World Building
A whole new [living] world!
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| A dazzling place I never knew. Aladdin © Disney |
Don't judge me.
Every great story has a great setting created by a great author. JK Rowling created Hogwarts. Tolkien created Middle Earth. Terry Pratchett created Discworld. Suzanne Collins created Panem. Whether the setting is on an imagined world, tucked creatively within our real world, or is a dystopian version of our own, these great settings did not spring forth from the ether fully fleshed out and ready to have stories told about and within them. For Tolkien, it was his life's work that created Arda and Middle-Earth. Years of studying old languages, creating new ones, and writing (either poetry in the trenches of The Great War or the first lines of "The Hobbit" on the back of a student's exam) culminated in the fantasy realm that inspired so many others. The same goes for most authors. Each took their passions and their life experiences and used them to craft their world. And these works become the experiences of others, which then shapes the world. There's a reason D&D, Dragon Age, and EverQuest, to name a few, all involve elves, dwarves, wizards, and dragons. His name is Tolkien. JK Rowling will no doubt shape the future of how people think of magic, as games, music, and even plays take inspiration from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter TM. Each author's world has become a place others love to dwell in.
Every author seeks to draw you into their setting one way or another. A friend of mine, Robin Dilks, self-published a paranormal romance novel that takes place in both the historical past and the present, redefining the mythology of the Biblical character Lilith in "Rachael Awakened." (Still reading it. Review pending.) I was drawn into how she mixed paranormal tropes like demons, werewolves, and vampires, with historical eras like renaissance Italy. With mine, I hope to appeal to high fantasy readers looking for something a little different, by playing with the established genre enough to make things unique and fresh.
For my story, creating the world started by figuring out some of the mythology that would be present. Since I was following Tolkien for inspiration, that started with deciding that there would be a pantheon of deities. From there, I had to have some sort of explanation for their existence, as well as an explanation of where the physical world came from. I'll save the specifics for now but I ended up going with something slightly more cosmic than creationist, meaning the deities did not necessary "create" the world the story takes place in. Shaped it, sure, but they did not "sing it into existence" like Iluvatar and the Valar did at the very beginning of "The Silmarillion."
My next step was, silly as it sounds, finding conflict. In Tolkien's mythology, Melkor is the Big Bad Dark Lord from Day: Zero, and I sincerely wanted to do something else. While I still wanted to play with those two tropes, I did not want my work to come off as even a little cliche (even though it probably will anyway), so I choose to take a more Lovecraftian angle toward the the Big Bad, while saving the Dark Lord bit for something else. But I won't say more. You'll have to read my book!
From there it was trying to decide what the world contained as far as sentients. Most fantasy works, and especially science fiction works, have different kinds of mortal beings who interact and sometimes represent different thing. Most times they are allegories for different real world states, religions, philosophies, or ethnicities. "Redwall," a classic about a mouse who becomes a hero to save his little town, uses animals like mice, badgers, otters, and cats, to represent different kinds of people, with some being summarily bad (like evil rats opposed to the good mice). Sometimes these allegorical pieces are intended and other times not, and only revealed through analysis. I am doing some of this, but in a way where the individual cultures of my lizard people, and of any other sentients I include, will say more about what they represent then the being itself, while still letting the nature of certain beings influence that same representation. If that sounds confusing: You'll have to read my book!
And then it's identifying what sorts of cultures this world will have that comes next. My story starts in a very tribal setting for a few reasons, it never stays there. Just as LotR moves from the Hobbit filled Shire culture to the many Mannish cultures across Middle Earth (from Bree to Rohan to Gondor and back), so too will my story explore the world and its cultures. That I think is one of the most important aspects of world building. If you try to write a white washed world where Good here is Good there and everyone agrees that Good is Good, well it just doesn't reach the level a world that's complex and diverse. What's Good in the protagonist's hometown might not be looked upon the same in a corrupt city where the only way to survive is to commit crimes. That creates conflict, and conflict is what drives a story.
I wrote previously that I bounce back and forth between world building and actually writing the story. I'm still not sure what would work best (for me or other people) but I have to say that without knowing enough about the places my characters are going, I can't write. So if you're reading this for writing types, consider what works best for you, first, and then accept advice that you find helpful. And always remember that if you think it will work and it doesn't, try something else. Don't force it. I never write well when I force it. Thanks for reading.
Every author seeks to draw you into their setting one way or another. A friend of mine, Robin Dilks, self-published a paranormal romance novel that takes place in both the historical past and the present, redefining the mythology of the Biblical character Lilith in "Rachael Awakened." (Still reading it. Review pending.) I was drawn into how she mixed paranormal tropes like demons, werewolves, and vampires, with historical eras like renaissance Italy. With mine, I hope to appeal to high fantasy readers looking for something a little different, by playing with the established genre enough to make things unique and fresh.
For my story, creating the world started by figuring out some of the mythology that would be present. Since I was following Tolkien for inspiration, that started with deciding that there would be a pantheon of deities. From there, I had to have some sort of explanation for their existence, as well as an explanation of where the physical world came from. I'll save the specifics for now but I ended up going with something slightly more cosmic than creationist, meaning the deities did not necessary "create" the world the story takes place in. Shaped it, sure, but they did not "sing it into existence" like Iluvatar and the Valar did at the very beginning of "The Silmarillion."
My next step was, silly as it sounds, finding conflict. In Tolkien's mythology, Melkor is the Big Bad Dark Lord from Day: Zero, and I sincerely wanted to do something else. While I still wanted to play with those two tropes, I did not want my work to come off as even a little cliche (even though it probably will anyway), so I choose to take a more Lovecraftian angle toward the the Big Bad, while saving the Dark Lord bit for something else. But I won't say more. You'll have to read my book!
From there it was trying to decide what the world contained as far as sentients. Most fantasy works, and especially science fiction works, have different kinds of mortal beings who interact and sometimes represent different thing. Most times they are allegories for different real world states, religions, philosophies, or ethnicities. "Redwall," a classic about a mouse who becomes a hero to save his little town, uses animals like mice, badgers, otters, and cats, to represent different kinds of people, with some being summarily bad (like evil rats opposed to the good mice). Sometimes these allegorical pieces are intended and other times not, and only revealed through analysis. I am doing some of this, but in a way where the individual cultures of my lizard people, and of any other sentients I include, will say more about what they represent then the being itself, while still letting the nature of certain beings influence that same representation. If that sounds confusing: You'll have to read my book!
And then it's identifying what sorts of cultures this world will have that comes next. My story starts in a very tribal setting for a few reasons, it never stays there. Just as LotR moves from the Hobbit filled Shire culture to the many Mannish cultures across Middle Earth (from Bree to Rohan to Gondor and back), so too will my story explore the world and its cultures. That I think is one of the most important aspects of world building. If you try to write a white washed world where Good here is Good there and everyone agrees that Good is Good, well it just doesn't reach the level a world that's complex and diverse. What's Good in the protagonist's hometown might not be looked upon the same in a corrupt city where the only way to survive is to commit crimes. That creates conflict, and conflict is what drives a story.
I wrote previously that I bounce back and forth between world building and actually writing the story. I'm still not sure what would work best (for me or other people) but I have to say that without knowing enough about the places my characters are going, I can't write. So if you're reading this for writing types, consider what works best for you, first, and then accept advice that you find helpful. And always remember that if you think it will work and it doesn't, try something else. Don't force it. I never write well when I force it. Thanks for reading.
Your blog is making me very eager and excited to read your first book! Hope you finish it soon!!
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