Original fiction world building, anyone?
Any interest in using the 30 Day Fantasy WorldBuilder Guide and the accompanying Magical World Builder to:
* Structure an original fic world building community (either temporary or long term)?
* Help each other flesh out worlds for original fic?
* Help some of us (read: me …and maybe you?) expy a near-perfect story world owned by someone else into a totally perfect story world that stands on its own as original?
A few thoughts at my end:
(1) Not yet sure how to weave together the materials from 30 Day Fantasy WorldBuilder Guide and the Magical World Builder, which are both written by the same person.
(2) I would want to extend the 30 days of exercises over a longer stretch of time because:
--> Life is busy. (insert sadface here)
--> In a community setting, I value having time for concrit/feedback and communal thinky thoughts.
--> We could should add writing prompts (or something) to each exercise because writing toss-away paragraphs of fiction helps bring alive setting, characters, and future plot. For instance, Day 1: Climate & Variety is about establishing a rich setting with different climates. It ends with the following exercise:
Get out a map or go to an international website like National Geographic. Look everywhere. Antarctica. Saudi Arabia. The rainforests of Brazil. The rainforests of Central California. Look at how the different climates behave and appear.
The first fifteen minute exercise is to write down all the different climates you can think of-- if you need to just say a city name, do it. Sometimes "Seattle" is more evocative than "northern damp temperate climate." Write these names down in a list.
Then, go through that list and write one or two words that describe how that climate, either the word itself or the way the place itself may have made you feel, if you've been there before. Try to stick to abstract adjectives; emotional words, if you can, but nouns are also okay.
If we did one to two of the 30 exercises per week (I'm leaning toward 2 per week, so it would be building a world in 15 weeks, although that might be too fast if writing exercises are added... maybe 1 per 5 days??), this first exercise above would be augmented with something like: Pick three different climates from your list and write 200 or more words for each that evoke the feeling of the climate.
… For those who are wondering, I'm thinking about creating a world with waning, unpredictable magic that is being shunned and replaced by steam-era technology. And (but of course) colonialists, conquered nations, waning kingdoms, rising industrialist oligarchies, airships dirigibles, mad scientists, endless wars, political backstabbery, frontstabbery, sidestabbery, and asshattery, grey-on-grey morality, and characters who must repeatedly make choices between what is Lawful, what is Good, and what outcome is Desired.
(For a variety of reasons I'm principally interested in this happening on Dreamwidth ... I may be withdrawing from LJ during the coming weeks.)
This post is public so feel free to pass the link on to others who might be interested. Also, if this idea has already been done on dreamwidth, let me know. :)
(Yes, I will still continue the ffic I've been threatening to finish.)
Crossposted at http://vieralynn.dreamwidth.org/132422.html.
Edited on LJ ONLY to add: Wow. LJ is really screwed up right now. It took me multiple tries to log in and then even more tries to post a comment on someone's entry. I'm really in the process of jumping ship to DW, methinks. Sort of sad because DW is much quieter but, yeah. LJ has become too random and I just don't wanted to update my paid subscription. Anyhow. I will continue cross posting and waiting out things to see if LJ becomes stable again but most of my community participation will probably be on DW. :/
* Structure an original fic world building community (either temporary or long term)?
* Help each other flesh out worlds for original fic?
* Help some of us (read: me …and maybe you?) expy a near-perfect story world owned by someone else into a totally perfect story world that stands on its own as original?
A few thoughts at my end:
(1) Not yet sure how to weave together the materials from 30 Day Fantasy WorldBuilder Guide and the Magical World Builder, which are both written by the same person.
(2) I would want to extend the 30 days of exercises over a longer stretch of time because:
--> Life is busy. (insert sadface here)
--> In a community setting, I value having time for concrit/feedback and communal thinky thoughts.
--> We could should add writing prompts (or something) to each exercise because writing toss-away paragraphs of fiction helps bring alive setting, characters, and future plot. For instance, Day 1: Climate & Variety is about establishing a rich setting with different climates. It ends with the following exercise:
Get out a map or go to an international website like National Geographic. Look everywhere. Antarctica. Saudi Arabia. The rainforests of Brazil. The rainforests of Central California. Look at how the different climates behave and appear.
The first fifteen minute exercise is to write down all the different climates you can think of-- if you need to just say a city name, do it. Sometimes "Seattle" is more evocative than "northern damp temperate climate." Write these names down in a list.
Then, go through that list and write one or two words that describe how that climate, either the word itself or the way the place itself may have made you feel, if you've been there before. Try to stick to abstract adjectives; emotional words, if you can, but nouns are also okay.
If we did one to two of the 30 exercises per week (I'm leaning toward 2 per week, so it would be building a world in 15 weeks, although that might be too fast if writing exercises are added... maybe 1 per 5 days??), this first exercise above would be augmented with something like: Pick three different climates from your list and write 200 or more words for each that evoke the feeling of the climate.
… For those who are wondering, I'm thinking about creating a world with waning, unpredictable magic that is being shunned and replaced by steam-era technology. And (but of course) colonialists, conquered nations, waning kingdoms, rising industrialist oligarchies, airships dirigibles, mad scientists, endless wars, political backstabbery, frontstabbery, sidestabbery, and asshattery, grey-on-grey morality, and characters who must repeatedly make choices between what is Lawful, what is Good, and what outcome is Desired.
(For a variety of reasons I'm principally interested in this happening on Dreamwidth ... I may be withdrawing from LJ during the coming weeks.)
This post is public so feel free to pass the link on to others who might be interested. Also, if this idea has already been done on dreamwidth, let me know. :)
(Yes, I will still continue the ffic I've been threatening to finish.)
Crossposted at http://vieralynn.dreamwidth.org/132422.html.
Edited on LJ ONLY to add: Wow. LJ is really screwed up right now. It took me multiple tries to log in and then even more tries to post a comment on someone's entry. I'm really in the process of jumping ship to DW, methinks. Sort of sad because DW is much quieter but, yeah. LJ has become too random and I just don't wanted to update my paid subscription. Anyhow. I will continue cross posting and waiting out things to see if LJ becomes stable again but most of my community participation will probably be on DW. :/