out of a million who will eventually write Shakespeare.
I've just finished Mr. Inbetweener on Disney of all places. I can't help but think you would both love it.
As a novice fantasy writer, these conversations are an absolutely indispensable resource which have changed how I think about both my writing and the world at large, listening to the two of you analyse is just such a joy. I was particularly interested in the distinction you made between mythic and realist narratives in this video - would you happen to have any recommendations for videos/other resources that discuss the difference between the styles and what each can be used to achieve? Thanks in advance! ^^
This is awesome and needs more attention!
I am glad that you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching.
these chats are usefull to me for sure!
I am glad that you enjoyed the discussion and got some use out of it.
You mention Shaun of the Dead. Edgar Wright is so good at visual comedy with the camera, setting, frame, angle, etc. no one can do it like him.
Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are definitely favourites of mine.
The prose level of descriptions of world building always trips me up. And I’m coming to realize that, mostly (probably), this is due to me being able to interact with so little of it, I never really had much value placed on knowing what certain types of rock faces might be called, or like I only just learned within the last few years (I’m almost 38 soon here) what you call the literal worst kind of man made walkway (?) construction imo, which is cobblestone.
Things like that, there seem to be so many of them. I wonder if Steve has ever had to go back and find the name of something that basic (or perhaps more accurate to say “granular”) in an encyclopedia or dictionary. Bc I feel like I’m failing every time I have to try to do this. Especially when I can’t find it, for any of a number of reasons.
This is where reading widely can really help. Also, a decent thesaurus.
That would be a fun thing to ask Mr. Erikson indeed. I was surely very confused and had to look up some words reading the first 50 or 100 pages of Gardens of the Moon. Luckily you get used to an authors writing style eventually, even as a non-native speaker trying to read English on the level of the Malazan books.
Maybe I'm fanboying a bit but Mr. Erikson has put into words what I've never been able to put my finger on about stories. The way some scenes and character interactions with their respective environments are written makes the world (and therefore the story) FEEL like a real place even if a fantastical place with weird creatures. The Malazan series feels real, feels alive, even if there are dragons and fucking sea monsters. I love these conversations.
I think GRRM does that a lot (planting details or seeming forshadowing) that ended up NOT being used or actually being used and turned into a big plot twist or enlargement of the original story or character arc in later books when to begin with it was just a seed that was planted (he talks about being a gardener after all) all the way in earlier books; but there are countless examples of this and not everything ended up being used and those details are actually in the text. (I talk about GRRM because I think I know ASOIAF pretty well by a normal reader standard so that's why I pick that example.
Love me some 7am A Critical Dragon 💪💪
Now that was not something I expected to hear. I hope that you enjoyed the conversation, and I hope that you have a great week, Bennett.
@@ACriticalDragon You too, AP!
If possible could you ask Steven Erikson how to approach writing magic?
Of course. Is there any particular aspect you wanted to ask about?
@@ACriticalDragon How does he go about writing soft magic? What is his process? How does he go about defining what magic does alongside it's limits and costs? What is his advice for a beginner writer like myself on how to write magic? How does he make magic be well magic? How does he avoid making magic like a system? How does he go about interconnecting multiple kinds of magic?
I do like the distinction between setting and worldbuilding. The former as passive and the latter is how the characters interact with the setting. In a lot of stories the setting is practically another character.
For the overly exposited for no partiular reason, I recall the example of a 2 page description on how the Gorian calendar works. Methods of time keeping is not what that series is known for.
Robert J Defendi published several game modules and was very proud he included correctly named garderobes.
And lastly, they fought the American Civil War that way because they were still using strategies based on Napoleonic times where that was the norm. Weapon technology had increased a great deal since then but not tactics.
“We’ve been discussing writing”
As you do.
In our defence, we are nerds about writing. Not much of a defence that, but we are sticking to it.
@@ACriticalDragon I’ll allow it. 😌
1:03:23
Every time I read I’m gonna be haunted by the question “where is the poop?” Thank you AP
The poop question haunts us all now. I am glad that I shared it with the world.
I got nose blind when I visited New York 😅
I appreciate Steve also for bringing up the straw man problem.
But we have to fight straw men, otherwise they tear up the countryside and leave bits of dried grass everywhere.