Joking aside, that sort of thinking is the motor that has kept the Discworld series moving for twenty-two years.ĭespite building Discworld on a wink-and-nod approach to the fourth wall, Pratchett was aware of what makes an immersive, well-structured secondary world, and that becomes readily apparent when it comes to his magic-the very nature of magic in the Discworld illustrates the divide between conventional fantasy magic and magic done right. You are allowed to make pigs fly, but you must take into account the depredations on the local birdlife and the need for people in heavily over-flown areas to carry stout umbrellas at all time. If anything can happen, then there is no real suspense. Fantasy works best when you take it seriously…taking it seriously means that there must be rules. I know Terry Pratchett put out a lot of books, and they were pretty thick on British humor and silly footnotes, but that doesn’t change the fact that fantasy writers (and readers) can learn some goddamn important stuff from him.įirst off, let’s read a passage about worldbuilding and magic from his book of essays, A Slip of the Keyboard:Īpply logic in places where it wasn’t intended to exist…If there is magic, where does it come from? Why isn’t everyone using it? What rules will you have to give it to allow some tension in your story? How does society operate? Where does the food come from? You need to know how your world works.
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