The Secret History Spectrum

[Lanodantheon]

I am shelving and project involving Contemporary Fantasy because I was finding myself in the midst of, "Paralysis by Analysis"...again. I like brainstorming, but it is only when others contribute that I get back on track.

The question I am paralyzed on is the question of "Secret HistorY". Contemporary Fantasy has to deal with the fantasy in the modern world with a stance that is on the "Secret History Spectrum. This ranges based on how secret the fantasy elements are. Usually, this is decided on by the premise/overall story the author wishes to tell. The only premise-like thing has is Federal Law Enforcement of The Paranormal in my own direction (Whatever that will be).

But I can't even decide on a premise because thinking about the various stages on the spectrum opens up a world of possibilities.

The Secret History Spectrum(Based on level of secrecy):

Top Secret: Always has been and always will be.

"Safe" Stories in children's literature especially fall in this category. Hiding the supernatural is a science and has always been a science. The fantasy world may infact be impossible to expose do to it being protected by the power of gods, being handwaved away because it is not an issue or being a wholly segregated "other world" 

Advantages: This stance allows the Supernatural to always surprise people. The supernatural can exist as it always has.
Disadvantages: The supernatural then becomes a "Gentleman's only club". Only special people can be a part of the supernatural.

Semi-Secret: It's a secret, but it's tough to keep.

Men in Black is like this. The supernatural is a secret and is only risked being exposed when it is a convenient plot device. It creates a sense of urgency whenever something goes bump because the MCs have to worry not about if people will catch on, but when.

Advantages: It is more realistic.

Disadvantages: It is deceptive because it strings the reader along by making them think the SUupernatural world will be exposed, but ultimately never is for one reason or another.

Secret No More: It was a Secret, but now people know

This has become popular in recent years. The supernatural "Coming out of the coffin" is fascinating because it is about people being uncomfortable.

Advantages: It allows you do hit close to home and write about a Paradigm shift, a defining moment in history.

Disadvantages: It can really hit the nail on the head as to the themes of the world. Aids, LGBT rights, etc are obviously what it is about. A reader takes one look at it and says "I get it...." Being a blood-sucking vampire that lives for ever isn't exactly the same as admitting your sexual orientation.

Never Secret: Self-explantatory

This makes it more like alternative history. If the supernatural existed and was never secret, how would life be different?

Advantages: It allows for some weird territory. It means no handwaving and no need to worry about conspiracies.

Disadvantages: It means that every square inch of the landscape has what is normally fantastic in it in some way, shape or form unless it is a place living under a rock. 

I don't know where this thread will go or what I'm trying to get out of it, but it should lead to something.

[belial.1980]

I found myself facing a very similar question. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that I was injecting my own beliefs into the formula. See, I'm a skeptic. So if I personally came upon definitive proof that vampires or angels or sorcerers really existed, it would blow my mind and turn my world upside down.

But then I took a step back and tried to get another viewpoint. I live in an industrialized, technology driven nation. But I've met a lot of intelligent, well educated people that believe in mysticism, psychic powers, and ghosts. My mother and several of my aunts and uncles have all claimed at one time or another to have had a run in with what they thought was a supernatural entity. And these are smart people. My one uncle is a doctor!

You'll see even more of this in less industrialized countries. I've got friends of Cambodian descent who've gone back to visit and came back with stories about young women trying to weave spells so that a well to do American man would fall for them and take them back and marry them; they were trying to snag a sugar daddy with magic! I swear I'm not making this up.

What I'm getting at is that, even in the real world we live in, magic and the supernatural are alive and well for a lot of people. (Nancy Reagan anybody?)

Getting back to your Secret History Spectrum: I don't know if there's a need for a "conspiracy." I think that some people will believe in fantastic things, even if they don't have any diehard proof. Meanwhile, other people will be doubters even if they see something mystical happen right in front of their eyes. Then you'll have a lot of middle of the road type thrown in there too.

I think a major thing to consider is how common or how rare fantastic elements are. Are there dragons on every street corner and zombies living in ever sewer? Or does some evil wicked thing come crawling out of the night once every hundred years to wreak havoc on a small fishing village? Or maybe it's somewhere in between on the spectrum. I think the abundance of fantastic elements will have a great deal to do with the tone and how plausible it is for the world at large to accept or reject belief in the supernatural. I guess it all boils down to what sort of story you want to tell and how much paranormal stuff you want to throw at the readers. 

So…hopefully this made at least a little bit of sense and gave you some food for thought. Good luck!

[RobJN]

What kind of story do you want to tell? Let that decide where society's view of the supernatural fits along the spectrum.

Are your main characters among then 'enlightened'? Or are they hapless schmucks dragged into a whole new world view, and now having to cope with all that (in addition to whatever plot-related goodies you're throwing at him/her/them)?

If the supernatural coverup is a conspiracy, which side is perpetuating it?

Is it an X-Files-ish "The Truth is Out There" type of tale, where creepy-crawlies lurk in the sewers and basements and air conditioning ducts? Or are the "creepy-crawlies" as benign as a simple patch of garden gnomes that animate at night to do the weeding?

How severe your branding of the supernatural is in the story will contribute a great deal towards how society mainlines it. Does the supernatural want to be in the open? Do schools conduct regular "Zombie-drills"? Or do the things that go bump in the night watch, content from their closets, and from under the bed?

Maybe there are patches of the world where the supernatural frolic and play, away from the prying eyes of muggles normal folks. Maybe the normal folks' airplane comes apart in midair, and they find themselves washed up on a beach of one such remote isle of mystery.

[Lanodantheon]

What kind of story do you want to tell? Let that decide where society's view of the supernatural fits along the spectrum.

How severe your branding of the supernatural is in the story will contribute a great deal towards how society mainlines it. Does the supernatural want to be in the open? Do schools conduct regular "Zombie-drills"? Or do the things that go bump in the night watch, content from their closets, and from under the bed?

Just so you know....I'm stealing that stuff.

Zombie drills...

I guess when I think about, the unsatisfied issues I wish to resolve through the story is that in this day and age authors and autuers keep try to surprise us with the same stuff. In this day and age the standard genres of horro and fantasy are dead because of the information age

This leads to the idea of a place where all this fantasy stuff is normal.

However, this also begs the question for a world where the paranormal isn't, "What goes bump in their night?"

But, like I said paralysis by analysis is preventing a good premise. So far the best I have to go is, "In a world where the paranormal isn't, what goes bump in their night?"

So I guess I am currently leaning towards Not Secret at all on  my spectrum. But, Used to be a secret is also attractive in its own way. Need more thought...

Zombie Drills....J$&@*...

[Kali]

I guess when I think about, the unsatisfied issues I wish to resolve through the story is that in this day and age authors and autuers keep try to surprise us with the same stuff. In this day and age the standard genres of horro and fantasy are dead because of the information age

I disagree.  The genres are alive and doing quite well, better than they have for some time in fact.  The tropes have shifted focus so that vampires are largely defanged and werewolves are mostly leashed, but the genres are fine. 

But, like I said paralysis by analysis is preventing a good premise. So far the best I have to go is, "In a world where the paranormal isn't, what goes bump in their night?"

I think you've correctly labeled this 'paralysis'.  Start writing.  All this thought is crap keeping you from writing.  Pick a setting that you like.  You don't know what goes bump in their night.  Neither do they.  But you know enough right now, based on just that, to start writing.  After all, we're not afraid of what goes bump in the night because we know what it is.  We're most terrified when we have no idea at all.

It may be that in the course of writing, while your heroes are trying to escape it and/or hunt it down, they find out what it is.  It may be they don't (though your audience would probably hunt you down, if that's the case) but you'll have a long time to make that decision.  Start writing now; you can build conflict, heighten tension, raise the stakes, and generally do a lot of work before you get to that point.  Unless you're going to reveal the scary thing on Page 1, there are a lot of pages to go.  Start writing them.

[svb1972]

Another thought.  How much of the paranormal is no longer secret.

In Otherworlds, we start off focused on a Pack of Werewolves.  They're werewolves, they turn into wolves, they're humans.  And they don't believe in any other kind of supernatural beings at all.

Which paranormal is common.
People accept that Witches, Warlocks, Oogans, Necromancers are real.  They even accept that Zombies happen.  But Vampires?  That's just rediculous.  Fairies?  I don't believe in fairies.

How deep is the rabbit hole, and how far down into it has humanity jumped.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

The thing that the whole "secret history" genre convention is about, IMO, is providing a (semi-)plausible means for all this stuff to exist alongside history without affecting it in ways that lead to a world totally different from our own. 

One way around banging your head on this is to have the supernatural only have been real for a relatively short span of time; that something happened to make it real, or to make it visible when previously it was much less connected to our world, and, whether the supernaturals or the supernaturally aware mortals are intentionally coming out of the closet or not, there's been a paradigm shift in how hard it is to stay secret.

[belial.1980]

This leads to the idea of a place where all this fantasy stuff is normal.

However, this also begs the question for a world where the paranormal isn't, "What goes bump in their night?"

I don't think that everybody would necessarily be familiar with every aspect of the supernatural. There could always be something out there that people don't know about or that's not widely publicized.

I'd recommend reading some books that deal with legendary/mythological beings and creatures. Right now the fantasy genre is saturated with vampires, werevolves, and zombies. There're so many rich and interesting things out there that you can take ideas from.

Hmmm...an idea just hit me. Along the lines of zombie drills...once I came across an old Atomic Bomb survival pamphlet in my grandma's attic. Published ca. 1951. It was a school child's illustrated guide for suriviving an atomic blast--basically things like "don't look at the explosion" and "hide under your desk."

That might be something fun to play with--a tongue in cheek depiction of a school kid's survival guide that includes information for dealing with zombies, cleaning werewolf bites, etc. Government issued and cheesy.

[Aludra]

"When confronted by a zombie in your classroom, get under your desk and cover your brain."

[Lanodantheon]

"When confronted by a zombie in your classroom, get under your desk and cover your brain."

I don't think that everybody would necessarily be familiar with every aspect of the supernatural. There could always be something out there that people don't know about or that's not widely publicized.

I'd recommend reading some books that deal with legendary/mythological beings and creatures. Right now the fantasy genre is saturated with vampires, werevolves, and zombies. There're so many rich and interesting things out there that you can take ideas from.

Hmmm...an idea just hit me. Along the lines of zombie drills...once I came across an old Atomic Bomb survival pamphlet in my grandma's attic. Published ca. 1951. It was a school child's illustrated guide for suriviving an atomic blast--basically things like "don't look at the explosion" and "hide under your desk."

That might be something fun to play with--a tongue in cheek depiction of a school kid's survival guide that includes information for dealing with zombies, cleaning werewolf bites, etc. Government issued and cheesy.

Having almost completed my degree in film I am quite familiar with "Duck and Cover"

I will share one position I am taking for this project that is my take on things: supernatural stuff exists(I'm making a list), but that all the popular culture is the same.

Watch Dracula, 30 Days of Night or Twilight with the thought of this coming out of a world where Vampires are an accepted reality. Do the same with Night of The Living Dead under the auspice that that movie is actually based on/or compiled from found footage, a real life Blair Witch Project. This approach has been informing me a lot more about my world than any other research, though I will do some into the classics. Especially because I have been taught in Computer Science classes that "There's always more than one way to do things." 

[Aludra]

I will share one position I am taking for this project that is my take on things: supernatural stuff exists(I'm making a list), but that all the popular culture is the same.

I watched a play (popcorn drama) at a local theater here in Dallas, about Dirk Spatula, private dick, who was in New Orleans caught in a family war (romeo and juliet style), but the families were all vampires and they had both Twilight and True Blood books for props.  It was hilarious.  Your quote reminded me of that.

[The Corvidian]

Rick Riordan, the author of the Percy Jackson novels had a nice way to keep the supernatural secret, he called it the Mist. It worked on ordinary people by clouding their perceptions as to what was going on.

[LizW65]

"When confronted by a zombie in your classroom, get under your desk and cover your brain."

"When Mr. Vampire's fangs are out, Mr. Vampire is not our friend."

[Der Sturmbrecher]

Why limit yourself to one work? If you have ideas, write till the barrel's empty! DOn't take on too much at once, or you'll burnout. You can, though, take one idea you like and just write that one for a bit. THat's it. Commit.

Yes, fantasy does seem pretty pedestrian sometimes, anymore. Kudos to Jim Butcher for putting the "antasy" back in "fantasy"! One thing I like to do with writing, is take a cliched idea that has been used up, and redo it in away that is sometimes deliberately obnoxious to a current trend. The best stories are the ones not only with good characters and a cool plot, but also that make you think.

As an example, take all this stuff about the Apocalypse happening in 2012. If you wanted to do a cliche-ripper, do something along the lines of "the apocalypse actually wouldn't have happened, but all the panic about it caused it to happen."