Friday Inspiration: Goodbye September

From LoveThisPic

I would say that we can look forward to all things pumpkin but that happened earlier in September. We can look forward to leaves changing, new things happening in our lives, and hopefully cooler weather. I hope you have a great Friday and a great weekend.

The Daily Life: An Exercise

For this exercise, you will need three things: yourself, a pen, and a notebook. That's all. Three simple things. Four if you're doing this when the post goes live and it's seven in the morning. If you're up that early, a "but first coffee" is more than allowed.

What you're going to do is observe yourself as you go through a day in your life. You'll catalog your morning routine, your breakfast, your commute, and so on. Or, if you don't have a commute, what you do instead. Basically, you're taking inventory of your life and what you do as you go through it during a normal day. Or maybe a not so normal day. But you're going to do it for one full day and keep the notebook close to you. Anything you do, no matter how big or small, should go into the notebook.

Now, at the end of the day, maybe after dinner or the kids are in bed, open the notebook. I want you to star the smaller things, like what you had for breakfast or what you feel is just a small detail in your life, and give an exclamation point to the bigger tasks that you did during the day. You're going to focus on the stars and that will help to give you a background into what a daily life of your character could or couldn't be.

For my second world-ers, I encourage you to do this as well. Maybe, instead of a bowl of cereal, there's something else that you come up with for breakfast. Or maybe it's just going through the motions but not describing what's in the bowl. What's important is to have an idea of how you go through a day, either normal or not so normal, and then you have a bit of background that you can use in your novel.

Mundane? Yep. But sometimes the best way that we, as writers, can make a novel richer is by going through a task like listing what you do during the day.

Until next time, keep on plotting (and writing!).

Week 4: The Daily Life

Hey guys! Welcome to the last week of world building. Next week, we're going into the characters and plot and everything else that goes into our novel for NaNoWriMo. For now, we're going to go into the ideas of daily life. You might take a lot from your own life and that's okay. Unless you're doing second world, it's going to make your novel better, especially if you're setting your novel where you live. That's going to help you with this part of world building.

The biggest problem, if you're doing real world or Earth AU, might be fashion and education. I say this because it will cut into your time if you want to focus a bit on them. You need to look up the national trends and, even then, you could be wrong. What's hot at Fashion Week in NYC could be a dud in Colorado. Best thing you can do is research, research, and then research some more. Talk to people who live there if you don't live there yourself. Now, education, like everything else, is going to vary even city to city in a single state. I can tell you that the high school education I got about sixteenish years ago was considered one of the best in the suburbs. Now, I'm not sure. So, again, research. Research is a good thing but it is a time suck.

However, you'll have a fine good backbone of a novel.

To the second world-ers reading this, your most difficult section? The calendar. Are you going to base it off of the calendar we have now (easiest), twiddle with it (medium), or create something new (hard)? You've got to think up holidays and feasts and all that other things. Now, it's not hard to do. Say you want a food based holiday that has a message of community, like Thanksgiving. You can do that and call it something about the harvest. It's not really all that hard but, like above, it's a time suck. You can research but you have to be careful not to outright copy what another person has done. You can like something but then you'll have to twist it to how it will work best for you.

So, I wish you good luck with the daily life section of world building. It is the last part of the world building that we'll be doing and I can't say if I'll be going back to it come October. Until next time, keep on plotting!

Exercise: Daily Life from Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions by Patricia C. Wrede.

Friday Five: Hodgepodge

Just let it roll off the tongue after a sip of coffee. Happy Friday and enjoy the links!

1. How I Plan a Book: Part 5 - Writing Journals. This is from Susan Dennard's blog and part of a series, like it says in the link title. I've thought about keeping a writing journal from time to time, even though I am horrible at it, but I might try it again. I have no shortage of notebooks at home (so not allowed to buy anymore but you know I will) so I'll give it a try.

2. How to Know Which Writing Tips to Follow and Which to Avoid. Because we all need more writing tips. Really, you do. So do I.

3. The Long, Steady Decline of Literary Reading. Read more everyone. Including me because I always follow my own advice (note: read with sarcasm).

4. How Writing To-Dos Help Your Brain. This goes back to the idea that, if you're writing it down, you're going to get it done.

5. Meals and Mealtimes in Britain. Just in case you really really needed to know. I did and it goes into that social organization and culture thing.

Alright everyone, have a great weekend!

Week 3.5: Commerce, Trade, and Public Life

Since I'm not really the biggest fan of this section or the social organization section, I thought I'd squeeze them together. Now, as I keep on saying, just because I'm not a fan doesn't mean that you aren't. If you think these sections will really help your novel, then take your time with them. Don't let me chase you off of something just because I'm not feeling all that 100 with it. I'm also going to give a general overview and then leave a link to the section down at the end.

So, this section deals with a lot of the factors of life in the way that we trade goods and services. One of the general questions dives into deep thought with asking if there's a trade language or an universal language for people that don't speak the same tongue. It's something we don't have in daily life, even though we who speak English think we do, but we don't. So that's an interesting deep thought right off the bat. Do you want a language everyone uses for trade or a common tongue? What is the purpose of the common tongue or the trade tongue? You could spend a few hours of an afternoon on that question alone if you want to really dive into it.

This goes into business and industry, where they ask about unions and cross-crafting, and how trades and crafts go into the different regions of your world. Do smaller cities or towns not have as much as a bigger city or do they just specialize in one trade or craft? Are there different regulations, are their unions, and so on. If you go into the unions, do you want to call them something other than unions? Do you want to say they're craft organizations or... well, you'll probably come up with something more interesting than I could. This mini-part of the larger section also asks about money trading hands and brings up the thought of smuggling. Again, you might or might not need this section. Like everything, take with a grain of salt.

It continues to go into the basis of our day to day public life on a grander scale. We sometimes don't think about how money goes from hand to hand or about unions, unless we're part of one or are in charge of a business, but this is what you need to think of when you're creating a world. You might only want to grace the surface of this section, which is easy to do and you can cherry pick what you want from these sections. For me, I know I would be looking more towards the broader ideas, like a common language, more than a question about shifting population from rural to urban living. You might not care about a common language but need to think more about urban factors. Or rural factors. So think about that as well when you go into this section, especially if you're just coming here around the start of October.

In the end, even though I'm sort of brushing these sections off, they are important if you want to make them important. Kind of like everything else in daily life. If you want or need me to dive deeper, I'm more than happy to do so and leave me a comment below. Until next time, keep on plotting (and writing!).

Exercise: Commerce, Trade, and Public Life from Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions by Patricia C. Wrede.

Social Organization, an Exercise

This is probably going to be the only exercise for this section this week. It goes back to the idea that social organization is going to be extremely individualized but also that I never spend time on this section. Sure, I'll do a quick outline of who / what is in charge but this is the part of world building that I spend the least amount of time on.

There's also the fact that, if you're doing a real world novel, this section is already done for you. Sure, you'll have to research local laws and so on unless you make up Small Town USA but it's there. I would just use the questions as a guideline. Also, you might have to call people in order to get information. I know it might seem scary - it does to me - but it'll help you a lot in the long run. Make sure you have questions ready and be willing to call back at another time if nobody can talk to you. Be as flexible as you can and do not forget to get the name of the person who talks to you. You'll want that for your acknowledgements when you finish your novel.

Now, for us Earth AU people, we've got it a bit easy but it's still hard. How much of the real world social organization are you going to use? Are you going to keep the government as is or has something changed? Is the power of the world still the same? If you're jumping way into the future, do we still have what we have now? Or has it changed for something for the better? These are just base questions and you might find more when you start to dive into this part of your world building. I know, for me, I did change power structure and government but you don't really see it in the novel right away. It's more subtle until it's called for, which is a way that you might want to go when you're writing your novel.

Now, second world writers, you have the hardest task because you're creating something new. However, that doesn't mean you can't base it off of the government structure you're living in. Or another country that you like. Let's say that you really like how England is structured with the royal family, the Prime Minister, and parliament. You could use that as your model and put your own spin on it. Or you can pick and choose what you like about your own government and laws and put that into this world you're creating.

At the end of this, I'm trying to show that, while this is the hardest section, it doesn't have to be in the end. It just feels hard because you're having to stretch in ways that you haven't before. Once you get through it, you'll probably coast the next time you need to come back to this section. I hope it helps and, until next time, keep on plotting (and writing)!

Week 3: Social Organization

Welcome to week three of this insanity that we're calling world building. This week the focus is on social organization. If you're wondering what this means, you're not alone. This goes into creating more of a government, politics, and so on. Now, like everything, you don't have to do all parts of this world building. Say you will never get into politics or a political system. Then move that to the side. However, you will need to know what type of government you have - either a monarchy or a democracy or something else - but you need to know what you have.

Let's break this down.

Your first stop is going to be the general overreaching questions about your society. This goes into ranks and titles, what type of jobs are good or bad, different ways to rise and fall in society, and so on. The last question in this section deals with a somewhat complicated question because we're dealing with the written world. It goes into what constitutes beauty in your world and, as much as I think we can, as writers, show that in our work, it's also going to be subjective. A reader might find what you think of beautiful as disgusting and vice versa. I don't think we need to break down the idea of society into beautiful / not beautiful, but it's there if you want it. I feel it's the third rail - touch it and you die for those not familiar with this saying - but it might help you. Just be careful as you can turn off an editor with this too and, unless you're self publishing, you won't even get to readers.

The next section deals with the government and figuring out a lot of the little details of your world. Unless you are doing a plot that is going to be highly political, as you might be writing a novel that deals with the king's court or something like that, I feel that a lot of these questions are not needed. I would go to the questions that really work for you instead of getting bogged down in the teeny tiny details. One of the best questions in this section asks what your basic style of government is and if the other countries are different and how that is dealt with. That's a good question to ask because everyone in the world will know that. The teeny tiny details that you could get lost in is the question about taxes. Do you really need to know that? Possibly if you're writing something with a Robin Hood feel, but otherwise? Do we even think about that when reading a novel? I know I don't, so pick and choose in this section. Make sure you have the broader strokes and, then, if you feel you need more, go back and answer the questions you skipped over.

Honestly, I was going to break down more of this part of the world building, but I'm not sure if it's going to help. I think the best advice for this section is to go through and figure out what you need to answer. Do you need to figure out about waging war? Maybe not and that's fine because that means you can skip that section. You might really need to answer all the questions in the foreign affairs part but yet need nothing with weapons. So, this week, let's pick and choose what parts we'll really work on. I'll be here with exercises for the three settings and we'll go from there.

Also, if you want me to continue on with talking about the different sections, I'm okay with that too. Leave me a comment below and I'll be more than happy to dive into the rest. I just don't feel that it is a good use of anybody's time because this is one of the most subjective parts of world building. For me, I don't need to know about waging war, which is why I used it in the example above, but I need to know what type of government system I'm using.

So that's it for today. Until next time, keep on plotting (and writing).

Helpful Exercise: Social Organization from Patricia C Wrede

People/Customs: Magic and Magicians

Hey everyone. This is diving into the idea of magic, magicians, and what impact they're going to have on your people and customs today. There's not a lot for those who are doing real world settings, but you might find something for a later novel or if you're introducing magic in another way. Let's break this down and figure out what we're doing here.

This section can be found on the world building website here.

The first section is about the rules of magic. When I think of magic, I think of it as a way of causing x for y to happen, but it's a lot deeper for that. Say that I'm using healing magic to close a wound. Where does the energy or magic come from for that? Let's say for this project, that comes from within myself and has to be replenished, either from time to time or after closing a life threatening wound. If it's a small wound, I'll be fine and I won't really need to worry about my energy levels. If it's bigger, then I will. The friction of that can be woven into your story but it also helps to know when your character will or won't use it. Also, how they will taught when and where to use their magic. So that's the first section with rules of magic and it dives deep into what you should consider.

The second section is wizards themselves. I touched a small bit on how magic effects a wizard with what I put in the last paragraph, but you should also think how it effects them long term. It also goes into how long it takes to study, what others think of wizards, and basically, making a mini society of them. It's not a bad idea but you might not want to dive that deep. That's okay and you might just want to skim the surface. Or maybe nobody thinks magic's all that special because a lot of people do it / expect it. But you should have a small idea of your wizarding society going into writing your novel and how it effects society / humanity at large.

The third section, for me, is fun and deals a bit more with Earth AU than second world. I think that's because, when I think second world, I never think of a world as technological savvy as the world we have now. However, we do need to think of how magic effects the technology that we have. For example, can a person who uses electricity magic short circuit whatever he or she wants? Or can they only do that to certain types of electrical items? The section brings up the idea of magical weapons, which I never think about when putting magic into my novels, but I might start doing that. I would also think about if wizards are mistreated / wanted because they could help with manufacturing or just making life better as well.

The last section is some miscellaneous questions but one of the ones I like asks if magic is legal in your world. It's one of those questions that I know I don't think about - of course it's legal - but for it not to be legal would be interesting. That is definitely putting plotting in your world building because you'll use that in your story. Even if your main character doesn't use magic, another might, and you can dive into all of the ways that it helps and hinder the pair. Or how the main character might turn their friend in and so on. There's also about magic abuse, magical beasts, and so on. I would take a long look at it and think about how it might help or hinder you.

So, we're done with people and customs in this second week of world building. I hope this is helping you create the world of your novel or series. Until next time, keep on plotting (and writing!).

People/Customs: Exercise for Alternative Earth

I almost didn't make this post. I felt that those who are writing for this setting are basically set. They could use the advice I gave for the real world setting and that would be that. There was no reason and I could take the day off from blog writing and just chill.

Yeah, I realized how wrong I am when I opened Mystery of the Dark to edit it. It opened at the beginning, where I use a setting that is like an AA meeting, that we need to touch on this. So, yes, you can take the real world advice and maybe even the second world advice if you're jumping far into the future, but let's talk about this a brief bit.

Depending on how much you're going to keep Earth the same, we might have the same customs. If you're just adding something, like magic or supernatural creatures, then we might keep a lot of the same customs. There might be more of customs that are not traditional, like Samhain, but you might also have something for vampires like a blood feast. Or the rite of the full moon if you have werewolves. For this, I would highly recommend looking into customs that are not of the mainstream and see if any of them would fit. It would give your novel a bit extra oomph and maybe one that you didn't think about.

For those who are either going into the past to change something or into the far future, you have to think how the actions of humanity are going to change what we do. For example, say that the bombing of Pearl Harbor never happened and we never got into World War 2. We wouldn't celebrate, even the small bit that we do now, Pearl Harbor day in June. Would we still have a Veteran's Day in November? It's some of the small things that you need to take into account when twisting our history. 

Same goes if you're jumping into the future. Is there still the USA and, if there is, do we still celebrate 9/11? Did we forget or is there something else that took it's place? How do we celebrate the long ago wars, like World War 2, or did something take it's place like World War 3? I know these are uncomfortable questions, because I don't mean to make my readers uncomfortable, but you need to think about how what we has now effects our future. It might not at all. You might decide that people still talk and celebrate a lot of what we celebrate now. You might decide that we don't but that's because something new took it's place. Or that it is just so far into the future that we just don't remember why we celebrate, just that we do.

That's some of the things to think on as you continue down this road of world building. It's going to be uncomfortable but that's when we grow as writers. So, until next time, keep on plotting, being uncomfortable, and hopefully, when you can, writing.

People/Customs: Exercise for Second World

Hello my second world people! I hope you found last week's exercise helpful. This week's is going to be a bit less lengthy, mostly because it's more simple, and also because you've got a lot to decide for this week. We're going to dive in on how you can bring one thing from a holiday or custom you love into your second world setting.

Now, some of these are going to be simple. Say you like going to a bar. Well, in the second world, a bar could be called an inn or tavern and you can go for a beer or drink there. Same can be said for those who love going to a coffee shop or tea shop but you might want to make up something that is similar. Unless your second world is going to actually have coffee beans in it and then you've got to decide where in the world those are. If you are, I recommend a brief Google into the history of tea and coffee.

Others are going to be a bit harder. Going back to the idea of Christmas, you need to break down what you like about the season. For me, I love the giving part of it. As I grow older, I realize that I like giving (and yes, sometimes receiving, even if it's only a small thing) because it makes the other person feel better. For my mom, I know that it's family - everyone being in one spot and catching up with people we only see once a year - and for my aunt, it's the cooking. For my dog, it's the tearing of tissue paper. We could get her tissue paper for Christmas and she'd be happier than having to just end up with the toy inside. She's strange (and a dog) but I'm straying from the point.

The point is that you don't have to make up your new customs completely from scratch. You can take what we have in the real world, twist it just enough or remove things enough to make it seem completely your own, and go from there. It doesn't have to be Christmas or another big holiday, you can take the small little customs of your life and go from there. My suggestion is not to do this on the computer but sit away with a pen and notebook. Write down all the holidays and little customs of your life that you love to do and then break it down into why. Take those whys and create your own holidays and customs.

I hope this helps, second world-ers, and, until next time, keep on plotting (and writing)!

People/Customs: Exercise for Real World Settings

You know how, yesterday, I talked about the idea of Christmas and how you might or might not have a tradition around that? We're going to focus on that idea for this exercise into people and customs today. Just because we're dealing with the real world doesn't mean that we can ignore the little customs or the bigger ones of daily life. Or the random people in our daily lives, like the very nice baristas at Starbucks who make our coffee.

Bonus points if you can guess where I'm writing this right now. Thank everything for PSL and salted caramel season.

So, for today, take one of your customs, either big or small, and think how you could fit it into your novel (if you want to). Maybe you celebrate the first day of fall by having your first PSL of the season. Maybe you celebrate something that mainstream America doesn't and, even though your characters are not of your nationally or religion, they could observe someone going through it. But try to break down one of your customs today and see if it can fit within the vision of the world you're portraying in your novel. It might send you in a different direction than you thought you were going in or it might make you realize that your own reality plays into your novel's reality more than you know.

Until next time, keep on plotting (and writing!).

Week 2: People (needing people...)

Welcome to week two of NaNoWriMo world building prep! This week, we're going to be talking about the idea of people in your world. Now, I am not talking about your main, major, or even minor characters. When we talk about people in the gaze of world building, we're talking about the average Joe or Jane that is walking about. They're not special, they're background, but they are just as important that you know about them. Without them, your main, major, and even minor characters will have a very limited group of who to speak with.

Just like last week, there will be ways to break it down into real world, Earth AU, and second world. There's an entire part of this world building that deals with mages and magic, which is very much Earth AU and second world, because, depending on who you speak to, the magic of this world is very limited in what it can do. Or what it's called, which we will not get into, but I will lightly touch on this when we get to that part of this week.

Now, people are just one half of this equation. We're also going to be talking about the customs that people use in their daily and not-daily lives. For the real world and Earth AU people, this would be something like how does your community deal with Christmas? Is Christmas celebrated? If not, what holidays are celebrated and are there any pockets of the world that try to celebrate Christmas? Now that's a very watered down version of the questions that the world building gets into but it's more to give you an idea of what to expect. Maybe there's another new holiday that everyone celebrates with glee that is more important but this is part of what you should be thinking about.

The second world people can do the same thing, but you need to take into the aspect of why. To take the example of Christmas, that's a tradition rooted in different parts of the world, with different customs, but basically celebrated within the same month / week / day. If you create something like that, then you need the background to back it up. I can go to the history of Christmas and know that it has roots in both Christianity and Paganism. Sometimes you're going to need the deep roots and with others, a simple "it was created in the honor of X hero" will be best. You need to make sure that you pick your battles with world building and customs / holidays, just like you do in writing with showing us the story that's in your head.

The reason why I brought up Christmas as an example is that, I know, for me, that's it's still celebrate in 2050. I even have a main / major character who is a C&E Catholic, meaning he's lapsed and only goes to Christmas midnight mass and the Easter mass. However, a reader who knows what that means with no explanation or perhaps a lapsed Catholic as well, can recognize that and possibly want to read more. It goes back to the little things in novels that make it something readers want to read and don't think about it while we do all the time.

In the end, people make your novel and their traditions and culture make the people. I hope this helps with making you think about the nitty gritty of your novel. Until next time, keep on plotting (and writing)!

Helpful Exercise: People and Customs from Patricia C. Wrede. If you're second world building and even thinking about magic, here's magic and magicians for another exercise if/when you have the time.

Friday Five: A Little Bit of Everything

We're through week 1 of NaNo Prep! There's only seven weeks and three days to go until NaNoWriMo but who's counting (me). I know I've thrown a lot of information at you this week and will continue to do so next week. Thank you so much for reading my posts and I hope something helps. Even if it's only one tiny thing in everything I've put out there, I still hope it helps.

Let's get to the links.

1. For our AU Earth people, as I was talking about how you want to think about what might be there in the future? Wired has an article about what hospitals might look like in 2020. Just thought you'd might like to know.

2. The Cubs Magic Number is 9 8 (sorry, thought I remembered to update last night). There's something big for all of you real world setting / Earth AU people who want to use Chicago as a setting that we do not talk about until we're there. It's Fight Club for Cubs fans. Bad things happen if you talk about it before it happens so we do not talk about (fight club).

3. A friend of mine wrote an article about the dangers of being too connected and how handwriting can help you write. I plan to start unplugging and writing more come Monday as it's Friday and my weekends are never writing friendly. I'll check in with how it goes.

4. I know the link above is about how helpful it is to take yourself out of the echo chamber, but here's 18 apps to help you be more productive. I also recommend the old school pen and paper to-do list but if you want to be more tech savvy, go for it.

5. And, finally, Huffington Post asks questions we all have about the new Apple earbuds (tongue in cheek).

Setting: Exercise for an Alternative Earth Setting

Okay, time to give some of our AU Earth setting writers some love. Okay, well, we have with both past exercises, as they can use some of both, but we're going to dive into the idea of just how far you're alternative setting is going to go.  Let's dive in.

The first type of alternative Earth and one that people really like is taking a part of our past and twisting it. What if we never got into the second world war (Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick)? What if we never set off the nuclear bombs and we never entered the nuclear age? What if the cold war never ended? Those are a lot of more recent history changes, along with the assassination of JFK (11/23/63 by Stephen King), but that's not to say you couldn't go back farther. What if Rome never fell? What if Cleopatra never took her own life and Egyptian culture had a resurgence? We have a lot of history that, if you have a favorite time period, you could go back and twist something to write a plot from there.

The second type of alternative Earth is taking something we do not have - magic, mythological creatures, etc - and bringing them into the world. Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series has a mage detective working in Chicago. That's still the real world but it's urban fantasy due to the magic and supernatural creatures in the world. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to use the age we're in right now for your story. You could set it back in Elizabethan time and have a magic user who was in service of the Queen to take out her enemies. Or something else. You're not restricted to the time period of the here and now. Next week, we're going to be diving into different cultures and the rule of magic that will help those who want to write in this type of setting.

The third type of alternative Earth is where you go into the near or distant future. What do we have that we don't have now (flying cars anyone)? Are we still the same with slight differences if you're just going a small jump in the future? For me, as I have a novel that I'm working with the near future, is that we still have a lot of the same things. Racism isn't as prevalent as it is now and there's different types of it woven into the novel (half supernatural beings looked down upon). We still have the tech we have now but it's many numbers ahead of what we have now. Think Samsung Galaxy Note 20 instead of Note 7. So you do need to think of what we have different, what we have the same, and how long you are jumping. If you're jumping into the year 3000 or beyond, you might want to look into doing a bit of the second world setting plotting because culture will probably change a lot. We might have different beings that have evolved into living alongside humans. So keep that in mind when you're doing this type of AU Earth.

So those are the three types and the challenges and differences of each. I really like working in the third type, especially for the novel I'm writing now, but that is not to say that the second and third do not blend. None of these are set apart from each other. You can use all or none or some in each of them and come up with a great novel. Until next time, keep on plotting (and writing)!

Setting: Exercise for Second World Settings

On Monday, I put up an exercise that people could do, no matter which setting you're using, but I included a second one that was centered more towards those using a second world.  The second world exercise looked into the geography of the world and region you're going to use as well as other things.  Let's do a bit more of an in-depth look into the exercise and how it can help those using the real world as well.

Here's the link to the exercise in case you want to take another look at it.  We'll break it down into the sections that it's in on the website.

The general questions deal with the base geological region where your story will be taking place.  Are there mountains or is it by the sea?  Is it in a valley surrounded by mountains and isolated from the rest of the world?  Are you going to use more of the world or will it be centered in that one region?  As you answer those questions, you'll get more of the world and, possibly, more of the story you want to tell.  Say, for example, you wanted to keep it to an isolated city or town. You might find out, as you realize that this isolated place is connected to the rest of your world, that you decide that your hero needs to journey out. Or maybe your first book will deal with the isolated city and the rest of the series will focus more towards the rest of the world. It's best to get that down now instead of being in the second book and having to backtrack to world build before you sit down to write the second book. The second part deals with the non-human inhabitants of your world, if there are any, and where they live. Are you going to go traditional or non-traditional? Are your elves going to be forest ones or mountain ones? What about your dwarves? And so on. This goes into real world by trying to figure out, if you're working in a big city, where people live and how their culture centers in that small area. Think Chinatown in Chicago for that. It is centered in a small bit of Chicago but it reaches out all over in the city.

The second part deals with your climate and geography. These questions are also centered around how your humanity has effected the world as well. There are probably still issues of climate change or maybe not in your world. Perhaps there is no erosion of soil but there are cities that might or might not effect on where your humanity lives. There are no right or wrong answers for this, but you might want to figure out that humanity is going to have some effect on the climate and geography of your world. Maybe there are a lot of grasslands where there are nomads and a clear border where you're going into society. It's not wrong to have that, but it's also a good idea to have, in the back of your mind, of what might happen.

Third part is the natural resources of the world. Just like we have gold and oil, there are probably things in your world that people use to barter. Maybe it is just food, cloth, and more basic things than what we have. Or maybe only certain cultures have one thing and barter what they have with ones that have another certain culture has. You're going to need to figure out if you want a free exchange of goods and services or if there are going to be imbalances. Is there a part of your culture that has everything and it's one sided? Or is it going to be something different but yet you have clear borders of who has what? Again, this is where there are no right or wrong answers, but it brings up plot ideas. For example, say that you have it that dwarves are the only ones that have access to ore and stones but the elves are the only ones that have access to wood. There might be a tense alliance so the two can share what they have that could fracture at anytime. That fracture could be woven into your plot as the rest of the world breaks down into it gets fixed.

Fourth part and fifth part has to do with history and how you want to break it down. There's the general world history and then there's the history that breaks down by culture. To use the example of Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, the general world history would be the War of the Ring, but the specific history to humans deals with the aftermath and waiting for the return of the rightful king. It also goes into how you want the calendar set up and how time passes and so on. You might want to use the calendar we have now, so you don't confuse yourself, and the 24 hour time that we deal with everyday. Or perhaps different cultures use different time hours. A culture that deals with getting up with the sun and going to bed a hour after the sun sets might have their day set firmly in their boundaries. When you go into the specifics of the country / culture you're using, you also need to think about if they have enemies or allies and how that could effect your plot too. If humans distrust dwarves for some reason, that could work against your human hero if he or she needs to interact with them. So that's another thing that needs to be thought about.

If you're made it to the end, you're probably thinking "wow, this is a lot of work!". I'm not going to lie to you, as it is, but that's why we're starting so early with the prep work. You need to know all of these things before you even sit down to plot out your novel so you have a strong backbone for your story. Take a deep breath, realize that while this might be insane, it's going to be awesome in the end. You're going to have a plan for why things are happening in your novel that make sense in the world you're creating. It is scary but, trust me, once it's done, it's awesome.

Until tomorrow, keep on plotting (and writing)!

Setting: Exercise for Real World Settings

Today is a very simple exercise that can be done whenever you have time or want to play around on Google. It's also advice that has been said again and again, so this is me just signal boosting the advice. Most don't suggest using Google but this is for us that cannot get to where our setting is.

Take yourself to where you're going to be setting your novel and walk around for a bit. If there's public transportation, take it so you get a feel for how the city runs. If you can't do that, Google the city and see if you can find real person advice via a travel site about the city you want to use. See if there are people on Twitter who might be open to answering your questions about the city they live in. We live in a digital age and we should use it to the best of our ability if we cannot physically get to the setting we want to use.

So that's your exercise for today. Feel free to share your experience in the comments below and have a great day.

Week 1: Setting

Welcome to World Building week 1.  We're going to get the most important part out of the way and figure out the setting of our novels.  Depending on what type of story you're writing, this is going to range to a setting you already know to a setting that is stuck in your head.  We'll go through both, along with giving some tips for both, and see how it goes along.

First off, we're going to need to figure out where you are and what type of setting you're dealing with.  We'll break them down into three categories - real world, AU Earth, and second world.  These can be used for all genres, although you might figure out that the speculative genre deals a bit more with AU Earth and second world more than real world. That doesn't mean that real world cannot exist in fantasy but, for the most time, it doesn't because you're introducing something that our real world doesn't have (like magic).

Like I explained briefly above, real world should be self explanatory as it is the real world.  You are using the setting of the world around us, either during this time period or one in the past. This would not include the near or distant future because we don't know what's going to happen. A lot of genres written in real world are mystery / thriller, chick lit, general fiction... the list goes on. One of my favorite real world novels is Prayer for Owen Meany which deals with the Vietnam War and how it effects two very different people who are unlikely friends.  There is more to it than that, but it deals with a real world setting.  However, like I said above, you usually do not find the speculative genre here as that deals with things that we do not have in the real world. However, they are involved heavily in the next two.

The near or distant future setting, to me, is known as AU Earth.  You are using the setting of Earth but you are putting your spin on it.  It's the year 3050 and we have to abandon Earth because of an environmental crisis would be AU Earth and, depending on the plot of your novel, second world.  Even just jumping about 30 years into the future, like I do in Mystery of the Dark, is AU Earth because we don't know where we'll be in 30 years.  Also, I have vampires.  AU Earth is also where you put something that we don't have on Earth, like vampires or other supernatural figures, and this is where speculative fiction lives a lot of the time. We're introducing something that is not involved in the real world that we have and, therefore, it is an alternative view of the world we have now. Or, you twist history in some way, either by going back in time or events happened differently than it did in our written history. Hitler won the Second World War is a highly popular AU Earth plot where you would need to decide, through your outlining, what part of the Earth is under Hitler and which is under others. Another is the JFK assassination and what would have happened if he survived. That is AU Earth and the different ways that it can be imagined. My favorite examples of AU Earth is the Harry Potter series, Under the Dome, Good Omens, and the Temeraire series.  There are a ton more, but those are my top four of the moment.

The third, second world, is where you are creating a world all of your own.  You might model it on Earth but it isn't Earth.  You are calling it something else but you have the basic geography, air quality, what have you, but, in the end, it's not our world.  A lot of fantasy settings are set on a second world that, while it might be like Earth in some ways, isn't.  This is the setting that is the most time consuming but, in the end, the most satisfying.  You're taking a world, that is in your head, and giving it life via maps and whatever else you decide to write down. This is the other part where speculative fiction lives because a lot of fantasy novels and science fiction novels create their own worlds. J.R.R. Tolkien's works are all prime examples of second world and he really needs to be held up as the shining example of world building.  He has maps, different languages, this long history (hello Silmarillion to name one), and so on. George RR Martin is another who has a ton of world building that he created a second world of. Stephen King did the same with the Dark Tower series and how you can see tendrils of it in a lot of his books. Now, for your second world, you do not need to be that detailed but those are examples that you can go and look at for inspiration.

For me and my NaNo project, I am debating between a real world setting for a mystery and my AU Earth world in Mystery of the Dark.  Both have their own pros and cons.  The pros for real world mystery is I can go to the place that I'm thinking in my head and write it. People know where I'm talking about when I say where the characters are unless I choose to invent a city.  Now, this is still real world, because I am in the here and now and all of history is still the same and so on, but I have the option of making my own little traditions and quirks and so on.  Also, I think it might work better to have a small to mid-size town mystery vs a big city mystery.  It is something to think about.  The con of this is the fear of sounding weird because I've never lived in a small town.  Do I have people I can ask about it? Yep, but I don't have that experience. I do have the experience of living in a small to mid size college town, so I think I might work that in.  We'll see.

Likewise, the pro of Mystery of the Dark is that I know the setting and this is our world but in 2050. And there's vampires and werewolves and other supernatural beings.  There's magic.  It is AU Earth.  So I have the pro from the real world setting that I can say where a character is and people understand it from the name. The challenge or con is that I'm going to be using a city that I've never been to before nor do I have the time to go to. However, I know people who have lived there and I could poke them about it. I also worry about being a bit cliche about using this city - it's New Orleans - but not for vampires. It's a werewolf hub but still, worried about that.

In the end, there's a lot of similarities and a ton of difference in my two possible projects for NaNo. We'll see which one I go to in the end. What type of world do you like to play in for your setting, dear readers? Feel free to leave a comment below and, until next time, keep on plotting (or writing)!

Helpful Exercise: The World Basics from Patricia C. Wrede.  When you're done with those, you might want to physical and historical features if you have time / are up to it.

Saturday Links!

Hey everyone!  We're starting the NaNoWriMo prep tomorrow but I thought I'd share some links ahead of time.  Below is just a few links of sites that have helped me in the past and will probably help me again in the future.  I hope that they help you and that you have a great Saturday.

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions By Patricia C. Wrede - This is an extreme, in depth, world building website with helpful tips and exercises.  It is geared towards fantasy and completely building a world from scratch but I've found it helpful when doing an AU Earth setting as well.  Especially when you get into the cultural settings because, even though you have a starting point with AU Earth, things change due to other things being in the world.  Or a change in the timeline because of what you're doing.  So while you might not want to do the full 30 days, it is great for when you need to figure out building in the world you're playing in.  This website helps to break it down into a 30 days challenge as well as gives you different file types to be able to carry around the guide with you.

World Building Through Character - I've found this helpful when I've got the world already set up but I need a little bit more insight.  It focused on five categories that you can think of as little or as much as you want.  Again, this is better for either a short story or if you're working on a sequel where the world is completely set up.  Or even if you're working on a story set in the real world and you don't need to build it up from scratch.

ThrillWriting - For all your thriller / mystery / needing your heroine to save herself.  I love this for when I'm struggling with plot, like how someone could slip out of handcuffs, and this had the answer.  There's a lot of nifty things to read on the website that can help with writing, especially if you're like me and never done things like your character is doing, so I find it great for during writing.  It can also be done with plotting before you start writing as well.

Seventh Sanctum - I believe I've shared this before but I'm going to again. This is a great generator website that can help with everything from names to character descriptions to other things that you might or might not need. This falls into the helpful world building as well as helping you figure out a character when writing.

September WriYe Blog Circle: Procrastinate!

Well, no, not really, but that's the topic this month.  It's kind of a good one, because we're talking about what gets in our way when it comes to writing.  I have a lot, most of which I need to keep instead of get rid of, but that's because they're attached to real life.  Yes, we do procrastinate writing with housework.  It's why, when I'm stuck, sometimes the house looks cleaner than it has in weeks.  Taking care of your family could be considered procrastinating if said children or family really don't need taking care of because they're old enough to do so on their own.  And so on.

Let's get into the questions.

What is your biggest time waster?
Watching television or reading a book.  I know a lot of people are going to be "wait, don't you play WoW, which is the biggest time suck on the planet?" and yes, I am.  However, there are days when I don't play.  Like today and yesterday because Legion just hit and I'm waiting for bugs to clear.  But WoW is played more at the end of the day than during the day unless I can clearly get away with it.  Like I'm a bunch of words ahead and I won't feel panicky after spending a few hours on it.  I also like a good Youtube binge of planner videos.  So, yeah, television, Youtube, and reading.  I love having MSNBC on during the day and sometimes I get sucked into news loops.  With reading, if I'm reading a good book, I need to read it now and to hell with everything else.  So, those are my two.

How long do you let yourself procrastinate?
I try to make it no more than a hour but it seems to get away with me some days.  I can spend hours on Youtube just watching things before I'm like "oh crap, I need to get things done".  I know I can do better by setting an alarm or a timer but sometimes I forget.  I'm human.

Do you regret it or do you think it's worth it?
There are days where it is so worth it.  I feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall and a hour of procrastination helps.  I feel refreshed after it and I feel focused after taking a break.  Maybe it should more be called a break vs procrastination but there are times when it's two hours before I go back.  And, just like there are some days that I like it, there are other days where I do regret it.  Mostly when I'm not doing it to relax but to escape.  I shouldn't be escaping from my job as a writer and I think that's the line that we need to make sure we're not crossing.  If we're trying to escape from our job as a writer, then something is wrong and we need to figure out the problem.

Bonus: Try to forgo one of your time wasters this month and see how much higher your WC is! But not that school, work, or necessary stuff. We need you happy, healthy, and not in trouble for truancy.
Maybe I will try this with Youtube.  But, instead of going cold turkey, make it on the weekend (when I'm not really writing all that much anyways) or when I truly need it.  And respect the timer / alarm, damn it.  We'll give it a try.

So, that's the circle post for this month, readers!  Do you have answers for the questions?  Leave them below or link me to your blog post and I'll be happy to read them.  Until next time, keep on writing!

To Panic or Not...

There's 60 days until NaNoWriMo.  I have yet to pick a project, barely have done any sort of prep, and all I want to do is go on the campaign trail until election day.

This is not good.  I'm not up to panic levels yet - I've got ideas of what to do - but there's a ton of stuff in my way.  I've got Mystery of the Dark to edit (again), I have a ton of projects that I'm either half way through or just started (tempting to make one into a NaNo project), and... well, real life is going to throw a monkey wrench in there somewhere.

But, not panicking.  Yet.  There's 60 days.  2 months.  Enough time to nail down a project, do prep thanks to the blog posts starting on Monday, and figure out the best way to make sure real life doesn't explode like a bomb.

Did I mention I'm thinking of writing a mystery novel instead of vampires or fantasy?

Yeah, totally should panic.  Then again, maybe not.  We'll see.