Writing fantasy, especially fantasy that takes place in a different world, is extremely difficult. You have to walk the fine line between giving the reader enough detail to see the world, but not so much that you overwhelm them.
Thankfully there are lots of authors who have already done this extremely well, whose works we can look at! And one such example is A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge.
During the last stream, we took a look at the opening few pages to A Face Like Glass and examined it sentence by sentence.
Often, when I see drafts of fantasy novels from other people, the beginning is too overwhelming. I’m launched right into a world I don’t understand with people (or aliens) I don’t understand.
But this book starts off at a perfect pace, finding the right balance between new and familiar to entice us but also ensure that we’re comfortable.
Here’s a sample of the annotating we did to the beginning.
The author sticks to just two weird things: “cheese tunnels” and “Caverna.”
There’s a ton of great stuff going on in this opening, more than I can get into in a short post. If you’re interested in leveling up your own writing, and seeing how to write a beginning to a story that takes place in a different world, then be sure to watch the full video below.
After that the chat voted that we write this prompt: A bright sky with a black moon. The vessel pushes on. The children tinker with counters and cloth.
Inside the small vessel, the children went to work. As with all the vehicles, one child drove it while the other laid cloth behind in its wake. They moved along the blackened surface, leaving behind a trail of white fabric like a slug on wheels.
All day every day the children toiled, maneuvering the vehicles over the blackness, criss-crossing white cloth paths and waving to each other as they passed. Slowly but surely the blackness they moved around on was covered up by cloth, like a burnt arm being wrapped in a bandage.
Finally, after many years of work, every dark inch was draped in whiteness. The children brought their vehicles together, admiring their handiwork. But there was still one more task to complete.
The black tendon that held their world to the dark sky needed to be dealt with. And so the children in the backs of the vehicles gripped their cloth tight, and the children in the front drove them faster than they ever had before, sweat dripping down their foreheads as they zoomed ahead with focused intensity.
The cloth constricted around the base of the shadowy tendon, pulling it tighter and tighter. The membraney muscle quivered and gasped, strained from every angle, until it was came loose with a satisfying pop. With the sudden release of tension, the children went flying forward in their vehicles, tumbling and crashing across the cloth surface. But they weren’t hurt, they stood up, brushed themselves off, and gazed at what they’d accomplished.
Slowly, the massive moon that they’d freed from the black sky traveled toward the Earth in the distance, where it would forever dance around it in orbit, draped in beautiful white cloth.
***
“Grandpa,” Little Susie whined. “Is that really how come the moon glows white?”
“Of course it is!” Grandpa chuckled. “Now, keep your arm still so I can wrap your boo boo in this bandage.”
“Just like the moon kids?” Susie asked, eyes wide.
Grandpa grinned. “Just like the moon kids.”
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming March 2019.
Featured image: Amazon