Young Writers Society

Now for the quick question; is there one thing, one small detail that you absolutely want to have in the story, no matter what the cost? And if so, how did you envisage incorporating it into the plot?

Hmm....this is a very interesting question...I actually do happen to have a detail that I feel like I really want to include somewhere but I have no idea if I will be able to. The plot outline is fairly loose so you can never quite tell.

But umm..so its about this particle accelerator that exists across an abandoned star system that's owned and operated by Hydrania 27, the most advanced of the civilizations. Its a very much sci fi but inspired by science mobile megastructure that's build on the scale of an entire solar system...and its just a very cool thing I want to at least mention in passing somehow...but...I haven't found a valid reason for them to ever go near it in this particular story...AAA. But perhaps in one of its sequels, it can come in handy.

This isn't just a random giant megastructure either, it has played a few important rules throughout history.

5. Creating an upper floor 1 - the atmosphere

We are now coming to the first floor of our WB-house and from here on there isn´t any way to explain which room is more important or in which order we are now going. Since we already have a base we can build upon that and it is now on yourself to create the next ideas and steps to achieve a better understanding of your world.

The most important thing is that it has to fit on your ground floor. You have still some rules to follow and if you start to change the upper floors in favour of some special rules you also have to change the base. This is an effect that can happen in every step, so don´t worry if you come to a point where you think your story has to change completely because of a new interest.

In other words, we are now coming to a point where I no longer have a direct influence on the direction we will take, but will watch with what means and ideas you will now complete the house. Where will you start? Will you start with the bathroom, a balcony or a study?

The atmosphere of a story often determines whether a reader feels comfortable reading it. Are there particular impressions that can be highlighted? Are there some sensory impressions that are particularly noteworthy? Is there a place that is cosy, a place that is free and open so that one can be hit by all winds? Is there a taste that is particularly present in a moment?

When wandering through a city, do you hear the sounds of honking cars, the residents or perhaps some creatures that live there? Do you smell the fresh wind of the forest, the seething horror of a swamp or the salt water? What do you feel about a place you visit in the plot?

This point builds more on what has already been created. It completes the blank two-dimensional image that has been created. It makes it a diorama where you can fall in. What should a reader feel with his senses when this is somewhere? What does the reader smell, see, hear, taste or feel?

Activty 5

Are there any places that would like to be highlighted, to be experienced with the senses?

Hmm....there are a couple of special places, mostly to do with time travel, so not necessarily a location per se, but the feeling of travelling through the dimension of time that a lot of description is poured into. In fact, I already a small scene with a taste of how this is going to be like, but those higher and weirder dimensions touched in the story become very important to get highlighted in terms of all the senses because they are completely new creations that readers who are human and mortal will most likely have never experienced so for them to understand the characters and their situation it relies heavily on that.

As for more tradition "Locations" the feelings you get as a recently deceased soul in the underworld, something that I've again already written and something I really wanted to highlight.

A lot of scenes even in the times to come in various locations in The Underworld are going to need this as well.

Some of the other locations, perhaps Vantaxia's oceans will also get some highlights as it is from the viewpoint of the girls, the other like Mars and such most likely will not a the POV those are set in are of people who've been to these places many times over and they simply won't notice such things unless there is a point that is especially required for the plot, which I can't really tell until I get to those points.

Or are there still places that need to be developed?

I think the most important places are definitely done developing, but there could be some developments that are yet to happen especially for lesser used places and such. It is hard to say for certain though.

Aaand I guess I kind of already answered the other two in that first answer....

5. Creating an upper floor 2 - the "colours"

We are reaching the end of November and our house looks already amazing in its shape and form, but there are still some things missing. We explored the world for our story in a big way, like a bird that is flying over a landscape and now we start to land. Which means, that the shapes and forms that we have created are getting more detailed and we are seeing things, that are not expected by any reader.

We are now in a more "realistic-mental" phase where we put a "skin" around all the organs that we have created in the previous posts. To make it to the last "unexplored" locations on our story and world, we have to go deeper into things that aren´t possible to see.

Like our own world, there are rules, may it be in the physics, in chemistry or in biology. There are materials and laws that have to be followed how something is created and how it is shaped. Why is it like this? Why is this mountain range there? Why are there two suns on the sky? Why is there coal underneath this specific location? Strange questions to ask during a process of creating a world, but they are like roots of a tree. We can only see some of them, not everything, but we know, that they are there. Or - in our terms - these questions are colours. They have a colour and a form to complete the skin on a specific thing - may it be material or immaterial.

This post could be reminisent to a previous post about the enviroment that we see and cannot see. This could be seen as a second part too it, where we go another time deeper into our world.

It is a more theoretical part, where we use all our information that we have created in the previous points to grind these points in a better shape. It should help to give the whole universe we have created more rules and answer even more of unanswered questions that we´ve got during the creation of the world.

This post is more of a final attemp to give the last tips before we finish the house with a roof and summarize everything we´ve seen and learned.

Tomorrow will be the last activity for this thread, so be ready!

Activity 6

The final activity is here and we are going to expand on some of our creations in the previous posts!

Take a point in your plot and isolate it from the rest of the story. (Like you create a big bubble around it.) Use all the information learned here (and even some of your own ideas) to create a "world" in this. This means that you should answer all questions and ideas you have about this specific part with the most pieces of information you´ve got. You can create as many things as you want, even if they don´t appear in the story. That means creating characters, places, the environment, maybe even a structure with layout and more to shape the bubble as you wish so that at the end, you have that bubble fully coloured!

You can create this post by doing it as a text or a drawing or bullet points!

A final word - the roof

We have now reached the end of the NaNo month and with it, this world-building thread also ends. But that doesn't mean it's over here! Everyone can continue to participate here and provide answers here. A small table of contents can be found below.

This is meant to be a guide. It should help you to realise that a story is not only about the words you read as a reader, but also about the words you don't see. Just like a human being, every story has a bit of world-building. Sometimes more, sometimes less, it's up to each person to decide how much time they have for it.

I have by no means addressed everything I wanted to address here, but have tried to create a kind of guideline that should bring the participant forward step by step. In doing so, I have also left some things out, so that the participants might get the idea to research them themselves.

There is inspiration everywhere to create world-building. There is no right or wrong and there is not only the first attempt to create it. The more you work on it, the further you get and that's the goal we're striving for here.

I thank you for participating. It was fun for me to build some kind of structure and reflect that and I hope I also presented not only known facts but maybe some ways of thinking that are not so well known yet.

If you are interested, there is the internet. There are many possibilities and websites that help to create a good world-building.

Table of contents for the individual posts

The introduction

Some general questions and ideas

1. Finding a start

2. Creating a background 1

3. Creating a background 2

4. Creating a background 3

5. Before we move to the next floor

6. Creating an upper floor 1 - the atmosphere

7. Creating an upper floor 2 - "the colours"

The activities

Activity 1

Activity 2

Activity 3

Activity 4

Activity 5

Activity 6

Oh and yeah, the pads were pretty useless now that I realise it…

Creating a background 3

This just focuses on a specific area, namely the Rook family's household and their small (so far) territory.

What does the area around a locality look like? What animals and plants live there? Are there any special features there? Maybe a secret cave somewhere, or a magical river? Something completely impossible on our earth? What is the weather like there? Are there any special features in the temperatures?

Kingpiece's penthouse is located on a strip of the MZ bordering the LZ. Facing southwards, the area looks very urban. The penthouse area is on an elevated location, which slopes downwards, so the buildings southwards look small and piddling, kind of like looking down a village from a castle. These buildings are mostly terrace houses; they're better off than the flats and shanties surrounding the town area and near the factories, but nothing fancy. If we look north from the penthouse, though, we'll see a strip of grassland that gets thicker towards the end of the chain of condominiums, where the Sungai Perisai passes in from the Liminal Zone. Because it's so close to the UZ, there aren't any weird eldritch geographical features here.


What laws are there? Some that make sense and some that are just pulled by the hair? Any ideas you'd like to implement here so that the characters have to do something weird? To what extent is religion (or one or more religions) involved? What mythology is there? Is there a connection between possibly a deity, a myth and a law or rule that comes to mind?

Anywhere in the MZ, it is allowed 1. for mutants to agree on a duel and fight it out, and 2. for mutant families to collect a bit of money from local businesses in exchange for protecting them from the Corrupted, and 3. for local businesses to declare themselves part of another family's territory if they wish. (This last policy was advocated by Hai Gang.)

Some weirder rules and customs regarding the duels would be: 1. both parties are allowed to wager something unknown to the judges beside the official thing they're duelling over. This rule was allowed because of a particular case in the 80s where knowledge of what was wagered made it impossible for the judge to judge impartially. 2. two paper lotuses have to be folded and burnt before the second round of a duel starts. Not the first, and not the third (or fourth, fifth . . . ) No one knows the origin of this tradition, but it is believed the judges will judge fairly only if this is done.

The main religion in the Mutation Zone is Buddhism, but people of many faiths live there. However, the main religion overall in Ayer Pedang (because the Unmutated Zone is more densely populated) is Islam, followed by Christianity. The lotuses in duelling could possibly be linked to the role of lotuses as a symbol of purity and 'rising above' worldly attachment in Buddhism.

What language do the inhabitants of the different places / cities / races / planets, etc... speak? Are there any special features, like a word they always use? Are there any local specialities that the characters like to eat and drink that exist regionally? What is the story behind it?

A local specialty: Shrimp caught in the tidal marshes near the south of the Mutation Zone sometimes appear melted, because they have received a Type-D mutation. These are served as a specialty dish - Melted Shrimp.

Curiously, I've not thought much about the language they all speak (because I just assumed it would be like the language I hear people around me speaking most of the time <.<). To communicate between families, I think they'd all speak English. But perhaps some families with stronger ties to a particular culture would speak a different language as well.

Is there anything completely unnecessary that is not relevant to the story, yet somehow determines the lives of the protagonists?

I think the protagonists' hobbies and info about them are probably irrelevant to the plot, though they ended up in my drafts anyway. Aruna loves dance games, so the MZ has a bunch of dance game machines she can operate by paying digital Baites (the currency in this world). Realistically, I don't think I've ever seen a dance game machine outside of a designated arcade or games area that operates on special tokens, but the dance game is kind of a key to Aruna's early character as someone who is driven to efficiency and perfection. (hence, a rhythm/ dance game being her favourite). Now this isn't really a hobby, but both Aruna and Ren are described as using vending machines often for snacks and things - though there's no thematic or plot-related reason for this. It's just to give them something a little unique to do and also maybe to show that they're busy and rely a lot on caffeine.