Timewaster's Guide Archive

I want to make one final plug here that I respectfully disagree with the premise behind your original question.

It is phrased in such a way as to indicate:

1. You have an existing world or story and
2. You want to add magic over the top of said world/story

Actually... no.  I'm trying to come up with interesting magic systems that I can build a world or story around (or at least weave it into an existing one if it fits - not just adding it superficially). I completely agree that a system shouldn't be window dressing. That is completely anathema to me. 

I do have existing stories, but most of them have mundane systems because I couldn't come up with an interesting one, though I did have what I believe to be interesting limitations etc. It's usually the limitations or way of transmission that I use as a springboard to build the world. For instance, I came up with a system that uses a fluid in a specific way (I'm being intentionally vague), so I built a hierarchical political system around the people who have special access to it. The entire story grew from that premiss; though it did incorporate elements from another story that fit perfectly. 
If I would find a system that would make a specific story better, I would change the world and story to flow from the system rather that just throw it on top. But that is not what I was saying in the post.  What made you think that btw?

For a long time I have had the idea for a fantasy series that takes place over several large wars in the history of the region (Revolutionary, Civil, and possibly World). The problem comes in how to narratively depict realistic warfare. I need help finding some inspiration for how to depict this.

So... What are some good novels (preferably modern and shorter ones - parts of a long series are fine, but I need to get through them quickly, so specific chapters for these would be nice) that depict large scale, mostly terrestrial, battle scenes (any period or genre is fine, but I prefer sci-fi or fantasy - steampunk would be good) and/or ones that take place during large wars but focus on characters that aren't necessarily participating in them directly, e.g. they are fleeing from them or making their way through battle zones?

Also, if you can recommend non-fiction books on strategy that are comprehensive yet easy to understand for the novice, that would be great. 

Thanks for any help
 

Perhaps we should coin Dhalagirl's Corrolary to Godwin's law?

What are you, some kind of Nazi sympathizer? They thought Hitler couldn't make a mistake either?!?!? Oh, and he was a Worldbuilder too!    Wait... 

Its not heated from my side. That's why I use smileys  I've had fun myself.  Though it is frustrating when you are told you don't get it when you have said over and over and over that you do.
The only thing we don't seem to agree on is that Brandon Sanderson can make mistakes. 
I said all along that I agreed that WB can be a problem. Bottom line, I just wanted to make it clear that Brandon gave the wrong impression and that we shouldn't hold Tolkien to a false standard (I would say the same if someone did it to Brandon). I have no problem saying that Tolkien had Eternal Rewrite Syndrome (I think I'm the first to use Syndrome  ). I would say the Sanderson fans (I'm a casual fan as I know him more from WE - I haven't read much of his yet - remedying that) are the ones who don't want him to have made a mistake.   

You are all cool in my book. 

If a little fanatical 

Thanks, Jason! That actually helped a lot. I especially like the combining of seemingly unconnected powers.

Sigh. You're missing the point. Of course Brandon is not Tolkien. He nevertheless has a valid point about him from the point of view of a novelist.

Yeesh. Now you're missing the point  I already said that I agree that a novelist shouldn't do what Tolkien did (since they have different goals and the Silmarillion was not background for a novel)  and that Brandon is right about worldbuilders disease being a problem. Once again, it is not valid if it is a misrepresentation of what Tolkien was trying to do. They have completely different goals and motivations; that was the point of comparing them; not simply that they are different people. You can't act as if Tolkien wasted time worldbuilding for a novel he never meant to write while writing the stories that he did mean to write! Its completely illogical. He did however have Eternal Rewrite Syndrome. I'm not trying to be a Tolkien apologist; I'm just trying to be make it clear as to what his motives were and dispel misconceptions.
See my last response to dhalagirl. Is it valid for the hypothetical critics to accuse her of having WBD?

Have you read everything I wrote (I'm not being a jerk; it happens)? This should have all been clear by now. Sometimes I am overly verbose and people skip half of what I write. I don't blame them. 

Because to some fantasy writers the Lord of the Rings is still their favorite fantasy novel, so they think that to be a successful novelist they should emulate Tolkien. So it's extremely relevant to the discussion.

Its relevant when you don't misrepresent the facts.

Worldbuilding is not just about backstory.

Sorry, I was using backstory to encompass all of that. I meant it as the "story" of the world. I should have use background.

Tolkien said he wanted to construct a mythology for England. But I think the mythology he constructed had very little to do with England and was just concerned with its own world. There are some vague parallels in there and I assume a Tolkien scholar could point out a lot more, but as far as the layman is concerned it's just a world unto itself.

It had a lot to do with England, actually. For instance, Rohan was a horse culture because he believed the Anglo-Saxons could have defeated the Normans if they had a strong cavalry.  Middle-Earth itself was from the Anglo-Saxon word middel-erde which is their name for Earth.  It doesn't mater what the perception is though, because my point was that he had a point beyond building background for novels. That is the only reason I brought it up. I was not implying that he wasn't building a "secondary world", as he called it.

The worldbuilding in the Silmarillion was not just a list of facts and dates. Tolkien built the world through poems and stories about events in the world. But worldbuilding is certainly what Tolkien was doing, constructing a mythology about a place and time that never existed. He wasn't just writing individual poems and stories; by setting them all in the same fictional time and place he was worldbuilding, giving a picture of the whole through its parts.

That makes my point. Of course he was worldbuilding Middle-Earth. My point was that the Silmarillion was not simply a collection of worldbuilding material for the "real" stories. They were the real stories!

I have Brandon's worldbuilding document for the Stormlight Archive, and parts of it are written as historical-sounding stories. He could have gone the route of just writing the history of Roshar and releasing it to the public. But that's not what he wanted to do, because he's a novelist.

First: You lucky.....! 

Second:
Brandon didn't sit in a ditch in WW1 and write tales with the goal of keeping himself sane while his friends died around him and with the hopes that he could build a mythology for his homeland that was sorely deficient of one; Tolkien did.

Brandon's best friend didn't ask that if he died Brandon would carry on with their goal of writing the kind of stories they wanted to read; Tolkien's did (and his friend died in battle that day, as did all but one of his other friends). (See the real note at bottom)

Brandon wasn't grading papers one day when the first line of Way of Kings came to him and then wrote it as a children's story for his kids not connected to his grand heroic tales of Roshar, pulling very small bits of his real storytelling in as background (not using "Roshar" once in the story btw); Tolkien did.

Brandon wasn't bugged by his publisher, while he was working on his real stories, to write a sequel to the accidental book; Tolkien did.

Brandon didn't realize as he discovery wrote that he could connect his real stories more deeply to the silly children's book (what Tolkien thought of Hobbit) by setting it firmly in Roshar, both deepening his interest in the sequel and hoping that it would give him an excuse to sell his real stories before or alongside it; Tolkien did.

Brandon Wasn't disappointed because he could only sell the sequel to his silly children's story and had to wait until he died until there was interest in publishing his "background" Roshar material of the grand sequel to his children's story (you know, his "real" work); Tolkien was and did.

Brandon has very different goals than Tolkien did. I think it is unfair to hold Tolkien to his standard and miss the point completely of what he was trying to do. Yes, you can tell people what Tolkien was doing and explain to them that he wasn't looking ahead to writing The Hobbit and LOTR and that the Silmarillion, therefore, is NOT an example for how to build a novel.  That is very different from falsely portraying Tolkien as taking too long on his "backstory" instead of getting to his "goal" of writing novels. I don't think Brandon is doing this consciously (it is an unfortunately common misconception that Tolkien himself was depressed by), I just don't think he knows this.


The note ---
My chief consolation is that if I am scuppered tonight - I am off on duty in a few minutes - there will still be left a member of the great T.C.B.S. to voice what I dreamed and what we all agreed upon. For the death of one of its members cannot, I am determined, dissolve the T.C.B.S. Death can make us loathsome and helpless as individuals, but it cannot put an end to the immortal four! A discovery I am going to communicate to Rob before I go off to-night. And do you write it also to Christopher. May God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot.
Yours ever,
G.B.S.
-A letter written to J.R.R. Tolkien by his friend G.B. Smith on the day of his death.

All I'm saying is that the Silmarillion was not meant to be backstory to the "real" books. I am not saying it was a novel or that it could have sold well without the Hobbit and LOTR. Brandon has portrayed it as if Tolkien had wasted time on Worldbuilding instead of writing the "real" books.  This is not case.