World Building: Fantasy Elements

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The fantasy and sci-fi genres may – more than any other genre – allow you to explore people, themes, and issues in larger-than-life scenarios. While world building is an important part of any story, it is especially important to the fantasy and science fiction story. A fantastic world is part of these genre's appeal.

These
genres allow you to develop exotic settings that cannot be found in
the real world. Even so, they typically are grounded in real life in
some way so that readers can appreciate them. This is typically done
blending, taking out of context, or exaggerating subjects found in our
real world.

• Animals:
  What species qualify as
  intelligent or non-intelligent will vary from series to series. Be
  sure to know their eating habits (carnivorous? Eat magic?)
• Races:
  For maximum effect, races need
  to be different in more than appearance. Consider giving them
  different speech patterns, social structures, and abilities.
• Magic:
  There is a whole series of articles on this blog about designing
  your magic system. Don't forget the social, environmental, and
  social effects.
• Alternate
  world: Giant forests,
  floating islands, and multiple moons are all ways to introduce
  fantastical elements
• Technology:
  Whether steam-punk, magic-driven, or futuristic, part of the appeal
  of non-contemporary genres is
  the different
  technology. Alternate technologies enable and restrict character
  actions so choose careful how advanced, wide-spread, and esoteric
  your technologies will be.

World Building: Religion

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

      The world you write can be enriched through the existence of multiple religions. Especially in fantasy, religions allow you to emphasize and explore beliefs and questions about existence. Religion can also be a unifying or divisive element in your writing. It can be a tool to illuminate a character's deeply personal life. It can provide background for your world. It can provide another layer of social structure. And the structure of reality. Is there one true religion or is each religion a piece of the whole?

• Deities: One of the defining elements of a religion is the number of gods and the nature of that god or gods. Some religions also have demi-deities, angels, devils, and spirits. All of these have their own names, natures, and roles.
• Beliefs: Beliefs typically include an origin story, a history of the believers, attitudes, and definitions of good and evil.
• Afterlife: Religions also teach what happens after a person dies. Reincarnation? Ghosts? Seven hells? Depending on the book you write, you can tap into a religion's afterlife for a character, scene, or subplot.
• Practices: Are the believers pacifists or crusaders? Know the holy days, why these days are holy, and what is done to honor them. Know the rules followed by true believers. Know what sets true believers apart from false ones.
• Hierarchy: Many religions have a spiritual leader. Some religious figures may also have secular authority. For instance they might own land, collect money, or have political influence. In religions with multiple gods, there may be a ruling god, children of gods, or minor gods. Power can rotate among figures, ebb and flow, or be constant.

World Building: Government

 Heraldic crown of Russian Empire (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

      I assume you know the different types of government that have appeared thoughout history. You've probably even chosen one for several of your peoples. The decision seems easy on the surface but the effects of this choice are often overlooked. The life of someone living in a theocracy is vastly different from someone living in a communism. Although there are similarities, too.

       Government affects your cultures – and therefore your characters – in very fundamental ways. I've chosen five different dimensions that are frequently studied by political scientists. I hope outlining these dimensions will help you better understand the people who inhabit your world.

• History: Know the history of the nation – how it became its own entity and how it ended up with its form of government. If it had to fight for independence, it is likely to be culturally similar to the country it fought and may still have bad relations with that power. Know what has happened since the nation formed. Common history is one thing that unites its citizens.
• Sociology: This includes national holidays, the national flag/bird/plant/anthem. Any cultural wonders – paintings, buildings, natural features that are a part of national culture. What do they call themselves? How is the government structured and how does it intervene in public, private, and work life?
• Economics: How are taxes set and collected? Is the system cash or barter? How tightly does the government regulate business and trade? What is the attitude torwards foreign money, business, and trade?
• International: Foreign relations go beyond trade. Consider how welcoming the government is of outside influence. What is their style of negoatiation – the pen or the sword? Consider how influential the nation is, the areas of influence, and how it gained and maintains this power. How willing is it to go beyond its borders and how willing is it to let others inside its own?
• Philosophy: This is an element of deep culture. The type of government will subtly but powerfully affect the attitudes and assumptions of its citizens. A government may promote xenophobia or a more welcoming outlook. It may promote the collective good over the good of the individual. Views of community, views of self, views of others. These are are elements of deep culture that may be subtly shaped by the type of government you choose.

World Building: Geography

Lake Nemrut inside the crater of Nemrut Volcano (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

      To an extent, you can design your physical world based on the people that inhabit it. Or you can create cultures based on the features of your world. Land and people interact. So when you design one, keep the other in mind.

      I mentioned the role of geography earlier in this series. Since the physical environment is such an obvious and important aspect of world building, let's look more closely at how five physical aspects affect the people who live in your world.

• Continents: Continents are a great way to separate vastly different groups, isolationist nations, and exotic tribes. People living on the same continent tend to share language groups (Portuguese is much closer to Spanish than to Japanese). “New” continents are typically colonized by nations that have ocean access. If you have a world where this happens, remember that land-locked nations typically miss out on colonization and must extend their influence in other ways.
• Regions: Areas of distinct landscapes, like large grasslands or long mountain ranges, influence the types of societies that live there. Lattitude matters too. Cold weather groups live very differently from hot weather groups.
• Water: Rivers offer convenient boundaries for nations. They also aid travel, promoting the trade of goods and information. They also make convenient invasion routes. Rivers also mean a steady source of water for cities and farmland. Oceans, as mentioned, can be a physical barrier. They also are a good source of food, trade, and may hide unknown lands and people.
• Resources: Island nations will rely heavily on trade to get their resources or be reduced to more primitive living conditions. Limited food resources suggests moving tribes unless there is some other abundant resource to trade. Both tend to be vulnerable to outside powers. On the other hand, fertile plains offer lots of food that can support large groups but offers poor military defense.
• Stability: An often overlooked feature is stability of the land feature. Coasts may be prone to tsunamis or the read tide. Certain regions may be prone to earthquakes or tornadoes. Rivers can dry up and oceans can have hurricanes. Mineral resources will eventually disappear and forests can be overhunted. Natural and manmade disasters – the standard precautions taken, the imminant threat, the recent effects – can enrich and complicate the immediate world of your characters.

World Building: Cultures

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     By culture I am referring to the distinct ways that a group lives their lives instead of the group's symbols and creative aspects. Know the differences between the cultures in your world allows for both diversity and potential conflict. Knowing the specifics of a particular character's cuture does the same – as well as helps you bring that character to unique life.

      As a reminder, culture traits are generalities – they are shared by most people in the culture but are shared to different degrees. There is still room for variation within a group even when they share language and dialect, aesthetics, gender expectations, social structure, and religious practices. Whether you are trying to understand your character's surface culture or are trying to create new cultures, these are all key elements to examine. And of course a person can belong to multiple cultures and subcultures.

• Dialect: Writers are encouraged to play with dialect as a way to make dialogue unique. Most often, writers focus on word choice. But grammar is a good way to do this, too – especially if the speaker is not speaking in her native language.
• Aesthetics: Aesthetics will affect how character dresses, what she buys, the places she goes, as well as what and who she likes to surround herself with. Some people's cultures can be identified by these things. Paying attention to a character's preferences can be a quick way to characterize her.
• Gender roles: Your character's gender greatly affects how he will interact with people of the same or different gender, age, and power status. This needs to come across in both spoken and silent interactions. It also gives you an idea of the activities and attitudes expected of him. Knowing your character's culture can give you an excellent template for designing these dimensions.
• Social structure: I consider gender role as an aspect of social structure. To me, social structure is about the distribution of power. A non-mobile structure can give your character something to fight. It gives you an idea of who she respects (or treats with respect) and why. Not only does this affect her inner and outer behavior, it gives you insight into some of her values.
• Religion: How open is this culture to multiple religions? How strictly do they practice? How do they practice? Don't forget that religious faith can affect the naming of characters. A one-religion culture may be antagonistic towards the beliefs of other religions. Whether your character's culture is in the majority or minority, this creates an undercurrent in the wider social situation.

World Building: Myth

Illustration from a collection of myths. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

      Myth differs from history in that it is larger than life. Like history, it tries to explain how the present world came to be as it is. Myth typically invokes the supernatural, blurs the lines between the possible and impossible, is contradictory, and often features the feats of heroes.

      Knowing your world's (and character's personal) mythology means having insight into your characters' cultures. Myths vary between regions and religions. This makes it a great way to individualize your cultures. If you don't write strictly contemporary (or even if you do), mythology can be a source of inspiration.

• Supernatural: talking animals and objects, gods, children of gods, use of magic, sometimes even the more subtle element of a mystery that is never explained.
• Blurs reality: Normal objects can take on supernatural qualities when certain conditions are met. The supernatural coexists with the ordinary world. In other mythologies, the supernatural live in different realms that border the real world and these boundaries can be crossed – sometimes by accident.
• Conflicting accounts: Because of regional and religious differences in myths, it can be impossible to settle on all the details or even the fundamentals. This can be a reflection of the different attitudes and assumptions about the world. Your characters will probably be on the spectrum of these beliefs (or rebel against them).
• Heroes: Even when the central subject of a myth is an event, a person or being is usually involved. Other myths center around the struggles of a hero. These heroes are larger than life and often deal with tragedy.
• Explanations: Some myths try to explain why the world exists in its present form. Whether your character believes or discounts a mega-myth is a reflection on that character and can bring that character into conflict with other characters. Minor myths can inspire subplots or character-development scenes.

World Building: History

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

      I see history as having five main influences: events, great persons, geography, technology, and politics. These elements interact. After all, who was Joan of Arc without the war between France and England (events, places,technology, and politics). Would her story have been as remarkable if she had not been a peasant girl-woman in the late middle ages (technology and politics). And wouldn't her story eb different depending on who told it?

      When creating a history for youur world (contemporary, too) it is probably impossible and unnecessary to record every event. So focus on the history that most affect your characters and world. Also keep in mind the perspective of your history – whose side you take. It will probably be the perspective of your most relevant character. This means you may have multiple versions of the same time point. This can be cause for overt or covert conflict between characters. (Think the Holocaust.) Because characters change between books or series, your relevant history points will change.

      Let's briefly look at these five influences on history:

• Events: Wars, individual battles, natural disasters, elections to office, revolutions, the building of great cultural masterpieces, and emergence of new power groups are all historic events. Events are typically learned in history class but they have little relevance by themselves.
• Great Persons: Events often have an instigator, figurehead, or scapegoat. Sometimes the great person represents the event or even more than the event – an entire movement. Since great persons typically act on behalf of a cause, there is more than one side to their stories. The popular perspective may change across socioeconomic status, political stances, and other power positions. It may change across time. Usually, little is remembered about these people – making them excellent fodder for future books (either by using the person as a prototype or by tackling the person's struggles, triumphs, and failures directly).
• Geography: geography definitely affects history but is an often overlooked aspect. Would England have become so powerful and remained independent for so long without the English Channel and easy access to the ocean? It would have been more difficult – that's for sure. Hills and mountains make travel difficult and so may be less regulated and a good place for dissident ideas and groups to be found. Vast plains are easily traveled and often agricultural in lifestyle, a necessary resource for large populations. Rivers promote travel and trade. Geography greatly influences trade routes in time of peace and war. It influences the boundaries of nations and provides the resources that make a spot worth being fought over by two powers.
• Technology: technology influences education, the flow of information, the ability to make war, and to provide resources. New farming techniques. The printing press. Gunpowder. Cotton gin. Nuclear power. Many historic events were only possible because they came before or after these inventions.
• Politics: Politics is probably what makes a particular event historic. Many battles go unnoticed in many parts of the world. Massacres are justified or condemned. People become great or remain obscure. Claims to valuable resources are justified or dismissed. Technology is a tool for political agendas. The winning side is often the one that gets to write the history. But some (or most) of your characters may come from the loosing side. From another side of history. Power groups have great influence over how people perceive events (though the effect is not always the intended one) and this is important to keep in mind when writing your history.

Boost Your Creativity: Study Your Fiction World

 

Boost your creativity by studying your fictional world. Become familiar with its academics, cultures, individuals, and themes. Know these areas well so you can ground your reader with facts, keep internal consistency with rules, add diversity and conflict with opinions, and set the stage for story with possibility. It is important to know your world regardless of your genre.
Know more about your world than the best educated scholar. What history would he know and what parts of history would he not know? Why doesn't he know this? Know the ecosystems you write in (ravens do not fly in Florida, there are no penguins at the North Pole, forests in Spring turn green from the ground up). Know the economics of the places your characters visit or live. Many people find that research prompts character, plot, and setting ideas. Even if you are not one of these people, your studies will create a more realistic and vibrant world for your reader.
Know more about the cultures than the characters who are immersed in them. Insiders tend to take their own culture for granted so be sure to have an objective view -- especially if the character's culture is similar or identical to your own! Don't stay at the surface level but delve into deep culture. Know how this culture interacts with other cultures. Definitely know gender roles and expectations, as well as how status is decided and displayed. Remember that many individuals are from more than one culture (look at your own background) and consider clashing these cultures to create inner or outer conflict. The norms, assumptions, practices, and attitudes of cultures are a fantastic resource for inner conflict, outer conflict, and character archetypes (a possible starting point for character creation).
Know more about your characters than they (or those closest to them) know about themselves. Understand what triggers their emotions. The reasons for their motivations, as well as how and why these motives change (if you have a character arc). What is behind their weaknesses, limits, and fears. Study and develop these areas of your character -- you will not only know your character better but also create a treasure-trove of barriers, obstacles, and conflicts that you can draw on for your work-in-progress when you get stuck.
The last tip for boosting your creativity is to study what you are writing until you identify your theme(s). Your theme is what the book is about. Usually it is a belief that is important to you as a person. It can be "true love takes work" or "racism is bad" or "power corrupts". As suggested, you can have more than one theme. Once you have identified your theme, think about its unspoken facts, rules, opinions, and possibilities. Variations of your theme will appear throughout your book so studying your theme will help you express it more clearly. Studying it may also prompt scene or character ideas.
Study your fiction world when you are feeling less than creative. A world with well-developed backgrounds, cultures, and characters will also have built-in details, diversity, and conflicts. Certain themes suggest certain plots, conflicts, and scenes. A well-developed world can help you be more creative.

Write What You Know in Fantasy And Paranormal

Бородатая змея (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Counter-intuitive? Not at all. I write magic and dragons and don't think I have a harder time than a contemporary writer with this issue. If you are writing fiction, you are expected to use a little imagination to bring it to life anyway. I don't think the old adage is meant to be taken literally. Or rather, you know more than you might think.

• Emotions: Whether it is telepathic lizards or werewolves, all characters have emotions. Their motivations might deviate from humans, but the emotions are still the ones humans have. Humans like you (at least I assume). You experience emotions every day so put what you know to the page.
• Motives: I said non-human characters may have slightly different motives but they should still be comprehensible to readers. You know about motives from your own experience, talking to and watching others, and from reading.
• People: You also know how to make multi-demensional characters. The same guidelines can be followed when making nonhuman persons and people. There might be a few superficial differences (a diet of blood, the ability to do magic, or fur and fangs, for instance) but people are still people underneath.
• Important Issues: You know what issues are important to you. Issues have inherent conflict and are well worth tackling in your work. Since it is important to you, you should be aware of multiple sides to the issue and be able to realistically represent them. From bullying to global warming, any core issue can be adapted to your fantasy worlds.
• World-building: Non-fantasy writers often overlook how much research goes into world-building. The land, water, and weather have to align. The types of plants and animals need to be reasonable for the climate. A cat-creature probably will eat meat, not plants. A snake-creature can probably see infra-red.

The adage “write what you know” should also be expanded to “write what you can learn”. I justify this modification by the fact that once you learn something, you know it. Research is probably essential to any story and fantasy/ paranormal is no exception. Write what you know, what you knew, and what you will know. Write your heart out.