Creating my own world... Options

[redsrock]

I was trying to decide on what NON-TES story I wanted to write next, and it donned on me that I have never actually tried to create my own personal world. So that is what I am going to do, but I need your help. Right now I am clueless as to where I want to go with story. I have the map already drawn out in "Paint", but I don't have a name for the 'world', nor do I have any idea on what the plot should be, or what creatures/species I should have.

Can anyone out there help a writer out? Have any of you all tried to create your own world? If so, what are the DOs and DONTs? What caused you to succeed/fail? I don't mean to sound offensive with the 'fail' part, but obviously there's a reason if you failed, and I want to know what it was so that I don't make the same mistake.

This project is pretty high on my list of things to accomplish right now, so I want to get things right. And even if you haven't tried to create your own world, I would still love to hear your opinions.

[0rimus]

Depth and realism, in terms of everything. Don't be afraid to go back to physics/chemistry to find out if something is plausable or not, but also be prepared to throw those guidlines right out the window (magic). My own problem is actually depth, my own world has so much new stuff right from the get-go that I kinda lost my first readers. Also, there isn't much to tie my world to our own, hence losing my readers. My story is more of a culture shock than a Russian going to South America. Wish I could be more helpful. Oh, also avoid uber characters. My main protagonist started out far too powerful, I'll have to go back and revise him. I also overused one city too many times, so it lacks interseting settings. Furthermore, I have a problem with making my female characters too similar in persona. Also, I wrote this beast by hand (600+ pages) and I tend to skip problems and jot down notes/suggestions for myself since it's such a huge undertaking, which has worked wonderfully. I skip detail and just write down events and specific ideas I want to use. It's like a rough draft for a rough drafts rough draft.

[Lord Veneficus]

Give me a link to the map. I'll give you a list of suggestions on what I think the world should be called.

As for the creatures and species, it depends on the map and where you placed everything.

[redsrock]

600 pages!?!? Jesus, that kills my great length! (roughly 125 pages). Thanks a lot for the help. Also, someone at BGSF suggested that I create a sort of WIKI for the world, listing races, religions, atmosphers, cities,, past history, etc. I think that is what I will do first...

@ V: It's just a basic map, and unfortunately I don't know how to upload the damn thing!

This post has been edited by redsrock: May 25 2008, 03:08 AM

[Lord Veneficus]

600 pages!?!? Jesus, that kills my great length! (roughly 125 pages). Thanks a lot for the help. Also, someone at BGSF suggested that I create a sort of WIKI for the world, listing races, religions, atmosphers, cities,, past history, etc. I think that is what I will do first...

@ V: It's just a basic map, and unfortunately I don't know how to upload the damn thing!

Dang! :headsmack:

You should make a similar wiki thing, that would provide enough information on things such as animals and plants and things of that nature.

[0rimus]

Lists are good. lol, sometimes I forget some of my characters names and have to go back to one of the ealier notebooks to find the name. I think I'm on #4 notebook, compostion notebooks, each one 100 sheets front and back minus a page or two. But I had large handwriting at the beginning, so it's not all that impressive.

[redsrock]

Your quantity of writing is very impressive.

[0rimus]

Your quantity of writing is very impressive.

Now if only I could improve the quality...
lol, I have killer carpal tunnel.

[Lord Revan]

You could refer to my Archives, Reds. Even if the story it's tied to is stalled out right now you could use it as an example.

[redsrock]

Thanks, Revan. That's awfully nice of you.

[Lord Revan]

You're welcome,

[redsrock]

Alright, here is the map. The world is going to be named "Mancia". There are a few things I should tell you:
1. The big white squares with the "C" stands for the continents captitol city.
2. The smaller white circles are the other cities. (I have yet to create villages)
3. Blue streaks and shapes are rivers and/or lakes. Surrounding areas outside of land is of course the ocean.
4. The green "haze" in the middle western continent is jungle. This continent has many of them.
5. Orange streaks are bridges either connecting islands, or connect to land to another pieces of land.
6. Tiny black lines over rivers are small bridges.

Keep in mind this is a rough draft. I have yet to dwelve into anything else, let alone specific names of anythig:

Map (Mancia)

[Olen]

Ahhh. The joy of worldbuilding. I've done a fair bit of this and can give you some pointers though essentially it boils down to doing what works for you.

The only hard and fast rule is to be consistent - you can have anything but to make readers believe you must think through its consequences and have reasons why it does or doesn't apply. You're world must be stable (or at least in a situation which it could conceivably end up in), for example if you have magic do the mages rule and if not why not.

There are two basic methods of worldbuilding I've seen, from the top down, where you start with the big picture and work down to the small one, and from the bottom up where you get an overall view but then just start wherever your story does and make up the rest on the fly. The latter gets you writing a lot quicker though the former is an easier way to produce a coherent world. Everyone will do a mixture of both and what you enjoy is up to you.

Another thing which greatly helps is using similar sounds for different cultures' words and places (for example the ashlanders words are based on Assyrian if I remember correctly). This adds instant depth. So does darkness and despair - look at great worlds, Tolkein's lotr, Jordan’s wheel of time, King's dark tower, even star wars. None are really happy places.

Cultures are important, not only what they wear, what recreations they partake in, how rich, how advanced, how prejudiced, but how people in that culture think. Travel helps a lot with understanding my meaning but remember no one believes they are evil and in any dispute each side think they are the good. This tends to be down to these differences in thinking.

Another really fun bit is putting in the cool bits. These are those things, especially places but they can be anything, which are just fun. Think of bits of other works which are just nice: moria is an excellent example, its exciting and give a feeling of depth. Put in enough with variation but avoid too many (unless you're writing parody in which have nothing else).

I could write more but I'll finish with a couple of bits of advice - make it how you want it and loads of plots will come to you just in its development. Also remember nothing is final, if you need a city somewhere halfway though a plot just bang it in.


Here's two links which might be helpful (hell I probably plagiarised one or two bits unknowingly):
http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/how...d-workshop.html - exceptionally good there are more things down the left margin
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm - these questions will test your world's workings very well

[redsrock]

Thanks a lot, Olen. That actually helped a lot.

[redsrock]

Meh, i just realized it's not near enough as big as I want it to be. I want the extensiveness to match that of TES. I'll be redoing the map now...

[redsrock]

Ok, here's the new map. Keep in mind that in the province, "Burgo", the green is the rainforest.

Bavion

[LadySaira]

Ok, here's the new map. Keep in mind that in the province, "Burgo", the green is the rainforest.

Bavion

Why are all the different climates seperated by water?

Good luck, Red! I know it's been tough for me in the past.

[redsrock]

Why are all the different climates seperated by water?

I know, I know. It's something I gotta figure out.

[MstrOfPppts]

I am not a writer myself, but just one tip of how I see things.

By creating the world, in my opinion, you should create a main land! Let land continue off the map. Let that place be undiscovered or just mention some people or even odd races coming from the other side of a group of mountains. Islands don't look good, neither do they work realisticaly especially if you wish to have a world like Earth. This is too much of an influence from games, where they take islands so they don't need to bother crating world across the oceans.

For example take the World of Warcraft, where the two "continents" are far bigger than your islands appear to be, but for my taste still far from beeing called a continent if you know what I mean ...

What I think of Islands is that world looks empty. Just the land drawn on the map and all the rest around the globe is water. If the world is round in your case at all, that is.

[kementari]

I am not a writer myself, but just one tip of how I see things.

By creating the world, in my opinion, you should create a main land! Let land continue off the map. Let that place be undiscovered or just mention some people or even odd races coming from the other side of a group of mountains. Islands don't look good, neither do they work realisticaly especially if you wish to have a world like Earth. This is too much of an influence from games, where they take islands so they don't need to bother crating world across the oceans.

You're assuming he wants a world that resembles Earth's, or even shares its ancient history. Remember, there's tectonic evidence for Pangaea on our planet - who's to say that another planet's volcanic and tectonic past might not have created a slew of islands rather than one gigantic continent that drifted over millions of years?

(PS: Even Warcraft's continent was originally a pangaea, remember. The Great Sundering caused the original continent, Kalimdor, to be ripped in half.)