Dissecting Fantasy: Objects, Part 2

Objects, Magical and Mundane

Part 2

How selective use of objects can enhance a fantasy (or non-fantasy) novel

Last time: We discussed the importance of choosing wisely which objects your characters should have access to and what sort of practical items can help in your character's survival

Sources: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins,  the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen

Objects in Identity

"For the opening ceremony, you're supposed to wear something that suggests your district's principal industry.  [...]  This means that coming from District 12, Peeta and I will be in some kind of coal miner's get-up.  Since the baggy miner's jumpsuits are not particularly becoming, our tributes usually end up in skimpy outfits with hats and headlamps.   One year, our tributes were stark naked and covered in black powder to represent coal dust.  It's always dreadful [...]."

--Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

I'm going to say three objects and you're going to tell me when and where the story takes place. Ready?

Spurs.  Revolver.  Star-shaped badge.

Obvious, right?  American West, circa 1880s.  The setting of many cowboy movies.
How about three more:

Katana sword.  Green powdered tea.  Silk kimono.

Feudal Japan.  Not hard at all.

But it shows the power of objects and cultural identity.  Say toga and we're in ancient Rome.  Nesting dolls sticks us in Russia.  Heck, even magical objects have cultural implications.  Flying carpets and magic lamps evoke pre-Islamic Saudi Arabia, while 7-league boots and deadly spindles plants us squarely in pre-industrial Europe.

These associations can help or hurt your story.  If you want to set your fantasy story in a specific time and the mention of even a few of these items will immediately paint a picture in the reader's minds.  Food, art, and technology, in particular, show the culture of a society.  Dried deer jerky versus cream puffs, marble statues versus ink scrolls, chariots versus steam trains--each thing very succinctly paints a picture of a time, a place, and a people.

On the other hand, if you want to create your own unique world without any cultural associations, objects can be a problem. How do you show readers that the world is different? There are three main strategies:

1. Mix-and-Match Objects

Let's see the reader try to place a character wearing a kimono, toting a six shooter, and standing near a marble statue.  That will teach the reader to form associations.  Unfortunately, it may also confuse her.

2. Create-Your-Own Objects

The splutok is a clay-based water holder with a rope handle and patterns of pre-Groteal artwork covering the surface.  By creating your own objects, you show the reader that the culture is not of this world.  Unfortunately, not only do you have to spend the time to invent this new object, you now have to slow down the story to explain it to the readers.

3. Intentionally Vague Objects

The girl sits on the comfortable sitting object, holds the writing object, and writes on a flat writing surface.  The less specific the object, the greater the chance of it being universal and thus not tied to a particular time and place.  But if your objects are too vague, the reader loses a lot of the imagery and thus the joy in the story.

Now, I realize my examples are all exaggerated and sort of ridiculous.  Hey, I like to have fun, too.  But I don't want you to think that these strategies don't work.  They do.  They just need to be employed with a deft and subtle hand.

For example, when you mix and match cultures, take into account the setting.  Fans make more sense in hot, muggy environments than in arctic ones.  A few strange, magical, and important objects show you're in a different world.  If the splutok is used in an important religious ceremony that will play a crucial role in the plot, the reader may be more inclined to read a long description.  Otherwise, opt for general objects: dress, chair, pen, soup, wine.  Oh sure, you can embellish them with adjectives.  The Artrukian silk dress, the famed plum wine of Chial.  As long as the readers can visualize the noun, you should be okay.

* * *

Thus far, I've been discussing objects in relation to cultural identity.  But it can also apply to the individual.

Now, I'm going to play the same "three object" game, but with people instead.  I want you to guess the name of the person based on some objects.  Tell me who has:

Glasses.  A magic wand.  An invisibility cloak.

Too easy?  How about:

A magic ring.  A glowing sword.  A (distinct lack of) pocket handkerchief.

Okay, so Harry Potter and Bilbo Baggins are famous, iconic fantasy figures.  Even so, you were able to guess them based on three objects, weren't you?

Why do we want to chose our own clothes?  Why do we want to decorate our house in the way we want?  Why do we take a glance at a person's clothes or nose through their house and draw certain conclusions about them?  Objects have power to reflect a person's identity.  Even objects chosen on a whim.  Wear dragonfly earring everyday and people will associate those earrings with you.

What does this mean for you?

It means that a few well-chosen objects can act as a shortcut to the character's identity.  A main character, of course, will have loads and loads of objects.  But a minor character with a single memorable object will also stick in people's minds.

* * *

Writing Prompt

Your hero roots through the corpses of his enemy for supplies.  All the enemy look the same--similar faces, similar clothing, similar supplies.  Then, suddenly, your hero opens an enemy's pack and finds a single object that makes him stop dead in his tracks.  When he sees this object, he realizes that his enemy was a real person, not some faceless monster.

What is this object?  Why does it affect your hero so much?

* * *

Magical Objects

"One day [a hobgoblin] was in a high state of delight because he had invented a mirror with this peculiarity, that every good and pretty thing reflected in it shrank away to almost nothing.  On the other hand, every bad and good-for-nothing thing stood out and looked its worst. [...] All the scholars in the demon's school [...] reported that [...] now for the first time it had become possible to see what the world and mankind were really like."

--Hans Christian Andersen, "The Snow Queen"

Admit it.  This was the part you were really interested in.

I hardly need to explain why magic is awesome.  It just is.  On the one hand, it can bring your every desire to life.  Things you can regain what you lost, you can do they impossible, you can master skills in a flash.

Things We Desire

• Power over Nature (water, fire, wind, lightning, earth)
• Power over People (having them like you, protection against harm or disloyalty)
• Power over the Supernatural (bringing the dead to life, speaking to ghosts, visions of the future)
• Mastery of a Particular Skill
• Wealth
• Transformation (controlled shapeshifting)
• Communication (telepathy, speaking to animals, speaking different languages)
• Youth and Rejuvenation
• Flying
• Invisibility
• Healing
• Knowledge
• Love

But on the other hand, magic can represent everything we fear, especially the things which are not necessarily solid or material.  It can manifest horrible losses, it can mar the soul, it can turn us into what we most hate.

Things We Fear

• Power (used against us)
• Loss of Loved Ones
• Loss of Identity
• Loss of Soul
• Loss of Freedom
• Loss of Respect
• Pain
• Poverty
• Sickness
• Deception
• Transformation (uncontrolled, monstrous)
• Ugliness/ Disability/ Age 
• Death

All this awesome power comes packed inside an ordinary, everyday item, usually something small enough to pick up.  Though the object can be anything, it usually comes fraught with some sort of symbolic power.  Things that bind, things that reflect, things that speak in some unconscious way to our soul.

Ordinary Objects

• Mirror
• Paper (books, scrolls)
• Clothes and Shoes (cape, belt, slippers, boots)
• Jewelry (rings, amulets, necklace, gemstones)
• Plants (dried herbs, nuts, mushrooms)
• Masks
• Cups, Bowls, Spoons
• Dolls 
• Game Pieces (dice, chess pieces, cards)
• Musical Instruments (pipe, drum, bell)
• Keys
• Weapons and Armor (sword, bow, shield, helmet)
• Candles and Lamps

Put the dread and desire of magic into one of these unassuming objects and you have the beginning of a story.

Just the beginning, of course.  Though the object may be fascinating in and of itself, what people really want to see is how the character uses the object, or, if he doesn't use it at all, why not?  The relationship between the character and the magical object may prove significant.  In order to develop it, ask yourself some of these question.

1. To begin with, how did your character get a hold of it?

Created it
Gift
Found it
Bought it
Earned it
Stole it
Traded for it
Other

2. Does he actually know what the object does?

Yes--completely
No, not at all
Thinks he does but is wrong
Knows some aspects of the magic but not the whole thing

3. Does it take any skill to master it?

Yes
No

4. Can only certain kinds of people use it?  (Pure-hearted, wizards, members of a certain bloodline, etc.)

Yes
No

5. Does the object have a limitation?

Yes--can only be used during certain times (full moon, before midnight)
Yes--limited quantity (only three wishes)
Yes--needs magic words/ rituals (must blow three kisses)
Yes--delicate/ can be broken
Yes--dependent on the physical/ mental/ spiritual state of person using it
Yes--other
No

6. Is there a cost to using it?

Yes--stated up front
Yes--hidden
No

7.  Is the object good or evil?

Good
Evil
Neutral

As you answer these questions, you should start to think of what kind of dilemma this object can cause the character.  Rarely is it satisfying for a magical item to swoop in and solve the character's problems.  There should be a conflict.

* * *

Now up until now, I've been treating the magical object as though it has a deep connection to the heart of the story.  But sometimes magical objects just pop up for convenient's sake.  Magic is like technology.  Sometimes we get airplanes and atomic bombs.  Other times we get velcro and flashlights.

Remember back in the survival section how I said you could use magic to cheat.  Well, here we are.

If you don't want your character lugging around 50 pounds of equipment and if you've created a world where magic is fairly common, you can use select magical objects to make the trip easier for him.  For example, a cloak that keeps your character dry no matter the weather.  A quiver that never runs out of arrows.  A piece of paper that automatically draws perfect maps.

The possibilities are endless.

Favorite Cheat Magical Objects

• Tables that always fill with food
• Purses that never run out of money
• Bread that fills your stomach with a single bite
• Boots that take you seven leagues with a single step
• Walnut shells that store ball gowns

The danger of cheat objects is that it creates what I like to call the RV paradox.  Sure, you can bring an RV into the woods, complete with T.V. and all the comforts of home, but at what point do we start to miss the point of going camping?  Magic can be a nice short cut every once in a while, but too many shortcuts and you suck out all the risk, struggle, and danger.

So when do you use magical cheats?  When the characters actually need them.

Look at The Hobbit versus The Lord of the Rings.  Bilbo didn't get magical lembas bread that filled his stomach with a single bite, because going on an adventure--being uncomfortable and hungry--was the whole point of the book.  Frodo, on the other hand, had to carry a magical ring that was corrupting his soul through an enemy war zone while being hunted by flying ghosts with poisonous swords.  Not starving to death along the way was the least they could do for him.

* * *

Writing Prompt

It's a dragon scale, or so your friend claims.  Blue and bold, with serrated edges, and large as your head.  After the knight killed the beast, your friend blunted three knives to pry it off.  On the dragon, the scale had been green, but once plucked, it turned a mystical blue.

"Proof," your friend says, "Of magic."

"All right," you reply, handing the scale back.  "It's magic. But what does it do?"

What does it do?  Finish the story.

Dissecting Fantasy: Riddles

In this 3-part installment of "Dissecting Fantasy," I'll look at how to represent intellectual play in speculative fiction using mazes, riddles, and games.   This week I'll examine riddles, a horrifically under-utilized obstacle, which works especially well in fantasy.

Riddles

Sources: Fairy Tales, J. R. R. Tolkien's  The Hobbit

Why We Love 'em

Riddles are miniature word-based puzzles.  They usually contain some kind of paradox that you can only solve by looking at the world in a non-literal way.  And they're fun.  I remember collecting riddles as a kid, first trying to solve them and then passing them off as my own to stump the adults.  It made me feel smart.  Whether I solved the riddle or peeked at the answer sheet, there was always a wonderful "Oh!" moment when the code was cracked and the solution revealed itself like a crane from a sheet of origami.

How to Build 'em

Bear with me, because I'm no expert.  I can only analyze what makes a riddle work and speculate how to create one.  From what I can tell, there are two different methods, plus a cheat.

Method #1

Start with a common household object. Something everyone knows but no one really looks at.  Pencils, nails, tables, chairs, tea kettles, earrings, and radishes.  The less people think of them the better.  Then apply a solid dose of figurative language: either a metaphor, personification, or pun.  Tables have legs, potatoes have eyes, refrigerators run, and newspapers are read.  If you can't find a pun, don't despair.  You can always create an elaborate metaphor, which is the more sophisticated route, anyway.  So turn canes into legs and teeth into horses--anything goes.

It's not enough, however, to imply one thing is something else.  If possible, try to focus on the paradoxical element of it.  Things are suppose to work a certain way.  Water flows downhill, the sun sets in the west.  If something breaks the rule, we want to know why.  And so we have riddles, like this one, from The Hobbit:

"A box without hinges, key, or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid."

The paradox is that there is no way to open the box to put the treasure inside or take the treasure out.  But if you start thinking of how to get the treasure--ie, by breaking the box--the metaphor starts to unfold.  The box is a shell, the treasure is a yolk, and the answer is an egg.

Here's another:

"Little Nancy Etticoat
In a white petticoat
And a red nose.
The longer she stands
The shorter she grows."

Little girls are not supposed grow shorter but rather taller over time.  So what object grows shorter with the passage of time.  The answer, in this case, is a candle.

In both instances, concrete details hint at how to solve the riddle: the golden treasure, the white petticoat, the red nose.  Even the paradox itself is a clue.  The briefer the riddle the better.  Bonus points if you can work in a rhyme.  If you can't memorize the riddle in 5 minutes, chances are it's too complicated.

Method #2

Rather than start with a common object, start with a broad, abstract concept, though still something any elementary school kid would understand.  So no Theory of Relativity allowed.   You can either construct a metaphor as before or simply list off ways in which it interacts with the world.  Then choose the most interesting ones and put them together in a list that befuddles the reader or seems to contradict itself.

Here's riddle that nearly got Bilbo eaten in The Hobbit:

"This thing all thing devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down."

Notice that this riddle doesn't really have a paradox--it's just so all-encompassing that you have to stretch your imagination to figure out what it is.  The answer, by the way, is time.  Though the riddle uses a bit of personification to make it seem like some kind of monster, most of the riddle is simply a list of the things time does.

Here's a riddle a tour guide told my family a while back.

"What's greater than God,
More evil than the Devil.
Rich man wants it.
Poor man has it.
If you eat it, you die."

What got me stuck was the "If you eat it, you die."  I kept picturing all kinds of poisons, but none of it seemed to fit with the rich or poor man.  At last the tour guide directed our family's attention to the first part of the riddle: "What's greater than God?"  "Nothing," my mom guessed, and that was the answer.

When you compile your list, don't go for the most obvious descriptors.  ("The friend of clocks."  "It lives between stars.")  Look at the concept from all different angles.  Go for both huge mind-blowing concepts ("all things devours"  "greater than God") and smaller, more concrete examples ("gnaws iron, bites steel" "if you eat it, you die").  That's what create the paradox: what object could be so big and so small at the same time?

When people try to solve riddles, they usually start by compiling a list of things they can see, either with their eyes or with their imaginations.  By choosing something they can't see, you'll be able to stump them, even if the answer is right there in front of their nose.

Cheat Method

Even though I've analyzed what makes a good riddle tick, actually writing one requires more time, patience, and work than I'm usually willing to devoted.  Fortunately, I write fantasy, and that means I'm not limited to the real world.  Anything goes.  And that means I can think up a paradox that will stump my readers and then make up an answer out of thin air.  This is the cheat method and it's so much easier.

For example, in a story I'm currently working on called Three Floating Coffins, Princess Sophia asks her suitors to bring her "a gift worth my kingdom that can fit in the palm of my hand."  The answer turns out to be an amulet containing magic.  In the past, a similar amulet was used by Sophia's ancestor to win the kingdom in the first place.

Of course, even if the audience had guessed "Magic," they couldn't have known the specifics.  That is the information the author (me) conceals until the last moment.

I'm hardly alone in this.  In the fairy tale "What the Rose did to the Cypress," (The Brown Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang--no relation) a princess asks her suitors "What did the rose do to the cypress?" and executes them if they guess wrong.  The answer winds up being a complicated story of how a woman (Rose) cheated on her husband (Cypress) and would have killed him but for the intervention of his dog.  Thereafter Cypress decreed that his wife should be treated like his dog, his dog treated like his wife.  (It's back before the days of political correctness.)

Normal riddles work because they test your brilliance.  Cheat riddles work because they promise you a story.  The author leads you on a journey into the heart of the world; seeking the answer to the riddle, you come to understand all aspects of the land's beauty, cruelty, and wonder.  That's how you can build a cheat riddle and not have the audience feel cheated.  The riddle is an excuse to explore the mysteries of your world.

So how do you build them?

First off, you need to know why the riddle exists.  A normal riddle exists for its own sake; a cheat riddle is built into and dependent upon the plot.  Usually, it spurs on a quest.  The classic scenario, as I've shown, is that of a suitor who must solve the riddle to win the hand of a princess.   But it can be anything.

I, personally, like to come up with the solution before I come up with a riddle.  In Three Floating Coffins, the amulet plays an important role in the story, as the magic eventually falls into the hands of an evil man who plots to take over the kingdom.  Magic, therefore, is the focal point, and I made up a riddle for it by drawing on the paradox of the amulet being tiny but invaluable.

However, the opposite could work just as well.  You could come up with an interesting riddle first and spend the rest of the book trying to figure out what it is.  It all depends on how you write.  The main thing is to tie the riddle into the plot.  The tighter you tie it, the better the cheat riddle works.

Also Consider...

The Prize and the Penalty

Let's go back to the non-cheat riddles.  Suppose you spend days or weeks or months crafting and refining one only for the reader to spend less than thirty seconds reading it.  It almost feels like a waste.  You need to stretch the riddle by attaching it to an important plot point.

The hero must solve a riddle (or series of riddles) in order to get something he needs or wants.  It might be a magical sword or the princess' hand in marriage.  Or, like Bilbo Baggins, it might be something as simple as being shown the way out.  The riddle becomes an obstacle; solve it and you get a prize.

Of course, if you answer wrongly, there may be consequences.  This traditionally involves some manner of gruesome death, with bonus points if the asker of the riddle is entitled to eat you.  Then again maybe the penalty is small--instead of gaining an item you need, you lose an item.  Maybe the penalty is not against you, but a loved one--Rumpelstiltskin claiming your firstborn.  Or maybe you can guess as much as you want without cost, but the time it takes to solve the riddle will severely hinder your quest.

When you think about prize and penalty, think not just about your hero, but the person asking.  Why do they bother with riddles?  Princesses who want to avoid getting married often use it as a screening process; on the surface, it seems civilized, but it can tally up a high body count.  And unlike, say, a joust, it can go on indefinitely with no winner.  Is the riddler a monster or a human?  Weak or strong?  Cocky or bored?  As you discover their personality, the prize and the penalty becomes clear.

The Action Solution

The other major problem with riddles is that they're passive.  The hero listens and then sits around and thinks.  Don't get me wrong; their thinking process can be quite fascinating.  But for cheat riddles especially, it's not enough to think.  Your hero has to get up and do something.

Going back to my Three Floating Coffins, the princess didn't just want an answer to her riddle--she wanted the suitor to present her with the magical amulet.  Which led to a whole new set of problems--how do you go about obtaining it?  The riddle, in other words, sets off a larger test.  You must first solve it to know where you're aiming; get it wrong and you're on a wild goose chase.  But even if you get it right, there are still many obstacles between you and your prize.

Then again, it may be that you can only solve the riddle if you get up and seek a solution.  In "What the Rose Did to the Cypress," the princess' many suitors all assumed they knew the answer.  They guessed wrong and got their heads chopped off.  But the hero, rather than try to think his way out of it, deliberately set out on an adventure.  In his case, the riddle was impossible to solve without making this journey.  It doesn't have to be that extreme, though.  Maybe the adventure gives the hero a wider view of the world, which in turn helps him to solve the riddle.

Even if your hero is in an enclosed space, he can still take action.  He can goad the riddle-master into giving him multiple guesses.  He can try to bargain or bribe the riddler for hints.  If it were me, I'd try to find out all the wrong guesses other people tried.  Maybe even observing the riddle-master helps.  Poker players learn each other's tells--maybe the hero can learn the riddler's "tell" and use it to his advantage.  Conversely, maybe the asker doesn't let the hero sit and think.  Maybe, he attacks him.  Maybe the hero is in hostile territory and must fight, swim, climb, or run for his life while he thinks.

Riddles are, in the end, problems.  Think of how you solve problems.  Do you just sit quietly and think?  Or do you do something--anything--write, rant to a friend, take a walk, take a bath, play with a toy, eat, beat your head with your hands--until a flash of brilliance comes.  So don't discount action, whether big or small.  Even Bilbo Baggins who was basically trapped in a dark cave with nothing to do but think fidgeted and pinched himself and gripped his sword, all in an effort to solve riddles.