There has been much said about the number of adaptations being made today. Most of the top grossing movies this decade have been adaptations. Studios are risk adverse, wanting guaranteed hits instead of unknown quantities. There’s even talk of a superhero movie bubble, one due for a collapse. Problem is, adaptations have always been around. The 1970s and the 1980s are unusual in having the majority of popular films be original. This series, The History of Adaptations, will look at the box office hits through the history of film, using the compiled list at Filmsite.org. There are obvious issues working with a limited list; the main one being missing out on the vast majority of releases. The goal, though, is to show what was popular. Follow ups may go into detail of certain years.
Today, the 1930s. Two major events occured in the Thirties, the Great Depression and World War II. The Great Depression saw massive unemployment as stock markets crashed. As a result, Hollywood’s output was pure escapism, alloying people to forget their troubles for the length of a movie. Studios had to watch their budgets, knowing that the number of people able to afford a night at the movies had dwindled. Several studios survived solely on the success of one movie; if it had failed, the studio would have folded. The start of World War II saw the end of the Depression Era as industries switched to a war footing, supplying materiel for the armies in Europe.
1930
Tom Sawyer – adapted from the novel by Mark Twain. This was not the first film adaptation; Edison Studios made theirs in 1917.
All Quiet on the Western Front – adapted from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, released the previous year. The film won the Best Picture Oscar for 1930.
Whoopee! – adapted loosely from the stage play by Florenz Ziegfeld, creator of the Ziegfeld Follies. Zeigfield had to shut down the run on Broadway because he lost everything in the stock market crash and convinced the studio to fund the adaptation.
Ingagi – original, sort of. The original “found footage” movie, the producers claimed that the film was a documentary. The controversy around the film, which implied gorillas kidnapping women for sex, drove people to see it. Turned out, the found footage was found in other movies, and at least one extra was recognized as an actor. The movie was pulled from distribution and hasn’t been seen since. Adding to the colourful history, Ingagi was the inspiration for Gorilla City and Gorilla Grodd at DC Comics.
Hell’s Angels – original. A Howard Hughes film, Hell’s Angels followed the exploits of pilots in the Great War*.
1931
Frankenstein – adapted from the novel by Mary Shelley. The Universal film classic, it wasn’t the first adaptation, but was the first with sound. Boris Karloff starred as the monster, becoming the basis for future film versions of Frankenstein’s monster.
City Lights – original. In an unusual move during the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin made the film as a silent movie.
1932
The Kid from Spain – original.
The Sign of the Cross – adapted from the 1895 play of the same name by Wilson Barrett. Cecil B. DeMille directed, hiring Charles Laughton in his first Hollywood role, Nero.
Grand Hotel – adapted by William A. Drake from his play, Grand Hotel, which in turn was based on the book Menschem im Hotel by Vicki Baum.
The Most Dangerous Game – adapted from the short story by Richard Connell. This is the work where men are hunted by man.
Shanghai Express – adapted from a 1931 story by Harry Hervey, which was based on the taking of the Shanghai-Beijing Express by a warlord.
1933
King Kong – original. While King Kong has been adapted several times, this was the original.
I’m No Angel – original. Mae West wrote and starred in the film.
Cavalcade – adapted from the Noel Coward play. The same play would be the inspiration for the British TV series, Upstairs, Downstairs.
She Done Him Wrong – adapted from the play Diamond Lil by Mae West. West had the starring role in the film.
1934
It Happened One Night – adapted from the story “Night Bus” by Samuel Hopkins Adams, first published in the August 1933 issue of Cosmopolitan.
The Merry Widow – adapted from the 1901 operetta by Franz Lehár, which itself was based on the 1861 play L’attaché d’ambassade (The Embassy Attaché) by Henri Meilhac.
Viva Villa! – adapted from the book by Edgecumb Pinchon and Odo B. Stade. The book was very loosely based on the life of Pancho Villa.
1935
Mutiny on the Bounty – adapted from the book by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, which was based on the historical event. Liberties were taken from the historical records.
Top Hat – original, but inspired by the plays Scandal in Budapest by Sándor Faragó and A Girl Who Dares by Aladar Laszlo.
1936
San Francisco – original. The movie is set during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
1937
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – adapted from the fairy tale by Walt Disney. Disney cartoons will appear in the top grossing movies by decade from the Thirties through to the Sixties.
1938
Alexander’s Ragtime Band – original. Irving Berlin used the name of his 1911 hit for the title of his movie tracing the history of jazz.
Boys Town – a fictionalized drama based on the life of Father Edward J. Flanagan and the real Boys Town.
Test Pilot – original.
You Can’t Take it With You – adapted from the play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
1939
Gone With the Wind – adapted from the novel by Margaret Mitchell. The movie was the top grossing film of the Thirties and still remains at the top overall after adjusting for inflation, edging out Star Wars and The Sound of Music.
The Wizard of Oz – adapted from the book by L. Frank Baum. Again, not the first adaptation, but the best known, to the point where other adaptations base themselves off this movie and not the book.
From the above, of twenty-nine films, only ten are original works, that is, films that were created as films. Of the remaining nineteen, five are adaptations of adaptations; Viva Villa!, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Shanghai Express, all based on a story based on historical events, Grand Hotel, ultimately from a book via the stage, and The Merry Widow, based on an operetta that itself was based on another play. Eleven, including the adaptations of adaptations, were based on novels or short stories. Gone With the Wind had record sales as a novel, leading it to be adapted for film, much the same way as the Harry Potter books. All Quiet on the Western Front was originally published as a serial in a German newspaper in 1928, then as a book in 1929, being translated into other languages and selling over 1.5 million copies before being adapted to film. The Wizard of Oz is better known as a movie instead of a book to the point where later adaptations, including The Wiz and Wicked, use the film as a starting point.
Stage plays are the next biggest source of adaptations. Seven stage productions, including Grand Hotel, were adapted for the silver screen. The transition from stage to screen seems natural; the script is already made and just needs to be tweaked to take advantage of how cameras replaced the audience seating. Grand Hotel is a good example; the screenwriter turned his own stage play into a screen play. The advantage of film over stage is that all costs are paid up front instead of over time. Florenz Ziegfeld took advantage of this after losing everything in the stock market crash of 1929 when making Whoopee!. The age of the play didn’t appear to matter. The Sign of the Cross was based on a play written in 1895, The Merry Widow can trace itself back to 1861; at the other end, Whoopee!‘s original play was produced in 1928, and the original Cavalcade was produced in 1931. Today, the adaptation path has reversed. Several movies, notably The Lion King, have been turned into Broadway stage plays and musicals. There are exceptions – Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera in particular – but the attention to stage plays as dropped a long way since the early years of Hollywood.
Four of the adaptations, including three adaptations of adaptations mentioned above, were based on historical events. For the purposes of the analysis, I did not include any work that was set during an historical event. San Francisco is about the people whose lives are affected by the 1906 earthquake and not about the quake itself, much like James Cameron’s Titanic was about how the sinking affected two people on the ship and not about how the ship sank. The events are the backdrop for the story and not the story in and of itself. With that out of the way, Boys Town is the easiest to examine. It was based on the work of Father Edward J. Flanagan, who set up Boys Town to help turn around the lives of boys who were in trouble. The movie is fiction, but relies heavily on the work done by the real Father Flanagan. At the other end of the scale, Viva Villa! is almost an original work of fiction, having very little accuracy to the life of Pancho Villa. The movie’s intent was to be a biographical work, even if facts weren’t of importance.
Two movies of special note. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first Disney animated film and the first to adapt a fairy tale, but would not be the last. The movie set up a pattern that works for the studio even today. Top Hat, while original, was at least inspired by two stage plays. The film may have been intended as an adaptation of either play but turned into its own work during production.
The Thirties were a decade similar to now. An economic crash that caused massive unemployment sent people looking for escapism. The difference between the sources then and now is the lack of superhero movies. The superhero, as we now know it, started in the Thirties with the introduction of Superman in Action Comics #1. Prior to that, most comic characters were masked mystery men along the lines of Zorro. That’s not to say that these characters weren’t adapted or weren’t popular. They were more likely to show up in a serial, something not covered by the list. Serials and newsreels were part of the theatre-going experience, but weren’t considered the main draw. A future series of posts may cover them.
Instead, the bulk of adaptations in the Thirties came from written works – novels and short stories – and stage plays. Novels, short stories, and stage plays have a long history in the role of entertainment; going to that well for adaptations is a natural inclination. Comics, from newspaper strips or comic books, were relatively new, much like film. The nature of comics leads them to a serial nature. However, some strips were turned into films. Blondie was adapted as a movie in 1938. It just didn’t rate high enough on box office numbers to be included in the list. The use of the top ten movies by decade cuts out many films and is an acknowledged limitation.
In summary, adaptations aren’t a new phenomenon. They’ve been around since the dawn of Hollywood. The sources may change, as this feature of Lost in Translation will explore, but adaptations have always been with us.
Next week, back to the reviews.
* The Great War, aka World War I before a numbering system was needed.
It gets complicated.
Building “races” is a big thing in worldbuilding, especially in the areas of Science Fiction and Fantasy. People craft epicly different alien races. Games have different stats for the “player races.” Everyone seems happy when some fantasy world has Not Just Another Elf since so many races seem the same.
So if you’re worldbuilding, there’s a chance you need to create races. That’s the problem – when we talk about worldbuilding races, we’re not always talking races. If I’m going to talk race-creation I need to clarify what we’re talking about
We’re probably not talking about what you think we are. (more…)
Yes, I’m actually alive. I figured I’d clear that up.
Mostly life has stayed crazy. Work is busy, though I’m seeing a light at the end of the tunnel there, and I’ll keep you updated on that. Sadly, there’ve been some family health issues that are proving stressful, though I hope for good news there as well. 2015 has been pretty bloody busy already.
On the plus side:
- More Way With Worlds. I’m about to tackle race design – which is going to go into an interesting semantic direction. This is an area I want to speak on a lot more.
- Generators: I’m really hoping to return to the generators – at this rate I’ve been jotting ideas for some simple ones but might just go all out on the Magic Power Generator as I really want to get that sucker done.
- More Writing: I assume Way With Worlds will end at some point or become intermittent. But I definitely want to write up my theories on randomization. Was thinking of either doing it as columns over time OR as a book, but I’m not sure which would be best – and feedback would help. A book would be coming either way as I’d like to start archiving my ideas – been at this 16 years, and I won’t be around forever.
- Podcasts and More: The Crossroads Alpha group and I are talking about podcasting/videocasting, which may also touch on what we do here.
That’s it here. Now just going to go rest and get some writing done . . .
Respectfully,
– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
Welcome back to the Adaptation Fix-it Shop. The goal: rehabilitate remakes and reboots that, for one reason or another, just didn’t work. This time in the shop, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
The Legend of Chun Li is the second Street Fighter movie. The first, Street Fighter: The Movie also had issues, but the delicate balance the movie has between brilliance and inanity makes tinkering with it a difficult proposition. The Legend of Chun Li, though, has the issue of not quite feeling like a Street Fighter movie. There are two separate narratives in the film; one following Chun Li and her search for her father, the other following a pair of Interpol investigators trying to bring down M. Bison’s criminal organization. The separate plot lines do eventually merge late in the running time of the movie, but, until then, they’re in competition with each other for screen time.
The obvious fix is to pull the narratives apart, placing them in their own works away from the other. The Legend of Chun Li is an origin story; taking the focus off Chun Li detracts from the purpose of revealing her background. The Interpol investigation could stand alone without the Street Fighter ties; there is no reason for the main villain to be M. Bison. With the idea of pulling apart the narratives in mind, let’s rebuild The Legend of Chun Li.
One issue that needs to be dealt with early, the mix of martial arts and gun play. When a movie emphasizes martial arts, guns stop being effective, at least when used on the heroes. Likewise, the heroes never touch a gun. Why should they when their body is a far more effective weapon? The Legend of Chun Li mixed the two, adding to the narrative split. Chun Li avoided guns, but the Interpol agents were effective with them. The mix added to the issues the movie had. Another problem, this time stemming from the Interpol investigation, is that the narrative requires the villain be stopped, one way or another. Because Bison is a key character from the video game, he has, or, should have, script immunity, as will any character working for him that appeared in the game. Yet, given the events that happen in the movie, allowing Bison to escape will make the investigators look bad, especially given how close they got to him. Time to fix this.
I’ll start with the Street Fighter elements. It’s Chun Li’s origin story; how she became the character in the video game. The video game had her as a martial artist from China working as an Interpol agent avenging the death of her father. The Legend of Chun Li did have that up until the end, where she turned down the Interpol agents. Even having her father working for M. Bison’s organziation can be kept. Bison, though, is a would-be world conqueror with a criminal organization. It seems to be a step down to become just an land developer with no scruples. Bison should be up there in the same ranks as Blofeld, the Red Skull, and Cobra Commander. Why else would he have the spiffy red uniform? Given that several other characters from the video game also have a bone to pick with Bison, if The Legend of Chun Li is the start of a series of origin movies leading to a final showdown against Shadaloo, then Bison needs to survive the movie.
Now that I have the required elements, time to put things together. The goal of the story is to get Chun Li working for Interpol. Defeating Bison once and for all is out; we need him for another movie if this works. Disrupting one of Bison’s plans is possible, though. Chun Li needs a history with him, even if it happened on a Tuesday. The early part of The Legend of Chun Li, showing her time as a young girl, can be used, if only to show her relationship with her father. Even Bison’s organization kidnapping him can be kept, though having him appear to Chun Li should be avoided. Again, the goal is to get her into Interpol to avenge her father’s death. Chun Li needs to track her father and see him die at Bison’s hand, to make sure her quest for vengeance is personal. Bison, for his part, needs an appropriate scheme. The land flipping in the movie is a start, but it shouldn’t be the end goal. The man has eyes on taking over the world. Getting power over elected and unelected officials is just part of the plan. Replacing them, taking over their country, building up a private army, that’s more world conqueror. The land flipping needs to lead into the bigger scheme, something that Chun Li can disrupt while still letting Bison escape.
The tone is going to be difficult. On one hand, the almost cartoon-ish approach of Street Fighter: The Movie is too light. At the same time, the martial arts involved aren’t that realistic, even if they are based on real arts. The video game characters toss fireballs and perform upside-down flying spin kicks. The movie’s tone has to handle the almost-superheroic powers. This is why I compared Bison to the Red Skull and Cobra Commander; his scheme needs to be achievable but matching the over-the-top-ness of the video game’s martial arts. Buying up land on the cheap is too real. Using that land to hide a mind-control laser is too unreal. There’s a sweet spot somewhere in the middle.
At this point, I have Bison kidnapping Chun Li’s father to use him as part of a nefarious plot, Chun Li learning martial arts to help her track her father’s kidnapper, and Bison executing the father in front of Chun Li. Her father needs to be integral to the scheme; scientist is usually a good role and the specialization can inform the nature of Bison’s plot. At some point, though, Chun Li’s father becomes superfluous and is either killed to prove to Chun Li that Bison means business or is killed out of hand to eliminate a loose end. Either way, Chun Li witnesses the execution. Through this, Chun Li battles waves of Bison’s troops, starting with mooks both singly and en masse before running into on of Bison’s lieutenants. The Legend of Chun Li used Balrog for this role, though Vega got a brief cameo for the sake of a cameo. In either character’s case, the fight must leave whoever appears alive, though unconscious or thrown off a building into a container of pillows are acceptable end conditions. The final battle should involve Chun Li and Bison, with Bison getting away. The appearance of an Interpol team who needs help from Chun Li should be enough to let Bison get into an escape craft; the idea should be that, if the fight wasn’t interrupted, Chun Li could have won. Interpol recruits her, and the movie ends.
The idea is very loose, and The Legend of Chun Li did incorporate most of the above. The difference is that the above outline keeps the focus on Chun Li. Interpol is there solely because the organization needs to recruit her. The agents appear at the end, though hints throughout the new movie can be inserted. Shadowy people on street corners watching Chun Li can reveal themselves at the end when they need to be rescued, for example. The Interpol angle, though, is a subplot, not the main plot.
With the Street Fighter elements taken out, what can be done with the Interpol half of The Legend of Chun Li? The investigation was a decent enough crime drama. With the requirement to be tied into the Street Fighter setting removed, the criminal land developer becomes a decent mastermind. The land flipping makes sense as a plot, something that local police can’t handle because the upper echelons have been bribed or ordered to ignore what is happening. The over-the-top martial arts are gone, allowing the agents to use guns and normal combat techniques in the final assault. The running time of the movie that dealt with Chun Li can now be dedicated to either the investigation or the machinations of the villain. The Interpol agents can come into their own instead of sharing a plot with a licensed character.
The key issue with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li was the tone. The movie just did not have the right field. Part of the problem was keeping Bison as a realistic, though exaggerated, crime lord. Separating Chun Li’s origins and the Interpol subplot allows both to thrive.
Next week, a look at adaptations through the history of film.
A lot of my discussions on world building here involve solo efforts, single-person worldbuilding. I’m pretty much speaking to you as a “you” because . . . well that’s my chosen audience focus; single readers and solo world builder. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t take some time to discuss group world building efforts.
Group world building is actually an activity a lot of us engage in. We may do it as part of a defined team, or be a Game Master who takes a lot of player input. We might be running a shared RP, or we may be just having an idea jam at a convention. I don’t think we do it as often as solo world building, but we do it.
We might not even realize we’re doing it, we just think of “well we’re cooperating” or “she’s helping me out.”
So I wanted to take some time to discuss group world building – it’s advantages and challenges. I’ve been there as well, as have many of my friends, and I figure it’s worth exploring.
Besides, maybe you’ve not considered it and it might be for you . . . (more…)
Marvel Comics had several big announcements since the last news round up. Let’s get to what’s being adapted and by whom.
Marvel and Sony come to a deal over Spider-Man.
Spider-Man is moving into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, joining the likes of the Avengers. Sony Pictures still has the rights to create movies with the character, but the deal should allow Marvel to use elements from the Spider-Man comics such as the Daily Bugle in its own releases. Marvel has shuffled its release schedule to bring the next Spider-Man movie out without competing with the Marvel Studios releases.
X-Men TV series in the works.
Fox has confirmed an X-Men TV series is in development, pending Marvel’s approval. Little of what the series would entail has been revealed.
Casting for AKA Jessica Jones announced.
David Tennant joins the cast as the villainous Zebediah Killgrave, also known as the Purple Man. Tennant joins Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones and Mike Colter as Luke Cage.
Who you gonna call?
Meet the new Ghostbusters for the gender-flipped remake. Melissa McCarthy has signed on while negotiations with Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon are ongoing.
Fushigi Yuugi gets stage treatment.
The manga and anime, Fushigi Yuugi is making the transition over to the stage. Fushigi Yuugi, which translates as Mysterious Play, follows the adventures of Miaka as she falls into another world filled with magic and danger.
Indiana Jones reboot may be in works.
Disney bought the rights to the Indiana Jones franchise and are looking at Chris Pratt as the eponymous hero. Pratt is going to be busy…
Chris Pratt in talks for The Magnificent Seven remake.
The remake of The Seven Samurai is being remade. Denzel Washington has already signed on for the remake.
Harper Lee releasing a follow up to To Kill a Mockingbird.
The sequel, Go Set a Watchman, features Scout Finch as an adult. The novel had been written during the 1950s, but was set aside on the advise of Lee’s editor at the time. The new novel will hit bookstores mid-July.
LEGO announces next licensed set, featuring Doctor Who.
Everything is more awesome in LEGOland as the Doctor and his companions join the massive LEGO line up. The project just left the judging phase, so it may take some time before the LEGO TARDIS hits the shelves. Also announced, a LEGO Wall-E set, with the submission made by one of the movie’s crew members.
Stargate reboot movie signs writers.
Roland Emmerich’s reboot/remake of the original Stargate movie has signed Nicholas Wright and James A. Woods as screenwriters. Emmerich will direct and co-produce, along with original co-writer Dean Devlin.
The Man from UNCLE trailer now out.
The first look at Guy Ritchie’s take on the TV series, The Man from UNCLE, is now out. The movie stars Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo, originally played by Robert Vaughn and should be out in August. Armie Hammer is on board as Illya Kuryakin, previously played by David McCallum.
(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)
I love worldbuilding. You can kind of tell by how I wrote and now rewrite a huge series of columns on the subject. A lot of this is how-to, or advice, or exploration, but I’d like to talk ethics.
Not making ethics in your world. The ethics of good worldbuilding and what you should do as a world builder and author/creator.
This may sound a bit corny. There’s ethical issues to doing good worldbuilding? However, stick with me – there’s a reason. Let’s talk commitment and promises.
Managed Commitment
I’m a Project and Program Manager, which if you’re not familiar with, means roughly I’m a specialist in organizing and directing things and I’m certified to do it. That certification, the PMP, indicates I not only had training and took a test, it is also something I have to maintain and keep up. It represents a strong commitment to what I do.
What I do is of an ethical nature. People trust me, due to my titles and career and certification, to do certain things right.
Being a worldbuilder is much like this. When you take on making a world, when you are a writer/creator, that suggest there’s certain things you’r committed to, which I’ll explore below. You’re expected to deliver on them by your audience. To not do this means you don’t meet commitments you’ve made. In short, if you claim to be a worldbuilder and fail, it’s an ethical lapse.
If you’re going to accept the mantle of a worldbuilder and a writer, then you are making promises, and I take this very seriously. Probably I’m bitter over some bad worldbuilding promises, but still.
Let’s look at what you promise.
Worldbuilding Promises There’s Actually A World
Ever read a story where you could tell the author was making up the setting as they went along? You know that horrible, mushy feeling that there’s no “there” there? Yeah, I’m sure you have. It was awful.
Sometimes it even gets to that bizarre place when you realize a story that has shallow, objectionable, or stupid content has more of a world setting than something arguably high-class or good. It’s an unsettling disconnect (and one I’ve experienced more than once), but it’s a reminder that you expect there’s something to connect to, not a disconnected pile of stuff. Even if the tale told in it is awful
So when you write, when you create a world you are promising that yes, there is a setting there. Something people can rely on, understand, and enjoy. A good world promises there’s something people can count on to be there – which helps them understand and enjoy the tales told within.
Claim to be a worldbuilder? You’re promising a world. You made a commitment to deliver.
Worldbuilding Promises The World Has Rules
When you build a world, you’re claiming that it has identifiable components; rules that people can understand and make sense of. Magic requires mana, faster-than-light-travel produces intermittent time dilation, and this law firm makes a lot of money due to a contract. This helps make the world comprehendible – there is a world there and now there are components to “hold on to,” to grasp narrative and meaning.
A building has windows, doors, hallways, and so on. It has materials that have certain affects and traits. Your world has certain rules as well, rules that compose the larger setting.
Rules may not necessarily be communicated directly to the reader/player or however people experience your world, but they should be there. A reader/player who digs deep enough should at least have an idea that something is going on (or at least a good delusion that they got it when they missed the real rules).
A world without rules is really just you yanking things out of the air. Nothing can be counted on or relied on – and in turn you’re not world building but pondering,r anting, or rambling. You might be good at it, but still – in the end there’s no rules and no world.
You promise there’s a set of rules to the world.
Worldbuilding Promises The Rules Will Be Followed
Of course rules don’t mean anything if you don’t follow them. When you world build, you promise to follow the rules you’ve created. It may sound like you’re constraining yourself, but it’s really more you’re creating something and building upon it.
That rules will be followed means people can trust you, the author and creator. The world, the rules of the world, will make sense to them, and they can count on certain things. Or, when startled at a seeming disconnect, they begin that delicious quest to figure out “why.”
Ever have authors suddenly decide a rule didn’t matter? Ever watched a video game narrative where the generic Bring Back The Dead magic didn’t work in a cutscene? The world suddenly breaks and the trust is gone. The world makes less sense.
When you do that, you really do break an agreement with the reader/player. When the rules you made go out the window, you basically lied – and you also made your world less easy to understand and harder to rely on.
You promise you’ll follow your own rules.
Worldbuilding Promises The World Is Coherent
Worldbuilding is worldbuilding. You are constructing something, like, well, a building. When you make a world you’re committing to make sure the whole thing actually works.
You promised rules. You promises you’ll follow rules. You also promised the world will make sense (well if people knew everything behind the scenes) – in short, this means your rules actually come together and form a meaningful structure.
Like making a building, certain materials are promised, certain structures, certain functions. Together they make a building that will fulfill a given purpose and stand up, which can be navigated successfully. To not have these things means you’ve credited a shoddy, asbestos-filled maze (well, if someone didn’t want that).
This is, I think, where Worldbuilding too often falls down. You have rules, you follow them, but you haven’t constructed them in a way that works together or contemplated how they relate.
Incoherent world building is the stuff of many a late-night discussion or in-game argument, and frustration. If your elves are immortal why hasn’t their culture advanced based on retained knowledge? How can this movie star be so famous and yet pass so easily in public? If faster-than-light drive requires this rare element found only in space how the heck did people get out into space to find it*
You got the pieces – you also promise you’ll build the building and make it work right.
How Seriously Do We Take This?
OK, so how seriously do I take this? Especially in areas of creativity and just plain fun button-mashing or sword-swinging entertainment?
I mean let’s face it, some of this isn’t exactly a case of you need a lot of rules or structure. We’re not all trying to be Tolkein or JMS or whoever.
I’d say you take it seriously enough to get the job done – when people know what the job is.
If you’re working on a game that’s a general Fantasy auctioneer filled with enjoyable tropes, you’re not exactly going to be expected to contemplate Dwarven religion in detail. If you do thats’s great, that’s bonus, that’s admirable. But it’s not exactly in the package you’re promising of “101 ways to decapitate orcs.”**
On the other hand if you’re trying to create a detailed world you’ve made a commitment to follow up on your rules and structure in far more detail. You promised a deep experience, and you deliver by building a coherent, explorable, understandable, complex structure of a world. Though I can complain about many things in Dragon Age, or Babylon 5’s followups (but not so much the original series), but there’s a heck of a lot of work there that’s satisfying.
It comes down to “how much did you promise?” If you go above and beyond, awesome, but when you promise a basic hamburger of a world, I don’t think there’s anything unethical in delivering something basic – and if you deliver more, great.
How Do We Communicate This?
Finally, there’s an issue of communication of world building and ethical commitments.
As noted, I take world building pretty seriously. I’m always pleasantly amazed when I see good world building in areas I don’t expect – and a few times i’ve seen it be the saving grace or a story or my attention span. But there’s a problem with this – how do people know they can trust your world.
Socially we have all sorts of ways to send signals that we’re following ethical guidelines. Traditions, rituals, sayings, check-ins, apologizes, and so on. It’s unconscious to us – and why we probably get so enraged when we don’t see those social signals, say, when we’re on line.
For Worldbuilding . . . that’s a big tougher as people will experience your work differently. You also face the challenge is you have to tell-not-show, because outright saying “here’s all the worldbuiliding I did” kind of ruins the joy of discovery.
At best I can offer some suggestions that came from contemplating this answer:
- Communicate intent. If your story/game/whatever involves intense world building, communicate you’re working on it. Don’t brag, but show up front “here’s my promise” – and then make sure you deliver.
- Make sure you communicate enough in your story that people can figure out the world building if they think about it. It may take careful mapping of plot points, but an intelligent person should get the sense of your rules and structure.
- Discuss where you can. When people ask questions online, at a gaming session,etc. feel free to communicate enough of the world to assure doubts.
- Build trust. your works should build trust, so over time people who follow them will learn to trust your world building – and the above become less of issues. Just don’t screw it up.
Worldbuilding is serious business, indeed it’s a business that involves ethics. Being aware of those will make you be a better worldbuilder – and maybe appreciate the work you do.
Respectfully,
– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
* Props to Outlaw star for doing some fun things with this.
** Way 101, The Larch
Growing up has been a common theme for children’s works. The time between the carefree days of playing and the world of adult responsibilities is a tough transition, one that some don’t want to go through. Meet Peter Pan. Pan, best known from J.M. Barrie’s play and novel, Peter and Wendy, is the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. He lives in Neverland with the Lost Boys, boys who found their way to the realm, and leads them against the pirate Captain Hook. Hook, as appropriate for his name, has a hook replacing a hand, lost to a crocodile after a fight with Peter. The crocodiles still has Hook’s watch, which still ticks inside the belly of the beast.
The play, now mostly performed as a pantomime*, begins as Peter enters the Darling home in pursuit of his shadow. Wendy, the eldest Darling child.wakes up and sees Peter. She reattaches the shadow; in return, Peter invites her to go with him back to Neverland, where she can tell the Lost Boys bedtime stories. Peter and Wendy fly away, with Wendy’s brothers John and Michael tagging along.
Adventure abounds in Neverland. The Darlings are knocked out of the air by cannons on arrival, forcing Wendy to rest at Peter’s hideaway with the Lost Boys. The Darlings go with Peter and the Lost Boys to rescue Princess Tiger Lily from Captain Hook, with Peter wounded in the fighting. During the adventures, Wendy starts falling in love with Peter, a sign that she’s growing up. She remembers her parents, and decides to take her brothers back home.
Captain Hook, however, has other plans. He kidnaps the Darlings and the Lost Boys, taking a moment to poison Peter’s medicine. Tinker Bell sacrifices herself by drinking the medicine before Peter can, leading to him asking the audience to clap loudly to save the fairy. With Tinker Bell safe, Peter rushes off to rescue Wendy and her brothers. The crocodile, however, reappears, still ticking. Peter imitates the ticking, which scares Hook into cowering. Stealing the key to the cages holding Hook’s hostages, he defeats several pirates before facing off against Hook. The battle ends when Peter kicks Hook off the ship and into the jaws of the ticking crocodile. Hook’s last thought was the “bad form” of Peter’s win.
The Darling children return home bringing with them the Lost Boys. Wendy’s mother, Mary, adopts the Boys and makes the same offer to Peter. Peter refuses, saying that he doesn’t want to become a man. He returns to Neverland, but promises to return to see Wendy every spring.
While the original play ends with Wendy at the window asking Peter to please remember his promise to return, Barrie added an extra scene four years later. Titled “An Afterthought”, the scene has Peter returning for Wendy years later. Wendy has grown up and is now married and has a daughter of her own, Jane. Peter is heartbroken over the “betrayal” of Wendy growing up. Jane, though, agrees to go with Peter to Neverland. The cycle continues with Jane’s daughter, Margaret, and may continue for time immemorial.
The play has been adapted many times, including Disney’s animated Peter Pan and a 2003 live action Return to Neverland. In 1991, Steven Spielberg directed a sequel. Hook added the premise, “What if Peter Pan grew up?” The cast included Robin Williams as Peter, Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, Bob Hoskins as Hook’s first mate Smee, Maggie Smith as Wendy, and Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell. The movie opens as Peter Banning, a lawyer, is at his daughter Maggie’s school play, Peter Pan, where she plays Wendy. During the play, Peter receives a call on his mobile phone** about the upcoming trip to London where his wife’s grandmother will receive an award. The grandmother, Wendy, has been running the Lost Boys Orphanage, taking in young children and finding homes for them.. As a father, Peter falls a little short. He is overly protective to the point of never allowing a window to be opened. His work takes precedence; he misses his son Jack’s big baseball game because of a meeting. He has forgotten what it is like to be a child, something his children and wife Moira are too aware of.
The flight to London is difficult for Peter. He’s afraid of flying and the rift between him and Jack keeps getting wider. Jack’s resentment of his father is building while Peter keeps seeing every possible way for a plane to crash. The tension remains even after arriving at Grandma Wendy’s home. Peter gets yet another phone call about the ceremony; with all the commotion around him, he explodes on his children. The children are taken to Wendy’s old bedroom, which is laid out just as in Maggie’s play.
That night, at the ceremony for Wendy, Peter tells of being taken in as an orphan by her and being adopted by an American couple. The scene shows Peter’s more vulnerable side and a longing that he doesn’t quite acknowledge. Back at the Darling home, sinister machinations are afoot. Nana, the dog, is upset and Tootles figures out why. But by the time Peter, Moira, and Wendy get back, all that is left of Maggie and Jack is a ransom note on parchment, nailed to the wall by a dagger. Captain Hook has kidnapped the children; in exchange, he wants Peter Pan to return to Neverland to face him one last time.
While everyone else is dealing with the police and finding the children, Peter heads up to the bedroom. He mistakes a glowing figure as an oversized firefly and tries to swat it. The figure grabs the rolled up paper and swats Peter back. After a tussle that leaves Peter sprawling, he gets a better looking at his firefly. Tinker Bell tells him that Hook has his children and that he needs to go to Neverland right away and what is he waiting for, doesn’t he know, oh, get going Peter. Peter, though, is having problems accepting the new reality and doesn’t believe he can fly. Tinker Bell winds up having to carry him to Neverland.
When Peter regains consciousness, he finds himself on the docks near Hook’s pirate ship. Maggie and Jack are locked in a cage high above the ship’s deck. The evil Captain awaits Peter Pan’s arrival and is disappointed when Peter Banning arrives. Hook is incredulous that Peter grew up and got old. Peter stays focused on getting his children back, but when he can’t fly up, hook despairs of having one last war. Hook orders the death of Peter and his children, but Tinker Bell makes a deal. Three days and she’ll have Peter Pan back and ready for a fight.
Peter’s arrival at the Island of Lost Boys elicits even more disappointment. None of the Boys accept that Peter grew up. The leader, Rufio, doesn’t believe that Peter is the Pan. The littlest Lost Boy, though, looks deep into Peter’s eyes and sees Peter Pan deep within. It takes time, but Peter begins to remember how to be a child. To riff off River in the Firefly episode, “Safe”, Peter was waiting to be Pan, but he forgot. Now that he’s back in Neverland, he remembers what he is.
The only thing Peter is lacking is flight. All he needs is a happy memory to be able to fly. As he talks to Tinker Bell, he remembers his real mother, he remembers how he got to Neverland, with Tink flying him there as a baby, he remembers how Wendy kept getting older each time he visited, and he remembers why he left Neverland after falling for Moira. He rediscovers his happy memory, the day Jack was born.
During the three days, Hook is also busy. Instead of relearning what it is like to be a child, he is working on turning Peter’s children against him. Maggie is difficult, remaining true to her parents. The gulf between Jack and Peter makes it easy for Hook to get his hook into the boy. Jack starts forgetting his parents and his home, seeing Hook as his father figure. Hook encourages Jack to teach the pirates about baseball, leading to a game. Peter returns to the docks on a mission to steal the keys to the cages his kids are kept in, but sees the game. Realization that he hasn’t been there for Jack crashes into him, as does the idea that Hook is being a better father than he ever was.
At the end of the three days, Peter is ready. He has remembered who he is and is ready to fight for his children. Peter arrives at the docks, alone. Hook’s mood improves greatly on seeing his foe back to form. Peter takes on the pirates singlehandedly. When he sees Jack, Peter tells him that his happiest memory is about him. The only thing that could stop him is a net, which Hook had anticipated. Trapped under the netting, Peter calls for the Lost Boys. The battle is enjoined, Boys versus pirates, with the Lost Boys getting the upper hand. Peter and Rufio go after Hook, but when Maggie calls for help, Peter goes to her rescue. Rufio and Hook clash; Rufio’s speed a match for Hook’s skill. Alas for Rufio, his speed is no match for Hook’s ruthlessness.
With Rufio dead, Peter calls on Hook for a one-on-one duel. Hook agrees. Their fight is an even match. Peter does get the upper hand, disarming Hook and removing the Captain’s wig to reveal that the pirate is an old man. Hook begs for dignity. Peter retrieves Hook’s wig and sword, returning both. Hook, however, is a pirate and pirates aren’t known for their fair play. He waits until Peter’s back is turned to try to run his foe through. The Lost Boys are ready; each one holds up a ticking clock. Overcome by fear of clocks and crocodiles, Hook cowers. The taxidermed body of his other old foe, the crocodile, falls on top of him.
Tinker Bell takes Jack and Maggie back to London. Peter stays behind long enough to pass along his sword to a new leader of the Lost Boys, telling him to take care of everyone smaller than him. Back in Wendy’s home in London, Maggie and Jack see their mother sleeping in a rocking chair and climb back to bed. Moira hears the children, who wake up from their dream. Outside, Peter wakes up curled up beside a statue. He runs back to Wendy’s home, retrieves his phone, then climbs up the drainpipe to the children’s bedroom for a reunion. The phone once again rings, eliciting groans and glowers. Peter answers it, then flings the phone through the open window, having learned his lesson about what is important in his life.
While the movie builds on and takes some liberties with Peter and Wendy, it takes the theme of the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up and flips it around. Instead of the fear of growing up and its inevitablility, Hook looks at what it means to be grown up. Hook is an adult fairy tale, looking at adult fears. From Peter’s fears for his children and losing them to Hook’s fear of aging, the movie resonates more to the adult than to the child. Peter’s problems balancing his work with his home life is a problem most adults have to deal with. Hook’s main goal is trying to recapture his glory days one last time while staving off death. It’s when Peter embraces the imagination and creativity of his childhood while still remembering his happy moments as an adult that he becomes whole again, while Hook can only see death ahead of him.
With Peter and Wendy, not growing up seems lovely, but there is a price. While you might remain forever a child, everyone else is growing up and growing old, leaving you behind. The extra scene, “An Afterthought”, shows how Peter is missing out on life by refusing to leave Neverland. In Hook, the problem isn’t so much growing up as forgetting what it was like being a child, with little responsibility and all the time to engage the imagination. Peter became a workaholic, missing out on his children and on his wife. It is possible to grow up without necessarily growing old. That spark that sees the fun in everything needs to be kept nourished, whether by enjoying time with your children or seeking out new experiences, but without letting that spark be all-consuming. It’s a fine balance, one that Peter figured out while Hook could not.
As an adaptation, Hook is essentially a mirror to Peter and Wendy. The movie builds on top of the original play, using the play’s structure to present the new themes mentioned above. While there were scenes that could have been shortened without losing their impact, Hook does add to the play without detracting from it. While not a perfect adaptation, it comes close.
Next week, the February news round up.
* Essentially, a musical comedy with audience participation. Pantomimes are associated with the Christmas and New Year holiday season.
** In 1991, cell phones weren’t ubiquitous and were a sign of an important and/or overworked business man. The scene has more resonance today than it did in 1991.
*** J.M. Barrie gave the rights for Peter and Wendy to the Grand Ormand Street Hospital, a British children’s hospital, so that it could use the royalties from the play and novel.
(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)
Legal systems are important to our worldbuilding. I’d like to find a more flower way to say it, but really – theyre bloody important.
Think about what a legal system is:
- A reasonably organized set of rules for a defined society.
- This set of rules are backed up by formal enforcement mechanisms.
This is pretty powerful stuff. These aren’t rules that are informal. These aren’t rules that are limited. These aren’t rules where breaking them earn’s you more than a frown. These are rules backed up by serious force – and the kind of force that has at least some legitimacy and sanction.
A legal system is a kind of “limited morality” where society does the smiting when you disobey. It can’t be ignored in your worldbuilding.
It’s also very hard to worldbuild with, so I wanted to address how to – and why it’s hard.
The Challenge of Writing Legal Systems
I consider wolrdduilding leagl systems to be harder than making relgion in many cases. Religion is something that has fuzzy, human edges. Religion is something we expect to be challenging to create. Religion is visible if only because we’re too aware of the challenges it places.
But creating legal systems?
Legal systems can have both hard and soft edges, have pages of rules and general guidelines. Legal systems can be invisible because they’re more diffuse than religion, not as obvious, more structural Legal systems can lack the human face of a religion, and their mechanical nature can make it even more automatic than religion so we don’t truly see it. Finally, we often have a lot of stereotypical assumptions abut legal systems, especially in Western media, where it’s omnipresent.
They’re hard and soft at different times, hard to see and relate to, and we’re used to them.
So to build a good legal system in your worlds, there’s a few things to consider. Drop your assumptions and conside . . .
Step #1: Reasons For Laws
Law exist for reasons. They provide boundaries for behavior, appropriate responses to transgressions, and have reasons for existing. Even when we have supposedly divine laws, it seems they get rather humanly bureaucratic as the divine has to be translated into human form.
Laws are practical things, really. They always exist for reasons, if only because they’re thought of, processed, and codified by people, even when supposedly handed down from On High. When you build a world, you need to know why the laws exist and what goals were behind their creation
Of course this doesn’t mean the reasons are clear, honest, that there aren’t many of them, or that they aren’t due to insane stupidity. It doesn’t mean the reasons make sense anymore.
But the reasons are there.
(That’s your hint to not just drop a legal system you know in a world you made. If the telepaths of Amodrax V can’t stop broadcasting, you may have to have laws giving people freedom from speech after all)
Example: Fearing the wrath of the Sun God, the King creates a rule that people cannot go outside in the first hour of the day so as to not offend her. This is punished by strict fines.
Step #2: Forming Laws
Laws exist for a reason. But how to they actually become formalized into laws? How does the “reason” lead to “the form?”
Be it a god’s commandments and human interpretation, a king’s orders, or a legislature, laws have to be given form as its a bit hard to enforce them otherwise. This often involves some system of people making certain decisions, even if that decision is “write down what the King says and do it.”
As a worldbuilder you need to know how laws are given form. That may sound boring and bureuacratical (and may be) but knowing it tells you what happens when the laws enter the process of becoming “real.” Does it take forever or is it slow? Is it a reliable focus on intent or does it get bogged down in infighting among factions with a cause?
A system of randomly created laws can’t last for long (though that may be part of your world), so any sustainable system needs process to give laws form. Of course if the system is unstable, that may be part of your world, its breakdown, and your tales . . .
Example: The King’s ministers and high priest help formulate the law. “No one may be outside the first hour after dawn unless hey are doing the work of the goddess and have the dispensation of the priesthood.”
Step #3: Communicating laws
So laws get created for a reason and given form. But as noted laws are usually codified, turned into rules, and spelled out. From stone tablets with simple orders to giant legal documents from a massive legislature, Laws get processed and sent out so people can act upon them.
After all if you don’t tell people the law, they can’t follow it or they can’t be enforced. Again, that may be part of your setting, but a sustainable system needs to get the word out.
So how are laws sent to the population and the enforcers? Automatically/ Regularly? Is there training? Translation? What punishment and sanctions go with them? How are records kept?
Communication and legal systems – where fine details and punishment mix with human fallibility – will always have a mildly kafkaesque element to them due to confusion. But how much confusion is there?
A big part of your world’s legal system may be it makes no damn sense on the communication level. That makes them hard to follow and enforce. Speaking of . . .
Example: The King’s Heralds post the new laws on bills and they are entered into the great Archive Of The Law. There’s a side effect of improved clock sales.
Step #4: Enforcing
If the devil is in the details, you should start smelling brimstone right about now.
A law has to be enforced. This is when “do what we say” meets “or else,” and the “or else” part of laws can get complicated. Perusal of any week of news will reveal all sorts of complications, from near-unclassifiable threats the legal system tries to process to corruption to underfunded police.
Enforcing the law takes people, resources, social and bureaucratic systems, and finally action. Someone has to hold the trials, catch the bad guys, free the innocent, punish the guilty. Someone also has to pay for this.
Nothing says it actually is going to work very well.
This when building your world you have to ask how the enforcement mechanisms work, what pays for them, and how well they function. This is an oft-invisible part of the legal process to many of us, at least until budget cuts near us make us realize “hey this is hard.”
Remember, you may find your world’s great legal system has awful enforcement. Or your oppressive kingdom has really got one heck of a secret police. But you need to know how it works.
Example: The King’s Police realize they have to actually go outside to enforce the law, so now all police departments must receive a blessing to do so from the local Temple. In addition they now have to carry their badges openly to show they shouldn’t be penalized.
Step #5: Repercussions
Laws stop crime. Well we assume that, right? We shouldn’t.
Laws have impacts. People know about them and adjust their behavior. Enforcement of laws has repercussions. Knowing you’ll be punished for something, arresting a hundred people at once, etc. has results. It just may not be the ones that people creating the laws assumed would be had.
So in building your world you need to ask about the repercussions of laws and the legal system. Do the laws meet the intended goals? The stated goals? How are they regarded? What reactions do enforcement actions produce?
Example: The new hour-before-dawn law really screws up many businesses except people selling time pieces. The police really don’t want to offend the goddess, but think this is a bit strict. The priesthood starts discovering they can sell all sorts of blessings for the people to be outside.
Step #6: Evolution
Laws change. Cultures age, other things affect them. Law is not stagnant – even if the goal is to create surety, it is a dynamic surety as living creatures and thus their cultures are dynamic things
A law may not even make any sense after awhile. It may have been a great idea at one point, but eventually it could be useless. Those laws about horse dung on the streets don’t matter as much when we have our fyling cars.
However, as the goal of laws is to have some surety, they tend to endure. They get appended, revised, reinterpreted. If they are useless they may eventually be repealed. A culture with a good feedback system will adjust to this.
So how does the law in your world adjust – and what is the feedback system of the culture in question? Does it adapt, or does it avoid change? Do laws come and go or accumulate?
Example: The next King realizes this sun law thing is a load. Instead he adds a morning blessing at all temples so people can go outside. This quickly becomes the equivalent of an alarm clock, which affects timepiece sales. The police are glad not to enforce the law, but find they kinda like the whole “blessed badge” thing. The people begin thinking themselves superior to their neighbors as they praise the Sun God every day and they don’t. The temples miss the extra money, but a decade later a wit makes an alarm clock that has a litle priest walking around a temple tower like clockwork and they become novelty items.
Myths To Avoid
When writing about laws and legal systems, a few myths yo should be aware of.
- Fear produces obedience – Fear produces a lot of things, including psychosis, terror, and punching someone who made you afraid in the nose. Do not assume people will obey laws simply out of fear – people who are afraid do not behave as you expect. Most people think others will respond to fear the same way they do.
- “In the good old days” – This is a classic way to justify portraying law and crime in a historical or historically-based setting – well in these days such-and-such worked, and such-and-such didn’t. Don’t assume. Do your research, there are a lot of myths out there. Also, if you go for the “in this day crime was low” routine, ask yourself just what people of the time you are writing about/basing your work on considered crime – a little hint, see if women and children recieved much legal protection.
- “In this country” – Many people assume they know the laws of some other country currently or in its past. Chances are you’re pretty wrong about that. Do your research.
- “Things would be perfect if . . .” – If, when writing a story dealing with crime, you ever find yourself sounding like a politician, pause. I find that can be a sign you’re resorting to stereotypes or shallow thinking.
Legal Systems: Think And Act
Take the time to plan the legal systems of your world carefully. These powerful, at times invisible, often misunderstood social systems, can go wrong easy.
Done right of course you create a fascinating, dynamic, very “real” part of your setting and produce a better world to create in.
Respectfully,
– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
8 Things to Do With Zombies
Apparently I’ve been on a zombie kick as of late. I haven’t actually written any zombie stories recently, but I just finished writing a three-part series of articles on zombies for Sanitarium and there’s a zombie section to be written up soon, for a sourcebook that I’m putting together.
Here are a few ideas that I haven’t seen often, or at all. (more…)
