Urban Fantasy World Building: Secret or Open?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ค. 2024
- Delving into some genre specific world building, let's about the level of secrecy applied to the fantastical elements of an urban fantasy world and what impact that has on your plots.
Refrences: Dresden Files (Jim Butcher), Bartimaeus trilogy (Jonathan Stroud), The Southern Vampire Mysteries (Charlaine Harris), Stargate SG-1, Vampire the Masquerade
The Hidden Blade by Marie M Mullany: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09...
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Outro music: The River Barge Way by Christopher Klassen.
Intro music: The North Wind by Ivan Duch - ivanduch.com/songs/
Chapters
0:00 What is urban fantasy?
2:20 The Secret World
7:51 Open Magic
10:50 Revelations!
#justintimeworlds #mariemullany #worldbuilding #urbanfantasy #urbanfantasyworlds
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My recommendation made it into a video :O It actually slipped my mind that Bartimaeus would count as Urban Fantasy, because I always focused on the alt history aspect, but it is really a perfect example. Urban fantasy is also a genre I really enjoy, because it conceptually leads to less distance between the magic and us.
In terms of the magically maintained hidden world, I find it interesting when it is more of a “layers of reality” type than a “perception filter” type. The perception filter (where people do mental gymnastics to explain everything going on around them and the damage being caused) do feel a bit thin to me and the supernatural being can just do what they want without consequence (to an extent).
But the layers of reality idea makes the separation more dimensional/physical, so it isn’t that the general populace aren’t seeing something, but that the something is in another space. The reason I like it is because there are almost always cracks that normal people can fall through into the hidden layer, becoming separated from mundane reality (though often able to still see the mundane layer overlapping with the fantastical one). There isn’t as easy of a way for someone to accidentally become immune to the perception filter. And if the protagonists accidentally entered the hidden layer and are trying to find a way out, what is to stop the supernatural from following? Sadly don’t see that last part used much, but it is a fun idea.
But the magical world that is hidden by a more active effort is also really fun, like with Dresden Files (assisted with the anti-technology aspect of magic) or Lukyanenko’s World of Watches (where mind control/memory manipulation is used to maintain the masquerade).
Hidden worlds are great fun :) For me though, they're not urban fantasy per se. I treat them as their own little plot device because they can appear in Urban Fantasy of all sorts (ala Never-Never of Dresden Files), but also in all kinds of other things (Alice in Wonderland is such a layer of reality for a classical example). I did a video on them way back when somewhere :D
@@JustInTimeWorlds That's true. I'm specifically thinking of the type that have a near perfect overlap with the mundane world, complete with the same buildings and often with the mundane people still being visible (just not interactable, almost like a person in the hidden layer is a ghost). I personally still count that type, though it certainly can be considered a separate thing too.
Personally I would think I would prefer secondary world-building Urban environment that way you can take inspiration from Vegas Wall Street Hong Kong Macau the Vatican it was restricted in my opinion
Large parts of the Percy Jackson series take place in cities though.
Right, but if you ask me: which city is it in? I couldn’t answer because they move around a lot. The city isn’t really part of the story. In Dresden Files, Chicago is 100% part of the story. That being said, YMMV. Genre is a marketing tool and as such is fluid. The purpose is to let fans identify works they might like.