Ixthos

@Dr. Dapper Oh yes! Logging ideas is very useful, from scenes to species, a culture to climax, and finding which work together best :-) Do you also find that something innocuous, like the way two plates are stacked, can give an idea, such as magic which requires two discs to be in alignment and configured in a specific way to give powers to whomever places them in that arrangement? Or the behaviours of insects could give the idea of powers related to what they can do, like ants - the ability to make imprints on reality to let others with the same abilities master a power in an area another has performed it? @Pagliacci Do you find that placing two different cultures near one another and letting them interact while maintaining the root of their natures gives you entirely new cultures and relations, a sort of gradient between the two, with practices and technologies mingling? I agree with the insight fantasy and science fiction can give on the current cultures and possible progressions cultures can steer towards :-P @Kureshi Ironclaw Tip of the iceberg works :-) its all about what you are trying to do, and what you like. So long as a story comes out the end - if you want a story - then what works for you works :-) I will say I find having an extensive list of notes is helpful, but I am also fond of highly ordered structures - I find they tend to give me a lot of freedom as ironic as that may seem. And don't worry about your first experience! It was helpful to you - it helped you learn what works! If I may offer a suggestion, maybe between chapters, after writing the scene that motivated you to write, why not make a list of the directions you think the story is going and what it then needs, the world building and magic rules, for example, or as your first example showed, the type of government called for? Or write in placeholders, noted as such in the first draft with a colour code to make it easier to find and replace if it wasn't as important for the direction the plot was heading?

Gotcha, we can leave it in the PM then :-P though I would love to see any revision you make of those sections, as the story is intriguing :-) There is a thread similar to that which Elandera made and to which both you and I contributed, though it isn't exactly what I had in mind. That thread is mainly about giving advice, things to consider or watch out for. The thread I am proposing - linked here :-P - is more about giving one's own perspective on how one goes about world building.

Most people who read the creator corner part of the forum do so either because they both enjoy and want to world build, or enjoy and want to read others writing :-P Here, I propose, anyone interested can outline their own approach to world building, in great detail or small, on any point they like. So, without further ado, here is a brief summary of how I like to world build. If anyone is interested, I can go into deeper detail. Firstly, when I world build I tend to world build as part of a meta-structure, a connected setting which covers the major things I like in science fiction and fantasy - alien aliens, unique magic, time travel, other universes, extra dimensional beings, mysteries, and spiritual matters. This meta setting is the backdrop of when I world build and each setting I think on is a part of this, one that is linked to it, and thus to the others, but also stand alone. Events in the meta-setting define the background and some of what is present, but within the setting the setting itself defines the rest of its history, and likewise this adds new parts to the meta setting. The meta setting is a foundation, and each setting is a structure on that foundation. I tend to enjoy mainly building from a cosmic scale, starting from a broad scope, and then narrowing down. This isn't a one way process, however, as some details lower down in the development can have ramifications higher up. For example, a space fearing civilisation might be designed from its origins being linked to an ancient war that ended with new races emerging into this conflict and uniting to stop it, and then working out the natures of each species in that group, then to the individual histories of those people as well as their collective history, then down to adventures of a single colony of that civilisation and its defenders, with the events there requiring a backstory which can work its way back into the cosmic scope of the war that started the unification of the races. Another thing is I like to work in setting bases that are both similar to archetypal settings from stories I've enjoyed, and more importantly, much more importantly, naturally emerge from the meta setting. Galactic civilisations of explorers, epic fantasy, cosy Edwardian or Victorian murder mysteries, steampunk civilisations, cyberpunk capers, and most importantly, eldritch and alien aliens, are examples, and used as a base for a setting. Using that idea and seeing how it can naturally fit into and flow from one another, characters, events, races, and peoples flowing and touching one another without knowing is something I like, and it also can help give extra depth to the story. And even if one cyberpunk setting is designed, it doesn't mean there isn't room for more :-) each unique, each touching on different ideas or done differently, but still bound by the rules of the foundation. Sometimes I start with the idea for a story - a seed idea of a certain plot - and sometimes the seed is, not a plot, but a setting to develop first, which could gain a plot as it matures which then guides the world building, or connect to another setting and so add elements to that other setting and the story for it. What is your approach? :-)

Hi @Invocation :-) Hope you are well. Just to check but, in addition to the earlier PM I sent with the feedback, should I also post it here as well for posterity, or to the original thread you linked? Or just leave it in the PM? Thanks :-) Also, I'm thinking of making a separate thread for the world building notes included in that PM as well, so it isn't just confined to a PM and so others can contribute. If you'd like to add your own ideas in that topic we might be able to get group feedback, and fresh perspectives. Either way I hope your week is going well! Cheers :-)

Okay, this took a week longer than I had hoped to find the time to do this. Sorry about that. Here is the second instalment of the world building idea. Following the summary of the previous points the post will again be done stream of consciousness style. Previously we left off with the following ideas discussed. Slightly expanded upon, they are: Stream of consciousness: We can take too routes with this, one being to expand on the setting more before working out which plot fits best, or world building around a decided upon plot. As we already have a scaffolding idea for a story - reverse changeling and villains who want the very power the main character has - lets go with the latter. Lets examine each of the story ideas now and both expand and connect them, with the rough idea of the plot as a guide. We already know this is going to be an urban fantasy, be on an alien world that nevertheless is still familiar terrestrially, and society has both a distant history (how humans and faeries originally arrived and interacted, leading to humans hiding) and a recent one (the hidden war and the new faeries). For now, while we do this lets try to answer some of the "not said" questions, and see where that takes us. (Added outside of stream of consciousness: Main plot and faerie types) (Please note that this is representative of what what my brainstorming looks like. When I write down ideas I normally put down a summary and conclusions of the brainstorming, and any questions to still think on, though to each their own :-) I also will revise ideas later to make them mesh. Also, while rules can be changed before the story is written, and indeed should be revised as more is learnt, rules can also encourage development of the story along lines that might not have been obvious. And once a story is written, don't just change the rules, unless discovering the rules weren't the case is part of the plot, or characters only think they know them.) That concludes this for the moment. I will conclude this later with a third part. Take care!

Will do! Hopefully I can get it posted before tomorrow night, my time (UTC+2:00 :-P ). Good luck at the retreat, and I hope you all have fun!

Cool! I'll give them a read in the morning - its almost 11 pm here at the moment and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. I'll try to give you some feedback tomorrow evening :-) We can also trade notes then. Would you prefer to do that in this thread, in a new thread, or in private messages? Also, agreed on the world building being half the fun ;-) especially when parts start to click into place, and elements that seems separate suddenly support one another and build together towards a clear future path. See you tomorrow!

The best genre ;-) my favourite too, along with detective. I enjoy interconnected stories too. I'm guessing its your favourite as well? I would love to see some of your writing at some point - and I expect to see it published too! Maybe you could post one of the stories you've already written her so we can get a feel for your writing style, and maybe offer some feedback if you like? One or two to get a better idea, and of course to show anyone who might want to hire you your skills. I also enjoy science fiction that also contains magic in an organic way - my own setting has the physical laws tied into the properties of strange extradimensional beings, which also grant abilities that interact with one another and the physics of the realities they are related to. I also like alien aliens to, with unique chemistries and unique cultures. It might be fun to trade notes at some point on how we both come up with settings :-) Do you mainly write in new settings each time, or do you make new settings for each story?

Never never never never give up! The more you try the better you will get. Have you tried the submissions grinder? Pick a handful of your favourite writings and select several of the possible publishers the grinder lists, and send each one one of your stories. If it is accepted, great! If not, then rotate in another of your stories, possibly one that was also rejected from another publisher. So many stories that are considered classics today went through a list of publishers which rejected them. Don't give up! Do your writings mainly follow a genre or type?

Fair enough. Again, good luck! It might be best if the mods give you permission to do this - or to make another topic elsewhere to get better access to views - to post an example of your writing to showcase your skill and so to better encourage those who would seek your services. Have you tried submitting your writing to short stories publishers, or the writers of the future contest?

Ahhh I see. It might be better in future to directly message the mods first if you aren't sure about it though :-P I don't know if you are likely to get much traction with that question on this part of the forum though - unless I misread the circumstances, this is mainly populated by people who want to show off their writing, and so would probably prefer to focus on doing the writing themselves. Perhaps this question would work better in the general discussion subforum? Good luck with this though! If I may ask a further question, would the writing you do be, in essence, mainly for the commissioner to read, rather than, say, them paying you to write a story which they would then post to a writing competition? If not, then are you interested in doing your own writing, but don't know what to start on?

@Elandera I hope you are well. Sorry I haven't posted a followup to my previous post, as I've had a lot of real life pressures going on at the moment. I would like to do at least one more post to expand on the setting if its not too late. How long before the writers retreat starts?

Could you be be a bit more specific? What exactly do you have in mind with regards to writing commissions?

Going off of that, as Kureshi said, does the origins of the power need to be examined? Is it important to the plot that the power be examined in detail, its dynamics and why it has them impacting the plot? One possibility is that it is like oil, or nuclear power - either something left over from something before and a limited resource that they are accessing without realising it is finite and possibly damaging, or another branch of physics which they understand or make use of without understanding.

I actually posted a topic a while ago about a verbal system on Sel - see here if you would like to read it - which addressed the idea of being able to do commands verbally. The main thrust of that and how it relates to this, however, is that as I noted earlier, each system seems to be unique in how it is done, and there is still a geographical component to each. There is a body movement system, a drawing system, an anatomical system, and three stamp systems, plus others which we don't have information on. Combining them all together would mean a loss, so if all became ChayShan then there would be no more drawing systems. If the Rose Empire spread and all became part of it, then there would be no more body movement systems. Unless the entire planet becomes homogeneous, then there is little chance a single spoken language could replace all of them while remaining consistent in expression, but there could be a way for a supplemental system to enter into the existing dynamics. And again, we are assuming that the relationship isn't hierarchical, that geography isn't the deciding factor, but instead that cultural perception is at least as important. Theoretically, all the systems do contain a programming component, its just that the syntax is very lax normally, but there is no reason someone couldn't formalise a method of using one system or a combination that isn't rigidly structured, it just wouldn't be the only way to use it.

It probably would be convenient, but would it become a system in its own right? I suspect yes, but that is the main point of the question though :-P Or would the systems push back, making people only able to speak or use on language? That is the question - how far can cultures affect the magic and how far can the magic affect cultures?

Sorry for taking so long to respond, its been a very draining few days emotionally. @Karger I'm not quiet following? I assume that it might be possible for one land to assimilate another, but I don't know if the entire planet could be combined into a single cognitive area with a single languages and expression. Is that what you meant? @Calderis I like your example, basically its the Eval expression in a sense, or a macro. That definitely would be cool, and I'd like to see that. However, I don't think the objection necessarily applies to what I presented. The example you provided is mainly focusing on AonDor, and we are assuming rules for the other systems would be the same, which could well be the case, but isn't necessarily so. Though if it is hierarchical, then yes, no amount of cultural perception is enough to make a language into a magic system which isn't tied to the geography ahead of time work.

I read a bit, but life has been very busy so I wasn't able to go too far - I only recently got enough time to send an audition. I was planning on reading further if I got a role, but I did read part of it. This is encouragement to read more though :-P

No problem :-) this is kind of fun, and even if I don't get a role, it was still an experience :-P Side note, but when I was recording for Windshear, I kept thinking at that last part, about honour: "Hmmm ... no Surgebinding for you." :-P

@Silverblade5 I've submitted audio for three of the parts, so if you are interested you can give them a listen. I'm thinking of sending in for Firefly as well, as even though I'm a man my voice is normally a bit high pitched and I'm fairly often called "Ma'am" on the phone ... so I practiced a much more clearly male voice. With regards to that, I was debating about sending this in for Captain Typhoon, but decided against it - I don't think this is the voice they would go for :-P Captain Typhoon 03.mp3

Edit the first post. That will be five rand, please :-P

Interesting setting and idea - what is the nature of the Oort cloud colonies though? Are they stations in that region, or built into the materials that make up the cloud? Also, when you say the inner region, do you mean just inside where the cloud starts, or in the cloud, but closer to the system it orbits? If I may offer some advice, for a non technical audience you might want to give some context to the significance of the particles you mentioned, so what forces they tie to or possible applications, etc., otherwise it just seems like random names devoid of a guiding context.

I'm glad we could be of help :-) what might be a good idea is if we give you some examples off the cuff of some world building, so quickly do some world building on some new settings in this thread to show as examples at the retreat, along with the world building from published authors such Brandon and others' work? @Invocation, @Kureshi Ironclaw, @Eagle of the Forest Path, what do you think? I'll start, and I'll do this stream of consciousness style with a new setting. Seed ideas: Initial: Refined: Thats it for now - I'll add more to this later, but as an example as the ideas came I hope this is helpful.

@Elandera I'm guessing you've watched Brandon's videos and listened to Writing Excuses, so I'll say my own take on the topic :-) :-P In order: First, decide if you are world building to make a setting, and based on that setting make a story, or are you starting with the idea of a story, and from that making a setting for it? It doesn't have to exclusively be one or the other, but decide where you are beginning. One might require more world building than the other, but deciding on this helps with answering the next question. Second, when you world build, first decide how much you are planning on doing, and how much you need before you start writing - it is too easy to get wrapped up in a cycle of figuring out new elements. Instead, choose how far you need to go on vital parts, and then focus on them - focus however doesn't mean ignore the rest. Is the politics of the world important? Then focus on that. Is the geography of the world unimportant? Then don't focus on that, but you can still have elements of that involved as well when you plan, and it might partially support the politics, or allow you to spark off a subplot. Which leads to the next point. Thirdly, once you start world building, for any given section you world build, think in three ways - how does it tie to the past (as in, what in the past could have caused this), how does it tie to the future (as in, what are its implications), and how does it tie to the present (as in, how does this element interact with other current elements). Most importantly, how do they come together to produce inevitable outcomes where two current events lead to an inevitable third in the future, or are both the result of something in the past, and so on and so on? Considering how they interact might also allow you to realise areas which need to be changed or given more explanation or support, or which could actually drive the story. Fourthly, even if you are world building for the sake of the story, its okay to make a section of the settings background independent of the main story. There is no need to shoehorn it in, but you can also use it to hint at the greater depth and complexity the setting has, even if it doesn't directly contribute to the main plot - but remember the second bulletpoint above! Fifthly, it doesn't have to actually be as deep as it looks, but as long as you have a general idea about what isn't being shown, that can be enough - but if you like, then go deeper, but not at the expanse of not telling the story, if you want to tell a story. Sections of world building I enjoy usually varies in a story, but I like technologies and how they impact a society, different cultures interacting and being confused by one another, or just accepting that it is one of those things those crazy foreigners or aliens do (especially when that is an attitude both cultures or species have for one another). Symbiosis, culturally or technologically or biologically, robots, etc. are what I like, as well as colonies starting to form or having to support themselves while dealing with dangers. Wars where the complexity and issues are shown, where the heroic side - if there is a clearly heroic side - has its own evil men fighting for it, and the villains have their own noble warriors who fight to protect a home that doesn't deserve their loyalty. Hope this is helpful!

@Silverblade5 It looks interesting, and I'm looking more into it now. I would possibly be willing to help, but I don't have a professional microphone, though doing voice work is something I've wanted to do for a while now. Do you know if not having a proper mic would be a problem?