The author tells how she used research to write fantasy and how important that is to all good writing.
Blending Myth, Fantasy and Science Fiction
By Deborah K. Frontiera
While doing a book talk recently, I mentioned some of the research I had done when writing my fantasy trilogy, The Chronicles of Henry Roach-Dairier. “Research?” someone asked. “Why would you need research when you’re making it all up?”
I went on to explain that checking out the facts applies to more than non-fiction. Research makes all writing better. The best advice I got when I began planning my fantasy came from a published writer who told me, “Even fantasy must be grounded in reality.”
Hollywood may be able to get away with impossible science, but most of us do our homework. A lot of popular science fiction, especially Star Trek, entered the pure fantasy realm when it came to the use of sound scientific principles. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoy all of Star Trek, but even future worlds can’t escape Newton’s laws of physics. Star Wars never had this problem because it was presented as fantasy and “future myth,” not science fiction.
I set out to write fantasy based on sound science. Along the way, I learned a tremendous amount about archeology, paleontology, geology, ecology and theories of global warming. I not only read, I also talked to experts in their fields and enjoyed every minute of it.
But the most challenging aspect was writing the ant myth of creation. Myths and legends are any culture’s way of expressing what they do not understand about the natural world. Most are far from scientific. I had given my ants a great deal of scientific knowledge. I had also given them a religion, one based in science rather that opposed to it. That aspect came from my own religious convictions. I am a “liberal” Catholic, and one who has never had a problem with the creationism vs. evolution argument. I’ve never understood those who feel that scientific discovery somehow denies the existence of God. New discoveries serve to increase my awe of the Supreme Being. However, ideas like those can get in the way of “myth.” In addition, a creation story for my ants had to take into account that another intelligent species—human beings—had preceded them.
So to prepare myself to write their myth, I turned to more than Genesis. I went back to my tattered copy of Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. I also read two newer books, Good and Evil in Myth and Legend, by Anthony S. Mercatante, and The Mayan Prophecies, by Adrian G. Gilbert and Maurice M. Cotterell. All that gave me a background in the ideas of well over twenty human cultures.
Then logic entered. Real ants are a sisterhood, all daughters of the same queen. So it was logical that they would express their God as feminine. Since science is important to them, their myth would express fairly accurate (but not necessarily perfect) theory, yet not to the exclusion of story elements, symbolism and metaphor. The last thing I wrote became the entry to my trilogy, setting the scene for my readers. I share it again with you to conclude this article.
The Beginning
As revealed to Daeira Dairier in dreams and meditation
By Deborah Frontiera
In the beginning, Essence roamed the skies looking for the right place to start a world. She saw that our planet already had cycles of day and night, water and air. It had a set path around its sun so its cycles could be numbered, but it had no life.
“I will see what can live and grow here,” she said, and joined herself with it. The Creative Life Force of Essence endowed the waters with minuscule plants and creatures and the cycle of life began.
Essence cherished this new life, but was tired from her journey across the cosmos, so she entered the earth and went to sleep.
Eons later, when she awoke, the planet was filled with life forms. The water and land and air teemed with a great variety of plants and creatures. Some were tiny and frail, others huge and fierce. There was a great variety even in their coverings—smooth, hard, scaly, furry. The large, scaly ones dominated at that time.
Essence watched her world. The sun fed the plants, which fed the moving creatures, who then were eaten by larger ones, and on, and on. They grew, propagated, and returned to feed the earth when their time was over. Some creatures failed and disappeared, but new ones evolved to take their place.
And ants were there.
Essence, satisfied with the balance and cycles, cradled her world, and went to sleep again.
The pain of many shocks woke Essence. Chunks of matter hurled through the cosmos and struck the planet, killing millions of life forms and knocking the planet in its cosmic path. The dust from their impact screened the sun’s light, denying life-giving energy to plants. Essence watched in dismay as thousands of species disappeared form her cherished world. In her grief, she shook. Hills tumbled. Mountains sent forth liquid fire from within.
But even in grief, Essence’s Creative Life Force found its way again. An infinite variety of flowering plants came to be. A few species of the scaly creatures and the small ones with fur and feathers survived.
And ants were still there.
Essence watched for many eons as the fur creatures increased in size and began to dominate. “What would happen,” Essence said, “if I interfered and gave one life form an advantage? If I gave a tad of my intelligence to a creature, could it create something original, as I have?”
Essence looked closely at each species and finally chose one that seemed different from others. This species was not entirely covered with fur, stood on only two appendages, and had a well developed nervous system. She infused them with more intelligence and waited to see what would happen.
Season cycles passed. Generations of Duo Pods came and went. Essence saw that they made tools, built things, and developed the planet. Their machines grew ever more complex. Satisfied, Essence took a nap.
Essence awoke with a fever. The planet’s surface was a shambles. The air and the water were fouled. All the Duo Pods, all of the feathered creatures, and most of the furry ones were dead forever.
“What as happened to my world?” Essence cried.
Grief for her failed experiment and illness consumed Essence. The earth shook. Storms raged. Her tears covered many lands. Then slowly, the earth healed itself. Although it would take many more eons for all of the Duo Pod creations to return to the earth, the world looked new and fresh once more. Essence found that one substance the Duo Pods had made would not break itself down and feed the earth. They had indeed created something original. Her experiment had not been a total failure.
She looked around hopefully and found that ants, roaches and other insects were not only still there, but had grown greatly in size and changed in other ways.
“Ah, my faithful ants,” she said. “You have been with me from the earliest days and have always been civilized. Perhaps the intelligence I gave the Duo Pods was not enough. I will try again. I will give you not only the gift of knowledge, but my compassion as well. And this time, I will not sleep, but will watch over my world. I will be available to my creatures, speaking to their minds when they seek me. When each one’s time on earth is done, the part of me that is in them will return to me in unity forever. Eat then, my ants, of the lasting creation of the Duo Pods—plastic—and receive my gifts. Cherish my world and seek to understand its mysteries.”
And so we are.
While Essence was speaking, a group of roaches approached. They took the gift of intelligence, but ran away before the second, more important gift of compassion and inner essence was given. Thus they received no more of Essence than had the extinct Duo Pods.
Bemused, Essence observed the roaches as they ran from her. “I must watch and see what comes of this development.”
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