Worldbuilding: When The Going Gets Rough
January 29th 2009 09:47
I've been working very hard on my world building of late. I'm severely behind in my own workshop (ack), but I've been working hard on building my world for Jihad. I've written five pages about each and every God and Goddess, all by hand in my binder as well as transcribed to my word file.
Worldbuilding gets old, it gets boring, it gets tedious. But it has to be done; you need to know all the little details, and who knows, when you're dead they might get published.
If you are getting bored of worldbuilding, you've been at it for a while with no real results, or it feels like it's going nowhere, stop. Take a break. Take a deep breath.
Write a short fanfic, or a very short realistic fic. Write a short story of some sort, completely not dependent upon the details of your world. Or write an article about something in the world around us, one perhaps to be sold to a local magazine. Write a poem about something that isn't bothering you, about something nice.
Or, if you absolutely must work on your world, do something new and different with it. Try one of these exercises:
1. Write a short (500) story about a historical 'prank', a great heist of some sort-something that isn't about rules, but is about breaking them.
2. Write a short story in which one of the Gods or Goddesses of your world does something outrageously silly, yet still in character.
3. Write a short story about a wandering con artist who tries to con a person-who turns out to be a God taken on human form.
4. Write a short story in which a king, somewhere along the line, is making a great toast and spills wine all over himself, and the reactions of the people.
5. Write a short story in which two people of different cultures meet and make fun of each other's Gods and Goddesses over a few beers-it can even end in a brawl if you like.
All of these things give you little details about your world, good history and myths, and they can be quite fun. I'll be trying my hand at some of them tomorrow.
If you do try one of my exercises, post a paragraph or two from your experiment-I'll post one of mine tomorrow.
Thanks for reading,
~Dianna
Worldbuilding gets old, it gets boring, it gets tedious. But it has to be done; you need to know all the little details, and who knows, when you're dead they might get published.
If you are getting bored of worldbuilding, you've been at it for a while with no real results, or it feels like it's going nowhere, stop. Take a break. Take a deep breath.
Write a short fanfic, or a very short realistic fic. Write a short story of some sort, completely not dependent upon the details of your world. Or write an article about something in the world around us, one perhaps to be sold to a local magazine. Write a poem about something that isn't bothering you, about something nice.
Or, if you absolutely must work on your world, do something new and different with it. Try one of these exercises:
1. Write a short (500) story about a historical 'prank', a great heist of some sort-something that isn't about rules, but is about breaking them.
2. Write a short story in which one of the Gods or Goddesses of your world does something outrageously silly, yet still in character.
3. Write a short story about a wandering con artist who tries to con a person-who turns out to be a God taken on human form.
4. Write a short story in which a king, somewhere along the line, is making a great toast and spills wine all over himself, and the reactions of the people.
5. Write a short story in which two people of different cultures meet and make fun of each other's Gods and Goddesses over a few beers-it can even end in a brawl if you like.
All of these things give you little details about your world, good history and myths, and they can be quite fun. I'll be trying my hand at some of them tomorrow.
If you do try one of my exercises, post a paragraph or two from your experiment-I'll post one of mine tomorrow.
Thanks for reading,
~Dianna
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