NFE '15: Take 1 + Thoughts on my request

[marmota_b]

So I signed up for the Narnia Fic Exchange proper this year, and have received my assignment, and now pondering commences.

Elizabeth Culmer has the problem of obviously her worldbuilding and characters threatening to give her away as the writer. I don't have that problem; I've barely published anything and most of my worldbuilding is happening in the background so far (although I did already have to drop Twinkletop from my remix). My problem is that I almost immediately got a vague idea of a direction to pursue which would have spoiled one of many future plot points for The Peridan Chronicles.

The good news is, trying to come up with a way to write around that seems to have started a flurry of ideas including a hint of a plot (always the greatest problem for me!), so, yay.

Also, some hopefully interesting female characters (as of now, still nameless) have walked in, and some potentially interesting discussions and a theme are forming, so, more yay.

Now I'm becoming worried if I'll have enough time to write the beast this idea is quickly growing into.

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During my annual attempt to bring some order to my mess of stuff, I found some old, old pictures I made inspired by Narnia. Maybe. Because through them, I remembered one of the sources for my version of Narnia, the cozy country of small Talking Beasts and Birds and the undertaking of practical projects: a series of lavishly illustrated books by Tony Wolf.

We used to borrow them from the library; I only have the third one, which also has the dwarfs/gnomes and introduces giants. I feel like it's the last one that might pass for Narnianish; the next one has fairies and the sort of magic wand magic that I never truly liked in a deep liking way. Even then, while definitely daydreaming about both, I instinctively liked the Deep Magic of worldbuilding more than the willful magic of power, I guess? It was the former that found its way into pictures. And I was more fascinated by the clever things the animals and the gnomes built and made than the things the fairies could conjure.
Seeing as Czech fairies are more like the Narnian Naiads and Dryads than these wee magical beings, I guess it's no wonder I related to the Narnian sort more... and in the Tony Wolf books, to the three mouse sisters. They sewed and wove, and wasn't that just fabulous, making things with their... paws?
Also, there's the weird genderised thing going on between the all-male gnomes and the all-female fairies; I never gave it much thought, but I liked the mixed up animals better than either. The Czech default genders may have had a hand in it again, because I'm finding the venerable Rat was definitely meant to be male, and who knows about the turtle or otter.

Even the first three books don't quite fit in with Narnia: the animals tend to be smaller rather than larger, the dwarfs are different... But in introducing a number of various fairly realistic-looking species beyond what Lewis bothered with, and thinking about a different sort of implications for such a world, I think the books jumpstarted my interest in the lives of the smaller inhabitants of Narnia - and, for that matter, Spare Oom as well. :-)

Comments

[rthstewart]

I've written some stuff that is really obviously in my verse and other places where it isn't. What has happened more frequently is that writing in the NFE and breaking out of my usual verse has had the benefit of broadening my vision, in very positive ways.

Good luck on your first NFE! If you have any questions on the exchange and what tends to work/not work, just ask!

[marmota_b]

Thank you. What comes to mind is, how long does one usually need to allow for beta-reading?

[heliopausa]

It sounds like things are going beautifully, marmota, with the flurry of ideas and the new characters! Go, you! \o/
The gendering of gnomes and fairies sounds all too glumly recognisable. Of course it's possible that these life-forms may not actually need gender for reproduction. (Like some sea anenomes, for example. Or Rumplestiltskin, tearing himself in two - was he being fissiparous, do you think? and thus ending up with a baby after all?)

[marmota_b]

Hm. Rumplestiltskin was one of those rather-foreign fairy tales, so I didn't even remember that particular detail! (In the Czech lands, Božena Němcová rules with a firm hand as a fairy tale collector and writer, and I can't say I mind; she tends to make the protagonists more interesting somehow. No wonder so many Czech filmed fairy tales are based on her work!)
Of course, Czech fairies are also gendered, to the point that their actual historical name is "little women". But I think it's the way Wolf made most of the gnomes practically interchangeable that bothered and bothers me. All of his dwarfs seem to look like that, even outside this series. I guess there's no particular logic to this argument, just the fact that the animals were more interesting and relatable!

Good luck with your writing! Personally, I'm glad I got the ideas so early, because I tend towards obsessive with the editing stage (which, obviously, isn't the same as "catching the mistakes", but does take time nonetheless!).

[transposable_element]

There is a truly dreadful, assembly-line-produced series of books about fairies that Filia was addicted to a few years ago. The fairies are all female (except for the King), and their adversaries, the goblins, are all male. The whole series is basically a thinly-disguised "girls against the boys" story, in which the boys always lose because they quarrel amongst themselves and cannot for the life of themselves cooperate.

But anyway, I came up with the theory that the fairies and goblins are the females and males of a single species.

[marmota_b]

That theory reminds me of something, but I can't think of what. Maybe that Czech book where there are lingonberry fairies and blueberry boys? But they're friendly. (Most of the book actually has the lingonberry fairies having adventures of their own with their friend the spider.)