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I've been having some really interesting discussion with a fellow writer who stumbled upon a post I had made about a future project - the steampunk AU set in Sengoku era Japan that I've been poking at for a while. It's made me think - and rethink - a lot of what I'm doing.
I have to admit that historical fantasy is a subgenre that I've only lightly explored. For a long time, I wasn't interested, but over the last 5 years I've become a fan of several writers in the genre. I'm not up on all that the subgenre has to offer, though I've thoroughly enjoyed what I have read, enough that I want to try my hand at it.
So I have a question or two to toss out there, and I'm going to start with this one:
When making changes to create the alternate universe, how far do you need to go in following the changes you make? How far back do you go? How many countries should you trace the changes back? How permissible is it to handwave, fudge, and pick an arbitrary point at which "everything is the same" and then follow it forward?
The world is pretty interconnected, not just now in the internet age. Changes in one country, specially big changes, will affect the history of any country they traded with, bordered on, or conquered. As a writer, do you need to follow the changes through all the linkages, even if those countries aren't going to appear in your series?
I have to admit that historical fantasy is a subgenre that I've only lightly explored. For a long time, I wasn't interested, but over the last 5 years I've become a fan of several writers in the genre. I'm not up on all that the subgenre has to offer, though I've thoroughly enjoyed what I have read, enough that I want to try my hand at it.
So I have a question or two to toss out there, and I'm going to start with this one:
When making changes to create the alternate universe, how far do you need to go in following the changes you make? How far back do you go? How many countries should you trace the changes back? How permissible is it to handwave, fudge, and pick an arbitrary point at which "everything is the same" and then follow it forward?
The world is pretty interconnected, not just now in the internet age. Changes in one country, specially big changes, will affect the history of any country they traded with, bordered on, or conquered. As a writer, do you need to follow the changes through all the linkages, even if those countries aren't going to appear in your series?
