McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Adapting Myth or Creating New?
Dresdenus Prime:
In the book series I'm planning a lot of the back story has to do with people and creatures popular in mythology. There will be Wizards, Vampires, Valkyries, and more.
My question is what would your opinion be on using these types of creatures versus original created creatures.
Take the Dresden Files and The Twenty Palace Society novels. Jim uses a lot of mythology for his books, but he adapts it and makes them fresh, for example taking the Vampires and splitting them into courts, or having multiple types of Werewolves. Harry Connolly on the other hand in his first two novels as far as I know creates the creatures that threaten his hero's world.
So does the reader jump to the new ideas because so many of the mythological ideas have been played out? Or is mythology so enticing that it actually has a better chance at luring a reader to see how loyal or how much of a risk you took with the source material?
I'm going to attempt to do both. I'm going to try and keep the mythological creatures as faithful as I can while at the same time adding my own twist to their origins, but I hope to create a couple new ones in the process.
I just thought I'd ask for everyone elses two cents, and see how many dollars I can get from that 8)
Nickeris86:
I love mythology a great deal and defiantly pull from it by the hand fulls for inspiration in my own works. However I never completely copy said myth unless my story takes place in the setting of that myth.
Like you I am writing a novel that is heavily inspired from vampire myths, however the being in my actual story are not classic vampires, and no they do not sparkle that is not anywhere close to a real vampire. Instead they are a completely different species from humans who have completely different anatomy that relies more on magic than science to actually be fees able.
Figging Mint:
Mythology mining is horribly convenient if you want to launch into action or emotive conflict sequences without a lot of world setup.
I don't enjoy that sort of thing, to be honest. I prefer *enormous* world setup, on the order of Dan Simmons' Ilium, Drake's Northworlds (for an example of enormous world setups with mythology pulls), unless there is a very detailed exploration of the state of being of the mythical critter. (Brust's Agyar and CJ Cherryh's Rusalka pop into mind here).
If you're good at descriptive pacing and infodumps, create your own. Write the next Amber. Nine Princes in Amber is a perfect example of zero explicit mythology pulls with an absolutely fascinating, gripping pacing of reveals. Heck, if you're really good at reader hooks, you can have a Belgariad.
newtinmpls:
"If you're good at descriptive pacing and infodumps, create your own. Write the next Amber. Nine Princes in Amber is a perfect example of zero explicit mythology pulls with an absolutely fascinating, gripping pacing of reveals. Heck, if you're really good at reader hooks, you can have a Belgariad."
Lovely point about Amber.
Belgariad? Had it's flaws. I have yet to meet a male reader who could stand Polgara. I did love the storytelly intros that had nothing overt to do with the plotline.
Figging Mint:
--- Quote from: newtinmpls on August 09, 2011, 01:13:03 AM ---"Lovely point about Amber."
--- End quote ---
Thanks. I like to use Amber here because Binder/Siddharta in Lord of Light gives us another version of the Corwin character in a world with explicit mythology pulls (and told in third person).
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