Brave New Worlds

So. Finished, edited, revised, and submitted Spear of Retribution. Now it's on to something else. Another story, another world...or maybe just a new story in one of the worlds I've already created.

I was thinking earlier today about how I used to spend hours as a teenager planning what kind of house I wanted when I grew up. I'd draw floor plans and decide exactly where the furniture would be placed. As I recall, one house had seventy rooms. Good thing I grew up and acquired some sense. What woman in her right mind wants seventy rooms in her house?

Do you ever think the Queen of England might wish she has a cottage by the sea? I figure the reason she's in such good shape is because she has to walk so far to get from one side of the castle to the other. Just think, she never has to worry about exercising in the rain or snow.

The real reason I write is because I'm a frustrated creator. I can't change huge parts of my current world, but I can totally control any world I create. I could make it a beach world full of sand. Or a world filled with mountains. Lots of water. No water. Purple trees. Green sky. Strange animals. No snakes. Or bugs. Pink clouds. Two men to every woman. Or visa versa.

The sky's the limit.

Or I could decide to have flying mountains or floating continents.

The thing is, once you decide what your new world will look like, then you have to decide how that world affects how your characters will act and live. Do they live underground? Or in the sea? Or on one of the flying mountains?

Ah, yes. Time to write a new story. Where will it be?

anny

Sleeping Dragon

A new story is like a sleeping dragon. You just don't know what you're going to get when you nudge it awake.

This year for the first time since I've started writing, I don't really have a story I'm actively working on. So... I'm starting a new one--actually a new series. The first book I will call Shadows on Stone.

I've mentioned in the past that I have all my research and world building in place before I start writing. So yesterday I did research. Every writer has a different way of doing this. Some writers write the first few chapters and then delve into the things they need to know. Some research and develop their world as they write. And then there's writers like me that have to know their world before they can write the story.

I tend to research by immersion. I pick the topic and then spend hours surfing the web for every bit I can find on the topic and related topics. I print out every bit that "speaks" to me. Instinctively, I can tell if a tidbit is going to be important to me or not. That is what I did all day yesterday.

Today? Well, after I take down the Christmas tree... today I'll settle down with colored pencils and several sheets of drawing paper and I'll create my new world using the information I collected yesterday.

If all goes well, tomorrow I'll wake the sleeping dragon. Wish me luck.

anny

Brave New Worlds and the Saga

How do you think of stuff like that?

That is probably the number one question I get from readers. I think the answer lies in the creation of new worlds. Every story--short or long--regardless of genre needs a setting. Most of us invent the setting for various reasons. My settings are just a tad different. (Stop snorting Kelly!)

I like to play "what if." Now that's a lot of fun, but eventually you have to get down to business. There's a very simple rule about world building. I learned it from reading Jayne Ann Krentz's early sci-fi romances. No matter how strange the world and beings that occupy that world, there must be something familiar for the reader to relate to.

In one of her books, the hero had a pet rockrug. It resembled a furry bath mat and had three rows of teeth on one edge. And that could be a little off-putting. But she named him Fred. See? How could he be that strange if his name was Fred? For every oddity, she hooked it back to something familiar.

Within that framework, there are certain things that must be decided up front. What kind of monetary system does the world have? What type of technology? What type of government? Clothing? Flora and fauna? And how do males relate to females? What do the people look like? What type of buildings do they live in? What is their mode of transportation?

Those are all decisions that need to be made before the story begins. You would be surprised at how many references we make in casual conversation to current events and technology. For instance. If your monetary system is a barter system like the one in the Mystic Valley books, then you must rework any expression that refers to money. "If I had a nickel for every time he did that..." Oops. No nickels. "I'd bet my paycheck..." Oops. No paychecks. I reworked one expression--"My barter credit is on you."

How does your world tell time? If there are no clocks, then there are no minutes, seconds, hours... so you must eliminate "Just a minute (or second)." And a host of other expressions that use time references.

Once you have made the basic decisions about your brave new world, I recommend a notebook. Every time you add a new facet, put it in the notebook. Then when your editor or FLE has a question, you don't have to pull your hair out trying to locate or remember the answer. Now why did I make them all blue? Just to make my editor crazy. Little did I know she was made of sterner stuff than that.

Here I should interject another observation. If you're going to invent words, keep a running glossary. A) Your editor will probably thank you. Maybe she will... B) If your publisher decides that your books need a glossary, it won't be so difficult to whip it up at a moment's notice. C) It's easier to check the glossary to make sure you don't use the same word for two different objects.

The same thing goes for a character list. It doesn't have to be difficult or fancy. John Smith - the baker, Harold Jones - the blacksmith, Clooney Clancey - the butcher... and so on. Mix common names with unusual. Too many unusual names just make your readers cross their eyes--especially the names with jumbles of letters.

When you've organized all your information about your world, then you can begin the story. There will still be things you will encounter that you'll have to think about. For instance, in my current work in progress, I needed a dangerous critter that could kill one of my bad guys. I thought about it. Within the context of the story, it needed to be something that was scary and frightening even before it attacked. Eventually, I settled on a large carnivorous spider. Now it would take a pretty darned big spider to do much damage. So the scene was changed to allow for a LOT of the critters. Think about that snake scene in the Indiana Jones movies. See? That's scary.

Most of the work that you do for your world building won't actually appear in your story. After all, you can't spend pages describing stuff. A lot of your world building will be for you, the writer. Things that you need to know. I use maps that I've drawn so that my characters don't go to the baker by way of the scenic route. It provides consistency from book to book. If you write with a sure touch because you know exactly where you're going, then you sort of tug your reader along with you.

Then when you've finished the story, let someone read it who hasn't had any exposure to your creation. Take note of the questions they ask. Make sure that you clear up the discrepancies. If you do a good job, your readers will embrace your new world and anxiously await each new installment.

Anny

“My life has plenty of colour.” Wanker – she once had a pet goldfish called Tarquin. She had to flush him down the dunny. “What about when I saved the Kambucatan High Chieftain, Wang Chung, against the knife throwing Tibetan anarchist Yum Cha?” Emmeline could see she had piqued goldfish boy’s interest. “It all started when I was sitting in the mountains of Tibet searching for…

“… the meaning life?” Tarquin interrupted her.

“No, I had run out of film and I came cross this village.” Emmeline gazed into the distance as remembered it as if yesterday. “At the gateway of the village, an ancient curse had been painted on a rock. It said…”

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, then two pictures are worth ten thousand words. Whoever cast their eyes on this curse shall spend eternity seeking the Golden Carrot.”

Tarquin was confused. “The Golden Carat? What is that?”

“Carrot,” Emmeline said impatiently. “Like the vegetable. The Golden Carrot!”

“So where is this Golden Carrot?” he demanded curiously. “And what do you do with it when you have it?”
“YOU PEEL IT, of course!” She kicked at his toes. “Why else would I carry around a PEELER?”

Gamely trying to work out the puzzle behind the carrot and the peeler, Tarquin cautiously inquired, “And then what? Once you peel it, then what do you do with it?”

“Duh… Eat it?” Emmeline rolled her eyes in disgust. “Hello? Laser eyes here… I need Golden Carrots to keep my laser vision!”

“Well, can’t you eat regular carrots?” he asked. “I thought regular carrots are supposed to be good for your eyes.”

“Laser vision!” she shouted. “Do you see anyone else around here with glowing laser eyes?”

“All right, all right. So where do you find the Golden Carrots?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be looking for them, would I?” Emmeline was beginning to think that Tarquin was even dumber that Zoltan. There wasn’t much hope for Tarquin. Clearly she was going to have to use her peeler on the twit. She twiddled with her peeler, twirling it in circles while she considered the best way to dispose of the idiot…

Bamm! Emmeline shook her head and stared at her surroundings. Dammit, she'd done it again. When would she learn not to press the green button? The wall with the curse towered over her, blocking her view of the soaring mountains. Tibet, again?

Don't forget to check out Amarinda's blog at http://www.amarindajones.blogspot.com/ where she's interviewing Jean Hart Stewart, author of the Druid series from Cerridwen Press. Then pop over to Kelly's blog at http://www.kkirch.blogspot.com/ where she holding forth on "the early onset of male chauvinistic pigism in our schools". Heh. That I want to read! Blessings on your day!

The ring of authenticity

I write fantasy romances. That's a minor sub-genre in the vast romance category. There are a few people who believe that fantasy is the least difficult of all writing. After all, you make everything up...right? So your characters can do anything you want them to. Your world can be anything you want. How tough can that be?

I suppose it depends on whether you want the reader to be able to suspend belief or not. That's the ability to become so involved in the story that you "suspend" your belief in reality for the duration of the story. And that my friends requires some heavy duty world building.

I was recently interviewed for an e-zine (electronic magazine) and some of the questions were about the world building in my Mystic Valley series. How did you decide this? Why did you decide that? Those are the answers you come up with before you start writing a fantasy.

Decisions range from clothing and character appearance to culture, government, and monetary systems. What type of housing and furnishings are there? What type of occupations? What do they eat? How sophisticated are the sanitary arrangements? How do they get around?

And how does the author keep track of the details? Every fantasy writer has some type of system to keep track of decisions they've made along the way as they write. Sometimes you hit a point in the story where you have to stop and consider what long range consequences the action will have on the world you've spent so much time building. Then you have to go back through your notes. How will this change what you said back in book one?

The bigger the cast of characters you have, the more details there are to keep track of. My primary family in Mystic Valley, the Llewellyns, have sixteen children, each unique and special in their own way. In the early books, the younger children have cameo spots where they walk onto the stage briefly, but eventually all of them will take center stage, so every single one has to be thought out carefully.

There are villagers, out-valley people, in-laws, out-laws and what I call the incidental people that walk on and off the stage for one short scene. Readers are sharp-eyed. If you use the name Bob for that incidental person in book one, they'll notice if you use Bob in book three--especially if Bob has a different occupation in book three.

What about climate? Does it snow? Rain? Is it hot in the summer?

What about holidays? Religions? Education? All of those have to be accounted for one way or the other. Plants and animals have to be considered. Will the author use familiar animals from earth or will they make new ones up. What will the plants be like?

I had a wonderful time inventing the world of Mystic Valley. I hope you'll have a wonderful time discovering it, too. Just to give you a little taste, I've posted a bit from Dancer's Delight. Enjoy!

The path that led to the village wandered through a new section of woods. Immediately, Dancer knew that he was in a fantasy forest. As they walked along the trail, he took note of the plants, both familiar and strange. Unlike the last stand of trees he’d encountered, most of these were very strange, indeed. There were huge trees with odd dark blue leaves. One lonely tree had smooth, glittery black bark. Back from the path, he saw a pair of trees with orange bark and triangular purple leaves. Occasionally, he spotted pine-like trees with shiny red needles. The undergrowth was a multi-colored riot of prolifically flowering shrubs and a bright blue runner vine. Suddenly, without warning, the path took a sharp jog to the right and they stood at the edge of a thriving village unlike anything he had ever seen.

Circular adobe cottages with smooth, domed adobe roofs were arranged in concentric circles around a cluster of larger square stone buildings. The cottages ranged from small, one circle buildings to a very large compound of multiple joined buildings. Without hesitation, Eppie headed for the compound. Following on her heels, he observed as much as he could, noting the neat yards and gardens enclosed with low stone walls. Some had blue or green birds similar to chickens pecking at the dirt. In a couple of yards, enormous long-haired creatures that vaguely resembled dogs, silently eyed them as they walked by.

On the front steps of the compound, two huge cat-like animals were curled up, sleeping in the sun. The long-haired orange one’s ears twitched as they went by and it opened one green eye before settling back into slumber. The chocolate and cream animal opened both eyes, yawned mightily, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth and stretched before curling back up and snoring lightly. “Those are Tyger and Llyon’s packits,” Eppie commented briefly before opening the door and entering the cool darkness of a wide foyer.

Dancer merely nodded and followed her inside, completely resigned to the odd and amazing. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the shadowy hallway, but when they did, he observed a entryway like he had never imagined. A huge exquisite woven tapestry covered the wall on the left. The deep jewel colors shone vividly, even in the dimness. On the right, three unframed landscapes were arranged above a long narrow carved table. There were no artist names on the paintings, but it was obvious the same individual—in a style reminiscent of Goya—had painted them all. Bold bright colors portrayed life in the valley. The table below them had elaborately carved legs and skirt. When he bent over to study it, he saw the carvings were leaves and flowers.

Eppie barely paused before leading him into a larger room with an empty fireplace and a large varied collection of chairs. Standing in the doorway, he stared around in amazement. Every chair was occupied. Near the center of the room, he picked out two people he thought must be her parents. After focusing for a moment, he realized the rest were probably her siblings… and there were a lot of them. Every single male, from the youngest through the eldest, was dressed in the skirt-like garments. Some had on loose over-wrapped shirts, but most were bare-chested. And all of them had their hair neatly arranged in the narrow braids ending with the tiny jeweled clasps.

The man in the center stood and came forward, offering his hand in a gesture that was the first familiar thing Dancer had encountered. They shook hands as the man said, “Welcome. I’m Merlyn, that’s my wife Jade,” he nodded toward a very youthful looking red-head, “and the rest are our children, who I won’t overwhelm you further by introducing.”

“I appreciate that,” Dancer replied dryly.

“Come in and rest,” Jade invited with a lovely smile. “Arturo, please bring tea and wafers. The rest of you may satisfy your curiosity later. I’m sure you all have someplace to be. If not, I’ll be happy to find something for you to do.” In seconds, the room echoed with emptiness as they quietly vanished.

Unable to help himself, Dancer began to laugh. “I’ve never seen a room empty so fast.”

Want to read more? Go to http://www.cerridwenpress.com/productpage.asp?ISBN=9781419909566 to check out Dancer's Delight.

Anny

Don't forget to stop at Amarinda's blog to check out what she's done with Louella, Sam and Jonas...and Emmeline at www.amarindajones.blogspot.com and then pop over to Kelly's blog where she's interviewing one of her characters, Sir Marcus, at www.kkirch.blogspot.com