The echo of centuries underfoot, or About the depth of the study of the world V. 3

Let's return, perhaps, to our literature-kitchen, gentlemen.

We talked about the details (we even talked twice, and productively) and about the "entry point" - about those things that, when you get acquainted with the world inside the book, make you believe in it.

But there is one more thing that you will not see, touch and describe as easily as sunrises, sunsets, people, mountains, a river... You can't tell as simply as any detail - whether it's writing out meticulous and painstakingly thorough or as light as a stroke of ink on wet paper. And you can't explain in a nutshell how some laws are inside the world - they say, and in the city you can't wear red hats or green raincoats.

But without this thing, the world risks seeming unreal.

What's it?

This is the echo of centuries, the echo of the past hundreds and hundreds of years, which is reflected in the sound of the heroes' footsteps - the echo of the world's own history. And that's the main thing that is most difficult to deal with.

In the article about the details, we gave a link to a video analysis of the saga of a Distant Galaxy, and in connection with this analysis we mentioned: the most important thing that Lucas did for his saga was to give it density and weight, forcing the fabric of clothes to become faded, and the metal to become covered with rust.

And so. Lucas gave not only weight and density, he also gave the fictional world time.

Time, intangible but inexorable.. This world, this Galaxy.... this world is old. Its history has been going on for many centuries, and we, the audience, can observe only a small part of it. It is not born in front of us - it goes on as usual. That's what I mean when I talk about the "echo of the ages."

In the world inside the book there must be this layer - untold, but existing. The hero (or rather, the reader walking next to the hero) may stumble upon evidence of his existence here and there, as an archaeologist stumbles upon bones and ceramics in the cultural layer, but, bearing in mind moderation, this very "echo" should never drown out the chorus of the narrative. In this case, only the author should be omniscient - neither the heroes nor the readers should become "know-it-all" - the echo of past epochs should remain an echo. Just like that - echoing loudly in the steps of the heroes. but not becoming the main party. After all, the history of the world has largely determined how these heroes grew up, in which country and in which place they lived, what they know about the world around them and other people... but the heroes, immersed in the history of their world, know it also only in fragments, fragments, and ... to quote the character of the writer Alfina - "Historiography is more art than science", history always suffers from inaccuracy, although it strives for accuracy... aspires, but is unable to achieve it.

Do you know why the history of a fictional world that does not directly affect the events described in the book should remain mostly an echo?

I'll give you an example from my writing work - once Eirik Godvirdson was the very "beginner", and sat writing only the second novel in his life. It was a novel of the Atvan cycle. The novel needed an introduction, a prologue. And Eirik Godvirdson (it's me!) wrote the prologue. Beautiful, mythological. There the focal character was... god. One of the gods of the world is Atwan. to be more precise. And everything would have been fine with him, with the prologue, except for the "tub of frogs", which we ourselves did not realize yet... yes, but our closest friend, and later the technical editor of what was written, said this: "Not the best start for a book. You see, it all looks like an ancient cool god came to explain to Stupid Vasya how the world works. Tell me, why would an ancient cool god explain anything to a Stupid Vasya at all?"

And I scratched the top of my head, sighed and erased the prologue. The whole, the whole - eight thousand printed characters, no less. because really, there's no need. And... is my reader Stupid Vasya? No. That's why... that's why I erased it. Let the echo of the great forces - the divine will, history, the change of epochs - remain an echo. I will try to tell about its existence in a different way. Delicately and unhurriedly, weaving the echoes of this echo into the entire composition of the novel.

And if the "frogs" could be used during editing. the effect that our friend seemed to us about - he would have killed the entire credibility of the existence of Atvan in the bud.

I would turn it into the scenery of an amateur theater. but we want the world to be not a convention, but a part of events! Or even more: the world itself is another hero. The main one, for that matter. After all, I'll probably lose count if I try to remember how many times I've heard from people who love fantasy: I'm interested in the world. I read for the sake of peace. Heroes... Oh, well, yes, some are unbearable, but WHAT A WORLD THERE IS.

And for the sake of this feeling - that the world is real - and it is worth making every effort not to destroy this feeling.

And it is, you know, fragile - especially at first. All our reading and writing experience speaks to this.

Therefore, invent a story for the world. In advance. Completely. But don't tell it all at once, ever. Let the reader listen to the echo . your characters are walking, their shoes are knocking on stone slabs or a paved road, or maybe just raising dust or kneading dirt... And there is an echo in every step. Barely audible. They go through history. And the story sounds. They sound like strings for centuries. The centuries that have flown by the world since the birth of the world - until the moment when your reader sees: here come the heroes. and under their feet...

And by the way, it was thinking about all this (a long time ago, a very long time ago - we thought about this very "echo" a lot) that we gave this name to one of the parts of the Atvan cycle - "Echo of the Ancient World"

The image is taken from open sources on the Internet