Speaking of Ethangea...

[the_gneech]

This world-building stuff is hard work. It's a big task, and I'm not sure if I'm going about it the right way. Should I keep going with this "big picture" approach, or should I narrow in on a small region? I have a bunch of city, town, and place names ... should I just scatter them liberally around the map and start sketching things in around them?

I had in mind to start writing up little vignettes about different areas of the world ... just little bits of local folklore, historical info, etc. Nothing big, just tidbits, such as:

"The Three Bells Tavern: This small tavern in the seaside village of Sephyr was originally a temple of the Church of the Gold Dragon, and still has three bells in a tower. When the larger temple was built at the other end of town, the temple was sold to its current owner to help pay for the costs of building the new one. The owner, Shiarr, is a dark-furred ka of western descent, was a fighting sailor in the Vesperian navy until a crossbow bolt hit his spine, drastically reducing his mobility. He cooks almost all the food the tavern serves according to his own tastes -- that is to say, with WAY too much pepper."

...or...

"Four hundred years ago, the 'Battle of 20,000' took place in the river valley. Local tradition holds that so many were slain that their blood turned the river red for two days ... giving the River of 20,000 Ghosts its distinctive name."

...etc.

But there is so much world there, that it would take years to do that everywhere. I need to pick and choose.

It's kind of a strange catch-22 ... I need a world to put my stories in ... but I need stories to know what parts of the world are important.

A lot of popular fantasy worlds are created around a premise ... how magic works, or the nature of some god, that kind of thing. Unfortunately, that's always been something that I have difficulty with. In Ethangea, I have the premise of the dragons as demigods, giving way to the sphinxes as tyrants, leading to the cataclysm and the muting of magic ... and the Drowned God acting as a wildcard throughout it all.

Maybe I'll just start with doing a small area in detail (Vesperia is a good candidate), write a few short stories there, and see what develops. As other parts of the world become important (Who do they trade with? Who are their enemies? Who are their allies? What's the dominant religion?) I'll make notes on them as well.

Some guiding principles, stolen from various sources and thought up out of my own heat-oppres'd brain:

• Never force yourself to create more than you must.
  
• When you create an important person, place, thing, or event, always devise at least one secret related to that piece.
  
• Most people are born, live, and die within a 50-mile radius of their home.
  
• An army travels on its stomach.
  
• 10% of people are always honest. 10% of people are always dishonest. The rest ... are temptable.
  
• People always want to believe the best about their leaders. They also always want to believe the worst.
  
• Good stories challenge the characters.
  
• Don't be afraid to hurt your characters.
  
• Powerful foes make great heroes. Weak foes cheapen heroes.
  
• Adopt, adapt, and improve. (Also known as "Steal and change.")
  
• Evil has an agenda. So does good. And so does everyone else.
  
• Happy people don't make history.
  

-The Gneech

Comments

[spikedpunch.livejournal.com]

Why not just start a journal or notebook with random ideas.
Write the main premise of the idea at the top of the page for each seperate idea, and use that whole page to brainstorm on later?
Could do a book on each area.

Problem with creating a new world is at first you got to pull that huge suck out of ya ear one bit at a time. It's like taking a ship in the bottle apart instead of building it.

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Well it seems that I keep going back and forth, first telling you not to compare yourself to Tolkein then doing it myself wuite a bit... but a piece of advice that I gleam from his prologue to LOTR: It may very well take years to write a world. In fact, it woul dseem that The Hobbit is the only book he did not interrupt to work on another book, in which he spent many years of his life writing them all at once. He wrote most of the main story of The Silmarillion (Called Quenta Silmarillion in the text) in the midst of writing Fellowship of the Ring stopped, that, went back to work on FOTR, then returned to QS, finished it, finished LOTR, then perfected the creation myth (Alkallabeth) and the tales at the latter portion of the book. Then he wrote the "Lost Tales" and in the midst of it all worked on what Christopher Tolkein published as the "Unfinished Tales" in th emidst of it all.

So take heart, it doesn't have to come all at once. :)

[katayamma.livejournal.com]

> Don't be afraid to hurt your characters.

Ahhh, the rules for a good story.

When doing a serialized story (such as IC where it's published in pieces), always end the chapter with a cliff hanger when possible.

When ending with a cliff hanger, NEVER make the cliff so high that you're not willing to occasionally drop the hero(ine) once in a while.

When writing cliffhangers, don't forget to occasionally DROP that hero(ine) off the edge just to shake up the readers.

When you're stuck for a way to get your character out of a predicament, kill him off. It gives the sidekick something heroic to do when he finds out. Besides, you can always bring the hero back.

H) "It was just a flesh wound, you know."
S) "But I saw your HEAD explode!!!! You were dead!"
H) "I was, but I'm much better now. Oh look, is that a new plot complication coming to distract the reader?"
S) "Where?")

Then you have the basic fantasy rules.

If there's magic, death isn't final.
Being dead is sometimes simply an alternative lifestyle.
Some of the most evil deeds are done for good reasons.
Some of the most evil people do good things.
Hero's think with both heads, usually folloing the lower one.
Heroines have a similar rule, but get the PMS exemption.
Hell hath no fury like the bad guy's girl friend.

I could go on, but I have to take off for work.

Ciao

The Gneech's rules as applied to real life...

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Well, let's see -- this looks like toruble.

I live more than 50 miles from where I was born.
I eat a lot.
I strive to be in the honest 10%.
I have powerful foes.
Some of the best things people believe about me are true -- and so are some of the worst.
But -- but -- I'm happy! And that means I am doomed to never make history. ;)

Ah, well...

A nice compilation, none the less. It has gone into my "brain".

Hey, Gneech! If you aren't familiar with "The Brain", check it out! I've used it for a few years now. The download is free at "TheBrain.com" -- and if you decide to keep it, it is $50.

It is an excellent idea organizer -- and as reliable as a rock despite all that Windows can do to software. Many thousands of entries, and not one lost piece of data.

It is unlike any database system I have ever seen, and I have seen many.

===|==============/ Level Head

World-building: Mental, or incremental?

[level-head.livejournal.com]

When you were drawing Tiffany walking along the beach, did you know at that moment that MegaHuge ConGloMaCo's IT department was located on the sixth floor?

I suspect that you did not. However, once you had occasion to think about it (i.e. you needed it for a situation) you developed that piece, stored it away, and you have consistently made several visual references to MegaHuge ConGloMaCo's IT department, and you have always, consistently placed it on the sixth floor.

Let's see, from memory: You have drawn word balloons from outside the building, you've drawn a close up of the elevator floor indicator, you had Dover standing by the elevator waiting for Tiffany to arrive, and imaged Dover's frustration with a recalcitrant computer and his "therapy" for it.

You have no problem with consistency, although I may be having a problem with my memory.

Launch in -- build what you need when you find a need for it.

===|==============/ Level Head