Carl Sagan Quote (Supposedly. Internet isn’t always honest.)
I’m still on the road here, which means I needed to think of a post that would be fun and not require me to be around until later. Then I thought of leaving something that stirred the imagination.
Below, you will find 3 questions. I’ll be doing this on Wednesday and Friday too because I thought of 3 topics. You can answer in the comments or on your own blog depending on how much you want to say. If you choose the latter then please link back to here, so I can find my way to it when I settle in for a lengthy email, comment, tweet, and whatever run.
This topic is: WORLD BUILDING
- If you could create a fictional ‘world’, what would it be like? Would it be similar to Earth or entirely different? (This doesn’t only mean fantasy worlds. For example, you can be a crime book author and describe your version of Miami.)
- How would your ‘world’ differ from the real world? If many differences then what would be the two biggest ones?
- What kind of stories would occur in your ‘world’?
Just have fun with it. Use this to show off something you have or come up with something new.
Legends of Windemere 
I prefer a fantasy setting, as it makes it easy to avoid my anal tendencies: writing with the real world in mind would mean months of research, to get all the details right 🙂
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I agree. My newest project is proving to be like that. Real world setting even though it’s after a disaster, so I need to think of modern day clothes, gear, and cities. Kind of a headache.
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Plus, there’s nothing worse than some smartypants going, “there’s no gun shop next to the grocery on Main Street in Loserville, NY!”
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Tell me about it. I get confused enough by people trying to tell me how a dragon should be when it’s a fictional creature.
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1. If you could create a fictional ‘world’, what would it be like? Would it be similar to Earth or entirely different? (This doesn’t only mean fantasy worlds. For example, you can be a crime book author and describe your version of Miami.)
I created my own fantasy world. It has four principal kingdoms mainly populated by humans and elves spread over one area of a continent. This is an age where people rode horses and carried metal weapons. There are villages and large walled cities, plus huge swathes of forested land.
2. How would your ‘world’ differ from the real world? If many differences then what would be the two biggest ones?
There are many similarities—trees and flowers for instance. It differs from our world in that there are elves and other magic wielders, magical trees and insects and unicorns. A portal leads to another realm which was the sight of a series of wars. Elves escaped through the portal into their current land.
3. What kind of stories would occur in your ‘world’?
I’m working on the third book in this world. I have three series planned in this. I wrote the first book of two of the series. Both are young adult series.
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Funny how we say that a fantasy world is in an ‘age’. Shows we know or hope things will change. 🙂
Guessing the elves left something behind. 🙂
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Yes they did. One character comes through the portal, as I explore in one book. Another character goes in the opposite direction in the book I set aside for now to work on my contemporary middle grade fantasy book. But you inspired me to add more creatures to the world. 🙂
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Always fun to have a large menagerie to play with. 😀
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I’d live in New York, so my best friend was closer. We wouldn’t have a president and I’d get free ice cream and pizza 3 meals a day.
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Sign me up for that world. Means my best friend would be closer too, so big win. Maybe we’ll have free cupcakes on Saturday?
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The temperature would remain perpetually seventy five degrees during the day and seventy-two at night. It would always be sunny with a slight breeze, except once or twice a month we’d have heavy cloud cover with a horrific thunderstorm and a deluge of rain.. Weeds wouldn’t grow there.
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Interesting temperature choice. Never thought there was much difference between 75 and 72 degrees. I assume no humidity in your Eden?
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I can’t sleep unless it’s at least 72 degrees. There’s a huge difference. I like humidity. It keeps my skin soft and wrinkle-free. I just don’t like it at 80-100% day after day accompanied by 80-100 degree temps. My Eden would also include happy vegetarian humans.
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Humidity and I don’t get along. It makes me want to sleep all day.
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I’m so sensitive to temperature I can walk in a room and tell if it’s 76 or 74. My grandparents never had air conditioning in GA, and grandmother had a feather bed. I recall being so miserable I would get up and sleep on the hard, cool wooden floor just to be able to breathe.
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Impressive ability, but I can see how it can make things difficult. For me, it’s dryness that gives me rough summer nights.
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I’n a novelist, so I do this with most of my stories. Hope that’s not cheating.
Most of my worlds are Earthlike, but I try not to do the standard Medieval-esque kingdoms. So for The Magister’s Mask and The Necromancer’s Bones, it was a tropical archiepelago divided into city-states. The Seven Exalted Orders hearkens back to my upbringing in California, with a semi-arid climate and Ice Age animals. The Grimhold Wolf is more Northern European but with a Neo-Classical flair — just prior to the invention of steam powered machinery.
In every case, what’s different is that magic is real and everyone knows about it. I often play with the social structures built around making people feel safe with magic. In The Magister’s Mask, people needed to feel confident that magic is reliable and consistent, or they wouldn’t trust it as part of their legal system. In The Seven Exalted Orders, I explicitly explore the issue of past oppression by magi and the controls placed on them afterward. That book ended with an uneasy truce, and I’m still working through a sequel that asks who should decide what the individual does with magic and how much room there is for innovation in a very stratified order..
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Ice Age animals don’t get used nearly enough these days.
It’s an interesting path to take with magic being real and well known. So many fantasy worlds pull the ‘magic is rare and feared’ card for some reason. I like how you have something about making people feel magic is reliable and consistent.
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I had fun with the first in my Worlds Apart series because the worlds were alternate realties from our own. It was really fun to come up with differences and similarities. Some I created from scratch, and I’m looking forward to returning to those worlds later in the year! 🙂
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How many worlds did you make? Sounds a little like an old show called ‘Sliders’.
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In the first of the series I dealt with four, but there are over a hundred. Each ‘traveller’ does so in a different way and most not physically; conscious doubling, through a looking glass, etc. Only one world creates those who can teleport. I’ll be delving into more in the second book 🙂
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Very impressive. You could create stories for a lifetime with that.
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Thanks. The only problem is, I keep getting dragged into other worlds! You’d think I would be satisfied 🙂 But I dedicated the series to my father and so it will always have a special place in my heart. I don’t have any plans to stop if readers enjoy the stories. I just have to juggle the other series 🙂
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That’s always the challenge. Can you switch from one to the other or reserve certain seasons for each one?
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I can normally switch, but it’s getting harder. So I’ve set myself a schedule now, and have a set plan so I can keep everything straight. Hopefully that will work better.
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Good luck. I’m going to have to do that if I keep Windemere, Ichabod, and another series going at the same time.
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Thanks 😀 I think scheduling might be the key – setting time for a particular head space. Juggling can be fun…with structure!
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Yup. Though I suggest always remaining flexible. Never know when something else will come up. 🙂
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True 😀
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