Well hair lair

I was pondering how contrived a literary tool are windows into another world. Oh you know, an opening betwixt this reality and that one, there.

What do WW members think, I wonder?

How contrived is this idea on a scale of 1 to 10, do you reckon, especially in this post-His Dark Materials world?

I love His Dark Materials by the way.

1 is so contrived it's basically Harry Potter and 10 is oh my God that's got to be a Booker.

I like HP too by the way, but even I have to admit that Goblins working in a bank below London is a bit like Tolkien and Roald Dahl having a piss up and throwing out ideas, but JKR uses stuff like this and works it really well (or re-works it) in my opinion, so I think its fair game, so long as your not called Terry Brooks and writing the Sword of Shannera, which although I loved when I was a teenager, is definitely a bit too much like LOTR.

Ooh, and then there's Eregon...

Any thoughts would be much appreciated, especially at this time of year.



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I mean not just the dirty banking goblins, sending out extortionate charges no doubt, thirty pounds a time, yeah right it cost you that you Goblin scum...

Um...HP is basically like a piss up with JRR and Roald. Orphans, goblins, nasty uncles and aunts, kids turning into mice and pigs, mice turning into kids, squeaky things working in t'kitchens. You know what I mean.

Davy

I guess the only downside of using it is, as you mention it, HDM, cos it's so memorably done there and so recently. Otherwise, seems like a great tool for any number of reasons.

Humble opinion.

Pete

One of TMOL's early titles was 'The Image of the Window'. It's still full of windows, reflections, images on glass, glass photograph negatives, seeing through and not seeing through, portraits that look back at you as if...

Emma

Hmm - an interesting question.

I suppose you could say that all fantasy fiction is contrived, simply because it's not the reality that we live in, and it was probably mostly contrived from the imagination of the author.

Perhaps, if you were looking at things from that perspective, you could judge the scale of contrivedness (if that's a word!?) by how much or not each particular book is rooted in actual myth and folklore.

Or should we judge it on how convincingly each imaginary world has been rendered - how involved we feel with that particular alternative reality?

Enough of my waffle. So what do you think on the 1-10 scale, Davy?

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Sorry - I think I've gone off on a tangent to what you were asking.

Wasn't it Wordsworth who was extremely disappointed when he trogged off to some Alpine valley he'd heard about? Unfortunately the reality, though splendid, didn't match his idealised vision of the place. Somewhere in The Prelude, isn't it?

Wow thanks guys, that is great! I think it's around a 5 now, after HDM, but still a good tool. I just somehow think I'm kopping out a bit if I used it, like I'm not thinking out of the ball park, or not thinking hard enough.

Hmmm. I mean Mermaid you are completely right of course, I think that is the main point. I just love HDM so much I'd hate to be accused of ripping it off. But then as you say Pete, if that's the only real drawback then it's not so bad. Also, as pointed out, if the writing is strong enough, and the universe already created isn't coming across as contrived, then it should work.

Maybe a 6, Mermaid. What do you think?

Thanks for all your thoughts, really appreciate them.

Regards


Davy

Surely there's loads of things that use that device so it isn't ripping off anyone as such as it is so well established. Isn't the real key to originality and pleasure for the reader the new way you come up of using the device? What will your entrance be - the wardrobe? the knife? the platform whateveritwas? This is where you have to come up with somethign new and surprising and relevant to your vision and world/

After all what's the TARDIS but a more mobile version of the C.S.Lewis "Wardrobe" ? Both of them always take you to the same place (ie Narnia or Wales).

The trick, if you are going to use such a contrivance, is to do it in an original way. This would of course depend on your genre but I've always liked the fact that MJ Fox in Back to The Future had to travel at ceratin speed at a certain time with a certain amount of power to travel back and forth. The whole action of the film rested on trying to do this in order to get back. In Harry Potter it was too easy just to run through the wall at Kings Cross.

I suppose I'm trying to say that it would be more interesting if it was difficult to find and go through the 'portal' than happen across it by accident. The effort would increase the significance of 'crossing' much more.

But then most stories are about crossing from one state to another and the events that propel the protagonist.

Yes - I personally think that something original, startling and pleasurable enough could fall into the 10 category.

I really like the difficult transition idea, Mischa.

Thanks once again you lot. It’s really helpful to read and the more examples that are mentioned, the more I realise how many stories use this device in some way. I like the difficult transition idea too – thanks Mischa.

Regards


Davy

Hi Davy

Well, surely the idea has to be to do something new with the concept? Windows or doorways into other worlds is hardly new, and is quite traditional in horror, fantasy and sci fi as you know. A recent take on this that really thrilled me was Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, where use of an alien drug allows its users to occupy a shared hallucinatory world.

From Stephen Donaldson to the Never-Ending Story, glimpses into alternative universes have been employed in fiction, and one must read Moorcock to discover a rich tapestry of this notion as well.

JB

Aye - good point Wax. That Phillip K Dick sounds great. Two questions: Is it a short story or a novel, and can I have a drag? I could do with a little trip to a new world!

Thanks for your thoughts mate, I'll think into it and try and do something original!

Seeya

Davy

Hi

It's a novel, a lot of his novels are quite 'bitesize' though, compared with today's epics. Give it a whirl, I was really impressed. It's a sci-fi masterwork.

JB

And Diana Wynne Jones is very good - 'Hexwood' 'Deep Secret' and 'The Homeward Bounders'- re alternate/parallel universes - all different takes.

'Hexwood' is especially intriguing - I think I got it on the 3rd read - maybe!

Sarah