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I missed the beginning of this panel, so I couldn't attribute these properly. This is just notes.
On the panel: Doyle, MacFarlane, Ronald, Schneyer, Vedeler, Wessells
To make fake primary sources, you need to be familiar with real primary sources. Art forgery.
Princess Bride is a good fake primary source.
Set design: only has to go as far as the audience would see, but you have to know what the audience would see.
Read primary sources who work with the material. See what they included. Ask 2 questions.
1. Does the source have a reason to lie to me? No primary source is honest. Sources had an agenda. Give primary sources an agenda.
2. Ask yourself what lies you believe. Do you as the author have an agenda? Every character you write who looks at the primary source will have an agenda. Their reaction to primary source gives texture.
Poems & songs should have multiple versions; diaries should have digressions.
Treasure maps need to be written so the person who made it understands it, but other people won't.
Creating a second history is creating a second piece of fiction. Have to know the stuff, even if it doesn't appear on screen.
Why have other sources not survived? Historically, some were lost because scribes didn't think they were worth copying. Most of what we have from Sappho is from Egypt.
A: Fictive sources are necessarily more complete than historical documents.
B: You create the sources you need. You can leave it mysterious.
Shakespeare's sister—hints at fictive history
Mistborn has a lot of unreliable narrative
One fun part is thinking about how people view and react to history. Gives depth to world.
Two versions of history of Justinian(?) by same author: secret history vs official history (Procopius)
Think of primary sources as characters themselves: the creator was a person. Give the source a life.
Appeal of ancient history is hints of lost sources. Are they lost? Or are they in personal collections? Can hint at it: scholar A says X, scholar B says Y, which do I believe?
Sources show up in strange places, like floods. One page of a Bible was stuck inside an organ pipe.
Multiple copies of same text also fun for comparative purposes.
How character learns about sources can be story itself.
Person who wrote about even reacts to it. If you don't know what the event was, you only have biased reactions. If you as author don't know the event, you can't give characters biased reactions.
Primary source not actual story, but you don't need to know exactly what happened, just what one biased reaction is. Allows flexibility in future stories.
Belief in legends/biased stories in the future of the world is also fun.
Usual error is putting too much in, not leaving things out.
Pitfall of worldbuilding: want to put everything in, but you really shouldn't
Depends on nature of story: fast vs slow paced, action vs detail.
Description for its own sake isn't a good idea. What are you trying to evoke in the reader?
You can publish the detail stuff later (like Tolkien)
examples of interesting fictional sources
1. Green Man by Kingsley Amis
2. Cat Valente's Prester John trilogy, based on real unreliable source. Get biased viewpoints within the text.
3. Drowning Girl by Caitlin Kiernan, series of fragmented sources. Some are real, others aren't. Unreliable narrator.
4. World War Z
5. In the Concrete Jungle
6. History of the Kings of Britain
7. Castle of Otranto
8. Handmaid's Tale: don't know it's a primary source until the end of the story. Classic Sfnal framing device, even if Atwood claimed not to write sf. Clear bias in narration, no hint of villain's perspective.
9. Atonement (MacEwan)
Aud: Blalock & Powers created Wm Ashbless (fake poet) and his poetry as a primary source
Give more information about side sources & characters.
Aud: to what extent can a writer use multiple biased sources to allow reader to infer what actually happened?
Crowley's The Translator, about a poet. Didn't give poems but some partial translations.
Aud: footnoting as in Jonathan Strange
Very Gothic technique
Flashman does this
Aud: Brandon Sanderson Stormlight Archive ancient sources took for granted that everyone knew what they were talking about so didn't explain it
On the panel: Doyle, MacFarlane, Ronald, Schneyer, Vedeler, Wessells
To make fake primary sources, you need to be familiar with real primary sources. Art forgery.
Princess Bride is a good fake primary source.
Set design: only has to go as far as the audience would see, but you have to know what the audience would see.
Read primary sources who work with the material. See what they included. Ask 2 questions.
1. Does the source have a reason to lie to me? No primary source is honest. Sources had an agenda. Give primary sources an agenda.
2. Ask yourself what lies you believe. Do you as the author have an agenda? Every character you write who looks at the primary source will have an agenda. Their reaction to primary source gives texture.
Poems & songs should have multiple versions; diaries should have digressions.
Treasure maps need to be written so the person who made it understands it, but other people won't.
Creating a second history is creating a second piece of fiction. Have to know the stuff, even if it doesn't appear on screen.
Why have other sources not survived? Historically, some were lost because scribes didn't think they were worth copying. Most of what we have from Sappho is from Egypt.
A: Fictive sources are necessarily more complete than historical documents.
B: You create the sources you need. You can leave it mysterious.
Shakespeare's sister—hints at fictive history
Mistborn has a lot of unreliable narrative
One fun part is thinking about how people view and react to history. Gives depth to world.
Two versions of history of Justinian(?) by same author: secret history vs official history (Procopius)
Think of primary sources as characters themselves: the creator was a person. Give the source a life.
Appeal of ancient history is hints of lost sources. Are they lost? Or are they in personal collections? Can hint at it: scholar A says X, scholar B says Y, which do I believe?
Sources show up in strange places, like floods. One page of a Bible was stuck inside an organ pipe.
Multiple copies of same text also fun for comparative purposes.
How character learns about sources can be story itself.
Person who wrote about even reacts to it. If you don't know what the event was, you only have biased reactions. If you as author don't know the event, you can't give characters biased reactions.
Primary source not actual story, but you don't need to know exactly what happened, just what one biased reaction is. Allows flexibility in future stories.
Belief in legends/biased stories in the future of the world is also fun.
Usual error is putting too much in, not leaving things out.
Pitfall of worldbuilding: want to put everything in, but you really shouldn't
Depends on nature of story: fast vs slow paced, action vs detail.
Description for its own sake isn't a good idea. What are you trying to evoke in the reader?
You can publish the detail stuff later (like Tolkien)
examples of interesting fictional sources
1. Green Man by Kingsley Amis
2. Cat Valente's Prester John trilogy, based on real unreliable source. Get biased viewpoints within the text.
3. Drowning Girl by Caitlin Kiernan, series of fragmented sources. Some are real, others aren't. Unreliable narrator.
4. World War Z
5. In the Concrete Jungle
6. History of the Kings of Britain
7. Castle of Otranto
8. Handmaid's Tale: don't know it's a primary source until the end of the story. Classic Sfnal framing device, even if Atwood claimed not to write sf. Clear bias in narration, no hint of villain's perspective.
9. Atonement (MacEwan)
Aud: Blalock & Powers created Wm Ashbless (fake poet) and his poetry as a primary source
Give more information about side sources & characters.
Aud: to what extent can a writer use multiple biased sources to allow reader to infer what actually happened?
Crowley's The Translator, about a poet. Didn't give poems but some partial translations.
Aud: footnoting as in Jonathan Strange
Very Gothic technique
Flashman does this
Aud: Brandon Sanderson Stormlight Archive ancient sources took for granted that everyone knew what they were talking about so didn't explain it
