Of the things that annoy me about fantasy fiction, my biggest pet peeve is with stories and novels that lack specificity–specificity of place, time, culture, even ethnicity. The reader is given a default medieval Europe-type setting, filled it with random, unspecified peasant or royal types, no discernible culture beyond “they believe in magic” or “X fantastical creatures/races are real”, but not much else. Yes, there are characters who have personalities and Do Things and are specific, and the plot they find themselves in is spelled out, sometimes in great detail, and all of this is good. But it does not excuse the fact that the author has not done the work of creating a fully realized world, because so much of it is left nebulous, or left for the reader to fill in themselves. And I feel this makes for bad fantasy.
No One Wants To Live In Medieval McEurope
You don’t have to spend too much time talking about What’s Wrong With Fantasy before you find someone railing against the tide of stories and novels based in a faux-medieval Europe/England (because, really, what’s the difference, right?) and how annoying they are. They chafe not only because the “setting” is so ubiquitous, but because it’s so rarely even a real medieval Europe, but land filled with vague ideas about what that setting and time entails. There were kings, and peasants, and people rode around on horses, and wielded swords, and lived in villages, and cooked in hearths, and had bad hygiene (unless they were attractive), etc.
The problem is that Europe, no matter what the time, is not homogeneous. Different countries, different areas within countries, and different cultural groups had different ways of living and thinking and organizing and speaking. There is often no hint of this in the faux-medieval Europe. It’s all just “the past”, anyway, they seem to think. This is a mistake.
The assumption that McEurope is a place and time that I or any other reader can or should immediately identify with is a big one to make. Even if said reader is well-versed in fantasy literature, why does the writer assume that they’ll have read enough stuff with a McEurope background to no longer need specificity of place, time, culture, or ethnicity? This same assumptive courtesy is not extended to authors who choose settings outside of McEurope, such as anywhere in Africa, the Middle East, South or East Asia, South America, or America before colonization. In all of those cases the author is expected to be specific, to create a fully realized world, to explain (in a crafty way). So should authors who use European settings of any time or region.
McEurope isn’t universal, it’s vague and undefined in any sort of meaningful way. It’s a bad place to set a story or a novel. It’s a bad place to even start your worldbuilding from. Just don’t do it.
But It’s A Fairy Tale!
One common argument I hear against the lack of specificity criticism is that the story under discussion is based on a fairy tale/folktale/myth, or is in the style of one, or told in a fairy tale/folktale/myth voice, or other similar variants. No matter which version of the objection you give, it’s still wrong.
Firstly, understand that fairy tales =/= folktales =/= myths. They are distinct, but related, entities. It’s beyond the scope of this essay to discuss the differences between them (so go here if you really want to know), but it is important that you understand that some things labeled “fairy tale” are literature–someone came up with a story, wrote it down, and then showed it to others–and some things with that label are actually folktales–stories that came out of an oral tradition and were eventually written down. Most of the stories we think of as fairy tales are actually folktales in written form.
Folktales and myths are specific to a place and a culture and, depending on the variant, may be specific to a time as well. This manifests itself in the way language is used, or references within the tale to what the protagonist does, or even the worldview of the tale itself (the values, the moral, if there is one, the point of the story). That’s why there are so many different variants of some folktales or myths. Not just because they were told orally, but because different elements meant different things in different cultures. Ravens signify one thing in Britain, another in Scandinavia, another in Greece. A man having more than one wife requires explanation from a German storyteller, but not so much from an Egyptian storyteller. Etc. And though the brothers Grimm very kindly compiled a volume of folktales, gave them all a very similar voice, and helpfully edited out the naughty bits, that does not mean that folktales aren’t built on specificity. Folktales are about “The People”. What that entails for any given folktale is based on who The People are, where they live, when they live, and how they choose to be.
Where does the idea come from that folktales, myths, and some fairy tales are universal, then? Or that they lack specificity? Partly it’s ignorance. It’s always obvious to me when a writer only has a surface knowledge of folktales and how they work because they produce a very surface piece of fiction meant to mimic that style. Those writers just don’t understand what folktales are, much less how they work. Another big reason is that many people equate universality with whiteness, and they equate Europeaness (mostly western European, but sometimes eastern, too) with whiteness, and thus assume that any folktale based on culture found in Europe is like any other folktale from anywhere else in Europe and anywhere else in the world that includes people they consider default (read: white). This is a mistake.
As I said, Europe is not homogeneous. And the idea that default/normal = white is problematic, at the very least. But it’s this thinking that leads to missing the specific in folktales, to not including the specific in fiction based on or in the style of folktales, and finally to creating fantasy that isn’t as rich or interesting as it could be.
The Bottom Line
Specificity of time, place, culture, and ethnicity results in better fiction. Characters, like real people, are shaped by the groups they belong to, which is shaped by the culture of that group, which is shaped by the place and time they live in. If you construct a shallow tableau for your character to exist in based on shortcuts and assumptions, the result will be less than satisfactory without a lot of skill on the writer’s part. And if you have the skill to make a character brilliant and interesting from a shallow beginning, think what you could accomplish with a rich and well-realized world from the outset.
K Tempest Bradford is a writer, blogger, and the non-fiction editor for Fantasy magazine.
1 • In which I have an opinion about fantasy fiction at K. Tempest Bradford said:
May 7th, 2008 at 3:47 pm, permalink
[...] Today on Fantasy I have some commentary up about one of the things that annoy me about many fantasy stories and novels I have read: …my biggest pet peeve is with stories and novels that lack specificity–specificity of place, time, culture, even ethnicity. The reader is given a default medieval Europe-type setting, filled it with random, unspecified peasant or royal types, no discernible culture beyond “they believe in magic” or “X fantastical creatures/races are real”, but not much else. Yes, there are characters who have personalities and Do Things and are specific, and the plot they find themselves in is spelled out, sometimes in great detail, and all of this is good. But it does not excuse the fact that the author has not done the work of creating a fully realized world, because so much of it is left nebulous, or left for the reader to fill in themselves. And I feel this makes for bad fantasy. [...]
2 • Chuck said:
May 7th, 2008 at 5:39 pm, permalink
Thinking out loud here…
I recently decided the next time I hear somebody say “I only read fantasy” that I’d ask them — not in a confrontational fashion, merely out of curiosity — if they’d ever read fantasy in settings like China Mieville’s or Scott Lynch’s city states, modern urban fantasies, or even fantasy set in some type of sci-fi environment, because it seems like what people really mean when they say “I only read fantasy” is actually “I only read swords and sorcery fantasy.”
I’m not faulting people for reading swords and sorcery (heck, I’m reading one right now — Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself, which is set in at least three different cultures), but I have to wonder if people are more in love with the fantasy aspect, or the medieval/McEurope/RenaissanceFestival setting. If the swords and sorcery fans were given a choice, would they choose to read mainstream fiction set in historic Medieval Europe, or a fantasy set outside the McEurope model?
A related issue… I’ve read a couple articles suggesting, and complaining, that the publishing industry is well aware there’s a subgroup among the “I only read (swords and sorcery) fantasy” fans who will read EVERY new title fitting that mold. In other words:
GUARANTEED SALES TO INDISCRIMINATE CONSUMERS!
It kind of reminds me of other articles I’ve read about publishers throwing together sloppy sci-fi and fantasy magazines decades ago (1930s? ’40s?) because back then some people could actually make a profit off of consumers looking for cheap reading materials as well as early sff fans eager to buy ANYTHING.
Maybe, at least in part, it’s the willingness of certain publishers to take advantage of those indiscriminate consumers (and who can resist making a buck, right?) that has led to an abuse of this specific subgenre, and the cultivation of this generic McEurope model.
End of brainstorming session…
3 • Stace said:
May 7th, 2008 at 6:55 pm, permalink
Maybe it’s not always a lack of world building, but a lack of skill with regards to how to include the details of a well-built world without resorting to the dreaded infodump. Instead of risking criticism for extraneous information, authors focus on character and story instead (which is what everyone says they want, anyway), and it’s the reader who supplies the McEurope flavor (“if I don’t know what it tastes like, it must taste like chicken”) filling in the blanks with their own expectations.
Which is not to say that there aren’t plenty of other writers out there who are guilty as charged of using the stock McEurope setting. Just, maybe, not so many as it might appear at first glance. And then, too, there are also some great books that use a non-specific Medieval Europe setting quite effectively — I’m reading The Last Unicorn to my daughters right now, a true classic, and one would be hard put to pin it down to a specific time or place other than “Medieval Europe.”
Would you be willing to follow this up with some techniques writers can use to flesh out their world within the story? I don’t mean the world building itself (there are plenty of resources online for that) but how to include all that background work within the text itself. In other words, without sounding flippant or pugnacious, put your money where your mouth is!
4 • K. Tempest Bradford said:
May 7th, 2008 at 7:55 pm, permalink
Maybe it’s not always a lack of world building, but a lack of skill with regards to how to include the details of a well-built world without resorting to the dreaded infodump.
If this is the case, then the writer should perhaps attend a few writing workshops or take a class to learn this skill. or, do what others have done before her/him and read books in which this IS done skillfully and analyze how that gets done. I won’t say it’s easy to learn, but it’s dead easy to set about learning.
As to The Last Unicorn, I can’t actually say whether I agree that it’s not specific as I haven’t read the book or seen the movie all the way through ever (call me a heretic). But I’d be hard pressed to assume any story that includes a character named Schmendrick (sp?) unspecific.
focus on character and story instead (which is what everyone says they want, anyway)
I’m not sure who the “everyone” you refer to is, but many amongst my acquaintance would actually say that they want stories where ALL of the elements of literature–story, character, setting, idea–are fully realized. It’s certainly what I want.
and it’s the reader who supplies the McEurope flavor (”if I don’t know what it tastes like, it must taste like chicken”) filling in the blanks with their own expectations.
There’s a large flaw in your thinking, which I partially addressed in the essay. I’ll use your metaphor, since it’s apt–not everyone who isn’t sure what the flavor is thinks it tastes like chicken. Palettes vary from person to person, culture to culture. Some people might think it tastes like soy, or like hummus, or like couscous, or whatever. Your assumption that the default for every reader is McEurope doesn’t hold.
If I was reading The Last Unicorn, say, and there really was no specified time or place, I could not then imagine/project that the story takes place in Ancient Egypt, or the Ottoman Empire, or Feudal Japan. Even if the Ottoman Empire was my expectation, I couldn’t shoehorn that in to the standard mcEurope fantasy.
Lastly, and this can’t be said enough, setting isn’t just a backdrop. The place and time a character lives in shapes their lives, their circumstances, their morals, their very person. I would not be the exact same had I been born in South Africa, you would not be the same person had you been born in 79 BC.
5 • SilviaMG said:
May 7th, 2008 at 8:17 pm, permalink
“One would be hard put to pin it down to a specific time or place other than “Medieval Europe.”
Since the Last Unicorn includes an encounter with a band of people who emulate Robin Hood and has a character named Molly, I would not think it takes place in say, Hungary. So not everywhere in Europe, but in England.
6 • David Moles said:
May 7th, 2008 at 11:33 pm, permalink
Beagle’s doing something very clever and postmodern and meta in that book; it’s not set so much in England as in the imaginations of people who’ve spent a lot of time with English folktales and English folk music and Anglo-French chivalric romance. Captain Cully and his band aren’t just emulating Robin Hood, they’re emulating Robin Hood, as captured in 15th-century ballads, as recorded by Francis Child in the late 19th century. And that’s just one of many things you could call anachronisms (the quotes recited by the butterfly are another), except that it’s not meant to be set in an actual time or place — even a fictional time or place; it’s set in a specific imaginary conceptual space.
Lazy fantatwee writers (thank you Nick M for that excellent word) may claim they’re doing the same thing, but they’re not.
7 • SilviaMG said:
May 8th, 2008 at 12:27 am, permalink
Yep, I think you explain it better than I did, David.
The Princess Bride is similar. It combines stuff from fairy tales, children’s stories, anachronistic comments and lots of footnotes to create its world.
8 • Kynn said:
May 8th, 2008 at 1:26 pm, permalink
I quite liked this. Thank you!
9 • JS Bangs said:
May 8th, 2008 at 5:51 pm, permalink
For a great example of a work definitely set in medieval Europe but very much not McEurope, see KJ Parker’s Engineer Trilogy. (I’ve heard that her other trilogies are also great, though I haven’t read them and so can’t comment.) What makes them distinct from the innumerable McEuropes out there is the specificity and detail, and her encyclopedic knowledge of how medieval tech and society actually worked.
I think that Bradford got this exactly right when she said “it’s so rarely even a real medieval Europe, but land filled with vague ideas about what that setting and time entails.” Actual fantasy Europe can be fine, but it has to have actual setting, and not just some blurry hand-waving.
10 • Stace said:
May 8th, 2008 at 7:37 pm, permalink
Thanks, JS, for providing a concrete example that someone trying to avoid this problem can learn from. That’s what I was hoping to inspire with my original comment, not an argument on the thesis of the commentary — which I agree with, but it is filled with a lot of generalizations and no specific examples of ways to do it right or ways to do it wrong.
Ms. Bradford, you said someone who doesn’t know how to do something should learn, and the methods you offer (classes, workshops, analyzing books) are good, but so is asking questions of someone who has more experience. Someone who has just made a claim to know something about the skill you want to learn. But since you ignored that part of my comment in your response, I’m left wondering if you really want to solve the problem, or if you just want to complain?
11 • K. Tempest Bradford said:
May 8th, 2008 at 9:20 pm, permalink
Oh good lord, everyone stop calling me Ms. Bradford, I feel like my mother is on the thread or something
Tempest is just fine.
Stace, I didn’t specifically answer your final paragraph because I thought I had done so in the first paragraph of my response. Apparently this wasn’t enough!
I don’t feel I’m particularly qualified to teach a master class in how to put specificity in one’s fiction without being infodumpy. What I do is what I suggested — I went to workshops, I joined a writing group, I read and read and read and took note when I saw an author doing something particularly cool and tried to poke at the seams of how they built a world so well I hardly noticed the building. I hope that my efforts result in being able to build specific worlds without the infodump.
There isn’t just one way to do this. There are lot of different ways. So if you want to learn, you have to work it out yourself or get some excellent writing teachers to help you or get a writing group that can help you. I can’t, in a comment, tell you how to do it because there is no one way. Each story or novel requires its own way.
12 • Stace said:
May 9th, 2008 at 5:17 pm, permalink
Thanks, Tempest. I don’t expect everyone to be a teacher, but it never hurts to ask!
13 • Clint Harris said:
May 9th, 2008 at 5:23 pm, permalink
One of the things that bugs me about McEurope fantasy is the use of accents and certain dialects. It’s nearly always RenSpeake, with hawkers “m’lord” and “m’lady”ing everything to death. Also, the use of the epithet “bloody” used for everything.
That’s a reason I’m liking the GRRM stuff lately. He’s not afraid to use the F word. He adheres to a lot of the furniture of the middle ages, such as chivalry, platemail, tourneys, etc. But he does it with apparent research and know-how. In other words, he didn’t just go to a RenFaire and crib his notes from the pickle vendor.
I’m also a fan of Robert E. Howard, whose sword and sorcery was more akin to the Elegies or icelandic sagas than flittering faeries and grandiose castles.
14 • J M McDermott said:
May 13th, 2008 at 12:15 pm, permalink
For the antithesis of McEurope, I suggest investigating the work of Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay, if you haven’t already.
The Lions of Al-Rassan, my favorite of his, re-imagines the Spanish conquest of Spain in a way that clearly demonstrates the shape that material reality gave to cultural reality.
I would also suggest that a similar McUrban exists in Urban Fantasy/paranormal romance novels.
Also, there’s a McSpace somewhere in the Anime-factories of Japan…