So I just wrote a creation myth for a completely fictional world. The world itself is a background for a game nobody plays, and likely won’t even contribute to any future stories for something like years in the future. Yet I still wrote it. Does that make me crazy, or just really, really nerdy?
I’ve always found the concept of a myth to be useful when I’m planning the background to something, though. It helps set up the culture of a setting in a very significant way, and helps me to get a definite feel for how the people would react to the situations around them. Some of the most interesting settings have always had some form of myth or something in the background that held them up.
One of the times I enjoyed it the most was during the Larinia project we worked on in the Quark writing group. Just the origin myths for the different elf tribes there were fun to write for some reason, and I felt like it gave me a really good grasp on each of the societies. Their characteristic feel just seemed more unique after that, so maybe I should do it for more of my stories.
So should I post it on here, or just let it gather dust in my document bin? Just wondering if anyone’s interested in it, if only to mock it. Hahaha. Hope all is going well for everyone, and I’ll see you Monday. Hopefully there’s some news about life by then.
I agree--working out the mythology of a world helps to flesh things out and make it feel more real. That's not to say, though, that long drawn out expositions of myth aren't extremely boring, except when done well. So long as the mythology doesn't interrupt the story and is mostly there in the background, I think it works great.
ReplyDeleteSometime I like writing myths too. In fact some of my favorite things to write were myths. Like the Sleeping Beauty and the God of Death story I wrote. I also really liked writing the Xenos creation myth. Tis sad that the myth style seems to be out of style and there isn't really a market for it.
ReplyDeleteWait, question! Remember when we read Pegasus? It occurs to me that the story was very myth like. Much of the culture and history of the people in the story rely on the first mythical meeting between Pegasus and Humans. Maybe that is why we both liked it so much. Would you agree that Pegasus has the mythical quality to it?
ReplyDeletequote Remember when we read Pegasus? /quote.
ReplyDeleteWell, there go my pretensions to manliness...
Hey Ebon was very manly...very very manly. Even thought he had pretty pegasus wings, and was breathtakingly beautiful and indescribably graceful.
ReplyDelete