Way With Worlds

Steve’s Update 4/18/2021

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Here’s what’s up with me!

I’m in a big giveaway with my fellow creatives! Pick up some creativity and writing advice, and a FREE copy of my first Way With Worlds Book! https://books.bookfunnel.com/saygoodbyetowritersblock/suwa6uuxdg

The Roadmap is here to help you see what my overall plans are, check out the new Roadmap – https://www.stevensavage.com/roadmap

A School of Many Futures edit is to chapter 6 out of 13, and that includes grammar checking!  I’m at the halfway point, so you can definitely expect your pre-reader copy in May. 

On the Way With Worlds series, the “Disaster Trilogy” is locked into my schedule, with the Natural Disasters book in May or June. The new covers will start coming soon, but I’m not sure when (likely with that book).

The Seventh Sanctum rewrite continues but hit an annoying roadblock on those complex generators where you pick different categories of options (like the Pizza generator). There’s an issue with filtering to avoid repetitive results that is probably due to a stupid mistake, and I need to find that.

Steven Savage

Why I Wrote It: Organizations and Worldbuilding

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Ever heard of “the book you were meant to write?” Organizations and Worldbuilding is one of those books for me. It’s a book on how to write fictional organizations, and it exists due to two personal

I am an organizer by nature and by profession. I was always organized in my youth, always with a plan or something to do. I became a Project Manager, then an Agilist. Now, I not only manage, but I also speak and write on organization.

However, when you’re naturally organized and trained in organization, you see flaws. I’m used to seeing deficiencies in processes, institutions, and teams. That’s how I help people get better at what they want to do.

I also write on worldbuilding, and you can imagine what it’s like when I turn my gaze on fictional organizations. I see flaws in fictional organizations – not appropriate problems, but ones where they’re not believable.

My job is to help organizations and teams run because that’s simply not everyone’s specialty. In turn, that means people writing fictional organizations may need some help. So I figured, “hey, time to write another book.”

I used my specialty.

It’s not like there aren’t other organization-related tips in other worldbuilding guides. Guides to political structures, discussion of genres, etc. all touch on organization. My goal was to create a general guide for worldbuilders making fictional governments, companies, etc. Something to cover those not-specific but oh-so-important questions like “how the heck do these people communicate.”

It’s another one I’m happy with, but it has a special place in my heart – it’s uniquely mine. Perhaps I’ll revisit it, do a sequel, or expand it, but it’s doing its job for now.

Steven Savage

Why I Wrote It: Fashion And Worldbuilding

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Clothes are something people need to think about. I fell down a well-dressed rabbit hole, and I had to share it with people, so I wrote a book about it.

So “Fashion and Worldbuilding” is today’s subject, my book on the role of fashion in setting development. I didn’t mean high fashion, but more clothes and ornamentation and uniforms, all the things we’re used to. Well, used to until you design a new setting – like I did.

When I was working on A Bridge To The Quiet Planet, my techno-fantasy adventure, fashion quickly came into play. Thinking over a space-age world rooted in what is basically a JRPG/mid-level fantasy setting requires you to think about clothes in fantasy worlds. Uniforms and holy outfits, flowing robes and enchanted armors, all require you to ask why do people dress this way? Then you have to ask how did this translate to a modern world?

I had a lot about fashion and clothes.

You’ve got over-organized sorceress Marigold Rel-Domau, a sorceress who is legally required to dress in Guild robes to show she’s a walking weapon. Cleric Beacon Rindle is expected to wear the colors and symbols of his goddess who might send him emails to remind him. A long-suffering team of Military specialists have to dive in and out of “Military Blue” depending on how undercover they’re hoping they’re being. Fashion became important.

So I of course realized it was time to write a book. I’d thought about clothes and fashion in worldbuilding, but not like this. In turn, I then realized how many times fashion had affected my life, my writing, or come up in both fiction and the real world. I’d thought about this alot over the years, from game design to watching Tim Gunn analyze comic book superheroes.

In the end? A book came out of it, turning my own experiences into helpful coaching questions.

A lesson for me here is that you may need a more visceral, hands-on experience to create something. These experiences don’t just inform you or make you aware, they also collect thoughts and experiences to let you write. You might be surprised what you know and what you’ve thought of and what you can do – once you have the right experience.

Steven Savage