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DragonWolf_keny
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Joined: 25 Jul 2005
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Location: Dallas texas
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 Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:39 am Post subject: Creating a World |
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Many writers have made their own distinct settings. there’s Tolkin's "middle earth" C.S. Lois's "Narnia" and of course there’s the wonderful setting of Weis & Hickman's "Dragon lance chronicles"
Some could be said as living in the worlds they create.
yes, a setting might just be the background. It mite just be a one or two paragraph set of notes. maybe its a house, a room, an item, or something of seemingly little importance. however and what ever it is if you don't have a place to tell it in you don't have a way to tell it.
In the end and all is said, "settings are important!"
I my self have created a unique setting or two.
So in this thread I thought it might be helpful and inspirational to share the process that I have developed in "Creating a World"
The first steps in creation can be a bit overwhelming to a new righter. Rest assured I have developed a technique that will simplify, and maybe even help inspire it down to a size you can manage.
The first rule is simple.
Organize! It is ever important to make sure you can find any reference or notes you need.
Organization is key, and some writers have a system that works for only them. Though it might work for some, others it can be babble and indecipherable. It depends on the style of the individual righter. Some organize in what’s relevant at the time, others are more thorough.
I myself find that in all cases, creating a setting can easily broken down into individual categories. Sometimes there are more categories than others. Also each category has its own questions associated with them.
But none the less they always can include the following:
1. The People- what kinds of people live in my world, or worlds as the case may be? What do they do, how do they live, where did they come from?
2. The Religions- What do the people believe in? what do they practice in their beliefs? What kinds of gods, if any do they believe in?
3. The Places- what kind of geography does my world or worlds have? Is it a friendly place to live? What kind of animals live there? What kind of plants?
4. The Buildings- what monuments or landmarks exist? Where do the people live? How do they build their homes?
5. The Powers- what kinds of forces exist? Good, evil, magic what elements are present in the world or worlds? What governments are there?
The second rule to me is probably the easiest one to cover, but it is important.
Have fun! if the subject is something your not enjoying then it will never be anything more than a means of income.
The third rule is a little easier but more involving.
Be imaginative! if you have no creative imagination you probably are better of writing a history book. You need to be creative, if it isn’t likely to happen in reality then that doesn’t necessarily mean it cant happen in your work. That is why it is called fiction after all, is it not?
This point can be a bit tricky, as it doesn’t really have solid boundaries or guidelines. You and only you decide what is acceptable. Though criticism is a good means to judge what might be or not be a good idea, it is not necessary to force yourself to others expectations.
Even weather you are righting for professionals or just to entertain your friends it is your world!
If you follow these three simple guidelines, then you'll defiantly be on your way to building a setting that is worthy of your stories.
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DragonWolf_keny
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| Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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feel free to comment or discus anything that you guys might think I mite have missed, or need to elaborate on.
I think this mite be a good start for some new righter. it helped me quite a bit as while I wrote it I realized just the first rule was inspirational when answering the questions.
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Virmir
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DragonWolf_keny
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| Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:48 pm Post subject: |
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your very welcome it was actually some what helpful to my self just to get the ideas going for my own works. strange in an effort to help others I actually helped myself. Irony is fickle isn't it?
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"words are the window to the imagination."
Last edited by DragonWolf_keny on Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ScottyDM
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Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
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| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:44 pm Post subject: Re: Creating a World |
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| DragonWolf_keny wrote: | | Organization is key, and some writers have a system that works for only them. Though it might work for some, others it can be babble and indecipherable. It depends on the style of the individual righter. Some organize in what’s relevant at the time, others are more thorough. |
We must organize our thoughts, and we must also organize whatever it is our thoughts create.
Organizing Our Creations
Folders containing documents, pictures, movies (animal behavior), maps, satellite photos, web page shortcuts, etc. is one method. It's there and it's free, but management is manual and you can only see a bit of the whole at any one time.
One could use database software, but that requires a lot of up-front design work and databases are flat, not hierarchical. The basis of a database is a simple 2D table. In real world application the complexity is designed in by creating many different types of tables then tying them together with still more tables -- not something an author should ever have to put up with.
One could use a spreadsheet, but that paradigm is equivalent of a database table -- easier to implement, but even more limited.
One could create a massive Word document written in outline form. It's my understanding that if you use Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. and actually build a structure to the document rather than manually diddling fonts and whatnot, you can switch the deeper detailed levels on and off visually, which allows you to see more at a glance -- however, you end up with pretty much everything jammed into a single document and all organization is manual.
There's a class of software that's not yet gone mainstream that can be called thought organizing software, a.k.a. mind mapping software. It's a lot more free-form than any of the other methods because our minds and thoughts are a lot more chaotic than a simple 2D table or an outline. Because of it's newness, the commercial versions are still fairly cheap (they're looking for a market) and there are plenty of free titles available too.
I'm just starting to play around with this and I'd like to bring two titles to your attention. They approach the problem using completely different paradigms and they look like they might be complementary -- that is you could use both at the same time.
FreeMind is a tool that uses information nodes tied together via links that graphically show the relationships between the nodes of information. Each node could be a text note, or a link to some file such as a picture, web page, Word document, or some other resource. FreeMind's "maps" are stored in XML format and because of this and possibly other design decisions, it is hierarchically organized. You can see your entire "mind map" at a glance (if you have a big enough screen) but you cannot break out of the hierarchical paradigm.
FreeMind is free to get and run, and it's open source, released under the GPL. It's written in Java, so if you don't have it you'll need to first install the Java Runtime Environment from Sun (also free). Details at the FreeMind Wiki page (link above).
CmapTools is called a "knowledge modeling kit" by IHMC, the people who created the software. It also uses information nodes tied together via links that graphically show the relationships between nodes, but is flat rather than hierarchical. However, it's advantage over FreeMind is that the relationships between nodes can be very complex and wildly intertwingled. It's a bit like writing down scraps of information on 3 x 5 cards (the information nodes) then laying them out on your living room floor and interconnecting them with bits of string -- you can connect any card to any card with no restriction. Also, the bits of string can contain brief notes showing the meaning of the relationship. Nodes can contain text data and links to other resources such as pictures, Word documents, other Cmaps, etc. The disadvantage is the flat nature -- you can only see one level of the hierarchy at a time.
IHMC is the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. A consortium of some Florida universities. They have a dual license: for commercial use you have to pay, for individual or education use it is free. Details on the Cmap website, link above.
Well, I could say more but I've got to run for now...
Have fun!
Scotty
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| Kantaro wrote: | | Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up. |
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DragonWolf_keny
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:22 am Post subject: |
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Those are some nice points.
The software seems a bit complicated but then again so is everything involving a computer. I tend to physically write everything down as it is hard to plagiarize someones handwriting you cant read.  However that can have the down side that it can be hard to manage, and organize when you lose your notes.  which I tend to do quite often.
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Nameless
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:32 am Post subject: |
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One thing that you should really be careful with is to make the world internally consistent and logical.
Often in stories I see worlds where magic is commonplace but the rest of the world is just like our world's medieval age, for example. But if there is a real mage around every corner and the gods regularly listen to prayers and grant miracles, then this will have a huge impact on the world.
I mean, often you see the village wizard sit around with a couple of standard D&D spells, waiting for adventurers to show up. Is this really logical, would he not have some spells to help the other villagers with their work (for a small fee)?
And once you have those spells, why wouldn't a normal villager send his children to the wizard to learn a few useful cantrips?
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ScottyDM
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Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:59 am Post subject: |
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| DragonWolf_keny wrote: | | The software seems a bit complicated but then again so is everything involving a computer. |
True.
I find it is usually harder to do something on the computer than it is using traditional techniques... the first time. However, modification and saving older versions is so dang simple on the computer that it makes up for the initial difficulty.
| DragonWolf_keny wrote: | | I tend to physically write everything down as it is hard to plagiarize someones handwriting you cant read. |
I would hope you're not plagued by people sneaking through your notes, on paper or electronic, to steal your ideas. Usually plagiarists will steal ideas out of a finished work. In literature it isn't possible to lock up ideas, so you don't need to worry a thief will "register" his version before you do and keep you from publishing your story--unlike in the world of patents or trademarks.
As for plagiarism, I'd be more afraid of being accused of plagiarism than someone plagiarizing me. Good notes showing the progression of how an idea was developed is about the only real defense. It's a bit harder to fake paper notes, when they are done right, than computerized files. But seriously, if you've got a 100,000 word fantasy novel with your world-building and species-building notes plus all your revisions, you'll have at least 200,000 to 300,000 words of stuff, probably more. No one goes back and "invents" all that detail if it didn't first exist.
I spun a short story out of a novel I'm working on, really just a single chapter that's been packaged as a stand alone story. Someone pointed out that it was a furry version of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and I was surprised. Yes, I'd seen the movie a long, long time ago and loved it, so it might be possible I subconsciously plagiarized the movie (you cannot plagiarize something you have no knowledge of). While the basics of my stand alone story and Dinner were identical, most of the details and most importantly purpose differed. Dinner's purpose was to highlight the racial tension inherent in a mixed marriage between a white girl and a black guy in the '60s in the USA. My purpose was that in the novel the human girl is trying to win the reluctant fox guy and she enlists the help of her mother, and the mother needs to meet the guy and accept him before she'll be motivated to help her daughter--taking the guy home to meet the 'rents was only a single chapter in the novel. When the novel is complete and I unveil it to the world, I seriously doubt anyone will say, "Oh, chapter __ is just like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. You must have borrowed the idea from the movie," because they'll see the context. But if I never finish the novel I still have all my notes that proves the context and purpose of my short story.
I used to toss out older revisions and keep only the current revision of a story. Not any more.
| Nameless wrote: | | One thing that you should really be careful with is to make the world internally consistent and logical. |
Absolutely! That's really the major purpose of world-building. If you just make stuff up on the fly... good luck.
| Nameless wrote: | Often in stories I see worlds where magic is commonplace but the rest of the world is just like our world's medieval age, for example. But if there is a real mage around every corner and the gods regularly listen to prayers and grant miracles, then this will have a huge impact on the world.
I mean, often you see the village wizard sit around with a couple of standard D&D spells, waiting for adventurers to show up. Is this really logical, would he not have some spells to help the other villagers with their work (for a small fee)?
And once you have those spells, why wouldn't a normal villager send his children to the wizard to learn a few useful cantrips? |
I used to play AD&D back in the late 70s. There was some discussion of what inspired the game and various modules. Lord of the Rings, certainly, but especially Norton's Witch World series. The problem with trying to create a campaign from a fantasy book is that a role-playing game and a fantasy book are very, very different beasts. A book is tightly scripted, a game is parameter and rule based. It takes a huge amount of work to do this successfully. When complete the best you can say is that campaign ____ was inspired by the book ____.
Likewise, going from a game back to a book takes a huge amount of work to do successfully. The vast majority of stories based on role-playing games are pure garbage. In fact, the vast majority of stories where the world-building was taken directly from role-playing games are pure garbage. The key word is "directly". If your world-building is inspired by some of the elements of a game, it can work. But you need to put in the work necessary to transform what works for a game into something that works for a story.
What's a "cantrip"?
Holly Lisle, who has over two-dozen books professionally published (and many of them fantasy or sci-fi), has a really nice website with some great ideas on how to write fiction. Here are a few of her essays on world-building.
Questions About Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding -- Rollicking Rules of Ecosystems
Maps Workshop -- Developing the Fictional World through Mapping
How Much of My World Do I Build
Fantasy Is Not for Sissies: Real Rules for Real Worlds
Holly Lisle's Create A Language Clinic
On plagiarism: How To (Legally and Ethically) Steal Ideas
Holly's Workshop Index which lists all her on-line essays.
Hey, have fun!
Scotty
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| Kantaro wrote: | | Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up. |
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Nameless
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| Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:29 am Post subject: |
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| ScottyDM wrote: | | What's a "cantrip"? |
It's another word for "spell" as in the magical spell (not as in spelling). In D&D terminology it is a level 0 spell, the first spells that an apprentice learns.
I wasn't specifically refering to D&D, but I have read too many stories where magic is common enough that it really should affect the life of even the common people, but it doesn't.
When there are magic users around, every wise ruler (or even rich merchant) will want to have some at his beck and call. Throwing a couple of fireballs at a critical point in a battle or scrying where exactly the enemy army are reason enough, but if the mage can break that draught before the crops fail, then he's worth more than his weight in gold.
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mwalimu
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| Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 1:45 pm Post subject: |
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One of the rules I've heard from the experts about world building is to know your story first, have a pretty good idea what kind of plot and characters you want to develop. Then you develop the setting, the world, in a manner that supports the story you want to write.
Too often, aspiring writers will build a world, complete with races that have their own history and cultures, all kinds of rules about how magic works, and so on and so forth, but they don't really have any kind of story planned out and may even have trouble coming up with a story that is consistent with the world they've already created. The experts will tell you they've put the cart before the horse. Know what story you want to tell first, then build the world to support it.
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ScottyDM
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| Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Nameless wrote: | | It's another word for "spell"... In D&D terminology it is a level 0 spell, the first spells that an apprentice learns. |
Cool beans. Thanks!
I agree that in the real world things would be far more deeply intertwingled than they typically are in a game. The game is a simulation of the "real world" and it's hard enough to manage that simulation as is. A book is the telling of some event from the "real world" and all is orchestrated by the author.
It's not that characters in a book don't want to win, but they are a product of the author's imagination and are created for a purpose, so their desires and personality will fit with the story. Game players are not a product of the DM's imagination but real people, and they often fight against the DM's plans. In a game the heroes are the players (with a mind of their own) and the villains are like cardboard cutouts whose only purpose is to oppose the heroes. In a book the villains can have families, goals, loves, and their own story (even if incompletely told), which will enrich a book--while all of that is worse than useless in a game.
| mwalimu wrote: | | One of the rules I've heard from the experts about world building is to know your story first, have a pretty good idea what kind of plot and characters you want to develop. Then you develop the setting, the world, in a manner that supports the story you want to write. |
Yes and no. The problem with such rules is they don't fit everyone.
Some people preplan every detail of their story before they write the opening sentence and some will write their complete first draft before they really have a clue what the story is about (and hope some clue will arrive before they finish). Most authors are somewhere between those extremes. The preplanners spend a very long time before they start writing anything, but their first draft will be remarkably close to their final. And the "write first, think later" people spend a very long time on revision after revision trying to get their story polished. Neither approach is wrong.
Likewise, with the "world building first" or "know the story first" approaches. Neither is wrong. World building will often give an author a whole pile of ideas for stories that fit that world perfectly. However, your experts are correct in saying that if you build a world first, then try to shoehorn in some story, you'll have problems. I think it comes down to inspiration.
BTW, Tolkien had been working on Middle Earth long before he started writing The Hobbit. No matter what you think of the writing style he displayed in The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, you cannot say those stories do not fit the world he created.
I'm sure y'all have heard of Randy Ingermanson's snowflake method of planning/analyzing a novel (I won't bother to link, but you can Google "snowflake Ingermanson" if you've not seen it). His snowflake is a ten step process. Since he writes sci-fi I was a little surprised to see he has no world building in the snowflake. After step 1 it alternates between refining the plot and refining the characters. I've been thinking of a modification for the snowflake that includes world building, species building, and other necessary tasks, as required by a particular story. For example if you're writing a historic novel you'll need steps that'll be unnecessary if you set your novel in the current milieu.
The problem with Randy's snowflake is the concept that you do step 2 before you do step 3, and step 4 before you do step 5, etc. The truth is steps 2 and 3 can be done in parallel, steps 4 and 5 can be done in parallel, etc. because they are on different "tracks".
Aside: preplanners will want to do the snowflake before they do anything else. But the "write the story first" people can still use the snowflake to analyze their first draft and help them find their strengths and what still needs work.
Step 1: This is the same as Randy's: write a one-sentence summary of your story. Who is your main character, what does she want, and what is her main difficultly. See Randy's site for details. Note for world builders who don't have a story idea--skip down to step 2 and come back to step 1 later.
Step 2: Now here's were we break the flow into separate "tracks". Randy covers plot building (story building) and character building, let's call plot building track A and character building track B, but his snowflake says nothing about the other tracks. These usually get lumped under world building, but that can and probably should be split into separate tracks.
Tracks A and B are necessary, all other tracks are optional and depend on the genre of the story.
Track C: For anthro/furry fiction a critical step is species building (some may think of it as race building). For example if you have a race of anthro-rabbits, how does their society work? If rabbits had language and used tools their society would still very likely be different from humans, and different from anthro-wolves--even when all three species live and work side by side. If this isn't the case for your story then at least you thought about it and made the decision that rabbits, humans, and wolves all have a common society. Also useful for sci-fi and fantasy, but as race building it can be useful for a wide variety of genres where you want to highlight that people X are different from people Y and use those differences.
Track D: Language building, as outlined in Holly Lisle's Create A Language Clinic, link above. Optional for most stories, but I placed it next to species building because it is closely tied to that task.
Track E: Science building or magic building. Necessary for sci-fi or fantasy, probably not for most other genres. If you're writing supernatural fiction, for example, you could use this step to outline how your spirit realm works. Another example would be to outline the extent of an ancient race's technology (bronze age, stone age, agrarian techniques, etc.). If your race's religion is incapable of true miracles, then keep it in species/race building, but if miracles are possible then you might want to outline the how and when in this track.
Track F: World building. I saved this for last because to me it's about the physical setting of the story. Geography and meteorology of course, but also the architecture of the buildings, siting of the towns, transportation, and other physical aspects of the world. This track is probably the one that, like tracks A and B, is not optional. Even if your whole story takes place in a locked room you should probably decide where the furniture is located and what kind of furniture it is.
The point of the snowflake is you start simple and work more and more complexity into the system until you have a complete foundation on which to base your story. The plot is done and detailed, your characters are well known to you, your geography has the right stuff, and you know the necessary extent of science or magic your characters use.
So each track will need steps. Start simple and work out. But in my opinion some of these tracks are no so easy to "stepify", so I'm not quite sure where to take this. Except to at least think about these tracks (and maybe others). For example in species building I may not know the steps, but I know the sub-tracks: diet, reproduction, senses, body language, etc.
Also, it's not so much creating "magic" templates and filling in the blanks, which seem popular for a track like character building. Maybe some authors can get some use out of a list of a particular character's favorite things. For me it isn't that Suzette liked Sleepless in Seattle, but what were the events that led up to Suzette's taste in movies? What about Sleepless in Seattle appeals to her? I do this through little stories told in narrative (summary) fashion. "In fifth grade Suzette best friend moved to another state and this forced Suzette to..." That sort of thing. And for character building, maybe that's my steps: tell some stories, then start to coalesce that background into information about Suzette today. Other things such as her family members are a bit easier.
Umm, yea. World building... It's really just all the background stuff that makes your storyverse what it is.
Scotty
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| Kantaro wrote: | | Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up. |
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DragonWolf_keny
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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that is kinda why I kept my original post so vague. because we all have our individual styles and there's no way to possibly cover them all.
There are several approaches to any one aspect. There will always be a new way to create something as innovative as some call the "unbeatable titans" like for example, Tolkien, George Lucas and others.
I find most early writers get into what I call "Peer Trends" these are things that are basically "everybody's doing it!" kind of points. For example in fantasy like it is pointed out earlier in this thread where magic is supposed to be common place but only a few seem to practice it.
these 'Peer Trends can often be shaped by the individual Genera they are used. for another example in science fiction, magic is often replaced by reason ( in some cases like star wars a religion, through the Force) or in most cases done away with all together.
I myself like to try to shy from such things. As I like to put it if you bake the play-doh you can no longer reshape it. by using those trends you limit yourself to the boundaries of others expectations.
Peer trends can however still be used in a positive way as long as you keep them as vague as possible.
I.E. my above sci-fi example if you only use the vague part as replacing magic with a realign. if it is used in a way that it just works its easy to still be creative by never explaining how.
in the end remember the last rule. "its your world!"
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DragonWolf_keny
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| Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 2:22 am Post subject: |
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I noticed there are allot of things pointing towards character in this thread. it hasn't really been directly mentioned however, I thought a thread on creating characters might not go amiss.
I plan to post one when I find time to write it up but it certainly seems a topic worth posting. (also if I can,t get around to it, if someone else would be so kind as to post one for me)
Also if it might be possible could a moderator sticky this thread, it's just pretty useful as it is. I'm not sure about others but it somehow seems that relevant to me. also if a moderator would be so kind as to pm me notification and erase this request if you do.
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Last edited by DragonWolf_keny on Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:22 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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ScottyDM
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Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
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| Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 6:28 am Post subject: |
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| DragonWolf_keny wrote: | | I noticed there are allot of things pointing towards character in this thread. it hasn't really been directly mentioned however, I thought a thread on creating characters might nit go amiss. |
True.
Normally what writers call character building or characterization is about individuals. However, as writers of anthro/furry fiction we should also do a second sort of character building that has to do with the species.
I assume you mean the first type of characterization.
Back to building your world's geography...
I've been involved with on-line multi-person VR worlds since 1997 and have owned a private world for quite some time. I became interested in 3D landscapes early on and there's a very good tool for such that also has strong application for authors who want to do a bit of geography while world building.
The tool currently sells for $150 (US), so it isn't for everyone. It's called Leveller by Daylon Graphics.
The beauty of Leveller is that you can take your pencil sketched map, scan it into to the computer, drop it on top of a flat (new/blank) Leveller heightfield, and then use the scan as a texture to give you a guide to sculpt your landscape in height as well as latitude and longitude. Or you could do all your work in Leveller and skip the pencil sketch. You can also export 2D maps as well as 3D renders.
There are two window panes in Leveller: the right-hand pane is your top down view of your map where you do your editing and the left-hand pane is the rendered 3D view. You can do flybys in the 3D pane and set camera position and other good stuff.
This way you can answer questions about your world such as: "As my characters sail into Westmark harbor, can they see the summit of Ol' Smokey Top? Or do they have to take the High Road to the top of the E-W escarpment first?" And, "How far along the Mountain Road must they travel before they get a good look at the Forbidden Valley?" Questions that are hard to answer from a 2D pencil sketch.
Anyway, it's a fun toy and can be useful. The price is probably a bit much for a purely author's tool, but if you're into art and especially 3D modeling it can be useful enough to justify the cost. For general art use here's an example of a banner I made for my cousin's website using MS Word for the text and font, and Leveller for everything else including rendering. http://www.perrybdavis.com/common/banner.jpg
Why Leveller is better than that free program...
It lets you work in heightfields of arbitrary size, not just square heightfields limited to powers of 2. Also there are no program limits, the limit is practical and tied to how much memory you have. The website suggests a practical limit may be 36 million data points.
You can set the any arbitrary unit for your data point spacing, which allows you to work directly in your world's units (meters, for example).
Leveller gives you absolute and total control over any datapoint. It will allow you to paint your landscape with a rather broad brush, but it will also let you get down to edit a single datapoint at a time.
Some things that free program is better at then Leveller...
It does procedural textures better so your static renders look pretty fantastic.
It can auto generate some types of landscapes better, more realistic looking than Leveller's (hand editing is almost completely useless though).
This wasn't for a storyworld, but here's a project I did in Leveller. The 3D rendered screen captures were done inside a VR world. My stony-grass textures suck, I know (can't blame Leveller for that).  There were about 1.3 million datapoints in this project.
Here's the map for the SkunkWks world project. This is a much tinier world than most world-building projects, but the datapoints are on a 2.5 meter grid (super detailed). This map features false color to show relative altitude coupled with an accurate overlay texture to show waterways and pathways. One can also do greens, browns, and other natural colors rather than false colors. If this is the kind of map you have in mind for your world building you can include buildings and other man made features in the overlay texture, so there's no need to learn a lot of 3D modeling to get useful results. Leveller is fairly easy to use. It's more like painting than modeling.
As a planning tool for world construction, it is unparalleled. It can also spew detailed, full color 2D maps. That might be useful.
Scotty
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| Kantaro wrote: | | Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up. |
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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
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| Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:07 am Post subject: |
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Back about half-way up this page I mentioned Randy Ingermanson and his snowflake method of planning/analyzing a novel. He has a monthly e-zine he e-mails out on the craft and business of writing fiction. I was looking at the latest issue, which prompted me to look at September's issue, which prompted me to look at August's issue. All talk of world building.
First, the legalities. Randy says it's okay to redistribute his articles as long as I include this blurb: | Randy Ingermanson in his blurb wrote: | | Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 9000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com. Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel. |
Nice! Next, the first of Randy's articles on world building: | Randy Ingermanson in StoryWorld part 1 wrote: | The Importance of StoryWorld
Are you a Harry Potter fan? Did you join the zillions of zealots who waited till midnight to get Book 7 in the series?
I was on a cruise when the book came out, but the first thing I did when I got off the boat was to head for the store and grab my copy. Copies, actually -- one for me, two for my kids.
Why? What captivated me with this series? What compelled millions of other fans to stand in long lines to get their books? What makes the Harry Potter books work?
After all, if you look around on the web, you'll find all sorts of Muggle-headed critics who claim that J.K. Rowling's style is "clunky" and that she uses (gasp) adverbs too much.
And yet there's something magical about this series. I'm a huge fan of Harry and Ron and Hermione and Neville and Luna and Ginny.
What makes Harry Potter fly?
Is it humor? That's part of it, no doubt. The books have plenty of comic moments. The day Fred and George left Hogwarts will live forever. But I've read a fair number of books that are funnier. Humor isn't the magic secret of these books.
Is it magic? That's part of it, too, I'm sure. Although all but the dullest readers have got to realize that the magic doesn't actually work. If you've ever absent-mindedly muttered "wingardium leviosa" at the saltshaker while reading a Potter book over a long lunch, you know darn well that saying the words doesn't do a blasted thing.
Is it the extended backstory of all the characters? The endlessly complicated plots? The clever misdirection of the reader's attention? Yes, all of those add to the story. But if you want deep characters, dive into Dostoevsky. If you want complicated plots, grab a Grisham. If you want misdirection, look into LeCarre.
My opinion is that what makes the Potter books work so well is that the StoryWorld is so carefully imagined and well-presented. An enormous amount of thought has gone into how the magical world works. (Not HOW the magic works, but what rules restrict the magic so that not everything is possible.) Because the problem with magic stories where everything is possible is that there isn't any conflict. Conflict requires obstacles, and obstacles don't exist when you can do anything you want by using the right spell.
You can't Apparate into Hogwarts. You can't conjure up food. You can't block one of the Unforgiveable Curses. You can cast a spell at your enemy with your wand, but it may miss, sometimes by just a whisker. The Mirror of Erised shows you what you want most deeply, but it can be limited to show you only things that you will not use. You can wear an Invisibility cloak, but some wizards can see through it. You can be cured of horrific injuries, but if you die, there is no returning.
Readers of the Potter books know dozens or hundreds of such rules. The rules aren't necessarily logical -- at least not to Muggles. But the rules govern the reality of Harry's world, and some of the rules can override other rules.
All of these rules are shown in action or explained in dialogue. Together, they make a world of magic, but a world in which it simply isn't true that "anything is possible."
That, I think, is the magic of these books. It's a world with just as many rules and constraints as our world -- but they're different rules and constraints. And they all make sense, somehow, some way.
When you open a Harry Potter book, you're in a different world. It's a magical world, but a world with real challenges, real trouble, real evil. It's a world with a backstory of its own. The StoryWorld of this series is virtually a character in its own right.
I'm reminded of another series that created its own StoryWorld supremely well -- The Lord of the Rings. LOTR has even more backstory than the Potter books, and it has a more complex geography, but it has less magic and the rules governing the magic are less clear. But Middle Earth is a major character in LOTR, maybe even the most important character.
In both books, the reader is sucked into a complex StoryWorld that feels utterly different than our own world, and yet strangely familiar.
StoryWorld is immensely important in writing a novel. This is especially true in the fantasy genre, but it's also true for historical fiction, westerns, and science fiction. Most other genres can be improved by creating a strong StoryWorld.
Over the next few months, I'll be examining StoryWorld in depth in a series of articles. |
I'll get around to posting parts two and three a little later. I need to fly.
Scotty
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| Kantaro wrote: | | Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up. |
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