World building at Booktrib
I’ve been writing a series for my pals over at Booktrib about world building! First, Booktrib is a lovely place to hang out, and they are all made of sunshine, kittens and bourbon over there.
If you read fantasy in particular, it’s a given that the author will have spent some time (LOTS of time) thinking about the world you’ll be visiting. I have to thank my first editor, Debra Ginsberg, who after reading a very early draft of The Sand Prince, told me I hadn’t finished doing the work. (She was both much nicer and much more direct than that!)
At first I ran away from it–I was interested in character and emotion and dialogue. When I thought about the concept of world building, I pictured orc armies and great fields of battle. It’s true that a lot of fantasy–and a lot of epic fantasy–revolves around war, armies, descriptions of weapons and buckets of blood. But societal change can occur without bloodshed (or with a minimum, anyway.) I substituted politics for battles, and the actions of individual people for those invading orcs. And when I started thinking in terms of food, language, and fashion, building my worlds became a delight.
Here’s my series, I hope you’ll take a look.
Making Time for your fictional world
Oh my god! Faith and belief systems
Coming up I’ll be looking at hairstyles, our animal friends, and artwork, among other things. What are your favorite imagined worlds? Leave a comment, let’s talk!
