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Magical World Builder. By, Stephanie Cottrell Bryant <map name="admap78618" id="admap78618"><area href=" shape="rect" coords="0,0,468,60" title="" alt="" target="_blank" /></map><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:468px;border-style:none;background-color:#ffffff;"><tr><td><img src=" style="width:468px;height:60px;border-style:none;" usemap="#admap78618" alt="" /></td></tr><tr><td style="background-color:#ffffff;" colspan="1"><center><a style="font-size:10px;color:#0000ff;text-decoration:none;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;font-family:Tahoma, verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;text-transform: none;letter-spacing:normal;text-shadow:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:normal;" href=" target="_blank">Ads by Project Wonderful!

The Magical World Builder's Guide is a tool for creating a fantasy universe. I Love the End of the World (DeepGenre) World Building 101. World Building 101 by Lee Masterson You are the ultimate creator of your fictional world. No matter where or when your story is set, regardless of what events unfold, and despite the characters you introduce to your readers, they are all products of your unique imagination. "But I write romance set in the present time," I hear you cry. It doesn't matter whether your story is set in 16th century Middle Europe, or the 28th century Altarian star-system, your story still belongs in a world created entirely by you.

So, even though it can be great fun to invent strange sounding planets in distant galaxies, complete with lethal atmospheres and budding alien life-forms, there are still writers out there who would much prefer to deal with Earth as we already know it. The good news is you still get your chance to put on your megalomaniac's hat and play God! Regardless of where (or when) your story is set, YOU have decided your characters' destinies for them. . - Are the seasons consistent?

The Art of Description: Eight Tips to Help You Bring Your Settings to Life. The Art of Description: Eight Tips to Help You Bring Your Settings to Life by Anne Marble Return to Setting & Description · Print/Mobile-Friendly Version Description is something that gets in the way of many authors. Why? Well, because it's so darn hard to write. And no wonder. If you're not very accomplished at writing description, then sometimes you might want to avoid writing it.

At the same time, some writers err in the other direction, including too much description. How bad is bad description? Avoid Huge Lumps of Description In the past, authors could get away with including long, detailed descriptions in their stories. Unless they're seeking out writers known for lyrical descriptive passages, today's readers wouldn't put up with that sort of thing.

Of course there are authors who, even in today's marketplace, can get away with pages and pages of description. Make Description an Active Part of the Story How did I come up with that line? Describe What Your Characters Would Notice. Creating the Perfect Setting - Part I. It was a dark and stormy night... This is one of the most ridiculed openings, not because once upon a time it didn't work, but because too many people have written their own version of it.

And yet setting, the weather, landscape, the opening scene, can often lay out the feel and tone of a book brilliantly, and create an instant context, often a time-stamp, a fixed point which helps the reader find the correct emotional stance to absorb the work. The first I heard of the beach was in Bangkok, on the Khao San Road. Khao San Road was backpacker land. Note here that we don't just get setting but also information, some explicit, but a lot implicit. As David Lodge pointed out in The Art of Fiction, a distinctive sense of place was not always a feature of prose fiction. Unfortunately, the first thing some writers did was to overwhelm the reader with masses of descriptive detail, often using description only as a warm-up to the rest of the book. Fog everywhere. Writers have to think of setting. Creating a Believable World. By Sharon Caseburg One of the greatest difficulties Speculative Fiction authors experience when writing stories in this genre is in their ability to provide a believable environment for their readers.

Any kind of speculative fiction, whether it be hard-core Science Fiction, Time Travel, Horror, or Fantasy requires readers to put aside the conventions they have become accustomed to in the “real world” for the world the author presents in the story. This of course holds true for speculative romance stories as well. For the most part, readers of these genres are more than willing to put aside the customs of the world they live in, for the environment the author has created. However, when the author does not provide a believable realm, readers can easily become disenchanted with both the author’s world and in turn, the story itself. Basically, this translates to the more the author knows about the world he or she is creating, the more confidently the author can write about it.

SFWA. SETTING by Lori Handeland. Www.aliciarasley.com/artset.htm. Copyright 1999 by Alicia Rasley Here is a quick exercise to help you explore your protagonist's relationship with the setting. Just free-write on the questions. Look for conflict and character-building opportunities. Also look for possible events and places where events might take place. See if you can make your setting more than just a backdrop for your dramatic events. Think instead of your plot and protagonist interacting with the environment. 1. The plot requires a city exploding with growth, as real-estate development plays a role in the story. 2.

Meggie is from the east, a working class town like Hartford. 3. A mover and shaker might have been born into a powerful family, or clawed the way up from the lower class. Meggie moved here when she married. 4. I think she's going to decide she has to invest herself in the place. 5. This is a pretty circumscribed place. 6. I think the old-money vs. new-money aspect would interest an outsider. 7. 8. 9. 10. Go to previous articles: Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds - Intro. By Michael James Liljenberg Introduction Everybody says, 'My topic is the most important thing you can learn in order to write science fiction and fantasy,' when they write a tutorial for FARP.

But I'm actually not exaggerating. There are four basic parts of a story: plot, character, setting, and theme. But what sets Fantasy and Science Fiction apart from other genres is the setting. To be a good writer you need to know character, plot, and theme. Nor do you need to create a universe that is totally original or free of those dreaded Fantasy clichés. And that's the key for creating a realistic world for your story, creating the world as a whole. All this is not to say that your worlds have to be completely scientifically realistic. J.R.R. George Lucas's Star Wars universe was never very well developed, especially from a technology standpoint, but it still works.

Chapter 1: In the Beginning God - Theology/Spirituality Chapter 2: Day 1 - Physics Chapter 3: Day 2 - Weather All rights reserved. Maps Workshop — Developing the Fictional World through Mapping. Most of the books I’ve written have started with a map. Not with an idea, or a character, or a theme. With a hand-drawn map, doodled out first while I was sitting and keeping someone else company, or while I was on break, or when I couldn’t think of what to write and had no ideas to speak of and knew that if I drew a map something would come to me. Some of the maps were fairly artistic from the start. Some began on napkins or the backs of throw-away paper, and only became things of any artistic merit after they’d served their initial purpose of handing me an idea for a novel.

Now I know this is a weird little quirk of mine, and I can’t guarantee you that if you’ll just draw a map, it will give you a novel that will sell. But on the chance that what works for me will work for you, too, I’ll go through the steps I use in doing my maps, and maybe my process will spark something for you. I have favorite tools for mapping. This first map is going to be your continent. Okay. Now… Good luck. World Builder Projects.