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Fred Thread 2
Chatterbox: Crowd Sorcery
Fred Thread 2
Fred Thread 2
For me, fantasy writing is closely connected to the natural world. Although a fantasy may involve imaginary creatures, magical objects, and unusual landscapes, yet certain aspects of good stories come straight from real life. I suspect you know what I mean. When you're outdoors on a summer evening, doesn't the world seem enchanted, as if anything might happen? Do you sometimes see a story idea in the way sunlight strikes a tree, making the leaves glow green and golden, and casting deep, cool, purple shade beneath? In fact, it's these details that help the story come alive for the reader. If we can hear the whisper of the leaves or feel the sunlight baking us through our scratchy shirts, then it's easier to believe that the whole forest is on an island floating in the air, or that a unicorn is standing beside us.
I was thinking today about how the interaction of nature and human structures—like the abandoned road in the previous thread—can lead us into fantasy stories. I remember the old barn I used to play in when I was a kid. One wall of it was covered by leafy Virginia creeper vines, so from that side it looked more like a hill than a barn. Some of the old, weathered trapdoors were crisscrossed and sealed shut by the vines. Nature seemed to want them shut; to us kids, they seemed too sacred to open. Yet there were hatchways among the leaves, doorways into an inner world of wooden beams, passageways leading, perhaps, into the world of Faery.
On this thread, I invite you to write a sentence or two about something very real—a detail you've actually seen—where nature is interacting with something people have built. This is an important aspect of fantasy story writing, because believe me, these images provide just as much of the story's "fire" and "zing" as the three-headed giants and flowers that shine like lanterns. Tell us about snow on a fence post, about tree roots that squeeze a brick foundation, about water trickling from the crack in a stone wall. . . .
Here's my example: Forty or fifty years ago, someone had carried a broken gate from the fence and leaned it here against the young maples. As the trees grew, they absorbed it, and now its planks and rusted bars were half-buried in the trunks, forming a strong, enchanted wall behind the garden.
submitted by Fred Durbin, Ukraine
(May 9, 2014 - 2:21 pm)
(May 9, 2014 - 2:21 pm)
the sea crashed, sending foam the top of the sand. The sea that held so many secrets,now had given them up and been tamed by the magic spell.
(November 5, 2014 - 11:30 am)
Every morning, just as the sun made its brilliant debut over the horizon, I would climb out of my window and into the familiar arms of my beloved oak tree, clutching my sketch book, or latest read. The fingers of one hand would trace the cracks and twists in the bark that I had come to know so well, while the other hand held a pencil or the feather-light pages of a book. The tree was more than just a hideaway, it held secrets, whispered in the dark of night, within its crooked branches.
(November 6, 2014 - 7:20 pm)
I like coming back and redoing these.
A large metal chair lay half in, half out of the pond. Attached to it was some rope, taunt, as if someone was trying to pull it out, put not succeeding. The sand had, believe it or not, imprinted the bottom half of the chair, the submerged section, and now little dots of bright light shown out. And as our main character knew, that light could destroy or save the world.
(July 8, 2015 - 12:37 pm)
And another, because I love these. Please do another Corwd-Sorcery but leave these threads along with new ones. Pretty please?
The rubber duck floated naturally amoung the weeds, like it was breathing. The other ducks noticed but in their little duck brinas, they didn't care. The weeds, though, oh they cared. Over time they grasped the rubber duck and pulled him down to the bottom, their hands tight around his middle.
(July 8, 2015 - 12:42 pm)