Fictional Myths

I've been deriving a lot of enjoyment lately from thinking up and writing legends and folklore. This has taken place in the process of worldbuilding, 'doing the background' so that when I come to write the main narratives, stories and novel(s?) that take place in that world it'll be able to flow without having to stop all the time to come up with these things from scratch. I used to think this kind of planning wasn't important, and it could all be done on the fly. Little did I know.

The importance of research is something that has been drummed into me at various points during my degree, especially in terms of writing Historical fiction, and I would say Speculative fiction is no different in that it takes the same kind of rigour. "God is in the details." You have to know where you are before exploring it without getting lost, and a flimsy world will fall to pieces - it needs a solid foundation.

Returning to the subject of myth however, I find there is a wonderful simplicity to writing in this style that is its strength. It reminds me of the glee with which sometimes I used to embrace convention within certain types of fiction in the days when I was easier satisfied. From "There once was a..." or "They tell a tale in the land of..." onward I know what I'm doing, what tone to take, how to structure it, and so on. It seems at times almost like ancestral memory kicking into autopilot, as ridiculous as that may sound. There is a lyrical richness and sense of mankind's deep narrative heritage that is palpable in writing and reading myth and folklore, one that makes it difficult not to romanticise. It's the same reason that the 'Thousand And One Arabian Nights' continue to loom large in my thoughts and will do for some time hence. These narratives, or this broad style, I think, exist at the heart and in the origins of all others right up to the present, which is perhaps why it's so satisfying to reconnect with them, for instance, in the context of a novel.