Long post warning!
This post is both a book review and a rant on world building. But first, so you know what I am talking about, the book report. NOTE: I've revised it based on Tyhitia's comment, because I can see that what I was trying to say isn't how this came out.
Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
Trade paperback, 416 pages
Jove (November 30, 2004)
The blurb from amazon.com:
Buffyesque baker Rae "Sunshine" Seddon meets Count Dracula's hunky Byronic cousin in Newbery-Award-winner McKinley's first adult-and-then-some romp through the darkling streets of a spooky post-Voodoo Wars world. Now that human cities have been decimated, the vampiric elite holds one-fifth of the world's capital, threatening to control all the earth in less than 100 years, unless human SOFs (Special Other Forces) can hold them at bay by recruiting Sunshine, daughter of legendary sorcerer Onyx Blaise. As breathlessly narrated by Sunshine herself, the Cinnamon Roll Queen of Charlie's Coffeehouse, in the inchoate idiom of Britney, J. Lo and the Spice Girls, Sunshine's coming-of-magical-age launches when she is swarmed by noiseless vampires one night and chained in a decrepit ballroom as an entr‚e for mysterious, magnetic, half-starved Constantine, a powerful vampire whose mortal enemy Bo (short for Beauregard) shackled him there to perish slowly from daylight and deprivation. Most of the charm of this long venture into magic maturation derives from McKinley's keen ear and sensitive atmospherics, deft characterizations and clever juxtapositions of reality and the supernatural that might, just might, be lurking out there in "bad spots" right around a creepy urban corner or next to a deserted lake cabin. McKinley knows very well-and makes her readers believe-that "the insides of our own minds are the scariest things there are."
'Stealing' inspiration.
I just finished re-reading Sunshine by Robin McKinley for the fifth or sixth time. This is one of my favorite books both because the story is well written and because the world building is so wonderfully done. Lots of common fantasy elements (vampires, magic) but the twists the author puts on them is so fabulously unique that I keep wanting to take her world, steal it, and write a book of my own.
Which brings me to the main topic: How to 'steal' someone else's work and make something uniquely your own and (hopefully) unrecognizable as having come from that other writer's world. Easier said than done. You can't take their work whole cloth; although you can sometimes use the basic ideas...to an extent. Therein lies the trick.
So far I haven't been able use Sunshine's brilliant milieu to springboard off and get some cool ideas of my own-- although not for lack of trying. The basic world is fantasy. It's leavened with enough humor via the first person narrative that I can't call it dark fantasy; but some might.
Rae Seddon, aka Sunshine, lives in a world where magic exists and apparently always has. Society is in the throes of recovery from a war between the vampires and other dark forces and humanity. The backlash has shaped society in interesting ways. Since I love this book exceedingly, I had to spend some time considering how the world works and why I like it so much.
What the writer in me liked about this book and why.
I start by asking myself what I liked about the world. Primarily, I liked Sunshine's sense of completeness, that sense I spoke about recently when I said I liked worlds with breadth. You cannot feel the edges to this world of Sunshine, like you could walk into the book and explore until you grew old and find new things everywhere.
Secondmost, I liked the way a pre-existing situation caused situational conflicts adding to the main plot conflict. Sunshine has become involved with vampires and must work with a vampire to keep alive even as she is trying to keep it quiet. At the same time she has a diametrically opposed role when she is strongarmed into aiding the Special Other Police to destroy vampires-- a complicated interweaving of social elements via the laws about Others (vampires, demons, etc.) and the expectations of society.
Also, the author's stylistic and plot choices give the book a real-world feel and a hominess and likeability that I would love to accomplish myself. For example, Rae wants to be normal, to bake food and feed people. She doesn't want to wield magic, befriend and aid a vampire, or work for the SOF (the paranormal cops). But she must. This tension between what she wants and what she must deal with (including the changes in her outlook) is the backbone of the story, without which the plot elements would fall flat. The story is also about interrelationships: familial, neighborhood, social. People turn out to be not what is originally expected, and the basic conflicts give the book a depth that is lacking in many books, because we have so many more characters here. This community of characters is also what makes the book feel homey and gives it the breadth I like.
And thirdmost, I liked how the magic worked: a seat-of-the pants, organic sort of magic that appeared to be rather individualistic and could be worked in several ways depending on one's specialty. Also, the magic was a commonplace, as the humans appear to have always known about the demons and vampires living among them. There is also the interesting subplot of Rae worrying that she is going to go off her nut because of a "bad cross" with socerer and demon blood.
And what was truly truly unique about the world of Sunshine is its vampires. In particular, there's a unique take on vampire sensory functions and how their world interacts with the human world.
Lots of 'I wish I thought of that' moments in this book. I've been trying to think how I could riff off of Sunshine's world to build a unique world of my own, but, as Neil Gaiman says in his blurb, Sunshine is "pretty much perfect." So, how can I improve on that? I haven't figured it out yet. Guess I'll have to settle for dissecting how this book's world is unique and try to replicate the flavor of uniqueness rather than the basic ideas.
What are the inspirations I take from Sunshine?
Okay, there are a few things I take away from Sunshine that inspire me.
The vampires are different, and not particularly attractive, not romantic at all. I should be able to do that somehow, too. Or to the faeries if I have faeries (which is the idea I've been thinking about). Yet, Rae/Sunshine becomes friends with a vamp. I can have my character become unexpected and conflicted friend to an unsavory fey element, too, then.
The magic is organic, and the downside to it is that if Rae has the wrong blood in her family tree from her mother's side, she could pop off and become a raving lunatic at any moment: something she's really concerned about, even if as a reader you know that's not gonna happen. I could have some worry like that for a main character, too. for the Faerie story I have in mind, it would be more about a faerie gift that could turn on her; but it would be a worry that the readers should recognize as not so great, because they see the character's inherent strengths which she cannot or will not yet see. (Letting the readers feel smart is good.)
Or there is also the voice of the book, with a first person, wry voice that makes you like Rae and the people she likes, too. You care about them because she does. It's a warm world of community. And the community and world Rae lives in infuses this book so well it makes the world one I hated to leave when I finished the book. I could attempt that, too, and I could have my character ina world where there are a lot of players, not just a handful, and they are all loved and important. I could have a heroine in my faerie story that is trying to protect them and conflicted like Rae is because she finds herself friendly with one, yet has the conflicting demand of being forced to fight against the faerie contingent, as well.
So, I hope this clarifies what I mean by using someone else's stuff to inspire your writing ideas. Not literal stealing, but emulating their way of thinking.
How to use the good bits to get something new.
To clarify my dissection process:
1. What is attention grabbing that I wish I thought of here? Why do I like it?
2. How does it differ from other people's stuff?
3. How can I riff off this? Meaning, what similar thing can I alter/add, or how can I take the same element and make it different, take it in an entirely new direction?
4. Repeat 1-3 for all elements that I like.
5. Try to establish some sort of inspiration from something.
It's not cheating, by the way.
When you use someone else's work to inspire yourself, remember this: 'Stealing' an idea isn't really theft. Not like copying someone's prose. (If it were, then all those vampire brotherhood romances and chick lit shoe-shopping stories would never have gotten published.) (In fact, another technique that can work is to copy scene structure from a novel you like so you are stealing the structure and some of the plot elements, but not the story or prose. Which is a topic for another post.) Sometimes doing these things can get you past a sticking point, too.
You can't copyright an idea or stylistic approach. So take what you like and consider them from a writer's perspective as a way to think about your story, not how to word your story. Take the good bits and consider how they function and how you can make them yours.
Happy writing!
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