Tag: world building

Small Worlds: Writing Them

A commentor here observed that the Merchant and Empire books are set in a small world. It's an interesting observation, and one that deserves some thought, because a lot of fantasy and sci-fi books seem to sprawl. They cover an epic-worth of territory, sometimes by design, sometimes just because it seems traditional. But not all... Continue Reading →

Writing by Nose: Use all the Senses

No, this is not a new version of two-finger-typing for those endowed like Cyrano de Bergerac. It is about adding a new layer of reality and depth to your setting and scene description, and about playing up the differences between characters. Scent may be one of the senses least invoked in writing. When we describe... Continue Reading →

How Much Context?

I recently finished slogging through a non-fiction book for Day Job. The book is very well written, but has a cast of hundreds, covers at least six states, and provides no background. The authors are telling the story of a small group of people involved in the Civil Rights movement, so their focus is appropriate.... Continue Reading →

Let’s Make a World

  A friend was bemoaning the necessity of making a world the other day. Now, since I happen to think that is one of the fun parts of pre-planning a story, I found his reluctance baffling. So I decided to think about how to do such a thing in a methodical fashion. With my gaming... Continue Reading →

World Building – Research Phase

So you decide you want to create a new world for your characters to play in, or you get the wild idea—after one too many children's dinosaur books read at bedtime—to write a story where the dinosaurs didn't get offed by [insert disaster here]. Or a world where reptiles rule. Or whatever. You can just... Continue Reading →

Folktales in Fantasy

So, I've been thinking a lot about using folktales in fiction, especially fantasy. I bought a CD of Songsmith, filk written to go with the novel of that title. The book was a collaboration set in Andre Norton's Witchworld, and the songs are about events in the book, or are referred to by one of... Continue Reading →

Conversations

I've had a series of conversations I took part in this week, and in them answered, or helped answer, some questions that I thought applicable enough to repeat them here. Writing, publishing, cover art... it's all fodder for the blog, right? I had a conversation the other day with a friend who is also a... Continue Reading →

Enriching the soil

A big part of SF and Fantasy writing is the world-building - creating the illusion of an entire culture out there that exists independently of the story you're telling. If the illusion is well done, the piece feels more solid and will often be much stronger even though the world-building doesn't directly impact the characters... Continue Reading →

World-building

Happy 4th Americans 🙂  "There’s a world outside my window..." I was peripheral to a discussion the other day asking authors to commend good examples of world building for a class on the same to wannabe writers. Unfortunately the discussion followed another in which a lady author told us that she’d looked at a number... Continue Reading →

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