RightingWrite by Fadran - Fantasy

[DramaQueen]

1 hour ago, Negative_Null said:

What's wrong with hot-o taco?

I....have never heard that one.

It's a very loose rhyme, though, so I don't think it's as good as neato burrito.

[Channelknight Fadran]

I'm back! On this thread! Finally!

It seems as though the poll has decided that we should focus on Character & Plot in Worldbuilding. I shall create a lesson momentarily (or maybe next year; I'm an unpredictable lad).

[Frustration]

On 7/27/2020 at 10:48 AM, Channelknight Fadran said:

Lesson 2:  WAIT, INTRODUCTION FIRST!!!!

*Takes deep breath* Today, we Worldbuild. It is not easy. It requires every ounce of logic, reasoning, thematic recognition, and common sense of you person! Furthermore, if you do it wrong, people will laugh at you... unless you intentionally do it wrong, in which place people will just laugh at no one in particular.

No stress, though, and without further ado...

LESSON NUMBER TWO!!!!!! *applause*

Lesson 2: Worldbuilding.

So my lovely students/shardbuddies/randompeopleIknowfromtheFellowshipoftheThingthread have given me no shortage of stuff to work with. We'll be using these as examples for this lesson, and if you want your world to be used throughout the entirety of the... what do we call this, seminar?... then let me know. Maybe I should've put that in the introduction? Eh, I'm a teacher; I'm not allowed to take stuff back.

So, as I mentioned in the previous lesson, there are five things you want to focus on in worldbuilding: Geography, History, Society, Economy, and Religion. However, because we're doing fantasy, you also have to incorporate Magic into it; or, at least, whatever you have that makes your world "Fantastical." Again, I won't get to all of these in detail right now, but we can scratch the surface.

Worldbuilding serves three purposes: The "cool" factor, plot and character development, and realism. What I've been given from all of you is that first thing: The "cool." The thing that makes your world super unique and awesome. The second purpose Worldbuilding serves is for character and plot development; you either sculpt your world to fill in plot holes, or sculpt your plot to fill in the world. I find it easier to do the first one, because no one is going to look at your world as it is on paper and be like "they only have this worldbuilding thing so that this character can do that thing." That's another important thing to note; people can't miss what they never had. No one's going to know that the Iconar Collective once only had five Channelknights, or such a complicated series of magic systems that I couldn't keep track of them all--no one except you guys, at least.

The last purpose Worldbuilding serves is realism. You look at how things work and what people do to make a world that make sense given the parameters you've set. You've no doubt heard of people that tell you that an unrealistic world is "dumb" or something, but that's completely untrue. A world that doesn't make sense can be fun and engaging; you just have to be careful. If you create an incredibly hard and rule-set world, then having an unrealistic setting for your characters will make your book seem immature and... well, "bad." However, if you don't set a ton of rules or develop anything, then a world that makes no sense actually does make sense. This is called Soft Worldbuilding and I am terrible at it so... maybe I'll do a mini lesson later on.

So, I'm making this a four-part lesson; the basics of worldbuilding. You may have noticed that I told you what worldbuilding does but not how to do it. Therefore, I'm going to throw up a poll about which thing we do first: Developing the Cool Factor, Sculpting around Plot and Character Development, or making your world realistic.

Aight. Don't die.

-Fadran.

 

Mini Lesson 2: Plaigarism versus Inspiration

So you've got a great idea and you really want to write something about it, and then suddenly you realize that it's already been done. I have a magical portal called the Parallarity, and then suddenly I read Cosmere and I'm like, "frick, Perpendicularities are a thing?" I also have an order of knights that swear oaths to get their powers... geez, nobody's ever used that one before. You're worried that you'll write something, and some other author is going to sue you for stealing their ideas.

Well, get this, everyone; that's not how it works!

If we're talking on a legal scale, then it is possible to sue somebody, but I doubt anyone would go out of their way to do it unless you were obviously stealing. If you wrote a story about a boy named Parry Hotter who goes to Wartsgog School of Witchcraft and Warlockary, who has to fight off the evil no-nosed Dark Warlock "Holdocart," then... well, first expect no one to publish it, and then expect Warner Bros to start breathing down your neck. However, you can't trademark the contents of a book; well, maybe you could, but that would be really difficult. Rather, art things that people made are automatically copywrited; not trademarked, copywrited. Copywrited means that you created the painting, or the book, and if someone copies it down in a very obvious fashion, then you could probably sue them. However, when you copywrite something, you unconsciously make the agreement that people are allowed to be inspired by your works.

@DramaQueen wants animagus-things; so as long as she doesn't steal the term "animagus" from J.K. Rowling and allows other people to also write books about people who can transform into animals, then she's good. By creating something, you have formed a circle of inspiration; you drew inspiration from somewhere, and people are going to draw inspiration from you.

Did that make any sense? I don't know if that made any sense. Ah... what's a simpler way to put it... "Most people are nice and will let you write a book that has ideas that vaguely imitate their own."

One more thing to note before I close off this not-so-mini lesson: It's better to be paranoid about something you wrote than oblivious. Oblivious people are more likely to run into something that someone could actually sue you over, while a paranoid person is more likely to be better-studied about what they're drawing inspiration from.

I'm getting very serious 'Hello Future Me' vibes from this.

And on your plagiarism/inspiration section, well funny story

 Years ago, Years before I had ever heard the name Brandon Sanderson I had an idea for something in my world, fast forward and just about a year ago, I find out Brandon has something that serves the same purpose with the exact    same    name. 

I was so scared I wouldn't be able to use it, until I can across him saying that he thinks Authors worry too much about plagiarism, so hopefully I get a chance to speak to him about it, but I was rather upset there.

[Enter a username]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

I had an idea for something in my world, fast forward and just about a year ago, I find out Brandon has something that serves the same purpose with the exact    same    name. 

What was it?

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Enter a username said:

What was it?

DragonSteel.

[Enter a username]

I am a stick.

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, Enter a username said:

I am a stick.

you ask me to share, and then turn back to that cult?!?!?!?!

Why!?

at least give me a reaction.

[Enter a username]

It was somewhere between "Oh" and "Wow." And also a bit of "I thought it was something like Mistborn or Knights Radiant."

[Channelknight Fadran]

16 hours ago, Frustration said:

I'm getting very serious 'Hello Future Me' vibes from this.

And on your plagiarism/inspiration section, well funny story

 Years ago, Years before I had ever heard the name Brandon Sanderson I had an idea for something in my world, fast forward and just about a year ago, I find out Brandon has something that serves the same purpose with the exact    same    name. 

I was so scared I wouldn't be able to use it, until I can across him saying that he thinks Authors worry too much about plagiarism, so hopefully I get a chance to speak to him about it, but I was rather upset there.

I wanted Hello Future Me vibes. As an author, I aspire to be a fraction (a shard, per se) of Brandon Sanderson. As a possible future instructor of writing, I aspire to be a fraction of Hello Future Me.

Here's what I'll tell you about plaigarism: Most authors don't give a Breath. They'll see a story inspired by their own, and rather than anger, it'll be connection they feel.

Quote

Random quote box to seperate things! Also warning my mind was only at 22% capacity so all this might make no sense whatsoever.

Introduction (remembered not to start with Lesson 3 this time hahahaha).

So, I just checked the poll, and apparently nobody likes realism, but the other two are tied. Luckily, I'm the teacher, so I can do whatever the storms I want! Mwahahahaha!

I guess I'll save Character and Plot development for later and start with the "cool" factor. Therefore, without futher ado.

LESSON NUMBER THREE!!!! *Cheers and applause*

Lesson 3: The Cool Factor

So you've got a basic idea for a world, or a magic system. You'd like to expand on it, but you don't know where to begin. Not to worry; we're all in the same boat (or car, or carriage, or ocean liner, or... why am I doing this?). As an author--serious or no--your duty is to write a book that you want to read. It's your idea, you can do anything you want with it, so you're the one who gets to decide what happens; and let's face it, the thing you want to happen is a super awesome and mega-unique world. Right?

Right?

Yeah, totally. So the question is, how do you make a super awesome world?

Step one, you need an idea. We've got a couple of those already (Thank you, @Mist and @DramaQueen), so that's one step down.

Step two, you need some things to do with that idea. If you have a magic system where two kids can transform into animals (submitted by DramaQueen), then to make that cool, you have to do something with that that seems cool. Maybe draft out an action scene in your mind; what're some awesome things these kids can do with their powers in a fight? You could do some ant-man style size changing by changing from a lion to a mouse in an instant, or see in the dark with some bat echo-location. In short, half of the cool factor is all about what will look awesome in your mind's eye or on the big screen.

But Fadran! I hear you ask. If only half the cool factor is looking good, then what's the other half?

Aha. Glad you asked. The other half is the stuff you can't see; the functionality behind your world or magic. In the eight elements of magic (submitted by Mist), then it's the reason why each of these elements are magical. How are they connected, and how is their existence unique? In Mistborn, you use allomancy by burning metals, but you don't ever see that. In Warbreaker, magic revolves around collecting and using Breath--you don't see Breath, and you don't see how it works. All of the Cosmere's magic is built around Investiture, Identity, Intent (Brandon really likes his I's, doesn't he?), Connection, and the like. In the Iconar Collective (Hmm... I wonder who wrote that *Anna chin finger thing*), mages use Spirit Compounds to Bond them to things, and then create pathways and inequailities to control them.

So... there you go. Cool factor. What looks cool? What behind-the-scenes functionalities are going on in the background? Most importantly, however, write what appeals to you. If it looks cool in you mind's eye, then do it. If it gives you that giddy feeling of an awesome world, then do it.

Don't die!

- Fadran

[DramaQueen]

4 minutes ago, Channelknight Fadran said:

I wanted Hello Future Me vibes. As an author, I aspire to be a fraction (a shard, per se) of Brandon Sanderson. As a possible future instructor of writing, I aspire to be a fraction of Hello Future Me.

Here's what I'll tell you about plaigarism: Most authors don't give a Breath. They'll see a story inspired by their own, and rather than anger, it'll be connection they feel.

Introduction (remembered not to start with Lesson 3 this time hahahaha).

So, I just checked the poll, and apparently nobody likes realism, but the other two are tied. Luckily, I'm the teacher, so I can do whatever the storms I want! Mwahahahaha!

I guess I'll save Character and Plot development for later and start with the "cool" factor. Therefore, without futher ado.

LESSON NUMBER THREE!!!! *Cheers and applause*

Lesson 3: The Cool Factor

So you've got a basic idea for a world, or a magic system. You'd like to expand on it, but you don't know where to begin. Not to worry; we're all in the same boat (or car, or carriage, or ocean liner, or... why am I doing this?). As an author--serious or no--your duty is to write a book that you want to read. It's your idea, you can do anything you want with it, so you're the one who gets to decide what happens; and let's face it, the thing you want to happen is a super awesome and mega-unique world. Right?

Right?

Yeah, totally. So the question is, how do you make a super awesome world?

Step one, you need an idea. We've got a couple of those already (Thank you, @Mist and @DramaQueen), so that's one step down.

Step two, you need some things to do with that idea. If you have a magic system where two kids can transform into animals (submitted by DramaQueen), then to make that cool, you have to do something with that that seems cool. Maybe draft out an action scene in your mind; what're some awesome things these kids can do with their powers in a fight? You could do some ant-man style size changing by changing from a lion to a mouse in an instant, or see in the dark with some bat echo-location. In short, half of the cool factor is all about what will look awesome in your mind's eye or on the big screen.

But Fadran! I hear you ask. If only half the cool factor is looking good, then what's the other half?

Aha. Glad you asked. The other half is the stuff you can't see; the functionality behind your world or magic. In the eight elements of magic (submitted by Mist), then it's the reason why each of these elements are magical. How are they connected, and how is their existence unique? In Mistborn, you use allomancy by burning metals, but you don't ever see that. In Warbreaker, magic revolves around collecting and using Breath--you don't see Breath, and you don't see how it works. All of the Cosmere's magic is built around Investiture, Identity, Intent (Brandon really likes his I's, doesn't he?), Connection, and the like. In the Iconar Collective (Hmm... I wonder who wrote that *Anna chin finger thing*), mages use Spirit Compounds to Bond them to things, and then create pathways and inequailities to control them.

So... there you go. Cool factor. What looks cool? What behind-the-scenes functionalities are going on in the background? Most importantly, however, write what appeals to you. If it looks cool in you mind's eye, then do it. If it gives you that giddy feeling of an awesome world, then do it.

Don't die!

- Fadran

How do I make mine cool if they can only change into one animal, (a cat?)

Edited July 30, 2020 by DramaQueen

[Channelknight Fadran]

23 minutes ago, DramaQueen said:

How do I make mine cool if they can only change into one animal, (a cat?)

Figure out cool things they can do as that animal. If it's a cat, then they can jump off a building as a human and land on their feet as a cat (probably wouldn't save their life but this is fantasy we're talking about so I don't care). Brandon Sanderson has created thousands of things you can do as a coinshot: shoot coins (duh), push off of metal things to jump, push around people wearing metal. Getting creative with the things you can do can make even the most limited magic systems awesome.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Channelknight Fadran
I only now realize that typo?

[Frustration]

51 minutes ago, DramaQueen said:

How do I make mine cool if they can only change into one animal, (a cat?)

Sorry @Channelknight Fadran I know this is your teaching area but I just had this thought.

So DramaQueen what you could try doing is finding out what would make you want that power, design it in such a way that makes it desirable. Eating metal isn't something most people want to do, but Brandon adds something desirable,(flight) to it as well. So add something to it, or find a way to make people want that power.

[DramaQueen]

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Sorry @Channelknight Fadran I know this is your teaching area but I just had this thought.

So DramaQueen what you could try doing is finding out what would make you want that power, design it in such a way that makes it desirable. Eating metal isn't something most people want to do, but Brandon adds something desirable,(flight) to it as well. So add something to it, or find a way to make people want that power.

But if the power is a curse, which is an idea I've been toying with, would I still want to make it desirable? (Sorry for asking so many questions ahhhhhh)

1 hour ago, Channelknight Fadran said:

Figure out cool things they can do as that animal. If it's a cat, then they can jump off a building as a human and land on their feet as a cat (probably wouldn't save their life but this is fantasy we're talking about so I don't care). Brandon Sanderson has created thousands of things you can do as a coinshot: shoot coins (duh), push off of metal things to jump, push around people wearing metal. Getting creative with the things you can do can make even the most limited magic systems awesome.

Basically the same question, take it as you will with the curse thing.

[Channelknight Fadran]

52 minutes ago, DramaQueen said:

But if the power is a curse, which is an idea I've been toying with, would I still want to make it desirable? (Sorry for asking so many questions ahhhhhh)

Basically the same question, take it as you will with the curse thing.

Making it seem bad kind of falls under Plot and Character development. What you could do is instead of making the curse seem cool, you could make the curse seem dark.

[Frustration]

56 minutes ago, DramaQueen said:

But if the power is a curse, which is an idea I've been toying with, would I still want to make it desirable? (Sorry for asking so many questions ahhhhhh)

Basically the same question, take it as you will with the curse thing.

It could be culturally considered a curse, and the recipients outcasts, but still be a cool power, i.e. reod Elantrians.

If that's what you want.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Frustration

[Channelknight Fadran]

Should I keep going with this?

[DramaQueen]

Um. YES! PLEASE!

If you want, I could tell you everything I have for the animagus cat boy idea I had, then you could use that to give advice.

[Channelknight Fadran]

52 minutes ago, DramaQueen said:

Um. YES! PLEASE!

If you want, I could tell you everything I have for the animagus cat boy idea I had, then you could use that to give advice.

You can if you want to. I guess I'll be doing Character and Plot development next, so if you're asking for cool factor, I won't be doing that again for a little while.

I need to start drafting out Lesson Number Four soon.

[DramaQueen]

3 hours ago, Channelknight Fadran said:

You can if you want to. I guess I'll be doing Character and Plot development next, so if you're asking for cool factor, I won't be doing that again for a little while.

I need to start drafting out Lesson Number Four soon.

Character and plot development sounds incredible! I'll get that to you later.

[Mat]

I only just noticed this. I am here now! 

My biggest struggle with building worlds is more on the realism side. I can draft a cool magic system, write a decent action scene- even come up with half-okay characters- but then I recognize something that doesn't make sense realistically that snowballs itself into re-writing the whole thing a bajillion times. So... help?  

[DramaQueen]

Ok, so here's what I have for the cat boy book so far. (The title is The Stray Hunter because the cat/boy's name is Hunter and he's a stray can, get it? The girl's name will probably be Willow, but I might change it, but just to make this more understandable, I'll call her Willow.) (Spoilered for size.)

Spoiler

 

Willow remembers playing with a cat in the woods by her house when she was little, and remembers the cat being a human boy, as well, but she decides that it was just her overactive imagination. Years later, she sees the same cat in the woods--but it can't be the same cat, that cat was alive so long ago that it should be either really old or dead, and he appeared almost unchanged. Besides, this cat didn't approach her fearlessly like the other one did, he runs away as soon as she tries to get close! Willow makes a goal to gain the trust of this cat, and slowly does so. Now, he'd let her come close, but not touch him. She decided to give him a name: Hunter, which was what she remembered the cat/boy from her imagination telling her his name was. After she gives him this name, the cat allows her to pet him. She plays with him almost every day, and sometimes thinks he acts more like a human than cats usually do. A few weeks after she earns the cat's complete trust, Willow sees a boy going past her house and can't shake the feeling that the boy is her cat. She goes into the woods and finds her cat, deciding to tell him how funny and weird it is that she thinks the mysterious boy is her cat. She tells him the full story, of how she remembers a cat that looked just like him who would change into a boy. Later, the boy comes up to her at school, introduces himself as Hunter, and tells her that the two of them used to be friends, but then he moved away. Willow still feels like the two Hunters are the same. She continuously tells her cat this, and, after about a year, on a day where the boy Hunter kept doing things that reminded her of her cat, she loses her cool. She shouts at the cat, crying, pleading with him to be the boy and to reveal himself or she'd commit herself to an asylum, because only a crazy person would think that her stray cat and her best friend are the same person without it being true. Hunter does reveal himself, and Willow is really mad at him for hiding this from her for so long, but she's also relieved that she's not crazy. Also, very weirded out, because she didn't really expect her cat to be her friend, so she has a lot of conflicting emotions. After that, I don't know any specifics, but there'll be fluffy romance, (not too much, though,) crazy adventure and epic conflict, (lots of that caused by Hunter's family and the curse) and hopefully all the ingredients to a fine fantasy! 

 

So, basically, all I've got is the main backstory of how they met. Inciting incident, perhaps?

[Channelknight Fadran]

5 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I only just noticed this. I am here now! 

My biggest struggle with building worlds is more on the realism side. I can draft a cool magic system, write a decent action scene- even come up with half-okay characters- but then I recognize something that doesn't make sense realistically that snowballs itself into re-writing the whole thing a bajillion times. So... help?  

I'll be getting into Realism after Character and Plot Development, which is happening... now.

Come one! Come all! Come see, Character and Plot Development in worldbuillding! Not to be confused with good 'ol fashioned character and plot development; that's completely different.

Therefore, without further ado...

LESSON NUMBER which one am I on? Three? Five? Oh, four. FOUR.

Lesson 4: Character and Plot Development in Worldbuilding --or-- Worldbuilding in Character and Plot Development

So we've made worlds. We've developed a cool factor. Now we need to know how that fits into the story as a whole. Particularly, we want to how and why it affects our characters, and how and why it affects our plot. I'm going to start with plot affection, then move onto characters, because characters are cooler and plots are meh.

It's important to note that almost every single fantasy story to ever permeate the earth has been a save the world story. Good versus evil, final battle, that sort of thing. And there is nothing wrong with that. I'm writing a save-the-world, you guys are probably writing a save-the-world, all of the Cosmere has been save-the-world at this point (except White Sand, but that's a graphic novel so I DON'T CARE), which means what I'm going to be discussing is a save-the-world story! I might discuss other forms of writing in a fantasy later, such as heist fantasy (like in Six of Crows which I haven't read so I might be totally wrong and it also might be save-the-world), or *gags* romance fantasy (like Twilight, which I haven't read and never plan to).

So, save-the-world stories! The good guy's gotta kill the bad guy so the bad guy doesn't kill all the good guys. Sometimes they win, and sometimes their books never hit the shelves (I.E. they always win). Now, designing a plot is something we've been doing since middle school. First, you got the exposition, right? And then rising action, climax, then falling action, and resolution. Right?

Right?

WRONG!

It is so much more complicated than that! People always think it looks like this (spoiled for size):

Spoiler

But it actually looks more like this:

Spoiler

I may or may not have just borrowed a stock market image for this, but it is pretty accurate. I'll be referring back to it now and again, so keeping it open might be a good idea.

So here you have a nice plot outline. Exposition at the start (that flat part of the blue line at the beginning), and then things start ramping up. You hit that first hump, go back down, hit the climax, and then plummet.

Well, yeah, Fadran! I hear you think (yes, I can hear your thoughts). That's how plotline works. Where does worldbuilding and magic come in?

Shh, my little minions. All will be explained in time. Three seconds of time, actually, because I'm talking about that... now.

I'm going to refer to our good friend Brandon Sanderson and his lovely Laws of Magic Systems, because they don't just affect magic systems; they affect worlds, as well. I'm going to pull on his first law, which is "An author's ability to solve conflict with magic Worldbuilding is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic World." I'm also going to tear it up for scraps and build something new.

Behold, everyone! Fadran's First Law of Worldbuilding! "An author's ability to create conflict with Worldbuilding is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said Worldbuilding." To return to the stock market plot outline, I'm going to refer to that first big hump. That first big hump is important. Sometime around then, you need things to go downhill. Sometime around then, the characters have to fail at something big. Because we're talking under the context of save-the-world stories, then it's probably something to do with the big bad guy being prepared for the characters and screwing them over. Take The Last Airbender chapter 3, for example (spoilers, btw). That first hump would be the invasion of the Fire Nation capital. Azula was ready for them, she stalled for time, the Fire Lord stayed alive, literally everyone except the main protagonists and a few unimportant side characters were captured--in other words, a failed false climax.

However, as you might've noticed, that wasn't exactly worldbuilding-based. This failed false climax isn't just an inciting incident for the characters--it's also the point at which the reader needs to understand your world. They don't need to understand all of it; in fact, they don't need to know any of it. When I say that a reader's understanding of your world is proportional to how well you can create conflict with it, I mean that a reader's understanding of the characters' understanding of the world is proportional to how well you can create conflict with it. Mystery is very important to a story, so you can actually introduce new worldbuilding elements in this failed false climax (I'm calling it an FFC from now on) to intrigue your readers. Nobody knew what Hemalurgy was or did back in the first Mistborn book, but that didn't mean that Brandon couldn't create conflict with it--that meant that Brandon was basically obligated to create conflict with it, because it was a mystery to characters and readers both why you couldn't kill the inquisitors.

So I guess I'll go back and revise my First Law of Worldbuilding. It is now "An author's ability to create conflict with Worldbuilding is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well a reader understands a character's knowledge (or lack of) of said World." Boom. It's there. Feel free to quote me on it, it is a thing!

Oh dear... this is already a really long post. Okay, this is lesson 4/1, and I'll cover characters in the next one (hopefully it won't take me too long to post that).

Don't die!

~ Fadran.

[DramaQueen]

23 minutes ago, Channelknight Fadran said:

Oh dear... this is already a really long post.

I read that whole thing out loud to get as much out of it as possible. My voice is tired now. Thanks, that was really helpful!!!!!!! And pretty funny sometimes.

Edited August 8, 2020 by DramaQueen

[Channelknight Fadran]

10 minutes ago, DramaQueen said:

I read that whole thing out loud to get as much out of it as possible. My voice is tired now. Thanks, that was really helpful!!!!!!! And pretty funny sometimes.

Did anybody look at you funny?

[DramaQueen]

Just now, Channelknight Fadran said:

Did anybody look at you funny?

I'm just at home with my little sister, and she didn't care.