This week: Exploring the Natural World Edited by: Kit of House Lannister  
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What is your favourite scenic spot? What makes it so beautiful? The natural world is filled with beauty and wonder. Let's explore it in our work!
This week's Action/Adventure Newsletter is all about the natural world - both real and imagined.
Kit of House Lannister |
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Those who know me – and those who read my newsletters – will know that I love nature. It has always been this way, even when I was a child in the city and my access to the outdoors was limited. The first years of my life were spent in a rather gray and grim area of the city, with little in the way of greenery, but I was fortunate. My city was situated by the coast and I loved the sound and the scent of the sea. It was a joy to dig my toes in the wet sand, and to search for pretty shells. Also, I had family elsewhere in the country where I’d go and visit, and sometimes we’d book a bungalow in the countryside and spend a week wandering the woods and taking long strolls through the heather. I’ve explored caves, handfed wild squirrels, sat quietly during dusk hoping to be honoured with the presence of deer.
Through school I have visited farms, gone white water canoeing in the Ardennes and with some classmates spent a cold week in October building rafts, riding horses and cooking on a campfire during survival camp. I cherish these memories. As said, I have been fortunate.
I spent my childhood, teenage years and young adulthood in the city, though not all those years were spent in that aforementioned area. Still, it was an eye-opening experience when I eventually moved to the British countryside. The sounds of cars and sirens were replaced by the baaaaas of sheep on the hills. The hoots of the owls around my house spooked me a little when I first heard them – the result, no doubt, of having watched too many horror movies. Now I consider them the sounds of old friends. Here, too, I have handfed squirrels. I’ve had a hedgehog climb onto my leg and settle in my lap when I sat in the grass. I felt like a Disney princess! Though I have lived here for many years now, I still feel joy when I wander the hills and relish in the scenery – nature and more nature as far as the eye can see.
It is this love of nature that makes me enjoy descriptions of different worlds and environments in novels. Take me on a journey through the woods, guide me through the mountains, make me tread cautiously through the jungle! I enjoy the familiar and the unfamiliar. There are many places around the world that I have not – unfortunately – seen in person, so I’ll readily accept your account. Or, if we’re visiting other worlds I’ll happily explore it along with the characters. As long as you bring it to life, I’m right there with you.
Just, it has to make sense. I understand that fantasy is, well, fantasy, and that sci-fi opens doors to worlds that may be beyond my imagination, but help me to enter your imagination, your creation. That doesn’t mean dumbing down your vision, but if I have to jump back and forth through a novel because I feel what I just read is inconsistent with what I just read before I am not having a good time with the flow of the adventure. Yes, this has happened. Not often, but enough to add this paragraph as a gentle plea to make sure that your world is a) accessible to the reader and b) doesn’t crumble under scrutiny.
That said, world building can be excellent fun. Instead of working within the limits of what we know of our planet, you get to invent everything. Do you want giant plants with polka-dotted leaves? Okay! Three moons? Twelve-legged horse-like creatures with lion tails? Put them right in. You can have your hero or heroine (or both) gaze over the purple ocean while the sky otters spin and twirl in the light of the setting sun(s). How precious a moment. Or, perhaps, the calm before the storm? It’s up to you (as long as you make it make sense). It’s not difficult to get me on board.
If your story is set in our own natural world it will have to be reasonably realistic. There will always be those amongst your readers who have pen and paper ready to tell you that that specific insect does not belong in this or that environment, so unless there’s something in the plot about them having been released ten years earlier, or they’ve escaped from a nearby facility, you’re going to get complaints. Which you might be okay with. Mail can be fun. Still, it’s always best to check. Better yet, if there’s a similar natural setting nearby, go and enjoy it!
As I write this, I have the second half of my end-of-the-academic-year assignment to go and then I have several months of freedom! Or, I have a work project, but I have a lot more free time! I look forward to getting back into the outdoors. To feel the sun on my skin, maybe spot a few squirrels or, if I am very fortunate, a badger. You just never know!
If you, too, have some free time coming up, I hope that you’ll enjoy it. Have some fun. See some sights. Life can be filled with beauty.
Kit of House Lannister
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The Action/Adventure Newsletter Team
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Action/Adventure: May 25, 2022 Issue [#11377]
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