Developing a World Takes Time


Many, many years ago (just before the first movie came out) I finished reading Lord of the Rings and closed the book. That was when I picked up a piece of paper and began drawing a map. I had written a lot of things before this point, but this was the first time I decided I wanted to build a fantasy world. A fantasy world I could go back to and explore whenever I wanted. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past - wow - 19+ years!

If you do a search for world-building online you’ll find all kinds of lists of what to include and what to pay attention to. You’ll find all kinds of tips on how to make the best fictional cultures, languages, religions, settings, names, and all the rest of it. What you won’t see much of is a discussion of the amount of time it takes to build a world. You would almost believe that you can just make up a few characteristics, plan out your cultures and societies on paper and then you’re ready to start writing in the world. I’ve never been a fan of this super-organized method of planning for fiction.

When I see people discuss the character sheets they use to come up with character info and the detailed way they organize all their notes so they won’t have inconsistencies I usually find myself extremely puzzled and I often laugh at how unorganized my own method is. My method is ... a little chaotic. But real life cultures and socities don’t get built theoretically on pieces of paper. Real life cultures and languages and histories are full of strange things and inconsistencies and interesting fusions of so many ideas and influences. Most importanly of all, these things grow to be what they are over hundreds and thousands of years. It stands to reason that you need at least a few years to let your fictional world develop and grow.

So I started making this map and I began to write different stories set in different parts of the world. A few of the short stories and novellas that I wrote in that world I eventually deemed good enough to publish. They are collected in Tales from the Circle Volume 1: Rise of the Sorcerer King. But the vast majority of those stories were pretty terribly written and had some pretty ridiculous elements. But even though they will never see the light of day they contributed to my own slow exploration of this world. They helped me flesh out the histories of the different lands and get a feel for the different cultures and influences in the world. So I may not have been as skilled with words when I wrote that first novel that took place in the old forest in the Inner Circle, but there are images, ideas, ghosts from that novel that still exist in this world. There are characters whose stories I wasn’t able to put to the page expertly back then, but they live on as legends in the later tales.

If you look at the names of the characters in my world you’ll see hints of my slow and very random method of world-building and how this method morphed over time. My novel Children of the Dead City is set in the Kingdom of Shining Waters, which is one of the small Mountain Kingdoms that people in the rest of the Circle like to refer to as the “Petty Kingdoms”. It might be considered “out of the way” in the current time of the novel, but historically it was part of a large empire that brought together people from all over the circle so the people living there now are very diverse. It’s a very normal thing in this Kingdom to have people from the same family who have very different features. My naming system for characters in the world evolved over time. I started with trying to make up names, my brother thought they were stupid and gave me some names that would fit in an online fantasy-style rpg game, I tried modifying real world names I liked, and then finally decided to embrace the method of using baby name websites. If I had sat down with a piece of paper and tried to think this Kingdom’s naming system through at one specific time it wouldn’t have turned out to be so fluid and it would have produced more of an organized “system” that would seem too structured to be real, too artificial.

I built (and am continuing to build) all the other aspects of my fantasy world this way. Slowly, randomly, based on little flashes of inspiration. Any idea or image or scene that comes to mind I will jot down so I don’t forget it and eventually these things merge together and grow, they flesh out the areas on the map and illuminate the different corners of the world.

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Kir's Fury by Stjepan Varesevac Cobets

Image
  Kir's Fury is the second book in the Godeena Codex. I loved the first book, Godeena, which stood well enough on its own with a satisfying story that wrapped up nicely, but I was definitely thrilled when I found out the author had written a second book. Because I wanted to dive in right away, I decided not to re-read Godeena, and this showed me that Kir's Fury also works fairly well as a stand alone, though of course, I would still recommend reading Godeena first!  This book has a much wider focus, showing us many different planets, characters from various different civilizations, and all kinds of interesting tech levels and even some supernatural powers. It felt epic in scale, which I really loved. It starts on the planet Godeena, six years after the events of the first book, and starts with the archaeologist Diana and her team doing their explorations of that planet, trying to uncover the secrets of the lost civilization that once inhabited it. What they uncover exposes a t...
Read more

Review: Miss Percy's Definitive Guide to the Restoration of Dragons by Quenby Olson

Image
    Miss Percy's Guide to the Restoration of Dragons is a wonderful conclusion to this trilogy. The ever-growing cast of excellent characters that feel so real continues to grow, bringing more great characters and also giving more depth to some of the characters that were already introduced in the previous two volumes. This book is full of adventure and difficult situations for Mildred and the others, so much so that I felt intense anger and stress for her future at times, but it's also full of that same cozy vibe that permeated the other two.  With this series the coziness stems from the character interactions and the fact that even though it's a book about dragons you can see similarities and connections to very real behaviours that a pet or child might display. The way Mildred cares for the dragons - and for everyone else around her, really - is so reminiscent of a mother or other caregiver worrying about and caring for their kids, which makes it all so believable in t...
Read more

Review: The Firetouched (Firebrand Book 2) by D. E. Olesen

Image
Firebrand Book 2: The Fire-Touched is an excellent follow-up to the first book. It continues the story of Martel as he completes his first year at the Lyceum, hoping that by the end of it, he'll finally pass the novice stage and become an acolyte like the others his age. As this is the second book Martel has become more comfortable at the school and with the surrounding city and I also enjoyed sinking comfortably back into this well-built world with Martel. I enjoyed this second installment almost more than I did the first.  Martel's characterization is consistent with the first one, and he continues to get himself into tough situations and put himself into danger to help others, but by now he has his feet under him a bit more and is better able to handle the situations he gets into - and pick out friends from foes from people who are trying to use him. There's lots of great character work not only for Martel, but also some of the side-characters.  In terms of his magical e...
Read more