Creativity

Geek As Citizen: More On Writing And Reposting

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Paper And Stars

As I’ve hinted at before, once I finish rewriting Way With Worlds over at Seventh Sanctum (and republished here) I plan to wrap it up into a book. Admittedly this could be quite a ways away since it is not just a rewrite but adding everything I learned in the last ten-fifteen years, so my guess is I may be doing this for up to a year longer. However, at some point I want to take it, re-edit it, maybe add a bit more, and do it as a book.

(Also possibly to take a break as this is pretty intense).

Anyway the reason I plan to turn this into a book:

  1. I think it’d be pretty useful.
  2. People who read the column in the past had commented on the value they got from it, and one had even printed it out.
  3. It helps preserve knowledge, which I wrote about previously.

I was discussing this with Serdar, and mentioning some of his past reviews and writings, and future plans. He’s quite adept at reviews and writing, and I thought maybe he should consider something similar. He noted he wouldn’t, as some writing is appropriate for a book, some isn’t, some things are good to put in print, for others being on the internet is enough. Plus some things aren’t appropriate to charge for.

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Way With Worlds: Having A Vision

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Viewpoint Trees Sky

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum, MuseHack, and Ongoing Worlds]

A lot of what I write about worldbuilding is at least partially technical. It’s about breaking things into areas of analysis, questions, outlines, and more so you can make your world. Good worldbuilding is about thought and techniques and keeping track of things – well, half of it is.

The other half of worldbuilding is those wild ideas, those crazy thoughts, those “what ifs.” In many cases you’re either doing good with those moments of creativity, or organizing what thoughts you do have.  Of course, not all of these moments come at the right time – sometimes you want to get organized and your brain won’t shut up, sometimes you want an idea and feel like a book-keeper.

Then where there’s those times that your worldbuilding comes together, when you grasp the big picture, when you get both the “wow” and the numbers behind it. That moment when you have A Vision and it all comes together.

Those moments you “get” your world, and those are the moments that are beautiful and powerful.

You probably know what I’m talking about and wish you could get into that state more.

The fact that I’m writing about this means I’m betting a good chunk of my readers can’t.

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Way With Worlds: Character Creation

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Michaelangelo God Adam

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum and at MuseHack]

After spending last column talking about characters in continuity, in world building, it’s time to talk about creating characters themselves.

I held this off until talking about the role characters play because of all aspects of world building, Character creation is the one that can (and in my opinion, should) be the most complex. As noted, a character is in a way the summary of the setting, and in turn, extremely complicated. Because they’re complicated, a sense of where they fit is important.

Characters are your setting come to visible, relatable life. Or at least should be.

The problem in discussing “how to create” characters is the process itself is also unpredictable, personal, and unique for everyone – just as characters are unique. So I can’t give you a system or even a list of questions that’ll “do it for you.” In fact, I shouldn’t because we all do this differently.

What I can do is give a list of techniques i’ve used, I’ve encountered, and I’ve coached on to help you create characters. Some you’re doing. Some you aren’t. Some will work. Some won’t – but would work for someone else.

But you can find what works for you.

After all I said it wasn’t simple. People never are – and that’s what you’re creating.

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