Every so often I read something where an author is talking about their writing process…. and invariably the topic of world building comes up.\u00a0 Recently I heard a bit about how for some people its outlines and for some its a quick written recap and then I hear about the person who consistently does about 800 pages of world building until everything seems so solid in her mind that main characters and plot lines stand out clearly.
\nAnd it occurred to me…\u00a0 is that why I’ve not been writing as much?\u00a0 My worlds aren’t as clear?\u00a0 My plots are too vague?\u00a0 I don’t know my characters well enough?<\/p>\n
See the first book I wrote wasn’t set in anything that needed world building.\u00a0 And the fan fiction I wrote already had its worlds all nicely done.\u00a0 But the current books I’ve plotted and half started (there are 6 of them now, although 3 are a series)\u00a0 haven’t really taken over my every waking moment like that first book did.\u00a0 At least with that one I not only finished it, I wrote a sequel.\u00a0 But the characters.. well, they were very, very clear and it was set in today not in space or another made up world.<\/p>\n
Of course the other reason for not writing so much was instead doing a love of LIVING and that took up more of my mindset.<\/p>\n
Now I have a bit of a plus on my books.\u00a0 Almost every book I’ve plotted has been started from very clear characters in dreams I’ve had.\u00a0 (I dream the most interesting strange stuff!!)\u00a0 But I will admit that the space book’s dream main character became a supporting character as I wrote out the plot line which was surprising.\u00a0\u00a0 And a case in point for how world building changes your initial writing conceptions.<\/p>\n
But, my God, World Building is it taxing!!\u00a0 There is soooo much thinking to do in it.\u00a0 So many choices to be made.\u00a0 How much science to put in the space novel.\u00a0 How much history in the fantasy novel.\u00a0 How much damn computer tech to put in the modern day Satyr novel!\u00a0 Gack!\u00a0 The decisions are endless and often just screech me to a halt.\u00a0 I spend endless minutes playing plot points out in my head, sentence after sentence to figure out what will work there and seem logical and dammit… am I pulling science now outa my imagination!?!<\/p>\n
I’ll be at a decision point in a story and stop to stare into space trying to figure out where the character goes next.\u00a0 And I stare and I get distracted and then before I know it I’m checking Facebook and the dating sites… ANYTHING cuz I’m not in the writing zone over all these little details which seem trivial but also seem important to the story.\u00a0\u00a0 It makes the entire process arduous.<\/p>\n
So the point of this blog is to (1) bitch about what’s currently frustrating me and (2) encourage myself to buckle down and really do some serious world building to crystallize the books in my head and (3) to ask… just how much to I even bother to EDIT when its just World Building?!\u00a0 \u00a0 But the difficulty becomes which of the worlds do I focus on?<\/p>\n
The Satyr one won’t take as much as its set in modern times, but since it ends up a sort of Hogwarts for the mixed Fey Human which is where the action begins it could easily be turned into a series.\u00a0 The biggest pain will be researching all the fey.\u00a0 Research tend to bog me down.<\/p>\n
The Slut book is a clear single book as she gets the boy in the end and story done.\u00a0 But its a Fantasy and I have to build two kingdoms, why their societies developed so differently and what the hell happened to the psychedelic radiation zone that our hero can sort of control.\u00a0 And did I mention this was a pre-industrial society?\u00a0\u00a0 Horses, wagons, gowns, swords, etc.<\/p>\n
The space book…. well, I’ll be honest… I’m gonna mine all my own reading to come up with that.. but I’ll have to set up SOME sort of government system that our intrepid Firefly like captain and her crew live in.\u00a0 Borrowing heavily from the amazing talents of Elizabeth Moon and maybe David Weber.. not their plot lines or characters… just their space schematics!\u00a0 haha\u00a0 And I’ll try not to invent too much implausible science along the way!\u00a0 Although that actually turned into a main plot point when I plotted it (and myself) into a corner.\u00a0 :\/<\/p>\n
The 3 book multidimensional world series is problematic because the first one starts with the God world and not the Magic world and that one is more complicated to build.\u00a0 One would assume it wouldn’t be since basically all the God’s went to war with each other and all I have left to deal with are the demi-gods and humans with god ancestors.\u00a0 But holy crap there have been a LOT of Gods in human history!\u00a0 And decisions like do the Roman and Greek ban together since they’re the same Gods and battle the Incan and Aztec Gods and who does the Egyptian Gods fight or do they start it all?\u00a0 Like I said, so many choices and decisions!<\/p>\n
It’s this level of world building that is both fun and insanely difficult!\u00a0 Some of the answers come easy and some make me want to do research to get it right.\u00a0\u00a0 But research takes oh so much time and usually I have so little of it.\u00a0\u00a0 But maybe, just maybe, I can squeeze enough world building pages out of me onto my computer so when I have the time to spend, like I did this past weekend, I can read over what I have and submerge myself into the world I’ve built enough to smoothly get those characters moving down the writing road.<\/p>\n
Can’t tell if that’s a logical theory or just be procrastinating!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every so often I read something where an author is talking about their writing process…. and invariably the topic of world building comes up.\u00a0 Recently I heard a bit about how for some people its outlines and for some its … Continue reading