Worldbuilding for the Undead (or do wraiths eat bacon?)

[naomi_jay]

So Death for the Born is doing the rounds at my writers' group, and one of the issues that keeps coming up is wraith physiology. My main character, Yasmin, is a wraith who can take either the form of a human being or mist. And this seems to be a huge sticking point, because everyone wants to know if she has a fully functioning human body when she's in human form. Does she need to eat, sleep, use the toilet, etc? Does she breathe? If she has lungs, a heart, whatever, where do they go when she turns to mist?

And the answer is mostly, I don't actually know. I wrote the first half of this book for Nanowrimo 2007, so at the time it was just a case of "get the words down, sod it if it doesn't make sense!" So I didn't stop to think about whether or not Yasmin had human needs whilst in human form. I know she sleeps (mostly for narrative convenience; a character who's awake 24 hours a day requires a lot more plot than I had at the time). I know she eats human food, but she doesn't need to - it's a comfort thing. (The last chapter reviewed had her in bed eating a bacon sandwich which bothered one of the group who felt it ought to be a vampire sandwich).

Most of the other undead creatures in the book are pretty well set. I know my vampires, my Lich Lords, my ghouls, how they function, what they need to survive, and what can hurt them. Yasmin is a bit different and I hadn't really figured out all the answers by the time I finished the first draft. Having spent hours agonising over whether or not she has kidney stones, I came to the conclusion that I might be overthinking things. I'm not sure. Are these the tiny details on which the whole book will rise or fall? Or are they the tiny details that readers will overlook because they accept that we're dealing with supernatural creatures?

I'm setting the rules in place as I redraft, figuring out how much physical damage she take, what happens to her bacon sandwiches when she turns to mist, and whether a vampire could kill her. I swear though, if I have to spent another writers' group meeting trying to explain why vampire sandwiches are not going to happen, I'm scrapping the whole book. It's bacon all the way.

Comments

[i-am-toast.livejournal.com]

I like my workable science in sci-fi/horror (which is one reason I loved the TV series Ultraviolet) but I imagine it is much less important in the genre you're writing in. You're not aiming it at sciencey sci-fi geeks who will throw it in the bin when there's a bit of nonsense about vampires and religious iconography, for example. Bram Stoker didn't piss about with where the lungs went and he didn't do too badly.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Lol, yeah, I do think one of the problems is that a lot of the people at the group are hardcore sci-fi fans. They expect maps and diagrams of how everything works. The more fantasy-orientated writers are happy to let it slide.

[skarrah.livejournal.com]

A lot of the readers I know might get a bit miffed if they can't figure it out and may put it down as a flaw on your part. But I know quite a few geek readers and fangirl/boy types so it could just be the ravening hourds that are the fussy bunch. Average readers might not give a damn.

Also, the bacon sandwich 'where does it go?' question makes me want to ask 'what happens to her clothes?' If the clothes go, then is it because they're touching her skin (in which case she could accidentally mist the coffee table) or does she make an active choice? (In which case she can just choose to mist everything that on or in her making the bacon sarnie question moot.)


Yes, I'm one of those annoying readers I mentioned at the start of this message. ;) And to answer the question simply: depends on the type of readers you pick up - most likely a mixture of the two.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

See, these are the details I should have figured out before I started churning out the novel. *sigh* Why didn't I just have a normal human heroine?

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

Some of the stuff falls into "well, I hope the author knows it but I'm really not all that fussed about it if it's consistent in whatever it is" territory in my head. As a reader, I might puzzle about it, but if you keep whatever you decide consistent, I'm going to go with it. And I don't really want to read pages or even paragraphs devoted to scientific terminology and breakdowns of genetic research or some business. I want the heroine to go back out and shoot/summon/seduce whatever she's supposed to be shooting/summoning/seducing.

soo... for your own peace of mind and reference, I think it's a good thing to sort out what happens to her clothing when she turns to vapor and whether she has to go horf up her sandwiches later (and then keep explaining to any nonwraith friends she is. not. bulemic.) or what not.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Damn, now I want to tackle the issue of possible bulemia. Is that wrong?

[etaknosnhoj.livejournal.com]

See, I think this might be a case of over-analysis (which is one of the reasons I've never done well with critique groups!). My only rule for writing paranormals of any flavour is: Make your own rules, and then follow them.

If you want your wraith eating bacon sandwiches, she can eat bacon sandwiches--just don't have her suddenly starving in chapter fifteen because her only food is vampire souls and there aren't any about right now. If you want her clothes to reappear when she does, then let them (although personally I find nothing funnier than the 'Crap, where did I leave my underwear?' of the shapeshifting heroine).

I once had a rejection letter telling me my fantasy characters 'didn't speak like fantasy characters', which confused me since I'd invented the frigging world and they could speak how the frilly heck I wanted them to. I didn't resubmit.

And now I really want a bacon sandwich, damn you.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do think some people are thinking about it too much, which then leads me to think too much, which never ends well.

I'd love to know what classifies as "fantasy speak." Thees and thous?