ParanetOnline
McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: groinkick on March 12, 2015, 07:22:32 PM
-
Alright I'm working on creating a story with vampires, werewolves, wizards ect... I really want to put a lot of great details into the world. I want the readers to be able to discuss it with their friends, and just really believe in it. Here is my main problem. I'm having a hard time coming up with reasons on why the supernatural world exists, yet in real life we don't see it. Get what I'm saying? I'm trying to come up with believable reasons on why everyday people don't see it going on around them.
A lot of stories just kind of ignore it or only slightly touch on it. I want the reader to be able to fall into the story to the point that they think "Wow this stuff is believable, it could actually happen like this and you would never know it"
Not a small task I know. Any ideas? Thank you.
-
A lot of stories just kind of ignore it or only slightly touch on it. I want the reader to be able to fall into the story to the point that they think "Wow this stuff is believable, it could actually happen like this and you would never know it"
How long has the supernatural been around in your setting ?
One way of plausibly having all that stuff be secret is if there was very little or none of it up to fairly recently.
-
Good idea. I was considering that there used to be stuff that happened in the past (which is where the lore came from) but it has been silent for a very long time. I know how I'd do it.
-
I don't read much urban fantasy other than the Dresden Files. How is it handled in other series? I imagine the easiest thing is just to say that everyone agrees to keep it secret to avoid witch hunts and mobs, just like in the Dresden series and the Underworld franchise. that way you've got the built-in plot of someone trying to go public with it, and the debate between the two factions.
Let me ask, are you going to have elves or elf-types in the series? Not necessarily Fae, but something similar?
-
Many books and/or series have a group of powerful supernaturals whose job it is to keep the supernatural a secret. This may include such things as repairing damage, wiping and/or changing memories and creating cover up stories in the media. They may also be responsible for punishing or destroying anything that tries to make the supernatural knowledge public. Sometimes it is a governmental agency that adds its legal power to the supernatural power in keeping secrets. The Pax Arcana series has a massive spell in place (called the Pax Arcana) that keeps the secret. I don't remember all the different things the spell does but it keeps the majority of the population in the dark about what's going on.
How big is the supernatural in your world? Are there vampire nightclubs, werewolf biker gangs and huge bazaars run by demons or are there just a few scattered supernaturals that are easy to disbelieve? It takes a lot more, especially in the age of cell phone cameras, to cover up a major magical battle that leaves buildings a smoking ruin and pedestrians half-eaten than it does to cover up the disappearance of a homeless person that has been preyed upon by something hungry. Is your supernatural world going to be loud and bright or subtle and hidden in the shadows?
I like Neurovore's answer as well. If the magic has been gone for a while but is slowly coming back or was stopped by some cataclysmic event (the sinking of Atlantis for instance) and is brought back by something equally large then people still be unaware that it exists.
-
I don't read much urban fantasy other than the Dresden Files. How is it handled in other series? I imagine the easiest thing is just to say that everyone agrees to keep it secret to avoid witch hunts and mobs, just like in the Dresden series and the Underworld franchise. that way you've got the built-in plot of someone trying to go public with it, and the debate between the two factions.
Let me ask, are you going to have elves or elf-types in the series? Not necessarily Fae, but something similar?
I was considering having Fae, and Dwarves. On the surface it sounds like a Dresden book, but it's not. I will have a much different spin on things, and how magic works.
It's tough because I know in the real world it would only take one real wack job wizard to put on a huge display in say new York city for the secret to get out. It's pretty unavoidable. I'm trying to figure out a way to explain away that kind of random thing.
-
How big is the supernatural in your world? Are there vampire nightclubs, werewolf biker gangs and huge bazaars run by demons or are there just a few scattered supernaturals that are easy to disbelieve? It takes a lot more, especially in the age of cell phone cameras, to cover up a major magical battle that leaves buildings a smoking ruin and pedestrians half-eaten than it does to cover up the disappearance of a homeless person that has been preyed upon by something hungry. Is your supernatural world going to be loud and bright or subtle and hidden in the shadows?
The wizards mostly exist together in a large hidden city. The Vampires, and other predators would prefer the company of normal humans. Not all would be bad.
-
Many books and/or series have a group of powerful supernaturals whose job it is to keep the supernatural a secret. This may include such things as repairing damage, wiping and/or changing memories and creating cover up stories in the media. They may also be responsible for punishing or destroying anything that tries to make the supernatural knowledge public. Sometimes it is a governmental agency that adds its legal power to the supernatural power in keeping secrets. The Pax Arcana series has a massive spell in place (called the Pax Arcana) that keeps the secret. I don't remember all the different things the spell does but it keeps the majority of the population in the dark about what's going on.
Thanks for the input. I was considering some sort of world wide spell that continuously releases subliminal messages that help people forget, and explain away strange events.
-
It's been a while since I read the Pax Arcana books but I believe the spell, among other things, caused people to believe the closest non-supernatural explanation for events. If they saw a dragon fly over they'd think it was a jet. A vampire might be seen as someone in costume. I believe the spell also acted as a geas to some not allowing them to speak of what they knew.
-
There are a few ways to handle it that Ive seen.
Willful ignorance like in the Dresden Files - This is particularly aided by the antagonism of magic to Technology, which gives a believable mechanism for modern recording tech's not catching wind. Others like Supernatural (tv show) just kind of assume that nobody wants to be called Crazy along with lots of denial.
Active Conspiracy - pretty self-explanatory, either mortal or immortal agents.
Active Spell/mystical cover-up - The Percy Jackson books took a pretty direct version of this route: The Mist, which is a naturally occuring energy field (for lack of a better word) that completely hides supernatural events in the minds of the muggles present, replacing their perceptions with something more believable in real-time. This was particularly interesting to me because while nearly everything had some kind of supernatural Power, they defined actual Magic as the ability to manipulate the Mist itself. Also interesting is that while the other supernatural elements are pantheon/mythology specific (Greek/roman, Egyptian, and Norse all have series in the same world) the Mist is more universal. It was a fun trope.
Recent Development - Some event or change or cyclic resurgence that explains why the supernatural doesnt have a presence in accepted History but is around now. Limits the sort of entrenched society you can have, to some extent. One setting had the proto-dieties (Titans/Giants) having recently broken free of their ancient prison, which stirred up all sort of things, as an example.
Population growth - this is one that Ive sen mentioned but cant site an example work off-hand. Its a corollary to the Recent Development bit, which hinges on the idea that magic only manifests rarely in a given human generation, but with the "recent" population explosion what used to be a "once in a generation" sort of occurrence is now far more common by simple math. This requires a more Human-centric magic setting, though.
-
Well, if you want to add spice to the world, make the 'hiding' from the humans something that must be agreed to by all the major supernatural factions. Say that they have to work together to maintain some sort of world-wide spell that helps people simply write off weirdness with the most plausible non-magical explanation.
Now, the factions might not like one another, but they have to work together, or else their secrecy goes away. This can lead to all sorts of fun conflict! Merlin, Dracula, Teen Wolf, and Elric all working together to keep the supernatural world safe from non-magical humanity.
-
Great stuff guys, thanks.
-
I don't read much urban fantasy other than the Dresden Files. How is it handled in other series?
A lot just flat-out ignores that problem; I gather Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville books do something with supernaturals starting to come out and the problems that occasions, but I've not read them. The Felix Castor series has supernaturals always having been around but very very rare, and suddenly becoming much more common due to events which are the big mystery of the series and will hopefully be explained whenever the sixth one comes out.
(There's also the approach DD Barent takes in the Bloodhound Files; there are a million humans left in the world and everyone else is either a vampire, a werewolf or a golem.)
-
A lot just flat-out ignores that problem; I gather Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville books do something with supernaturals starting to come out and the problems that occasions, but I've not read them. The Felix Castor series has supernaturals always having been around but very very rare, and suddenly becoming much more common due to events which are the big mystery of the series and will hopefully be explained whenever the sixth one comes out.
(There's also the approach DD Barent takes in the Bloodhound Files; there are a million humans left in the world and everyone else is either a vampire, a werewolf or a golem.)
Interesting. I was thinking about working on a supernatural series a while back, and was going to take a route that tried to explain the decrease in magic across the globe. Sounds like the Castor series might have something similar. I tried reading it, but couldn't get past the first couple of chapters. I don't know why, but something just bugged me about it.
-
Quantus and others have great input.
I will correct you though. I think all the paranormals that feature magic hidden from humans do explain it. It gets whittled down to a short paragraph after the first book or two.
Once you have your reason, use an example of the rule happening. Keeps from an info dump. Think MIB starting with the memory wipe out flash.
Good luck with it.
-
In Patricia Briggs - Mercy Thompson series - the supernatural world has always
been there but has been staying hidden but now because there are a LOT of humans
it's a lot harder. So the Fae came out first and now most of them live on reservations
of some type. The werewolves are also coming out because, I believe, they were
going to be outed if they didn't come out on their own.
They have a far harder time of it than the Fae because they are big and a rogue one
can be very dangerous.
The vampires don't dare come out - werewolves look downright cudley next to a vampire.
You could look at the supernatural world as the shadow plane of this world.