All over the interwebs, it’s “What was it like writing your first novel?”

And the canned answer is: “It was like having a baby.”

Is writing a novel really like having a baby? Read the rest of this entry »

In an effort to get through my first draft, I put a few worldbuilding projects on the backburner. And I’m glad I did.

One of those projects was to develop a calendar. Now that I’m in the editing phase, it needs done now. Or else making fixes during later revisions will be a pain.

I first mentioned the madcap idea of creating my own calendar for Five Rings and went into detail with the actual days of the week here. Read the rest of this entry »

Last call folks!: If you want in on the Novel-Push Initiative, drop a message below.

For those of you already signed up, now’s a great time to do some pre-meditation on what you’ll be writing. After all, NPI is only one day away (yes, April’s one of those damnable months with only thirty days). 

For me, I think fine-tuning is key. It really helps my fingers fly later if I have that group of characters that the MC will be meeting soon fleshed out now; where they live/how they operate/back-stories/who they know, etc. I try to scrutinize my societies’ social mores and tweak them until they make more sense.

I’ll also daydream upcoming scenes in different ways from many different perspectives to better line up future events and figure out how to best narrate scenes without losing reader interest and key information. And (if I’m lucky) maybe even figure out ways to squeeze in some fun facts along the way without making it seem too much like exposition.

Are you preparing? If so, how?

Once upon a time, I was feeling down. But I tried to turn a negative into something positive by making a goal-oriented checklist that day.

Now, I’m feeling much better. So let’s see how I did:

X - Challenge 1: Argue with that little voice inside my head that keeps telling me I’ve no business writing a novel.

I haven’t been feeling insecure about my writing at all. In fact, I keep surprising myself with what’s pouring from my fingertips.

X - Challenge 2: Find time for my book. My free time just isn’t cutting it. Not even close. Whenever I get geared up for writing, something always seems to come up that demands my immediate attention. So I suppose I have to make time by sacrificing something, somehow.

While I still don’t have much time for my book, it’s true that I tend to squander my time if I have a lot of it, whereas I make the most of my time when I don’t have much. Chris Baty’s No Plot? No Problem! probably says it best. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey everyone. I want to be honest. I’m not feeling very good about my writing at the moment.
So I’ve created a list of challenges. Read the rest of this entry »

Izzit the last day of world-building month, already?

I guess I’ve been taking this past week easy. Oh well…

Then today will be all about random worldbuilding topics.

Milkfin: The most common freshwater fish. Looks like a black and white koi. (see? random! lol)

Okay, let’s try this a different way.

A chain reaction. Like a game of dominoes! I’ll start by explaining something, and if I mention something new in there, I’ll go on to explain that, too. Let’s see how far that gets me before I run out of new terms in my explanations or get sick of it.  :P

What to start with? Hm… How about the ancient rules? Read the rest of this entry »

A theory:

Is there any such thing as ‘bad’ worldbuilding? I’ve read that the only bad worldbuilding is when it hurts the progress of a story. But what about when somebody starts adding pointless stuff after their story is already done, stopping them from writing another story? Or what if they start adding stuff so obscure, they’ll never ever use it? What if they get so obsessed with worldbuilding, they can’t have a square kilometer of land without some kind of attraction/description attached to it?

I suspect everything we create for our stories—every single thing we worldbuild—should have something to do with at least two other already existing things in our story, or be accompanied by two very good reasons. That should help tighten the vision while keeping focus on the plot, and simultaneously activate the ’synergy between rules’ to make the world seem more ‘alive’, as I was talking about here. (Yes, even my crimson moon has two reasons for existing. lol.)

So we have to make tough choices. Like, I wasn’t going to include dragons at all. Until something in my head ‘clicked’ and a set of mystic dragons worked very well as the fitting puzzle-piece for a particular part of the story. Read the rest of this entry »

Next, we have biology. (I’ll admit it’s not my best subject.)

There are two kinds of creatures in Lura:
1. Transient (mystical/magical/spectral) creatures
2. Living creatures

The animals found on Lura are much smarter than the ones we have on Earth. Most have a pack mentality. They are highly intelligent; able to communicate with each other, build, and attack in a very organized fashion. This makes travelling extremely dangerous.

If there is a large, organized group of animals, they usually have a spectral creature as a leader, which will have some kind of proper name and usually be the source of many colorful local stories; sometimes even worshipped as gods. They do not die until they are slain. And when they do, they don’t leave behind even a trace of a body. They just disperse like a ghost. Wardings work against them.

• animals

The dharchu are medium-sized living creatures with four muscular legs, their hooves extending in a claw-like fashion. They have round bodies, half of which are covered by very short armored wings they hold close to their body for protection — as if it were a second ribcage. While the wings are useless for flying, they can help the dharchu glide far when they leap and also aid their swimming. They are green and brown, mostly covered in scales with some patches of fur. Their tails are long, muscular, and very curly, which, coupled with their wings, allow them to swim very quickly. Their faces have a peaceful, solemn, humanesque form. They have long snouts and maws with sharp teeth, and protruding whiskers that are thick as beards. It is said the dharchu can leap over sea-faring vessels.

• birds

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Donna for pointing out a really cool tongue-in-cheek fantasy novel survey.
If you are writing a fantasy novel, you might find it fun to at least give it a read through.

(The Filmmaker’s Exam is equally amusing, btw.)

I guess you are supposed to be able to answer ‘No’ to every question, or abandon your project forever. LOL.

One of my nobler goals while deciding on the plot of Five Rings was to avoid or attempt to reinvent most of the common clichés out there, hoping to breathe new life into a largely unoriginal genre.

Let’s see how I did: Read the rest of this entry »

• historical use of divination
• modern use of divination

Because most of this is stuff I’ve already touched on, I’m going to take this section on in one fell swoop.

I guess the most important thing to know is there are plenty of ‘fortune tellers’ in Lura just as there are many nameless people out there who claim to be awakened mystics.

(The nameless are people who pretty much live off of others on the major city streets ((homeless)). In Lura, if you fail to make a name for yourself by the time you are an adult, you lose your name - as decided by the Naming Committee.)

Reading the night sky is a dying art — most of the stars are mapped (though anomalies are still considered good/bad omens).

Astronomists are primarily concerned with how the five rings react with each other, how and from where apparitions manifest, and just exactly what it is that the seven rays users see and experience in the fourth ring.

Divining rods work, but intuition is usually inaccurate. Seven rays mystics know that one of the three barriers in the fourth ring is ‘Time’. Humans can only hope to see a little bit ahead of the barrier of ‘present time’. Most animals can see much farther into the future (For instance, when a killer tidal wave is going to roll in on a shoreline, the animals ‘know’ about it hours/days ahead of time and leave the area early). Some demons and gods can also see into the future, according to Lurian beliefs. So human prophecy is very rare, and usually vague or way off from the truth.

Prev: Moving on… | Next: Not a meme! Also not worldbuilding…

This has nothing to do with worldbuilding month, but yesterday, my wife reminded me it’s officially been a year since I decided to become a writer. This seems like a very cakey occassion (hint hint, honey)!

I thought it would be nice to make a list of what I’ve accomplished so I can reflect back on it and try to aim higher next year:

1. Overcame my fears of writing.
2. Read several books on how to write.
3. Read several fantasy books.
4. Laid out the groundwork for a high fantasy trilogy.
5. Created this blog; one that has become part of a community I really, really enjoy. :D
6. Became an active member of the fmwriters community.
7. Participated in a dialogue writing workshop.
8. Joined my first critique circle (although I may leave … I haven’t been able to give it much attention).
9. Exchanged countless critiques.
10. Completed two short stories, submitted one to a small local contest (that I unfortunately never heard back from.)
11. Completed many poems, submitted one for publication in an e-zine (that I also unfortunately never heard back from.)

Not bad - lots of milestones.

You just never know how far you are going to go with something or how much you’ll like it until you give it a try.
Here I am, still pluggin’ away. My interest hasn’t waned at all. This is a good feeling. ^_^

Still not published yet, but I’m not gonna give up that easily.
The quest to the EotB continues!

P.S.-> Oh yeah … 12. Participated in Eliza’s World Building Month!

Prev: Shiirati architecture | Next: Patrick Rothfuss interview vid

Some of what I’m about to say is a reiteration of what I commented a few weeks ago at The Plot Whisperer’s site. (sorry, Martha!)

In my post about the timeline, I stopped writing before I got to the part where I should have talked about adding events closer to the beginning of the story … mainly because I didn’t want to reveal any spoilers. But, it was bugging me. So I decided to go ahead and talk about it now. It’s a very important part of the process, after all.

The best way I’ve found to go about creating the recent events that lead up to the beginning of the story is to have at least one major character fairly well planned-out. For instance, if you know how old the character is, you’ve already got a timeline-worthy event.

ex:
We know my book begins in the ‘Year of Harmony’ 2784.
And we know Cirellio is 28 years old, so…

YH 2756:
Cirellio is born.

Voila! A starting point.
Now, to get him from an infant to the strapping young man I know in my head…

A great way to plan out these early life events is to understand that every character wants something, wants to avoid something, and has dreams. These drives are often tied together, and should ultimately steer them to their fate. This mantra works well at all stages of the book.

((This may sound wacky, but I’m going to say the next part is a spoiler. Yes, this is a SPOILER WARNING for a book that may never see print and isn’t even complete yet. :P But anyway, little tidbits about the main character’s background (without going into too much detail) will be mentioned here. Just understand a big part of who Cirellio is and what he will become has to do with his back story, which I plan to reveal to readers in small increments throughout the book. Proceed at your own risk!))

—BEGIN SPOILER—

Read the rest of this entry »

While worldbuilding, I often found myself wondering, “Do I have enough information to continue writing? Too little? How much worldbuilding is too much?” It’s a pretty common worry amongst first-time novel writers. I see similar questions a lot.

The definitive (read: canned) answer seems to be, “When it hurts the progress of your novel; all the planning in the world won’t matter if you never finish your novel.” 

((A comforting thought: You don’t need to know every minute detail before you start writing. But the major ones are very important. Especially to fantasy.))

Those answers used to be good enough for me. But they left me doomed to wonder if I had thought of everything without having to rewrite my whole novel halfway through. I didn’t want to find out the hard way if everything I invented out of thin air was going to work well with my plot, but a rewrite was a plausible, scary possibility.

Enter ‘Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions’ by Patricia Wrede–an excellent checklist for the aspiring worldbuilder. I am so glad I came across this internet gem! Any worldbuilding issues I didn’t manage to think of on my own seemed to be covered here. I loved this list so much, I saved every question to a word document to access them anywhere.

It’s simple to use: Peruse the questions, think about the answers. If you have no idea about how to answer something, just copy and paste the troublesome question into a word processor to think about later. If you can answer a majority of the questions, you’re probably in good shape!

Prev: A fictional timeline. A fantasy world. | Next: Closer to the beginning

Research and development. More research and development. Day-dreaming about the beginning and end of your story. Brainstorming. Hearing your characters chit-chat with each other in your head (Scary, isn’t it?)…

It turns out there’s an actual term for all this meandering around instead of writing. No, it’s not called ‘writer’s block’. lol
It’s called ‘composting’.
Yep, like a compost heap. Odd term for it, don’t you think? I don’t really equate brainstorming ideas with throwing biodegradable garbage in a heap of dead leaves and grass.

But ‘composting’ is what we writers do, even if some of us can be best described as ‘by the seat of your pants’ writers. It’s what I have been up to for a long time; been babbling on about here, and it’s certainly an ‘informal’ process; different for every one.

After painstakingly trying to compile a set of rules that support each other to paint the picture of a living, breathing world (world-building), I started to get an idea or two about some of the major past events it might have gone through. My focus was to create a fictional world history timeline with as few events as possible–but still manage to set the stage for the beginning of the story. And, as far as I can tell, ’setting the stage with past events’ is really all creating a timeline is. Read the rest of this entry »