Blogging the Fading Lands

So, you've decided to build a world. The first thing you need is...well, yes...the world itself. The Planet.

Now this may seem extreme to some writers, but for certain stories establishing the proper planet (or solar system or even galaxy) may be of vital importance to your story. The following are some examples where planets become key elements to the plot of a book:

1. Dune, by Frank Herbert. Both the existence of Arrakis (aka Dune, the Desert Planet) and vastness of the galaxy in which the Dune novel is set are crucial elements to the story. Sandworms plunging through the shifting sands of the deep desert, still suits that allow desert people to survive in the brutally harsh environment of their homeland, Fremen tribes harvesting the water from the bodies of their dead, Fremen soldiers honed to lethal effectiveness by their constant struggle to survive: all of these key story elements are tied to the geography of the planet Dune. And the fact that Spice, which is vital for "folding space" to allow rapid interplanetary travel, is only found on this one planet puts Dune smack dab in the middle of the power struggle going on between all the major factions in the book.
   


2. The Dragonriders of Pern novels, by Anne McCaffrey. In these novels, the solar system--with its elliptically orbiting Red Star that rains the vile, devastating Thread upon the planet every 250 years--is a vital component of McCaffrey's world building. Without that Red Star and the Thread that falls from it, the original book, Dragonflight, could not possibly be the same story. Most of the rest of the planet Pern is rather earth-like, but cave riddled mountains (ie., Weyrs) are home to the dragons and their riders, and the existence of a newly discovered southern continent becomes an important feature in Dragonquest and The White Dragon.
   


3. Larry Niven's Ringworld and The Integral Tree as well as many of his other works revolve entirely around the unique physical construction of the "planet" (or in both these cases, non-planet) on which his characters live.

If you are going to set your story in some unique, unearthly setting, be sure to do your homework. For instance, the number and type of suns around which a planet orbits will have substantial impact on the terrain, the climate, and the type(s) of life that can exist there. And make that setting key to your plot or theme in some way. (Otherwise, you've created a cool planet, but squandered its true value as an integral element of your book.)

For most people writing fantasy rather than science-fiction, however, the specific geologic composition of the planet or the makeup of the solar system will be of minor (if any) importance. An "earth" or "earth-like" planet is generally sufficient for most needs.

The basic components all world builders should consider include (again, keep in mind the plots and themes of your book with an eye for making these elements mirror, conflict with, or support those plots and themes):

1. Climate - Weather, temperature, seasons. Consider the impact of climate on the cultures that live in them. How might their lives, their customs, their racial features, be different? For example, if you are writing a story in which fire and ice are key symbolic themes, you might set two cultures in opposing climates and let them clash.


2. Geography - What are the land masses? The major geologic features? The rivers, lakes and oceans? Are they all natural? Any man-made? Magic made? (If man- or magic-made, is there a story there? Something you can use in your own plot?) Keep in mind, geography has considerable impact on warfare and defense. Also, when deciding these features, it's very helpful to draw maps. Consider geography for travel distances and methods, how different terrain affects travel methods, population, plant and animal life, etc.
   
3. Resources - What resources are available? Are they rare or precious? Are they unique to a particular area in your world? Throughout the history of our own world, the availability and scarcity of certain high-value resources has proved central to conflict, population, nomadic tribes, etc.


4. Countries, cities, and political boundaries - Maps are extremely useful here as well. I highly recommend that if you are world building your own continents and cultures, you draw a map (scaled so you can calculate distances) and make use of it. Consider natural geographic boundaries when drawing your countries (rivers, mountain ranges, etc.) and consider reasons why cities would be located in particular spots. Invariably, cities are located near fresh water (rivers, lakes), near locations of important resources (mining towns, logging hamlets, farming villages, etc.) or in key strategic defense positions (cities built to supply frontiers, house troops, etc.).
   
5. Plant and animal life. Climate, terrain, and resources most definitely impact the variety and prevalance of plant and animal life. If you put massive predators in an environment, you must be sure the environment can support enough other animals to feed them (which also means plants and water). And please, vary the lifeforms. Insects, birds, fish, fowl, mammal, reptile, amphibian: keep them all in mind. Even if they aren't key to your plot, having them around helps add richness to your world (and if you can tie one or two to the story in some memorable way, do it!).

Does this all sound too complicated? It doesn't have to be. If these features are not important to your story, you don't have to go into great detail to flesh them out, but the broader and more varied your world, your terrain, your cultures, the more concrete you world will seem to readers. The one thing I do strongly recommend is drawing maps. They serve many useful purposes, and you'll find they become a tool that you refer to constantly.

A Word About Maps

Maps are invaluable tools for world builders. And not just for drawing continents and oceans. You can (and probably should) draw maps of cities that play a major role in your books (particularly if you use street names or need to navigate your characters around the cities). You might draw maps of a castle or palace to remember where the rooms are located, whether the stairs are on the right or left, etc.

I use pencil when drawing my maps - because I find that I sometimes change features on the map to suit my story. If you aren't certain how to draw a map, I recommend you consult online atlas resources to get a few ideas.

The following is the original map (which I inked for the purpose of scanning it in) of the world I use in the novels of the Fading Lands:

Notice the scale marker at the bottom right. I use this constantly. A piece of string (I use dental floss!) and a ruler allow me to calculate distances between points both "as the tairen flies" and as riders or characters on foot would travel. I place the end of the string at the starting point, lay it out on the map along the travel route, mark the end point on the string, then straighten the string and measure it on the ruler and convert to mile-measurements according to the scale of the map. (Note: it's very helpful to log these distances and travel times in a file so you can keep it for future reference and not have to keep recalculating.)

Now that we have a planet, we need to populate it. The next article will cover some of the basics of creating races and cultures.

Labels: worldbuilding

World building is not just for fantasy writers. Honest. All writers world build. It's just that contemporary and historical fiction writers call their world building by different names, chief among them research, setting, and characterization.

Multi-published, award winning author Holly Lisle says:

"You're worldbuilding when you sketch out a floorplan of the house that your character lives in so that you don't accidentally have her bedroom on the first floor in chapter one and on the second in chapter three. You're worldbuilding when you draw out a little map of the town in which your characters live and name the streets and decide that the corner drugstore is on the corner of Maple and Vine ... You're worldbuilding, in other words, when you create some guidelines about the place in which your story takes place or about the people who inhabit the place in order to maintain consistency within the story and add a feeling of verisimilitude to your work. So worldbuilding is essential to anyone who writes."

Worldbuilding done right can be an amazing creative experience. It can also infuse your novel with an almost sensory realism and help tie your entire novel into a cohesive whole.

Having said all that, when someone mentions world building, most people immediately think of fantasy and science fiction novels. That's because in the fantasy and science-fiction writing realm, authors are, in fact, writing entire novels set on planets, spaceships and even in galaxies that do not exist. For those authors, the term world building really means world building!

In the following series of articles, I'm going to take you through the process of creating and fleshing out an entire fantasy world. We'll go step by step, covering all the basics, and a few of the not-so-basics. And if you follow along, when you're done, you'll have built a world you can use with your own stories.

Note: This series of articles is my take on the worldbuilding process. I am far from the only writer out there who has developed a process or written articles about it. In fact, there exists a veritable cornucopia of free online sites and lists to help with worldbuilding. At the end of this world building blog series, I'll post a reference list so you can check out the sites, compare their methods to mine, and choose whatever works best for you.

Where do you start?

Inevitably, this is among the first questions that comes up when I discuss worldbuilding, and it's a bit of a tricky one to answer because where you start with your world building depends on you, the writer. How do you write? How well-formed are the ideas for your book before you begin? How much about your world do you need to know before you can begin to write the story you need to tell?

Some writers, like Holly Lisle, start with maps. Tolkien started with the Elvish language. Some writers start with the planet / solar system / galaxy in which their story is set.

For the Tairen Soul series, I started with the image of an immortal, magic-wielding, shape-shifting king sitting on a golden throne, contemplating the pending extinction of his entire race, and the idea that a mysterious (seemingly) mortal girl somewhere half a continent away would hold to the key to his and his people's salvation. I knew I wanted to write a fantasy-romance, so I knew the romance had to be central to the successful completion of the quest. Everything else in my story and my world flowed from that one initial image and sense of direction.

Truthfully, it's really not that important where you start. Whatever works for you, start there and roll with it. What's more important to my mind (and here's where that bit about cohesive wholes comes into play) is how you use the world you are creating to echo, contrast, or accentuate the major theme(s) and/or plot(s) of your story.

Having said that, I also know that many people prefer a little order to the madness of their creative genius, so tomorrow I will pick a specific starting point and we'll begin building a world. Just to keep things nice and tidy, we'll start with the most basic foundation: the planet itself.

Labels: worldbuilding

It's official, casting has begun for the new Star Trek XI movie. Zachary Quinto, who plays the utterly creepy, uber-powerful Sylar in the TV superhero serial, Heroes, will be playing Spock! Well...young Spock. Leonard Nimoy is cast to appear in as Spock in the movie as well, so there will definitely be some sort of future/past time transition there. I can not wait! They are still looking for an actor to cast as Captain Kirk. Talk about tough shoes to fill. Star Trek has become so iconic, casting other actors to play those parts is going to be as hard and as closely scrutinized as a modern recast of Gone with the Wind.

I admit it, I'm a total trekkie. I loved the original TV series, the original movie, and especially Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (ooooooh baby!), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Lest anyone think I'm hopelessly mired in the past, I did -- and do -- also love Star Trek: The Next Generation (though I didn't warm up to the new crew until the episode when Data proved to Tasha Yarr that he was "fully functional" *gg*), Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise (a wonderful, fun series cut short far before its time). And loved the Star Trek: First Contact movie featuring the Next Generation crew and the phenomenally gorgeous Borg Queen. (There is a movie I can watch again and again and again.)

One of my friends worked for ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) in their Creature Shop and he helped build and pilot the whales used in Star Trek IV. It was totally cool to go "behind the scenes" and walk through the prop shop, touch a miniature Enterprise used in filming (how many people can say they've touched THE Enterprise? LOL.). He says Leonard Nimoy is a terrific director and great fun to work with.

While details on Star Trek XI are still pretty closely-held secrets, the movie will apparently involve a young Kirk and Spock and the start of their 5 year mission. Production starts this fall, and the movie is scheduled to release Christmas 2008!!!

Live long and prosper, fellow trekkies.