Writing: Worldbuilding
Aug. 31st, 2008 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joshuapalmatierFirst off, I'd like to say that I DID manage to get off my ass this past week and get started on one of the two proposals that I'd been putting off. You remember. The two proposals that I couldn't get myself to begin because I knew that each story had a major flaw? The proposal I started was the one where I knew who the main character was and what the basic plot was, but I didn't have the COOL factor yet. I have no idea why I started with this one, but I did.
And I almost immediately ran into a problem: worldbuilding.
You see, all of the stories that I've written over the past 15 years have all been set in the same world, except for one (and that one was set in our world, so not much worldbuilding was required on my part). I started writing in that world in high school. Nearly every story I've ever come up with has been set there. Starting with the first novel, way back when, I've been writing and writing and writing . . . and in the process, without consciously realizing it, I've been worldbuilding and worldbuilding and worldbuilding. I mean, this world has HISTORY. I know events that happened over the course of thousands of years, and how those events affected other events, and other parts of the world, and different people in that world. I'd say that, besides the three books already out on the shelf and the one I just finished, I have another . . . 15+ novels set in this world. Not to say the world is completely flesh out. Where would be the fun in that? But it seriously has some detail to it already. GOOD detail.
So, when I sat down to work on the new proposal, I hit a wall. No, that's not right. I slammed myself repeatedly into the wall until I was bloody before I finally sat back and said, what gives?
What gives is that I blithely in my head imagined that I could sit down and whip out a proposal for a science fiction world where I know the story . . . but not the HISTORY. I don't know jack shit aboout how these worlds came to be in the state they are in at the moment the book takes place, when all hell is about to break loose. And guess what? Knowing the history is kind of essential.
And here's my problem: I didn't realize it, but doing all of that writing way back when in high school (and then college), with stories that haven't seen print, I was doing that essential worldbuilding. It wasn't planned, and I had no clue that THAT was what I was doing, but it happened.
And it hasn't happened yet for this new proposal, this new BOOK. I'm going to have to take some time and write out the history of these worlds, and I have to do it without actually writing stories, because I don't have the time. I can't write three novels to figure out what's going on in this universe just so I can sit down and write the novel that started it all. That worked for high school and beyond because I DID have the time. Not anymore.
So, I'm going to have to learn a new skill: worldbuilding. But worldbuilding on the fly. Most of this worldbuilding will likely not appear in the end proposal, but it will be essential to that proposal making sense and, perhaps, selling. Anyone up for a history lesson?
Oh, but I do have a tentative title for the proposed book: Blood of the Sisters. It probably doesn't sound that cool until you know that the Sisters are planets.
Aha, you say. Now there's a bit of intrigue, a little piqued interest. (Or so I hope.)
And guess what? That title also gives me the COOL factor that was missing from the proposal.
*happy sigh* Sometimes things just work out, even when they don't.
And I almost immediately ran into a problem: worldbuilding.
You see, all of the stories that I've written over the past 15 years have all been set in the same world, except for one (and that one was set in our world, so not much worldbuilding was required on my part). I started writing in that world in high school. Nearly every story I've ever come up with has been set there. Starting with the first novel, way back when, I've been writing and writing and writing . . . and in the process, without consciously realizing it, I've been worldbuilding and worldbuilding and worldbuilding. I mean, this world has HISTORY. I know events that happened over the course of thousands of years, and how those events affected other events, and other parts of the world, and different people in that world. I'd say that, besides the three books already out on the shelf and the one I just finished, I have another . . . 15+ novels set in this world. Not to say the world is completely flesh out. Where would be the fun in that? But it seriously has some detail to it already. GOOD detail.
So, when I sat down to work on the new proposal, I hit a wall. No, that's not right. I slammed myself repeatedly into the wall until I was bloody before I finally sat back and said, what gives?
What gives is that I blithely in my head imagined that I could sit down and whip out a proposal for a science fiction world where I know the story . . . but not the HISTORY. I don't know jack shit aboout how these worlds came to be in the state they are in at the moment the book takes place, when all hell is about to break loose. And guess what? Knowing the history is kind of essential.
And here's my problem: I didn't realize it, but doing all of that writing way back when in high school (and then college), with stories that haven't seen print, I was doing that essential worldbuilding. It wasn't planned, and I had no clue that THAT was what I was doing, but it happened.
And it hasn't happened yet for this new proposal, this new BOOK. I'm going to have to take some time and write out the history of these worlds, and I have to do it without actually writing stories, because I don't have the time. I can't write three novels to figure out what's going on in this universe just so I can sit down and write the novel that started it all. That worked for high school and beyond because I DID have the time. Not anymore.
So, I'm going to have to learn a new skill: worldbuilding. But worldbuilding on the fly. Most of this worldbuilding will likely not appear in the end proposal, but it will be essential to that proposal making sense and, perhaps, selling. Anyone up for a history lesson?
Oh, but I do have a tentative title for the proposed book: Blood of the Sisters. It probably doesn't sound that cool until you know that the Sisters are planets.
Aha, you say. Now there's a bit of intrigue, a little piqued interest. (Or so I hope.)
And guess what? That title also gives me the COOL factor that was missing from the proposal.
*happy sigh* Sometimes things just work out, even when they don't.
