world building month: participants

July 30, 2008 at 2:49 pm (world building month) (, , , , , , , , , , , )

Here is a list of the participants for World Building Month, one day early as promised.

Latecomers are welcome (just comment with a URL of where you’ll be posting, same to anyone whom I might have missed (though I hope not)). Participants without links for will still be listed, but I’d still love to get a URL from you guys.

Eliza Wyatt
Saint Know-All
Kaya Alder
Merrilee Faber
RG Sanders
Nils
Nymeria
Cirellio
AC Gaughen
Natania Barron
Alex Moore
Ken Kiser
ShadowSaine
Aeronwy
Agarithia
Writer
Otempora
SMD
Goldirocks
JanVanHove
Selonus
M.C. Williams
K. Jayne Cockrill
jenniedee
Storytellingofravens

So, we have some familiar faces, many new ones. This looks like a really fun crowd, and I know that there are some really talented authors participating. Looking forward to see what everyone comes up with!

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dacha, the literary funeral

July 29, 2008 at 11:47 am (characters) (, , , , , , , , )

As previously mentioned, I killed a character and abruptly had trouble writing again. I kill a lot of characters. The path my literary endeavors have taken me on has been littered with bodies of fictional friends and enemies. I don’t usually have this problem writing, and I’m not sure why it’s bothering me now.

So to commemorate Dacha, and perhaps to gain some ‘closure’ (I don’t really believe in the concept myself, but what’s the harm?), I thought I would write her a eulogy.

Dacha was a remarkable woman, impressive in girth and skill. She may not have had the qualifications to present a heroic figure, but she fared well as a secondary character. She made my hero uncomfortable for her own amusement, worked with my heroine to protect and help her, and littered my book with pieces of colorful, if course, dialog.

Such phrases included:

“… You know, that’s almost scarier than me naked.”

“Weapon? Oh, honey, I don’t need a weapon. All I have to do is sit on you and fart. You won’t be getting up again, I promise.”

“Aha! Dickless, spineless, and brainless! … He must think with his stomach.”

“Sure I’m a lady! I’ve got the teats to prove it and everything!”

Rest in peace, Dacha. You died victorious, and were avenged swiftly. And your loss made my test readers cry aloud: a dozen outraged, horrified gasps of, “No, not Dacha!” disturbed the air of the library reading room that night.

Until the third draft, my friend.

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website update

July 29, 2008 at 8:20 am (marketing) (, , , , , , , , , , , , )

I spent last night working on my website instead of writing (bad Eliza), though as it had been two years since its last update it was really well overdue.

I have down a rough draft of the design, and it’s navigable, though none of the sparse content I’ve added is final. I’m a little uncertain about the top blue stripe, and a web design friend of mine thinks that the bottom curve is too much. Any constructive criticism is appreciated!

http://elizawyatt.net/bluecrystal.html

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dacha’s revenge

July 25, 2008 at 10:44 am (creative writing) (, , , , , , , , , )

I just killed a character. And now I’ve been having a terrible time trying to write.

I really liked the character. But it was time for her to go. I had a situation where it would have been nearly impossible for all three characters to escape from, and this particular woman would have broken a later plot at the end of the chapter. I killed her well, without needing to stretch events to set her up. No ‘I’ll hold them off!’ lines (instant death in almost any genre). It set me up for a great fight scene between a scary-as-hell spearman and my hero.

And I’ve written twenty words on Blue Crystal in the last three days. Like a ghost in a haunted house, I can’t seem to leave that scene.

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world building topics

July 23, 2008 at 1:14 pm (writing) (, , , , , , , , , , , , , )

I’ve been working on a (rough) list of all the topics that world building could cover in speculative fiction, which quickly became too long and ambitious to ever be able to cover in a month. Still, I think it could probably serve as a guide or inspiration. Most of these topics overlap.

Topic list:
Read the rest of this entry »

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invitation to world building month

July 21, 2008 at 2:46 pm (creative writing) (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , )

This is the official invitation!

August is going to be dedicated to world-building, here, and on any other blog or site that wishes to participate. We’re going to be exploring everything; history, art, politics, geography, map-making, town-building, magic, science, rumor mills, everything that provides a setting for writing. Any medium of exploring these topic is welcome, from essays to writing samples to artwork. This is an open project. As with Villain Month, I’ll be showcasing people’s work every week.

Interested in participating? Just leave a comment, and be sure to include the URL where you’ll be posting your own projects.

June’s Villain Month was a great success; here’s hoping that World Building Month can do the same!

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an excerpt

July 21, 2008 at 12:48 pm (creative writing) (, , , , , , , , , , )

I’ve been having trouble with a fight scene, so I went back to try it again, focusing more on the set up this time. Better, I think.

The chamber that Rylan stepped into was large, over twice as long as it was wide, and their path was a set of gallery railings that ran along the walls. Halfway through the room a walkway spanned the width and divided the room in two, and two jeweled chandeliers hung down on either side, ropes of glittering diamonds and sapphires dangling almost carelessly. The lights were pinpricks of gold from the candles that spanned along the rail, just enough to see the stairs across the room. “That one?” he whispered.

Dacha panted louder than he spoke, slightly bent and shrugging her shoulders in time with her breathing. She nodded. Rylan took the lead, and chose to walk around the wall and avoid the walkway. Saffira’s lantern behind him threw a giant’s shadow on the far wall. Dacha may have been out of breath, but adrenaline gave Rylan the impression that his heard had moved behind his ears. He moved at a walk for Dacha’s sake, both swords free of their sheaths and his eyes scanning to and fro. There were four doors on the upper level aside from their intended staircase, one at each corner. Four silent, black mouths.

Two footsteps beyond the first corner, Rylan heard an extra set of feet on the tile floor. “Saffira!”

The wild woman spun between her companions and the open doorway, and she blocked high. The black axe crashed onto the large knife and forced Saffira to her knees. Two other guards moved past him with short swords in hand, and Rylan heard the sound of crossbows loading across the room.

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a precursor to world building month

July 18, 2008 at 10:17 am (fiction) (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , )

Once upon a time, when I was trying to avoid defining a plot, a beginning, or an end to the vague story-idea I had in my mind (a few years ago– internet role play, of all things, taught me how to move a story along, but that’s another issue entirely), I used to build static characters that only had situations, not actions, and worlds with details but not events. I made maps. I drew terrain, and defined linguistic patterns so that I could have realistic naming conventions for the cities.

Saint Know-All brought up the point that world-building can be completely distracting from the writing process, and I thought that I’d address that. World building is done to enrich your story. It requires action, and relevance to the project. It needs to contribute. After all, there’s not much point detailing characters that won’t be mentioned in the story. And world-building is important in genres other than fantasy and sci-fi.

Building a planet, galaxy, alien races, and government are all world-building. But so is defining the layout of a character’s house, the kind of furniture in the front room, the name of the street that said character lives on, the gossip that is spread around, and the statue that was defaced in the local park. No one can completely define the place they’re writing… and when you start mapping out blades of grass, you’ve probably gone too far. So first, before we begin our world building project, we’ll need to define its scope.

Simply put, where does the story go, what topics does it consider or touch on, and what are we going to see most often? Detail that.

For instance, if your character is a member of the local nobility, you should have a very, very good idea of how their system works, what the local issues are, and what duties fall to whom in the government. Even if a king isn’t introduced, you should know what kind of man he is and what he will and will not involve himself with. What people eat halfway across the world from said character will not be considered important, unless the character has a penchant for foreign delicacies.

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dr. horrible (a fangirl moment)

July 17, 2008 at 10:57 am (Uncategorized) (, , , , , )

Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, by Joss Whedon. (Watch it. Trust me.)

Joss Whedon knows how to tell a story. Give him a medium. He’ll tell a story, and he’ll do it with style. Not to mention snappy comeback lines.

I don’t want to spoil anything, since it just came out, and we’ll have to wait another two days until the last installment is put out. I will say that I adored the first and last song of Part II, and will probably watch this several times over and try to figure out why I’m such a fan of the dorky protagonist.

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world building woes

July 16, 2008 at 10:41 am (goals) (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , )

Recently I started reading an enormous book (700+ pages) that had, among other things, fantastic world building. History… no, it wasn’t just history. It was economic history, military history, artistic history, mythological history, the history of arcana, discrepancies between the histories and difference of opinion based on source. It spanned racial customs, clothes, weather, standards for different classes, idioms, the difference between different districts in a city, children’s skipping rhymes. It included little details, always relevant, always practical: a minor character took a room not far from a butcher, and the main character can’t help but notice the smell every time he comes by to see her. And the method of immersion into this world was so well done that finding more about it felt as if I were slipping into a steaming bath, or cuddling up to a down blanket. I get excited when the author writes a few pages of summary or explanation; I feel as if I can safely laugh at the show-don’t-tell Nazis now that I’ve seen it done so well, so efficiently, in such an entertaining and smooth fashion.

I have a difficult time reading new books. I can’t turn off my internal editor, which tends to focus on plot, theme, and composition. So when I’m trying to read for fun, I keep finding myself considering the question, ‘If I’d written this, would I be proud of myself?’. When I find that the answer is ‘no’, I tend to stop reading. And when I find something as detailed, complex, and well-done as this, I start raising my standards. My novel just got a little worse.

June was ‘Villain Month’. That seemed to go fairly well. I think I need a ‘World Building Month’ next, a concept that was mentioned a few weeks ago. I do want to finish this draft of my book first, but there are fifteen days of July left and roughly twenty thousand words to write. And I get anxious the closer I draw to the grand finale. That puts me at 1,333 words every day (including this one) until July. … On the bright side, it’s not as bad as NoNoWriMo.

Here are my goals, then:

  1. 1,333 words a day until the book is finished. I estimate that will let me finish the book before August.
  2. Finish ‘The Name of the Wind’.
  3. Write a book review.
  4. Possibly send girlish fan-letters to Patrick Rothfuss.
  5. Start the hype for ‘World Building Month’. Set it for August.

I’m imagining that World Building Month will be more useful to writers of speculative fiction than contemporary fiction. Even so, solidifying a good, living setting does deserve some attention. So, since Villain Month met with such approval, I’ll be doing the same thing. Anyone interested in signing up and joining in the event are welcome.

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