Episode Transcript
Ross Buzzell - Discussion
===
Fish don't know they're wet. . The water is just their environment. Why would they question it? And what does it reveal about their own watery world when they're removed from it? Let's talk about the fish out of water trope
Welcome to the WorldCraft Club podcast show for writers, game masters and other storytellers who want to create rich immersive settings that will draw their audience back time and time again. I'm your host, James.
The WorldCraft Club has had a long history of loving a good trope. after all. It's not the trope. It's how you use it. We're always on the lookout for new tools and techniques to add to our growing repertoire. And today we're looking at the fish out of water trope with Ross. Pizzelle.
Ross Buzzell: So my name's Ross Bezel. Uh,
I have written bestselling,
Series
Legends online,
which is.
a lit R p g, that's uh, in the fantasy world. also thebestselling series Legacy Earth You all may remember him from our last interview, (linked in the shownotes) LinkedIn, the show notes.
Here's how the fish out of water trope works. You take a character out of the space. They find familiar and comforting and instead place them somewhere alien. In this case, a powerful alien prince with a lot of book knowledge about earth finds himself on earth with an important mission and has to manage Basset, hounds and human idioms. In the process of this, he develops a greater understanding of earth While we as readers grow to better understand the home world of boron. This is the part that I think is actually really interesting and innovative. What do we learn about one culture? When it is forced into another. While the fish out of water trope is a common one. It's a useful tool to. explore someone's environment in reverse by contrasting it with our own. I'll let Ross explain.
The Question - What's the Tool You're Using?Introduction
---
Ross Buzzell: So this, this particular set of worldbuilding is the deepest worldbuilding I think I will ever do in my life. 'cause I started it when I was 14. So it is,
it is
Track 1: Oh my gosh,
Ross Buzzell: coming up on 20 years that, that I
have been developing this world and, um,
the way that
I did it was, you know, you've,
got in, in fiction and everything.
You've got aliens coming to visit people, uh, humans, humans going to alien worlds. You've got the whole like alien seeding humanity.
And
what I wanted to, what I wanted to kind of explore was an alien race that. Is humanoid. And really the only thing that is, or actually they
look Exactly. like Humans
and the only thing that separates them
from humans is this very
specific. ability. And when a play gavage is the planet and takes away.
that very specific ability, they. The people who have the ability to take and start dying because the planet literally starts consuming their life essence. So they get sent to a world where, they get sent to a world that can sustain them, and it happens to be Earth, but they're not alone on earth. So they look human. But it's like at the beginning of human history, like one of the first things in, in my world, one of the first things that they witness is, Cain leaving the garden.
Track 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Ross Buzzell: because like if, if you read in the Bible it says, you know, when Kane left the garden, there were cities, there were civilizations.
I was like, Hmm, I wonder where they came from.
So I made it this alien race Um,
Track 1: it. Yeah.
Ross Buzzell: And um,
Track 1: um,
Ross Buzzell: kind of
explore the idea of
Track 1: idea
Ross Buzzell: the seed of humanity, even though. Humanity is its own race. A lot of the lore and like the technology and all of the stuff
was right there
with the first generation,
but,
then gets lost over time because they don't have the technology. To rebuild what they had at their, on their home world.
And so like you get, like For example,
on the alien world, you have, you've got like dragons, you've got monsters, all this other stuff. And it translates over to mythology here
when in reality it's just, Hey kids, I wanna tell you a story about whenever I was your age. It's almost like
somebody from our age getting sent back to the stone Age
and
Track 1: And
Ross Buzzell: trying
to relay
Track 1: relay
Ross Buzzell: what it's like
here now, I mean,
Track 1: I mean,
Ross Buzzell: you take this back 500 years and you're gonna get burned at the stake.
Track 1: yeah, yeah, yeah. A smartphone would be, would be witchcraft if you were looking at it then, like
the advanced mathematics you can do on it alone, like,
Ross Buzzell: two plus two equals four ha.
Track 1: , it's always fascinating to me how technology can be lost.
Ross Buzzell: Mm-hmm.
Track 1: Um, calculus being one of them. Concrete is another. I. Uh, flame throwers. Apparently
Ross Buzzell: example of that is a Greek fire. I mean,
Track 1: Yes.
Ross Buzzell: it was, uh, it was something that it would, the more water you put on it, the more it burned. We still haven't really figured out how to do that. Closest thing we have is napalm. And I mean, yeah.
But Yeah.
it's, and it, it Kind of explores
the the concept of lost technology and
Track 1: and
Ross Buzzell: whenever the,
the main character,
Track 1: character,
Ross Buzzell: kind of who, who grew up on, again, he's, he's the main character, so of course he's the alien.
Um,
Track 1: yeah.
Ross Buzzell: Grew up riding dragons and using what they call elec or what, what I call electron displacers, which essentially is a teleporter.
Track 1: Yeah.
Ross Buzzell: And like all of this radiation based technology. And then he comes to earth. And he's never even seen a dog before. So the first time he sees a dog,
he's
Track 1: Yeah.
Ross Buzzell: but yeah, yeah.
Like he, he's looking at his reflection and, and he's looking at his reflection in a car window. And this dog comes up and like terrifies him. 'cause he's, he's never seen a dog, even though he's gone toe to toe with. The space version of a Death Claw for all of you
Fallout fans out there. But the dog terrified him 'cause he'd never seen it before.
And I had it be a Bassett hound, which we all know
are like the droop least aggressive looking dogs ever, but just kinda to explore that. I the whole coming From
a different world and seeing something that is one that is alien. So, and then two, the reason why he was looking at the car is because they don't really have them on his world.
It's an ancient, it is a beyond ancient
technology because they have teleporters everywhere. Or if they don't have a teleporter, they've got ships like, Actually, whenever, whenever I submitted the screen, the screenplay for the book, , for a
competition
The guy who,
Track 1: guy.
Ross Buzzell: judged it said it was a mix between the Man of Steel and he man. And
Track 1: Yeah. And
Ross Buzzell: so
Track 1: so
Ross Buzzell: the best like
kind of, one-to-one comparison
that I make is kind of like that scene on Krypton at the beginning of Man of Steel, where there are no cars, but everyone goes around as ships or on winged
creatures. And that's given..
Track 1: given.
Ross Buzzell: I wrote this way before the man
of Steel came, out, so it just
so happened to be very, very similar,
, 'cause I wrote this back in 2004 is whenever I started this,
and
it's,
it, it's just kind
of. fun
to do that Reverse exploration.
Interjection
---
This concept of 'reverse exploration' could yield a lot of fruit in a worldbuilding context.
We tend to create a fish out of water scenario, where someone is familiar with earth, as it is now is displaced in a new place and has to learn about it. The trope is commonly used, at turns up everywhere. Think man, out of time, like fry from Futurama. The ability to show an unfamiliar world through familiarize provides a good tool that an author can use to explain the world around them. It's an exposition device. It provides a bridge. To connect the audience to the setting. What we have here is a reversal of that trope. And we're seeing some dramatic irony come out of it. The fact that the main character doesn't know what a car is or that a Basset hound is in dangerous. This is a fish out of water sort of story. You have a character whose world is vastly different from our own, who is now encountering a series of things that we would find pretty 'normal. There's a lot of potential dramatic irony, where the audience knows something, the character doesn't, that Basset hounds are harmless. But it also allows for some interesting worldbuilding opportunities to better describe the place from which the character originates.
This sort of comparison can provide a character-driven sense of worldbuilding where we learn about another setting purely by the original characters interpretations of that world, which exists outside the visitant eyeline. At this point, I wanted to find out more specifics. How does this reverse engineered approach to worldbuilding practically work? We began to discuss language and the way contrast can be drawn between cultures. Even with the words we use.
Drawing Contrasts
---
Ross Buzzell: So in conversation, in book one, that takes on complete place on the alien planet Boron, whenever people speak, they don't use
a single
con contraction.
Track 1: contraction.
Yeah.
Ross Buzzell: So they didn't, they didn't grow up, saying didn't they said, did not,
or wouldn't, would not. The, the only
Contractions,
are when they're, one, when they're saying somebody's name. So like Diani, who's one of the characters, d i s
A. Apostrophe a n i. It's all one word though. or whenever they're referring to something that belongs to somebody. So it's really just showing ownership. So it's not even really a, a contraction. So like
when they speak
Track 1: they speak
Ross Buzzell: until a very
specific
event happens, that only affects
a certain individual
for a specific reason,
not gonna go into it. Gonna keep it super, super spoilers.
Track 1: Yeah.
Ross Buzzell: they don't speak in contractions. And then
when Connor comes to earth, and reactivates the dormant baronian genes that have been growing in humanity, which causes people
to develop abilities.
There is
a character that is
known as the emissary and emissaries are like a class
on boron that are, they're, they're the librarians.
They're the keepers of the knowledge. And it's, it's less like, oh, hey, here's a book of knowledge. It's more of, I have physically absorbed
the Knowledge and the history, of the planet inside myself.
and so
all of these characters
that are human,
that whose abilities have developed, they're all
talking normally.
And then this one person who before her abilities
manifested before the, the, I call it the pulse 'cause it's a wave of energy that Connor makes when he hits the planet. , in the chapter before her abilities manifest, she talks normally and the second her abilities manifest. Because
she's more
baronian than not and hasn't had the, that specific influence
in placed on her, her contractions go away,
and So she doesn't speak.
in contractions at all for, I'm at least through book four,
Track 1: Yeah. .
Ross Buzzell: so,
Track 1: kind of wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, uh, it's, it's that, that then is a, uh, I is sort of a, a component of their, of their otherness in the setting. And, um, yeah. Yeah. No, that's kind of fascinating. I, um, yeah, I think, I think with that, there's, there's tons of room to sort of, to sort of begin exploring, uh, the boron and, and.
In in, in witnessing sort of that, that contrast with humanity and seeing like where it is, are there, are there any other like sort of social, social cues or faux PAs that get like mistaken or kind of missed or misunderstood, um, throughout the process of
Ross Buzzell: Well, IANS don't shake hands.
They do a lot more of the like hand on the shoulder. Um, so like, When, when Connor first comes to earth, he does a lot of hand on the shoulder, but he's doing it during like rousing speeches and trying To be like inspiring.
So it's not brought up as being weird except for with one guy who, um, he's, he's Alith more rough and tumble than everyone else.
So he is like, why do you keep touching me?
Stop. Don't stop touch. Why? Why are you touching me? Stop touching me.
Um, so like,
there, there are
Alith things, but Um,
one of the things
that I wanted to keep and wanted to show is kind of
that connects
humanity
with this alien race that
that can be a bridge
for Connor, whenever he's
technically,
alone on this world is, um,
the bro Broan have a celebration called the Festival of Life, which is,
Track 1: which is.
Ross Buzzell: it celebrates when the, the survivors and the people who
were affected by the plague. Being
sent away because it saved the rest of the planet. Um,
and so it's a lot of
Track 1: a lot of
Ross Buzzell: out late
drinking, dancing.
um, but it, it's not like, it's not like
woo-hoo party.
It's more of like
a literal festival where there's a
bonfire. There are,
uh, oh, there are people selling.
like in one of the, uh, in one of the chapters, there is a person selling the equivalent of like a. Space, shbab,
um, or a, a Turkey leg or some stuff like that. And, um,
it
Track 1: like the space kebab idea,
Ross Buzzell: The space. Yes. You know, I, I, I might, I might go back and rename it before release. This is a space kabob. Um, but it was, it was really inspired by, there's this, um, Swedish event called Valori, um, which is the celebrating of the burning of the witches and. Um, it's just, it's a, it's an excuse for people to get drunk and dance around a giant fire, a bonfire, and that's
essentially what it is. So
when,
Track 1: wild. That's so macab.
Ross Buzzell: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Track 1: Oh
Ross Buzzell: So, and I, so you grew up in England? I went to high school in Sweden. So
my
first time being introduced alcohol, was a val, and they're like, Hey, by the way, we're going into the middle of the woods, dance around here. Have a.
Um,
Track 1: amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Ross Buzzell: And, uh, and so, um, like a lot of what inspired more of the grounded version of, of the Baronian culture is some of the more what would be considered quote unquote cultish parts of the Swedish society. And so, like whenever he lands the first people he runs into, he actually lands, he lands in Utah, but he for reasons, ends up in, uh, in, which is where I high school. And I primarily did that as the tip of the hat to where I went to high school. And so he, he meets half of his team is Swedish and so that, that instantly kind of creates that ground for him because that society is very similar to as far as like the way that they celebrate and how natural and like how One with Nature
the Swedes are. It's very similar to how the
Ians are,
with their world, but
while the Swedes are, are
like that because
I mean, Sweden's a beautiful country, the Ians
have to do that because their planet
is harsh, and if they don't live
with the planet,
The planet will kill them.
Interjection
---
While in some ways, my initial question was driving at the notable differences between his given settings one being earth and the other being boron. What I found interesting were the similarities. When using this configuration of the trope, it might be more interesting to talk about what your de-watered fish is drawn to, rather than what surprises them. While we have a character drawn to a Swedish affinity for nature. We note that he comes at it from a different perspective. You could imagine how their traditions might diverge. I can see moments where a Swedish character might be shown, cherishing the beauty of a sunrise over a windswept Tundra and admired the rich visual and cool touch the air. Uh, Baronian might see a jagged mountain as an invitation to climb and celebrate the Savage power of the nature that surrounds him. While both these cultures would have much to talk about and their appreciation of the same thing. Uh, they might have nuanced differences that can be explored in dialogue or approaches to problems. I think this can be a useful way to explore this Baronian characters. Contracting setting. By exploring what unites them. What makes these two areas similar?
There's a saying same, same, but different. And that applies well here. At this point, I wanted to ask a little more detail on how Ross wove Burundians into earth culture, and how he leveraged earth history to build a richer history for his earth in the books.
Ross Buzzell: it does take place in the modern day. And then with a side story, it's gonna be a short, it's gonna
actually
kind of go follow zero
the, the bad guy
through.
The changing eons of human History
and his roles that he played in them.
so
from,
and this is, again, this is sort of a side story, but it still ties into the main history where
you get to see,
Track 1: get to see,
Ross Buzzell: 'cause
I, I thought that was just
too, too great of a worldbuilding opportunity to pass up, is to see
Track 1: to see
Ross Buzzell: humans
develop
Track 1: develop
Ross Buzzell: alongside a.
Baronian, who essentially is cursed where he can't die. Um, and who is highly malevolent in how he steered human development throughout, throughout history.
Track 1: Yeah, so like turns up and like invents Facebook
Ross Buzzell: , no, no. That's the lizard people. That's
the
Track 1: that's right. Yeah. Sorry,
Ross Buzzell: invented Facebook,
Track 1: , you look through human history, you know, his Nazis marching along and, uh, In Nuremberg or whatever, and you have this guy somewhere in the photograph like kind of just showing up. I, I can kind of just imagine
Ross Buzzell: oh, did, oh, when, when, so in, in, when Connor first comes to earth and he's trying to convince people, Hey, I'm telling the truth. He
actually, he's actually like, look through history. This is what this guy looks like. Use facial recognition.
Look through history. You'll find him, and boom, he's at the right hand of Hitler.
Big surprise.
Track 1: yeah, yeah, Naturally. Yeah. Where, where else, where else would he be? Um,
yeah, yeah. No, that's kind of wild. It's, um, like in introducing, in introducing this character then to, uh, to earth and, and sort of the concept that you're playing with really here is you have somebody who, for, for all intents and purposes, looks human enough to pass for human right and is arriving in earth.
come from a world where effectively a lot of, a lot of what we would understand stand to be like mythical creatures like dragons and, and presumably some sort of Atlantis myth and unicorns and all kinds of stuff. Like
Ross Buzzell: Yeah.
Um, actually, one of the fun things about worldbuilding to, to kind of go back and touch what you said on about, did you find the, your worldbuilding expanding as you were having him interact with humanity?
Yeah.
Um, I, I was like, you know what, what would, how, how funny would it be if, you know,
'cause Baronian being on earth is a very new concept.
How funny would it be if like, Dracula. Was actually a baronian that went through like an occultic ritual during a war to turn into a monster to, to defeat like the dragons. 'cause there's a big dragon war at the beginning of Baronian culture. Um, and it was either, it was one of those I. The Barrons were the new species.
The dragons were the previous owners of the planet and it was an us or them fight. And there was
a dragon that is a planet killer
on the world that is like
the way I describe
him. He's like the, the, the size of Mount Everest.
And then, uh, I was like, you know what? Whoa. It would be kind of funny if like, Essentially Dracula ends up being like a good man who he knows he's turning into a monster.
So he's like, you know what? I need to get off this world. And so.
his affliction that makes him want to feed, 'cause originally he starts as like an energy vampire. 'cause that's how the Barrons naturally are. They absorb latent radiation.
Track 1: Radiation.
Ross Buzzell: Um,
Track 1: Yeah.
Ross Buzzell: And that gives them extreme power.
But
again, genetics,
some are more powerful than others, but
he, the the spell that affected him
Track 1: affected him
Ross Buzzell: would
eventually turn him into kinda like
a Darth Nilus where he could just
sap the life force of a planet, um,
until he figures out, oh, hey, blood's a good substitute. Um,
and so. His, his will or his desire to not
hurt his people is what kick off kicks off their space race.
Um, Because they're like, well, we gotta get,
him a ship that'll get him off planet. We don't believe in execution, so, and he didn't do
anything wrong, so let's, let's find a ship.
And so that, that kind of kicks off, uh, their space race, which puts them light years above everybody else in the te technologically in, um, in the galaxy because they were.
Track 1: They were of forced go from,
Ross Buzzell: You know,
horseback to spaceships
in about
30 years.
Track 1: years.
Ross Buzzell: So to speak. Um,
and, and so like that, that was also a fun part of worldbuilding. and.
then having it where, you know, Connor runs into Dracula for the first time on earth and Dracula tries to bite him, only to realize that he just, he literally just bit his king and
Oh goodness. I'm,
Track 1: I'm so sorry. Yeah. Um,
Ross Buzzell: but it
was, yeah,
Track 1: was, yeah,
Ross Buzzell: Filling out the world that way
as well.
Um, using
Track 1: Using
Ross Buzzell: monsters or, or characters from our mythology and
figuring out a way.
to, to have them fit and give them a reason to be so to speak.
Track 1: Yeah. No, I like that. Yeah. Combing through history and finding different elements and going, oh, well, where, how, what would be, what would be a good, what would be the true story behind this? You know, how would, how did we arrive at that adapted myth?
At this point, I wanted to get a better sense of how Ross adapted his setting to better tell his story. While I was interested in the setting, particularly I wound up finding out more about the character and Ross' has experiences that helped inform the development of his protagonist. This process led to the development of different world elements to accommodate for his character's backstory, how someone might understand a place without truly understanding it. to have the book. Smarts is not the same as having a full understanding of this new environment and its people.
The Impact of Culture Shock
---
Ross Buzzell: whenever I was developing him, I was like, you know what? I want him to be able to interact with humanity and not be, not be a grunt. I want, I want there to be like a spark of. Not necessarily genius, but a spark adaptation about him. Um, I, whenever I went back and rewrote, I rewrote him as, yeah, he was a soldier, but only because he, he was literally born to be that station firstborn, royalty fe, or royalty males. All of them become soldiers. He didn't have a choice, but he, his guilty pleasure is he would. Away from the Soldier Academy, it's called something different into the scholarly academy. Break into their archives and
just study.
And he'd do a lot of studying on humanity 'cause he found humanity very interesting.
And So
like when he comes,
to Earth, he's got a lot
of book smarts about humanity.
Track 1: about humanity,
Ross Buzzell: but it's
from a historical kind of unbiased
perspective
even though some of that, that information
is as recently as
the seventies, um, any really anything after the seventies, they don't have very good records. So whenever he comes to earth, he's, it's like if you played
the Spiderman.
game on PSS five
a whole lot and like knew, got to the point where you knew the layout in New York,
but then you
actually went to New York for the first time
and you're like,
Track 1: and you're like,
Ross Buzzell: I know what I'm doing here,
Track 1: doing here,
Ross Buzzell: but this is really different. Um, kind of that
kind
of situation and that way
it could make.
him a lot more relatable. Um, because he, he was born out of my culture shock of within 12 hours of being in
a foreign country for the first
time. I was in a boarding school.
Track 1: a boarding school. Yeah.
Ross Buzzell: and that boarding school you only got to go home on certain weekends.
You had to stay home most weekends
uh, or you had to stay at the school most weekends and then you had like two weekends.
a term, um, that you, you could choose whether or not to go home or stay at the school. Um, and so.
Track 1: And so
Ross Buzzell: Uh, it was,
it was largely
and like the year leading
up to it. We did, um,
oh, we did, uh,
Track 1: did,
Ross Buzzell: oh my gosh, Rosetta Stone,
we did a lot of research about
the, uh, about the, oh, about the country, about the people,
um, all that other stuff.
And then When you go there,
it's one of those
Track 1: one of those
Ross Buzzell: I, I
know.
Track 1: I.
Ross Buzzell: But just from a book perspective, I, I, I don't, this is, I am totally
lost here.
I know what's going on, but I'm still
totally lost here. And That's that's kinda what I wanted
Track 1: of what I wanted
Ross Buzzell: to have
for Connor because
he was my outlet in high school
to help cope with culture shock and, and all of the stuff that happened there.
Track 1: Culture shock can be like genuinely psychologically upsetting. , like it is like very, very difficult. It can feel extremely isolating,
Any Other Things to Discuss?
---
Ross Buzzell: Yeah.
Track 1: All right. That's cool. So, uh, look, where can we find your stuff?
And where's, uh, what Watts? Watt's, the new thing that's coming out.
Ross Buzzell: , this series is called Birthright. , go on Amazon, Google. Search my name, Ross Bazel. You'll find my books.
. So if you go to ross bazel.com that has
all of my books on it, it's got a link to my um, newsletter, which I am
not very,
I'm not very
consistent with.
but sign up because I am gonna be doing short story, give short story giveaways, giveaways. Whenever I'm able to start actually doing, um, merch, I'm gonna
It's gonna go up there first. before anywhere else. Um,
but yeah,
ross bazel.com. You can find all my stuff. Um, birthright will be releasing October 5th,
which is a Thursday
, you can find it on Amazon and then, uh, shortly thereafter, you'd be able to find it on ross baz com. Um,
Conclusion Key Themes CLosing Remarks
---
So that about does it for this discussion. Let's wrap up with some key takeaways.
One, don't be afraid of a good trope once in awhile. Fish out of water, as it's used by Ross, Buzzell serves as a great tool to explain your setting in a way that focuses on character growth and development. Hitting two birds with one stone.
Two. Reverse engineering of setting can be effective. Utilize opportunities where appropriate to further expand your settings through use of your characters.
I hope you'll go and check out Ross's new book. It's actually out right now and available for purchase via Amazon or on Ross's site. Ross buzzell.com. There'll be a link in the show notes. If this was useful to you, please let us know by reviewing us on your favorite podcasting app, it helps others find us as well as letting us know we're on the right track. If you want to come hang out with us, we would like to formally extend the invitation to join us on our discord server, where we talk all kinds of world buildings, exchange, memes, and sharpen skills. So for, Ross, this is James. Thank you for listening to the world craft club podcast. Catch you next time. Why? Why are you touching me? Stop touching me.
