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Creations of a Fantasy World

Guest · 2005-07-15T06:36:51Z

In regards to Éloeré thread, this came into being solely for the creation of a fantasy world. It could possibly be used to incorporate Science Fiction, for the guidelines are fairly even in both situations so you may use this with all situations concerning world building. World Building Creation Methodology After you have actually decided to create such a world to write your story in, you have a number of things to bare in mind: Do you make obvious connections to the world as we know it with historical knowledge, or do you create something from scratch? Do you originate ideas from your favorite fictional setting or create it all on your own? Do the laws of physics work as this world works or is the world flat with a dome of stars overhead? There are two approaches to beginning the creation of your very own world. INSIDE OUT To summarize in this category, you start in one place and branch outward from it. Do not worry about the full scale model of this project, or you may even want to concentrate on something smaller than a kingdom. Create a small village or town, obviously connecting it with your story in some way. You might have your main character(s) begin here. Expand relatively slowly, making sure that you included only what is needed. Perhaps the river just outside town is where your character uses a boat to go to the next town over. Also bare in mind that you want to expand in all directions pretty evenly so you have more options to continue your story. After time has past, you may have developed an entire thriving kingdom, or rather on where villagers are mutinous to the Crown because of the poverty. And it all fits in with the initial origin of that little town you conveyed. You perhaps discarded that idea and had them beginning in a foreboding forest or in the hills outside of town. Proceed to other neighboring dominions and lands, determining the political situations. Keep accurate records as you write for you might develop more ideas along the way. The advantage to this method is that you don't need to do a tremendous amount of work to begin with. This strategy also ensures that you won't develop too much too fast so you don't get carried away with just working on the world but also the story. Spread it out; make the village and the surrounding areas then take a break and write the beginning of your story and introduce the plot. Then after you have used what you have created sufficiently, you can return to the neighboring nation and wage war or protect against a common foe. Stories are hard work and you may find that some areas of your ideas aren't the best so you can easily make changes if you happen to change your mind. OUTSIDE IN To summarize in this category, you start with the big picture, drawing a world map of entire continents or portions. Alternatively, you could start with a grand design for how a number of kingdoms and nations may interact with one another in diplomatic campaigns or you may create a large empire ruled by a malevolent king. You may even consider started with cosmology, deciding how the deities collaborate with your world, where your world is positioned in relation to other worlds, and what the world as a full grid appears to be. Only after you have this level of concept design worked out should you focus on a particular area. When you decide to start on more detailed work, start with large-scale basics and work down to that pebble getting beaten around by the ocean waves. For example, after familiarizing yourself with your continent, choose a continent and set up the ruler(s) or possibly a democracy and what conditions this kingdom is in. From there, focus your attention on some regions in the kingdom to build up and assign a baron to a manor and have the local serfs being made slaves. You might want to include why it is such a place to farm, and possibly leave some gaps to fill in the future for later development. Finally, after you positioned the last oak in the Emerald Glades, you might want to start working on that story that you had forgotten three months ago when you started the world. Advantages for this technique is that you are already to go for sometime before you have to develop more so as to continue your story. As your story progresses, you can advance in filling in those gaps so your main character accidental falls through a hidden door into a goblin's underground cache and finds some swords and jewels to sell in the city two leagues away. And this also allows you to hint at a certain event that will occur later in your story so the reader will be led suspiciously only to be surprised dramatically.

Elelel

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Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:31 am

Elelel says... · Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:31 am

If you think about it , it's impossible not to do any pre-planning. Everything is planned in your hear more or less befor eyou type it out or write it out.

Lol. When I'm writing my Weasle Queen stuff, I don't even know what I'm typing while I'm actually typing. I have to read it on the screen. It's ... interesting. Hard to imagine reading a book with the words appearing as you read ... but that's what it's like. Not even like writing. Like reading.

Oh, you're angry! Click your pen.
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Bjorn

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Sat Sep 10, 2005 10:46 pm

Bjorn says... · Sat Sep 10, 2005 10:46 pm

The ideas come to me like that many times, and I spend a good deal going through it all. And from there things change in my mind, until I finally start writing, and this one idea evolved from a fictional cosmology of this earth, that I started nigh 5 months ago, and alack it has changed so much up till now, and its history has been playing through my head so much that I almost forgot about the story itself!

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Creations of a Fantasy World

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