Writer Wander 027 - Dragonlance and other Expanded Universes

Wander gushes about Dragonlance and its expanded universe, while also talking about how more authors should experiment with form

Transcript

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Rider Wander twenty-seven. Expanded Universes. So this is actually something I've been thinking about for a while, and I've been thinking of it in light of the current structure that I've chosen for the novel, right? So, as you all saw in the previous episode, I gave a complete update on what's been going on with Echoes of Heroes so far. I was able to do some writing today, and uh basically um we haven't progressed that much further from the point that I described from the update. Um, Finn has arrived in Weinegaard, he's taking all of the sites in, and you know, he's appreciating the fact that you know Weinegaard, despite being a city that is located in Namak, was actually founded by foreigners who were modeled after the Scandinavian Vikings, and is now the main administrative center of the you know a group of people that Finnegan calls the men of the sea or the seamen, who are you know it's this kingdom that is starting to conquer Namak uh bit by bit. And obviously, a lot of this is inspired by Irish history, where Dublin was a city that was founded by Vikings, it was not founded by the native Irish. However, once the Irish leave once the um once the Vikings leave and the English start to take over Ireland, Dublin uh gains prominence as an administrative center uh for the you know for the English colonial process. So you have a lot of that historical texture going on, and Finn stumbles into a bar, uh, you know, not a bar, but like an inn because Kenem is gonna get some arrangements in with the ship. But while he's doing that, he's like, you know, you know, do me a solid and separate the room at the inn for me. And when that happens, you know, Finn is a very naive kid, and he basically a thief is about to run off with the gold coins that he was given by by Kenem. But just as the thief is about to leave, he gets punched in the faith by our our next companions on the journey, uh, which is Haraldr, who is a Zvenish, uh, a man from a land called Zvengard, who's you know, yeah, I guess it's similar to like a Sweden, right? And uh he's basically like this Viking dude, and he's accompanied by like this dwarf named Tosted, and they're both like you know, they're both like cool dudes, they're like frat bros, right? That's how I'm looking at like at Haralder. He's like this super tall, extroverted guy. Um, he's very he's very muscular, he's the kind of guy that Finn looks up to, and the dynamic there is that Finn looks up to him because obviously, uh, there is some of the epic poetry that is composed by the Northmen, the sagas, do make their way to Namak. So Finn is aware of some of the culture that uh it that is shared among the people from those regions, and sort of he's projecting those fantasies, those visions onto Heralder. And what's interesting about that is that it's a similar similar dynamic to how when we were kids, we would often look up to you know, not necessarily to adults, we would often look up to kids that were like five years, seven years older than us, and that's roughly the dynamic with Heralder. Heralder, um, I'm I'm thinking he's a guy who's like you know 27 or something, and he's an accomplished adventurer, very very strong, and he has sold his ship to finance his journey over to Paragos because he's also interested in joining um on the quest. However, what's uh what's interesting again is that Finn is projecting like these ideals of heroism onto Heralder, and in some respects, Heralder does live up to it. He's a he's a burly northern dude. Um, he can probably crack a few skulls, and that quite literally happened a few moments earlier. But even then, he's he's still in a sense he's just a slightly aged up version of like Finn with a little more confidence. Um, and uh he's just a frat bro. He's a frat bro, he's only slightly more competent than than Finn, and I think that's an interesting dynamic of it that it shows it it shows us more about Finn's character than Heraldir that that he's trying to project this thing onto him. But the reason I got thinking about expanded universes was that I'm thinking about the direction that I want to take this series in, and I know I know it's very early, the first book isn't even finished, but I know that from the get-go, I want to take a different approach to the series structure of most fantasy novels, in that um I really like the looseness of the Odyssey and quest format that I've made the story in so far. So I'm thinking that maybe the next book I write after this is not necessarily going to be a direct continuation of Finnegan's storyline. Maybe the next book that I write after this is going to follow another character that's doing something else in this world. And Heralder, for example. Um, I've toyed around with the ever since I outlined him. I just I really like him. I I really like his you know his concept, even though it's not it's not the most unique thing in the world, but I think it's just the character type that's always fun to watch on screen, like the Burley Northmen who everyone likes, and you know, he's he's a Chad, he's basically a Chad, and but he's not an asshole, right? He's just good, he's good at stuff, and you know, maybe he's not the brightest, but you know, he's got a good heart on in his shoulder, but even if his ego is a lot cockier than his heart, right? But I really like that, and I figured that you know I could do like some cool short story about him or some prequel novel or some other novel about a character, a character like him, and also about other characters in the series, because that's the direction I kind of think I want to take this, that I want to handle this where you know each novel might be relatively independent from the other from the other novels, and if anything, I might have like small duologies in between stories so that you can see arcs that that continue to develop, but I want to dedicate myself to a different form of progressing a fictional world. I don't I'm not sure that I want to be burdened with this idea of having a world-saving plot, and you know, obviously, one of the big ideas I had at the beginning of this uh plotting process was that eventually by book two, something was gonna happen. Um, where obviously Sigismund's goal in the expedition is to find a way to get Luciana Aldamiria, his beloved, to wake up. But the problem is that if he does that, then the boundaries holding back the evil that the companions work so hard to keep away would also crumble, right? And that's a cool concept. The issue is that I'm scared that if I do that, that's just gonna revert this into a story that no longer feels fourth agey, a story that no longer feels like the great bad is destroyed because you're just resurrecting the great bad and we're returning to like your standard quest fiction, which is great, it's fine. I I love that kind of storytelling, but I feel that part of the charm of this project in this current phase is that it is decidedly not that, it is decidedly a world that takes place in the echoes of those great great feats. And I feel that if I resurrect the great evil way too early, it's it's going to you know possibly put a damper on the things of this, um, you know, on the things that this story should be about, and that really make this story stand out, right? And I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think there's probably a way. There's probably a way to do it. I know that there will be a presence of evil in this novel, and that's especially gonna be seen by the time that our characters arrive at the at the Elven Citadel, and they undergo the the special quest alongside with Lady Ostris, who I I think I mentioned in prior episodes, but I haven't gotten to writing her part yet. We're still, you know, she's like around the midpoint of the story, and we're still very early on. So it's kind of weird when you have like an outline and you know like so many characters that you're excited to meet, but you haven't ridden them yet, so in a very real sense, they're they're not real yet, but that's that that's another that's another tangent, right? So again, Haralder is a character that I think that I can that could lend itself to this format. It's you know, pretty independent guy. Part of the idea of this first book is that Finn is gonna run into a bunch of people that are also undergoing their own quests, their own journeys, and you know, they're all also seeking their own things, right? And that's that's another thing that I really like about this story that you know, since you don't have like this big overarching plot that's sort of shackling everyone together, you feel like you're running into a world where there's a bunch of driven people that are motivated to find their own mission, their own purpose in life, and I I just think that's a cool thing. I guess the closest equivalent to that in real life is you know, somebody I have a friend who who moved over to a certain city um in a certain part of the United States, in which a lot of people are moving there for jobs, and what he tells me is that um, you know, uh the joke they have is that you know, for a lot of people it's just like it's like another year of college again because it's a bunch of young people moving over there for jobs, and they're all like on their own little missions, they're everyone's like seeking their dreams, and I think that there's something to be said for all of that youthful energy running about, right? And it is something that I don't really experience too much where I live because again, we're as I mentioned in some prior episodes, there's a lot of old people here, and there's nothing wrong with old people. Like I love old people, and they should be cherished. Um, but when you lack a significant presence of youth in your culture, especially when you lack a significant presence of youth that is concentrated in certain regions, there's there's a certain energy and a certain lack of hope that is being fostered in the in the culture, right? And what I that was a big tangent. Um let me see. Ah, yes, yes. I'm as a result, due to my concerns of not wanting to just turn this into yet another like epic fantasy about saving the world, even though I want there to be a presence of evil, I'm considering this very character-centric structure in which you have a very long-running series. I'm explicitly designing this world such that if I wanted to, I could have um I could probably spend the rest of my writing career just writing in it. And curiously enough, I think that the biggest reason for why I'm able to do this is because I barely put any details into the world building, so it gives me a lot of flexibility to just do stuff. So that there's something to be said for less is more there, right? And what I really like tying it back to expand expand expanded world, expand the universe fiction, right? So, first let's define what I'm talking about, right? Because it's not it's something that you know, if you're in my circles, you you might already be pretty sure what it is, but a lot of people don't know because it's a it's kind of a niche thing, you know, not a lot of people get involved in it because there are not a lot of series or or media properties that are famous enough to get an expanded an expanded world, right? But to give you an idea, let's start with Star Wars. Everyone knows what Star Wars is, everyone knows what the what the movies are, but what a lot of people don't know is that aside from the movies and stuff, um, Star Wars has a bunch of written material, there's a bunch of novels in Star Wars. Um, in fact, there's multiple timelines of the Star Wars novels ever since Disney bought them, and essentially, you know, no human being could feasibly go through all of the creative output that has been put into the Star Wars universe. But it's it's this idea that you have like this massive fictional property, and you have like this this critical mass of media products associated to it, of of novels and storylines, many of which are very unknown because obviously a lot of them there's since there are hundreds of them, there's a lot of them that people simply don't read, and it it gives you this idea that this is a world where there's a bunch of stuff happening and it doesn't feel it it feels like a real world because it doesn't feel like a world that's solely designed to carry a single plot, right? And you can you can enter into it into so many different angles, and even though I have never read um Star Wars Forgotten uh expanded world novels, or I don't in fact, uh it's been a long time since I've watched anything related to Star Wars, but and I'm not really that much of a Star Wars fan either, but what I I really like the idea, I I like the fact that Star Wars has this expanded universe to the point where even though I haven't done so, I've I've often thought about hmm, you know, I'd I would like to be in this. It's sort of like the feeling I had with Pokemon throwback all the way to the very first episodes where I'm talking about how even though I don't play Pokemon, I wish I was into it. And similar to that, even though I'm not into Star Wars, I wish I was into it because it seems like a cool thing to be into, and if I was into it, I could probably enjoy things a lot more. I wasn't too keen on the new trilogy, but but that's old news. Um, but there is one expanded universe that I'm slightly more familiar with, and that would be the uh the Dragonlance series. Dragonlance is obviously not nearly as famous as Star Wars, but Dragonlance is a very old Dungeons and Dragons setting that is actually more famous for its expanded universe novels than it is for the actual campaign setting itself, right? A lot of people don't play in Dragonlance, but a lot of people really like the novels of Dragonlance. And what I really like about Dragonlance is that it is it is straight up fantasy, right? It it is it really is straight up fantasy, and it really nails those aesthetic trappings of what a fantasy novel should be. You have the knights in you know in armor, and you have uh you have mages with their flowing flowing cloaks, and I just think it's one of those series that I think I can look at any Dragon Lance cover and I'm like, I like this, I really like this because it sticks to its guns. It it doesn't, you know, there's a limit to that in that it doesn't try to experiment in the aesthetic direction of the series, but since it has such a strong aesthetic identity, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm down for this, man. This is awesome, this is cool. And again, what I really like about Dragonlance, especially this expanded universe, is that even though I've only scraped the very surface of Dragonlance, again, I I like the idea that you can approach this world from so many from so many different angles, and I even like the idea that um they this world it did I ever define what an expanded universe was? Um I don't I don't know it expanded universe is when you have a media product that spawns a bunch of other media products related to it, right? So that just a quick definition. You probably haven't uh an intrinsic understanding of what it means just by the name of expanded expanded universe fiction. But Dragonlance, again, it's awesome, and all expanded universes are awesome because of the fact that since they have multiple writers, a lot of the stories vary in quality. So again, that that seems like a whoa, the stories vary in quality. So you're telling me I could be reading some shit? Yes, yes, you could be reading utter garbage, and then the next second you'll pick up something, and I'm like, damn, this is awesome! And that's the magic, you know? There's something to that, that that's cool, you know, because aside from the fact that you have a massive world, a massive universe that is being explored across multiple books, multiple comics, and you know, video games and whatnot, aside from that, you have multiple creative visions that are ta tagging along with that, and as a result, they they're they're sort of each putting like their own unique spin into the thing. And you know, I I probably will never get the chance to create an expanded universe, but I've always I've always loved that idea. I think stuff like that is is so is so cool, even though it kind of goes against my own instincts as a novelist, right? Because I feel that part of the part of the advantages that novel writing has as a genre is the fact that the the main contributor to the novel to the writing process is the author. So you have that advantage where there is a unique vision that anchors the entire experience, allowing the author to have a certain degree of flexibility that by their very nature cannot be present in in movies or other types of art because there is more intervention by multiple people, because these are often art forms that require collaboration across different spheres, and that that obviously has its own set of advantages as well. But I feel that oftentimes it makes it so that these other products like like movies or or video games have a harder time telling a cohesive message because you have so many different voices working on different aspects of the work that often have their own visions that don't necessarily um jive with the main vision of the you know of the head of said project. But with the novel, that is much less the case. But again, with the expanded universe, it's interesting because you're sort of conceding that aspect of novel writing where it's like you know, you're allowing other authors to enter the sacred space of a setting that you have created, and you're like, you know, you can do you know, usually these worlds have certain certain limits on the kind of stuff that you can do in them. You know, I'm sure that you know, if you want to be like a Dragonlance writer, well, it's not like there's that many anyway, like the Dragonlance um expanded universe novels, they're uh they're not really being made anymore. I think that the most recent stuff right now is in like the mainline Dragonlance series. But back when they were being made, you know, you're probably sat down and you're like, hey man, um you have certain flexibility with these things, but there's other things that we're not gonna allow you to do. And obviously, in these worlds, there are certain novels that you can tell that are they're not as important because they're not allowed to change as much of the lore as other as other stories, but again, it's still super cool, right? But you're it's like I guess the difference between an expanded universe and the movie, and the reason why you don't necessarily lose the this this uncompromising artistic vision with the expanded universe is that you know oftentimes with expanded universes the the different authors are sort of segregated into their own series, right? So you might have one guy working on the main series, but you might have another dude working on the spin-off series of a certain character, or you might have a third dude working on a series about a corner of the world that is barely talked about or or explored, and that's super cool. That that that's you know, because again, each of these authors, obviously with certain boundaries, they they have a certain um purity of creative vision over the little fiefdoms of creative of creativity that they hold control over. So it's like, yeah, maybe when it comes to establishing the overall direction of the world, you don't have too much control. But when it comes to the kind of characters that you put in your novel, the kind of things that that happen in the particular series that you were that you were given, you you might certainly have a lot more flexibility than you would have expected. And that's again that that's awesome. And I think that you know the world of Echoes of Heroes could lend itself to that, you know, assuming that you know uh I become like super famous or get some weird cult following. But you know, I I I think it would be cool to you know just talk to an author and be like, hey man, there's this corner of my map that um I really like the name of this country, let's say. Let's say I like the name of this country in my fantasy world, but I haven't written anything about it, I don't know what's going on here, and I'm like, you can have that area, and so long as you don't contradict the already established lore in the story, you can do you can do what you want, you can do what you want with it. Though even that that's another thing, right? Again, so one of the one of the things, one of the themes of this podcast, of this novel, right, is that um you don't always need to experiment with the content of the story to make it interesting. You can experiment with the structure of it. So sometimes I wonder like, you know, our modern notions of canonicity in storytelling are precisely that. They're they're modern. If you look at the Middle Ages and you look at a lot of the literary production at the time, specifically thinking about Arthurian legends, you know, oftentimes there were multiple canons in Arthurian legends that that contradicted themselves. There was no such thing as a singular Arthurian canon to this day, right? And that's you know, again, and another side tangent. One thing that I really like about Arthurian fiction is that it feels like one of those few places in modern literature where there's still this ancient understanding that you know the the these stories just because they contradict each other doesn't mean that they're bad, right? It doesn't mean that they're bad, it's a delicate balance, obviously. And I'm not saying that you know the idea is just to go completely ham. But there's something to be said for not having a strong a strong continuity, right? And I feel that it would kind of be cool, you know, to have like somebody be like, um, you know, write their own version something in my world, and maybe it contradicts something that I talked about before. And it's kind of interesting to think, you know, what are what are ways that we can explain this contradiction? You know, you could do like a cool framing device where it's like, oh, these each of these novels are basically written accounts by um by chroniclers uh from this world or bards from this world, that they might have their own agendas in putting certain content into their stories, and that's why oftentimes there there seem to be certain certain contradictions, and I really like that. A great book that that does that kind of stuff, but it's it's not an expanded universe, though it is a big universe. Um, but a really good series that does that is the book of the new sun, which often competes with the Lord of the Rings for my favorite novel of all time. Depending on what time of day you've you talk to me, I might change my opinion on that. But what I really like about that about that author about about what Gene Wolf does with that with that particular series, is that Gene Wolf he he created this world in which um you know the whole conceit of the novel is that it is being written as a historical account of the main character's rise to power, right? And um, this is not a spoiler, this is literally talking first of all. You know, if you if you care about spoilers, you should really double check because the greatest the greatest works of art in history, you know, you don't care if they get spoiled, you don't care if the ending of Moby Dick or the ending of Dracula gets spoiled. That doesn't that doesn't matter to you. So we get we have to get like this um this Marvel mentality out of our brains because spoilers do not matter. Oftentimes I have been more motivated to read a book or a novel or a series because I encountered a spoiler. So, you know, I I could do an entire episode about that. But you know, it it is you know, that thing I mentioned, it is established at the beginning of the novel, and you don't really understand the full consequences of that until you read all four volumes, and then when you reread it again and you're reminded of the framing device of the story, you start to question a lot of the things that you may have read on your first go and just brushed over, but then a lot of the way that our narrator narrates and a lot of the things that he chooses to focus on start making sense, and conversely, and sometimes even more interestingly, uh a lot of the things that he chooses to focus on don't make sense when you consider that context, and then you have to ask yourself is there something else at play here? Is he hiding something worse? And again, just an amazing novel, you know, not an easy read, but definitely a worthy read, right? And I think it will be cool, something like that in my setting. Uh, you know, to have those contradictions, but have them, you know, have them make sense because of the framing device. Another like big world I I read the expanded universe I like again is is Thieves World. Thieves World, these are you know, the main conceit of these stories is that they're all you know fantasy sword and sorcery short stories that take place in a in a single city called Sanctuary. And what I find it really interesting is that when you read the introduction to the very first novel in Thieves World, um, you know, one of the things they said is that it is possible that there are contradictions in narration between the way that certain characters are portrayed in one author's story and another author's story, but you can just view that as the the per the since since the since the point of view often changes between the novels, you can just view that as like, hey man, the okay, this novel has a different point of view from the other novels, so or from the other stories, so maybe the way that this character perceives this other character is different from the way that this other author wrote it. So again, that stuff is cool, and I think that that's the direction I want to move it. I want, you know, I do um a lot of a lot of you guys might listen to this and you think, oh man, that you know, Wander, he's a you know, he's a fantasy traditionalist, he doesn't he doesn't want to play around with the with the genre, and there's some truth to that in that I really like the aesthetic trappings of the fantasy genre, but I'm more interested in stories that that play around with structure, with the you know, the technique of writing, rather than the content itself. Because I often think that the the the content of the story, the flavor of it, it's it's cool and it's important, but it doesn't have as much impact on the kind of story as when you play around with the with the structure that you have, and that that's something you know, and again, another thing that's that's super cool. And I've also had this other idea, right? And I I sort of thought about this with like a previous trilogy that I had. It's like, what if I made like a series of novels that let's say the first trilogy ends or the first book ends or something, and you know, I really like um choose your own adventure stories, and I really like text adventure games, and there's this one game called Fabled Lands, right? And it's it's like these these things called game books that you you can buy them, and they're sort of like solo Dungeons and Dragons adventures, but they're they obviously have pre-designed storylines. And what's interesting about them is that they are written in such a way to where your choices do have do do have do matter, right? And there are certain the each of the stories are in each of the books are interconnected, but if you do certain things in one book, certain plot lines are close to you. And I'm like, you know, it'd be cool to do something like that with a fantasy story where let's say that I have like a trilogy, and at the end of a tr of the trilogy, sort of like a video game, you have um you have an option that is presented to you, an option that is presented to to the reader, like let's say to the reader, right? Because it's like what what what what result sounds more interesting from this story, right? Let's say uh let's keep it simple, right? Um your your hero is about to slay the big bad, and he has three options. Um he can either he can run away, he can slay the big bad, or he can side with him. And the idea will be that the the actual ending of that third book will be divided into three different endings, and I guess I have two options with this. I can I can either include three different versions of the story's ending at the end of the novel, and I can just tell the reader, okay, skip to this page if you're interested in seeing this ending, right? Or I can host the different endings on like my author website, and um, whichever ending they choose, or whichever choice they they make, um that that will affect the story going forward, and it will affect the ending that they pick. And what's interesting is gonna happen afterward, right? So the sequel series, the sequel to that trilogy, there will not be a single sequel to it. There will there will be sequel series to that trilogy that are each determined by the outcome of that final choice in the story. And again, that is that is awesome. I I think that more authors should play around with time in their in their writing, right? So think about it this way let like imagine like you know, instead of making a sequel that is the chronological that takes place like a hundred years after the story or a prequel, you make a sequel that sure takes place after the story, but it it's in a timeline of the story in which the main characters took a certain decision, they took a certain decision, and that affected the outcome of the story. And then once you're done with that, it you know, you can keep on reading uh the story, but you can you can read a different version of the events of the plot by uh by looking into the other outcome of the story. And you know, that sounds so dope. It's probably a lot of work because it it must be very difficult like compartmentalizing the the differences between each of the each of the different series, but I think that if somebody pulled that off, and I'm I'm definitely interested in pulling off a project like that, if somebody pulled that off, I I think it would be super it would that would genuinely be groundbreaking. That would genuinely be be utterly fascinating. And that's that's the kind of experiment experimentation that I'm talking about, right? Because if you're just gonna write a fantasy setting that takes place in um you know in a culture that's inspired um by in a in a in a setting that's inspired by a culture that's not usually represented, that that's great. That that's awesome, right? You know, you know, I I have no problems reading like you know a standard epic fantasy story set in like say a Japanese setting. I that'll be cool, but I feel that the appeal of that is not as cool as like okay, you can do that, but does that affect other aspects of the story? Or or it's not as cool as like, hey, I'm just gonna stick with the established tropes that we have or the established um the established aesthetic vision that we have, but I'm gonna play a lot with the structure of the story. I'm gonna I'm gonna do a story that is is paced in a different way, that has a different kind of storyline, even if a lot of the aesthetic trappings are are are are there. And I guess to to finally hit the nail on the head, that that's what's awesome about expanded universe fiction. Because even though expanded universe fiction is not quite doing what I what I want it to do, I think that it's it's going in that direction. These are these are worlds that they are fundamentally interesting because they play around with the structure of how of how we typically consider fantasy series or just series in general to move that rather than focusing on a central storyline, you have all of these different stories going on in different in different parts of the world, and that experimentation with structure really really allures me to the very concept, right? But uh, this has been Rider Wander, and uh I hope that you know you can get something out of this and uh keep wandering.