Post by The Muse on Mar 29, 2011 21:40:30 GMT -5
As Clavis so kindly pointed out in one of the Worldbuilder threads, Jungles/forests are great landscapes to be included in any great story.
While a lot of things have been discussed here in the forums about Fantasy type writing, the great thing is that these particular landscapes are relevant to ANY genre, ANY time period, ANY land, etc.
So this really can be the subject of another Sensory fieldtrip.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting a venerable old Oak tree. The Fairchild Oak to be exact.
It was extraordinary.
Its over 2000 years old. It has stood witness to over 400 years of secular human history in Florida. Seven of us stood side by side in front of it for a picture...and there was still at least three feet of tree on either side of our group.
But the thing that made it so amazing wasnt even the size of it.
It had a life and personality all its own. The bark was incredibly thick and craggy. Though the tree was alive it looked as if life and decay warred over the fate of the tree. Long, pale streaks of some kind of fungus marred the bark. Delicate, lacey cobwebs, only discernable from close up, covered much of the massive trunk. Melancholy beards of silvery Spanish Moss hung everywhere from the enormous branches.
One branch was so long that it touched the ground about 40 feet away from the base of the trunk. Refusing to be broken, the limb PUT DOWN ROOTS before continuing on its climb back toward the sky.
This was the type of tree that could be a character in a book, in and of itself. Like the Hometree in AVATAR, or the Greenwood tree of Robin hood.
Trees that take on a life and character of their own can give us a fascinating setting in which to place our characters. A good example of this would be the Inn of the Last Home...set in a Vallenwood tree in the Dragonlance series.
This setting would become a center, a focus for our story, making it so that we "cant see the forest for the tree."
While a lot of things have been discussed here in the forums about Fantasy type writing, the great thing is that these particular landscapes are relevant to ANY genre, ANY time period, ANY land, etc.
So this really can be the subject of another Sensory fieldtrip.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting a venerable old Oak tree. The Fairchild Oak to be exact.
It was extraordinary.
Its over 2000 years old. It has stood witness to over 400 years of secular human history in Florida. Seven of us stood side by side in front of it for a picture...and there was still at least three feet of tree on either side of our group.
But the thing that made it so amazing wasnt even the size of it.
It had a life and personality all its own. The bark was incredibly thick and craggy. Though the tree was alive it looked as if life and decay warred over the fate of the tree. Long, pale streaks of some kind of fungus marred the bark. Delicate, lacey cobwebs, only discernable from close up, covered much of the massive trunk. Melancholy beards of silvery Spanish Moss hung everywhere from the enormous branches.
One branch was so long that it touched the ground about 40 feet away from the base of the trunk. Refusing to be broken, the limb PUT DOWN ROOTS before continuing on its climb back toward the sky.
This was the type of tree that could be a character in a book, in and of itself. Like the Hometree in AVATAR, or the Greenwood tree of Robin hood.
Trees that take on a life and character of their own can give us a fascinating setting in which to place our characters. A good example of this would be the Inn of the Last Home...set in a Vallenwood tree in the Dragonlance series.
This setting would become a center, a focus for our story, making it so that we "cant see the forest for the tree."
