Writing

Worldbuilding for Amateurs

I’m working on a second-world fantasy novel. The worldbuilding is enormously fun, and also enormously challenging. I have the basics down, but am continuing to refine the details.

The big stuff: geography, climate, major political structures. These are the background to the whole thing (and not independent – geography affects climate, and both affect climate and politics). But there are a zillion other details that go into making a fully-realized and lush world.

Part of it is knowing the daily life of your protagonist, and part of it is knowing how your protagonist fits into the surrounding society, or doesn’t. All sorts of little things make up a culture, and these are the details that make the world real to a reader. The better-grounded and more plausible a world is, the more able the reader is to accept the different bits, the magic or whatever makes your world not just like ours.

What are the names of the constellations? Does the protagonist know them?
What kinds of musical instruments are common? When are they heard? Is there recording technology? What style of music does the protagonist like? Or participate in? Is that common?
What kind of bed does the protagonist sleep in – pallet, featherbed, mattress and springs, antigravity plate?
What does the protagonist hear while in bed trying to sleep? Traffic, silence, noisy neighbors, the local bar?
When does the protagonist usually eat? Two meals a day? Three? Four? Is that the usual pattern?
What does the protagonist usualy eat when at home? Travelling?
How often does the protagonist bathe? Using what supplies and equipment? Is that the usual pattern?
What’s the protagonist’s favorite season? Why?

I keep thinking of more and more, but you get the idea. Knowing these kinds of “little” details for the culture, the protagonist, and any other major characters will help you create a richer world, even if none of them actually end up in the story.

Checking in with myself

Oct 14th, 2009

by Sarah.

1 comment

That’s a bit better: 675 words of new fiction. Then I got interrupted twice, and lost all momentum. But that ends a scene, so its okay. Sort of.

To distract you from my lack of astounding progress (rather than astounding lack of progress; that was yesterday): a writing article. That would be two links if I could figure out where I left the other one…

I had the perfect title, but forgot it

Oct 13th, 2009

by Sarah.

2 comments

Dear World,

I haven’t written a word of fiction since the beginning of September. Lots of thinking about fiction, planning of fiction, research and note-taking, but the butt has not been in the chair. In my ideal world, I would be writing every day. But I don’t live in my ideal world, unfortunately, and I must recognize that the demands of the various things I do will ebb and flow. This has been a very busy time for my main job – you know, the one that pays the mortgage – and I’ve been reorganizing some of the weaving stuff. That leaves precious little time, and more importantly braincycles, for fiction.

But at the same time, I have to recognize that I will never have any more time than I do now, and that if I’m not writing now, then I’ll never be writing. If I want to do it, I will find the time. Just not every day, or even every week. Sometimes day-job work will eat my brain, sometimes I’ll be able to take vacation time to devote to other things

It will all work out, as long as I’m mindful of how I spend my time, and work to maintain the balance between my various obligations. Mindfulness is very important to me right now. What am I doing at this moment? Is it what I should be doing? If so, then do that thing, without worrying about any of the other myriad things begging for my attention. If it isn’t, then stop doing it. I can only do one major thing at a time, and so it must be the right one.

I think I’m not going to do NaNoWriMo this year. If you’ve missed it, it’s the communal attempt to write an entire novel in the month of November. It’s fun, but I think for me it’s counterproductive. NaNoing puts the focus entirely on wordcount and pushing for more and more, where I need to work on improving the balancing act that allows me to meet all my goals and obligations. The NaNo-push forces me to ignore other obligations, so when December 1 rolls around, I quit writing to tend to them. Not good. I will write more fiction in November, but will not push for the 50k wordcount.

Viable Paradise was last week. I didn’t get to go this year, though I plan to apply again, but I thought it would be a good time to do something else writerly. Elizabeth Bear had mentioned the Online Writing Workshop, a SF/F/H critique group, and it sounded potentially very useful. A writing group of some sort would help me to not push fiction all the way to the bottom of the pile – external motivation can be very helpful – and help me refine some of the areas I’m having trouble with.

OWW has a free month trial period, and after that is a small annual fee. The setup is simple: after your first submission, you need to provide substantive critiques of others’ works to earn enough points to submit more of your own work. Like any such group, there’s a wide range of experience and aptitude, both for writing and for critiquing. I was thrilled to discover that my technical editing skills can work for fiction as well, with only a slight shift in perspective. At least, I think so – I haven’t discussed them with the recipients of those critiques. I’ve only submitted one piece for review so far, but have gotten some useful feedback. I don’t have a regular writing group, so this could be very helpful.

Leaving on a jet plane

Sep 4th, 2009

by Sarah.

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To Amsterdam. Be back in a while.

For your entertainment while you wait, a short fiction contest.

And also, gorgeous old microscope slides.

Talking to Myself

Aug 25th, 2009

by Sarah.

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Dear Self,

I know you’re excited, enthusiastic, a bit manic even. I understand that you want to drop everything to tackle this new project. I’m sure it’s the best idea ever, far exceeding sliced bread and possibly even better than the fresh garden salsa we made today.

But Self, and I know you realize this and just need to be reminded now and then, you may not abandon projects in progress any time you get a new idea. We’d never get anything done. Some of those projects pay the bills, you know, and if the electricity were to be turned off that would be a disaster. You know we’d explode without the Internet.

And besides, you want to be a writer. That’s a perfectly acceptable ambition, at least around here. But to be anything more than a poseur with a blog who sits in the coffee shop with a laptop, you, well, need to finish things. And submit them. And get published.

So, Self, I know you really love this new idea. But you can’t start it until you finish a manuscript for work. And also those short stories, you know the ones. The ones that are just a final edit away from being done? I’ll let you off the hook on the novel word count this time, but no new projects until those stories have been submitted.

If the new idea loves you, it will be waiting when you come back for it.

Love,
Me

Viable Paradise

Jul 6th, 2009

by Sarah.

4 comments

Anyone following me on Twitter will have noticed a lot of agony about Big Scary Deadline during the past couple of months. BSD, as it became less-than-fondly known, was an application to Viable Paradise, a SFF writing workshop with an exceptional list of instructors. The entry packet: three chapters and a novel synopsis, much like any other professional novel submission.

The whole process was very useful: I learned how to write a synopsis, and this was a strong incentive to pull the beginning of my somewhat-disorganized almost-done novel into a coherent, readable form. I also solved an annoying plot problem while writing the synopsis, though who knows if clever solution will survive the actual writing of that section.

The final edits were done on my mother’s cute little balcony, bees buzzing in the flowering tree overhead, and beer close to hand. She read the ms, marking bits as needed, then passed me the pages so I could scribble on them at greater length. Mom finished the last page and handed it over. She paused, looked at me.

“You can’t stop there!” Moms are notoriously biased, but what an excellent compliment.

I got the packet in only two weeks before the deadline. I’d been told that earlier applications have a higher probability of success, but having a good application was the main requirement, and my 8000 words weren’t ready before that.

I heard back today: waitlist, with the key addendum: “In fact, the instructors made it a point that you be strongly encouraged to apply to VP 14 next year.” I have no idea how long the waitlist is; I will just wait and see what happens.

I’m actually very happy about this outcome. I imagine there were hundreds of applicants for the 24 positions, so waitlist is doing very well, especially as late as I applied. And best of all, the instructors, who as you recall are all authors I admire greatly, read my packet and thought it didn’t suck.

First Lines

Jul 4th, 2009

by Sarah.

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I caught the first lines meme from Elizabeth Bear, and thought it would be a good impetus to locate and organize all of my works-in-progress. It took me a remarkably long time to find the 12,000 word novel fragment that I like but haven’t touched in three years. Obviously I need a better organizational system for my computer files, but that’s no surprise. I finally have a hard drive big enough to hold everything but right now it comprises stacks of folders from different computers, flash drives, and other storage media, many of which are partial duplicates, or contain files of the same name but different ages. Anyone know of a clever solution to finding and removing duplicated files and folders?

I also found a story fragment: opening scene for something that I’d entirely forgotten. I’ve also forgotten what happens next, or ever. Not just file organization, idea organization!

Anyway, first lines. When I listed mine all out, I discovered that I have a lot of fiction in progress. I also discovered that I like most of Bear’s more than mine. No surprise there, but it does give me something to work towards.

Long

When the Crows Leave: “Not _that_ tree, silly. The gnomes live in this one.”

After the Dawn: The world exploded.

Railroad: Everyone thinks vampires are a big-city problem, at least everyone who bothers to think about them at all.

Paper Magic: “Lucas, do you know that there’s a young man lurking in your street?”

Short

Crossing Water: The gooey strip that used to be Interstate 75 stopped at the water’s edge

The Future of Cosmetic Surgery: The old pulps portrayed women ravished by tentacled green monsters, or virile spacemen putting the moves on mammalian alien babes. They got it wrong.

The Bone Flute: Fog lay in the valley, softening the outlines of the trees in the hedgerows and the cows in the farther field.

Lucky Egg: Reet strummed across the warps on the upright loom, loosening and separating the shed.

I also have a couple of non-fiction non-work projects in progress, but those opening lines aren’t nearly as much fun. And the work writing, also not fun.

More fun with publishing

Jun 11th, 2009

by Sarah.

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That science publishing scam? Yup. It really is.

It’s a bit dismaying that it’s possible to buy publications now, but I suppose it’s been possible to buy entire degrees for a long time.

A contradictory nation

May 13th, 2009

by Sarah.

1 comment

Science, politics… all the fun all at once.

Among the 30 OEDC countries, the United States is number one in health expenditures, but 28 in infant mortality, and 24 in overall life expectancies. We also work the most hours per week, and are the third richest country. But then, we are obese, and don’t get enough sleep. (No time to do anything but work? How do you suppose that contributes to the life expectancy stats?) The full report is here.

Whatever it is we’ve been doing, it isn’t working, and it will continue to not work. We need to fix any number of things. The most urgent place to start is with universal health care. How can anyone read that we are 28th in infant mortality (better than only Mexico and Turkey) and not support access to medical care, and especially preventative care?

Speaking of medical care, here are two important swine-flu links: one and two. Though if you only listen to mainstream news media, you might like three better.

Completely changing the subject, Neil Gaiman provides the best commentary ever on the recent complaints about GRR Martin’s delays in writing the next “Song of Ice and Fire Book”. Let me quote:

“George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.”

Thank you, Neil. (I adore this man. From afar, and very politely.) (I would like to read GRRM’s book, but c’mon people. Go read something else while you wait!)

New technology, new milestones: the first Twitter from Earth orbit! (My favorite is still the Car Talk caller who was on board the space shuttle at the time. I even heard that one when it first aired.)

(I have 66 Twitter followers at this moment, and have made 1,112 updates. Is that good or bad, do you suppose?)

And finally, my latest musical obsession for you to enjoy.

Today’s Writing Lesson

Apr 11th, 2009

by Sarah.

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Characterization

He was a big, broad handsome man, his Greek heritage as evident in his features as the Irish: heavy-lidded and laden eyes, a thug of a nose, a generous mouth beneath a fat mustache. In a suit, he looked like somebody’s bodyguard; in drag at Mardi Gras, like a fundamentalist’s nightmare; in leather, sublime.

(from Clive Barker, Sacrament, p 257 in paperback edition)

All you need to know about the character being described, and a great deal of information about the narrator as well.