Thursday, July 11, 2013

World Builder #1

If you enjoy writing any sort of fantasy or science fiction world whose rules differ from our own, it's not all about cool weaponry and fancy-sounding names. The same sort of detailed thought that goes into the building of a character's personality should also go into putting a world together. Time to start asking some seemingly nitpicky questions to make sure that the settings you're working in work for the story you want to write.

For example:

What kind of currency system does your world use? Dollars, universal money, barter, gold, space credit? What kind of value do its inhabitants place on wealth? 

This one's a tiny pet peeve of mine in lots of fantasy and sci-fi novels even by seasoned pros. The assumption that their totally unique world's economy functions exactly the same as Earth's/their country of origin's takes a richness out of the book that is really easy to add. Details like this go a long way in a world that is unfamiliar to readers, whether you want them to feel as though they're on the outside looking in or whether you want them to eventually feel at home there. The big questions absolutely need to be there- races, languages, geography- but feel free to take a magnifying glass to the little facets of day to day life that bring some life into your setting.

All prompts in this blog are free for personal and instructional use, but cannot be republished without the permission of the author. 

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