research question and icon contest followup

Icons first, because that's the shorter bit: I had someone ask how large the icon should be for The Tropic of Serpents. Answer is, 100x100 pixels; that's LJ's size limit. And the door is still open for people to submit their efforts -- not because the ones I've received are in any way unsatisfactory, but because I didn't answer this question sooner, and I want to give everybody who's interested a chance to try! Remember, winner gets either a hardcover of A Natural History of Dragons or an ARC of Tropic when those become available.

Now, the research question. First of all, my deep gratitude to everybody who has responded; keep 'em coming. Secondly, some clarification.

I almost feel like I shouldn't have mentioned Hawai'i, because so many people have fixated on that. It doesn't have to be Hawai'i specifically, so if you have recommendations for sources on other Polynesian societies, please share them -- New Zealand, Samoa, wherever. Reason being, what I'm after right now is stuff that will give me a broad sense of what traits are shared across the Polynesian cultural sphere, such that we're able to talk about there being such a sphere. I won't attempt to drill down more specifically until I have that broad sense, because without it, I don't really know where I want to drill.

This means that if, say, there are better writings about New Zealand than there are about Hawai'i, then I'll happily go read about New Zealand instead. I don't need the specific history of any one place, because I'm not writing about that place; I'm trying to invent a society with broadly similar social/political/religious/economic structures. Mind you, I know enough about the history of anthropological writing to know I'm going to be dodging bullets wherever I go (hi, Margaret Mead; how are you?) -- but if there's an area with fewer bullets flying, please do point me at it. :-) As long as it's part of the Polynesian sphere, it's good for my purposes at this stage.

As for history in my own setting, I need to invent the nearest continent before I'll know what I'm doing with that. :-P

(Speaking of which, I should inflate my globe-beachball again and start doing some more worldbuilding.)

screw subtlety

I'm running another role-playing game right now, and several times of late I've found myself saying the same thing:

"Screw subtlety."

It happens because I'll be planning some kind of plot, and chasing my own tail trying to figure out how to introduce a new element without making the player-characters suspicious. This is difficult when the PCs are being run by players -- people very familiar with narrative conventions. When I told one of them the prospective fiancée for his nobleman was a meek, sheltered girl, his reply was "Gamer brain calls bullshit. I expect she has twenty-five skeletons and four fresh corpses in her closet."

In a novel, you can get away with a higher degree of subtlety, because you control your characters' thoughts. They don't know they're in a story (not unless you're writing something very metafictional), so they won't reflect on things the same way a player will. And while the same thing is theoretically true of a PC, any time you ask the player to ignore something that's obvious to them out-of-character, you create a disjunct. Sometimes this can be fun, but other times it's frustrating, because they have to role-play their character being blind to an idea they can see. Looping back around to novels, again, the same thing can be true of a reader -- but since the reader isn't actively participating in the story, the frustration is usually less severe. If you write your characters well, the reader will go along for the ride, blind spots and all.

So this is why I keep saying "screw subtlety." Rather than bending over backwards attempting to make something not suspicious, embrace the suspicion! Why yes, this is weird; you have every reason to give it the side-eye. Knowing that up front doesn't tell you what's really going on. You'll have to work to get the rest.

Doing that is surprisingly liberating. I think it's a cousin to the notion of "burning plot" -- making the cool stuff happen now, and letting it generate more cool stuff later, rather than trying to save it and have the lead-up be flat and boring as a result. Instead of making plot out of the characters figuring out there's something weird with X, let them know that from the start, and move on from there. It doesn't work in all situations or for all kinds of stories, but where it does, the result can be a lot of energy and momentum.

Which is why this is something I try to keep in mind for novels as well as games. Am I better off trying to come up with a plausible cover story for a given narrative element, or should I just let it show its face to the world?