I haven’t nailed down the terminology, but this is an idea I’ve had on the back burner for years. I can’t imagine a better community to try and articulate it to than this one!
In sci-fi and fantasy novels, I find that my favorite books tend to follow one of two models. The expansive ones are so rich in details, both explicit and implied, that nearly every detail could be turned into the centerpiece of a novel of its own. (Revelation Space, by Alastair Reynolds, is an example of this.)
Focused novels, on the other hand, take one or two elements and fully explore how those elements would interact with (and change) the world. George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series is an example of this — there’s very little magic, but what magic there is has a tremendous, fully-realized impact on the story.
The reason I’m bringing this up here — apart from wanting some feedback on the basic concept (which, again, may be poorly articulated) — is that I think this has value as a model for worldbuilding. The Forgotten Realms setting for D&D, for instance, is very much an expansive setting, while Vampire (considered without the other WoD books) is focused on one element, the existence of vampires, and on exploring that fully.
Does this make sense? Am I onto something? Is it useful?
The concept is definitely solid I think. It’s hard to boil down into those two extremes because there is a lot of crossover between them. Something like the granddaddy of all modern day fantasy, LOTR, had the expansive world of middle earth. The story was very focused on the journey of the Ring though.
Maybe good descriptors for the concept, would be to determine if the world was looked at with a wide lens or a narrow one.
The wide lens approach tries to bring everything about the world into view. Tries to make everything with at least a little detail about it.
The narrow lens approach focuses on only one or two elements, and leaves the rest of the world blurry and implied at the edges.
Most things might be wide lens for a while, then narrow down to a narrow lens for a few story elements. Things the characters encounter always get more focus than things the characters never use.
I think the term you’re looking for, John, is depth of field. With the deepest depth of field, everything is in focus, though you can’t readily emphasize a particular item. With the narrower or shallower depth of field, only a specific plane or thing is in focus while everything else is blurry.
Ahh, but depth of field is a little too technical and specific to photography and videography to be grasped by the general majority. A lens is something in the common vocabulary, and something that bridges a shared context. Easy for people to say and easily communicate the thought.
I had considered depth of field, but figured lens was more accessible.
I’m sort of a snob when it comes to fiction. Not the sort of “I’m better than you” snob, but the “This writer bites because X” snob. I think that the great majority of reasons I reject books that others reccomend fall squarely into the range of the author not getting the variable you describe right. Too often authors try to make EVERYTHING fantastic and they fail on a great many things, whereas if they stuck with a small number of distinctive things done really well, they’d do fine. I think it all boils down to what you’re good at and the tolerances of your audience. Some of us may be able to create new worlds where everything is new different fresh fantastic and fascinating, but trying and failing is the fastest way to make your work poor. Focusing on a few things and doing them well is a lot easier and a lot harder to drop the ball on.
I don’t know of A Song of Fire and Ice is a good example of a focused series of books. The most notable quality of those books, I think, is the tendency of Martin to get caught up in descriptions of heraldry, history, politics… It’s extremely expansive, but it’s not throwing floating castles and such at you.
I don’t particularly see a distinction between the two categories you’re attempting to create. At most it seems like a difference between [lowbrow and highbrow] tastes. For example, I get excited when I see an author paying attention to etymology or historical behavior (and sensible deviations from there). I’m sure there are plenty of people who skip anything like that to get to the fireballs. The difference here is that some people need the flashy stuff to get excited about, whereas a perfectionist like myself gets excited when the little details are in place.
“Does this make sense? Am I onto something? Is it useful?”
Probably not. Unless you can explain, how to do well in each category, or if you can cite reasonible advantages and disadvantages of each category.
I wanted to let this one percolate a coupla days before replying, because I think there is something to this premise.
By this definition, I think focused is best described as the classic “what if?” of fantastic fiction.
For example, in “Clifford, the Big Red Dog,” the world is normal, except how it relates to a world with a 20-foot red dog (except for the giant doo-doo).
Do you accept the conceit that there is a giant red dog? If so, then the world around that premise is slowly accepted.
The new TV show “Heroes” applies the same thinking. The world on the show is outwardly the one we know, except for the superpowered individuals. Of the other high-concept shows out there right now, I’d have to say that “Jericho” is another that takes one fantastic element, and see what ripples it creates.
I’m still not sold on the definition of expansive. I’m not sure there really is a difference, except that in an expansive setting the conceit is so widely-accepted and fleshed out that there is no exploration of the conceit takes place.
Taking Forgotten Realms as an example, and a good one, I think, requires us to examine it first as a focused setting. The original Realms, as Ed Greenwood detailed it for his players, must certainly have been focused in its origins. Here the simple conceits of D&D (magic, fantastic creatures, a magificent dungeon beneath the city-state of Waterdeep) were initially focused, because those concepts were new ones that had yet to be applied to the whole world.
But that hardcover book you spent $40 on that details a entire continent, from economics, politics to magic, is clearly expansive. We — as consumers and players — are generally familiar with the conceits of the setting. What was once new and interesting to Greenwood’s original gaming table, has since been detailed in supplements and novels to such a degree that adventures no longer focus on the effects of those conceits — rather the adventures are the more generic type that simple interact with the setting.
I think you might be onto something, but getting tangled up in the paradigms a bit.
Do you mean “World A has everything fantastical” – absolutely everything is somehow different from how one would expect it to be? Compare to “except for X, World B is normal” (and X inevitably becomes the focus of the books). The Harry Potter books are a good example of the latter.
If so, I find the former to be too “out there”; there’s no frame of reference when everything is alien. Some of the later Dune books felt like that.
I think that Telas is correct, but you need some way of describing how the frame of reference changes based on how different the world or situation is from our own. To play with one of your own phrases, I think that it can be described as ‘GM Lantern’ vs. ‘GM Flashlight’, with the light cast not representing GM knowledge, but the work and ‘twist’ the GM has to put on it in order to flesh out the concept.
Take FR. This is more of a GM Lantern concept, because everything is different from our own world. Between the races, money, and magic, everything is different from our own world. Everything in a 360 degree arc is illuminated, because everything has been changed.
But with Vampire (or Harry Potter), the world is largely the same except for that one small detail that turns the game world on it’s head, and it’s this idea that becomes illuminated (GM Flashlight) and thus the lynchpin for the world. Bloodsucking leeches for Vampire and a hidden, magical society in Harry Potter. The rest of the world is the same, so there’s no need to really illuminate it. The interesting stuff (vampires and magic) is what the game is about, so why light up the room when you just need to shine the light on one thing?
I think I need to define what I mean by expansive more clearly. Focused is coming through just fine, and I agree with what everyone has said about that side of things. But I’ve sowed confusion on the expansive side. 😉
What I don’t mean by expansive is that everything is fantastic, or otherwise varies from the norm for that genre/era/whatever. And both expansive and focused books can be quite detailed.
The big difference that I’m getting at is that whereas an expansive book is filled with oodles of details, many lightly-sketched (but tantalzing, and offering much potential for expansion), a focused one takes a few details — usually dramatic changes from the norm — and drills down to explore every aspect of those details.
So while an expansive sci-fi novel might include references to FTL travel, body swapping and true AI in passing, it wouldn’t go any deeper than that. Those details are really just color.
A focused sci-fi novel, on the other hand, might revolve around body swapping — and that topic would be explored in great detail, including all the ramifications body swapping would have on society, etc.
The quick version: Expansive novels are broad and shallow when it comes to color, focused ones are narrow and deep, making what could be color the focus.
Does that make any sense?
It does make sense. It sounds to me like Expansive novels would be hardest to convert to an RPG… because you never know which component the PCs/players are going to get involved with. It pushes the work down the road, but demands better improvisation when the PCs shift their focus to each element.
I believe the words/concepts you’re looking for are breadth vs. depth.
David Drake’s “Hammer’s Slammers” series is very deep in regards to futuristic warfare, without going into transport, trade, culture, etc. The Dune books are very full of details of all kinds of things, from economics to warfare to politics to cultures…
Am I closer this time? 🙂
Telas
Yes, Telas, that sounds very close. Breadth and depth are much better terms, and so obvious now that you mention it. 😉
The only wrinkle is that breadth vs. depth implies that novels taking the former approach lack the latter, which isn’t really accurate. (Ditto with campaign settings.)