Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, inspiration, world building, writing on May 31, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Holiday weekend and time got away from me, so I’m putting up some more world building material from the world of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY.
You’ll find a description of the Fasallon under Worlds. They’re the ones in this world who live in a system that can’t long endure. Enjoy.
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, inspiration, sequels, series, world building, writing on May 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »
First an update: Yesterday, I finished the second draft of DREAMER’S ROSE. There were times during the first draft that I thought I’d never finish that story. Now it’s finally starting to shape up. Next, I need to have a couple of readers look it over. Meanwhile, I’m going to start a major revision to THE IGNORED PROPHECY.
Which brings me to today’s topic: Series and Sequels. THE IGNORED PROPHECY is a sequel to THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and second in what will likely be a four-book series. Now, the conventional wisdom is that you shouldn’t write the second book in the series until you’ve sold the first. It could just be a huge waste of time that you’re better off spending on something new. I didn’t know that when I started THE IGNORED PROPHECY. Even if I had, I learned an awful lot writing that book.
There is one exception to that rule, however–if the books are meant to stand alone. This is one of the things that I wrestled with in THE IGNORED PROPHECY. My intention is that the books should be able to stand alone. You should be able to read THE IGNORED PROPHECY and know you’ve read a satisfying story even if you’ve never heard of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. So far, on the basis of readers who had not read the first book, I seem to be doing reasonably well at that.
This is my feeling about series and sequels in general. As a reader, I like series, but I strongly prefer that each book contain a complete story of its own, especially when it may be a year or more before the next book comes out. This has always been my preference, even before THE WHEEL OF TIME forever soured me on series that just go on and on and get more complicated with more characters and never resolve anything.
So, THE IGNORED PROPHECY is and should be a complete story in itself. It’s harder to do that than it sounds. So many things were set up in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE–rules of magic, cultures, characters and relationships. Then I have to remember to establish all of that all over again–without using an info dump or confusing the reader with too much all at once. Early readers found a few things that I hadn’t adequately explained in the second book, but that aspect looks pretty good at this point.
Next revision:
Posted in writing, tagged characters, critiques, fantasy, revisions, world building, writing on May 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »
“Becoming Lioness” is set in the same world, and uses some of the same characters as THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY. In fact, it’s based on an event that should happen in the fourth book of the series, if it ever gets that far.
The last set of revisions (which I finished this morning) were prompted by a couple of critiques and one comment. It made me aware of just what a delicate dance it is to provide enough information, but not too much in a short story. There are both benefits and drawbacks to using the milieu from two of my novels for a short story.
On the positive side, all the world building was already done. I know this world and these characters intimately. That part was easy. From at least one comment, I think the world came through as being much richer than my other short stories, probably because it is.
On the negative side, I know this world and these characters intimately, meaning I know way too much about them to fit into a short story.
This last revision was mostly cuts, removing places where I had too much detail or backstory. It might enrich the story, but it was killing the pacing. Asking the question: does the reader really need to know that for this story to work? I don’t know yet if I cut enough or too much. In some places, I had to combine characters or even slightly alter events from the way they will be in the novel in order to make the short story better.
The next short story that I’m considering is also set in this world, based on an event from THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. So the take-away lesson is: to really think carefully about what I put in. Some hints at the backstory may serve to enrich the world. Too much just bogs things down. And I can’t let myself get too tied down to the way it happened in the novel. I have to do what works best for the short story, first.
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, inspiration, world building, writing on April 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Since I’m still blogging about world-building, I put up a part of the world-building materials for my first two novels, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY (and my latest short-story “Becoming Lioness”). Look under Worlds for a glimpse of the Dardani.
A post on the Hatrack Writers’ Forum recently posed the question of where world-building ideas come from. The short answer is: Everywhere. Everything is potentially grist for that mill.
I have read fairly widely and taken a few courses in subjects that interest me, even though they had no particular relation to my “real life”. And I find that a lot of that material, sometimes digested over many years and recombined in (hopefully) interesting ways, make it into my world building.
The world of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY could possibly be traced back to my cultural anthropology class as well as various books and articles on the subject that I’ve read since. The subtext of the stories is very much driven by the interaction and occasional conflict between the various cultures who see the world differently and value very different things.
As an urban fantasy, most of BLOOD WILL TELL occurs right here. Still there’s world-building involved in the non-human characters of the story, the rules of magic, and the interaction between the magical world, Chimeria, and this one.
The inspiration for the world of DREAMER’S ROSE came from a trip many years ago to Princess Louisa Inlet in British Columbia, Canada, combined with many trips to the coast redwoods here in California. I was foundering on what made that world unique until my memory dredged up that trip. (That’s where the caption picture for this blog was taken.)
I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the probably many things SEVEN STARS needs is more attention to the world-building. I think part of it may just end up looking a lot like one particular area in the Sierra Nevada that I used to visit fairly often. I need more definition of the different groups that are interacting in this story, too. Perhaps not quite so much as for THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY; these cultures won’t be as different from each other as those. But more than I have now.
Ideas for world building can come from anywhere.
Posted in writing, tagged fantasy, first drafts, world building, writing on April 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Some more thoughts on world building, today.
For my first novel, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, I have a map and about twenty pages of world building materials (some of which may turn up on this blog, under Worlds, someday). Most of this is about the various cultures (six in all) in that world. For these peoples, I wrote out things like:
It’s great to know all of this. Of course, the problem is an awful lot of that crept into the novel and had to be cut later. But it’s still good to know. Besides, it’s fun to imagine all these things and how they interact and make sense for one group but shock another.
For later stories, I’ve usually drawn a map, but I haven’t written out the world building in the same way, although I know most of the same things about those worlds. I just haven’t felt compelled to write it down.
The world building for DREAMER’S ROSE eluded me, until I remembered a trip to Princess Louisa Inlet (where the photo at the top of this blog was taken). Then the world became real to me in a flash.
And, in writing this, it occurs to me that there is one story for which I really don’t have a good handle on this kind of information, my current problem child SEVEN STARS. Before I go back to it, I really need to work that out some more.
Posted in writing, tagged creatures, fantasy, inspiration, world building, writing on April 14, 2010| 1 Comment »
Part of the fun of writing fantasy, or really any speculative fiction for that matter, is you get to make up your own worlds. And sometimes those worlds are populated by strange creatures.
I didn’t really make up any creatures for BLOOD WILL TELL. I just used existing mythological or fantastic creatures like werewolves, unicorns, and dragons. Of course, I get to make up the rules for these creatures in my world. My werewolves don’t have to be just like everybody else’s–and they’re not. I also decided that all of the magical creatures would be able to take human form. It’s a gift from the dragons, to help them communicate. Once they’re all in human form, however, there’s more they can do with each other than just talk. So I have a few hybrids, including my main character. Then I get to make up what the challenges might be for these hybrids. Valeriah is half werewolf, but she’s also one quarter unicorn. She craves rare meat at the full moon; but at the new moon, she’s a vegetarian.
Sometimes, though, you have to make up entirely new creatures. Sometimes, for that, I’ll take characteristics of existing creatures and put them together in new combinations. I did that for THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. I had to. One of the first significant events in that book was based, in part, on the Maneaters of Tsavo (real-life maneating lions). The problem was, my main characters were members of the Lion Clan. I decided that it would probably be taboo for them to kill lions, their totem animal. So, I had to have some other dangerous creature for them to hunt. I came up with a sort of very large saber-tooth cat, with a greenish-tawny striped fur, and a rhino-like hide over its shoulders.
But then I decided that I didn’t want to have just one made up creature in this world. That made it seem somehow too convenient. So I added a kind of lion-maned flying squirrel. “Chit” ended up getting a fairly large part in the story, actually. There’s also a wild horse that’s sort of like a zebra or onanger, except it has leopard spots and an antelope that’s kind of a cross between a chamois and an markhor. And a giant lake otter that’s something like the giant river otters of the amazon. Oh, and wyverns, but I didn’t make them up.
I had other creatures, too, but they got cut. Who knows, maybe they’ll turn up later in the series. There’s a rhino-sized wild boar, with tusks and horns, which is supposed to be the natural prey of those saber-toothed tigers. There are a couple of large lakes, just begging for some kind of lake monster. And I had thought of a herd of miniature unicorns with very nasty dispositions, just to really confuse my horse-loving protagonist.
I haven’t made up any creatures for DREAMER’S ROSE or SEVEN STARS. Hmm, maybe I need to.
Posted in writing, tagged characters, fantasy, world building, writing on March 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Instead of a new blog post today, I’ve added some new material to the other pages.
Check out the Characers page for a new character (on the blog). Rolf from BLOOD WILL TELL.
And there’s a new page, Worlds, where you’ll find a deleted scene from BLOOD WILL TELL that gives some insight into the relationship between Chimeria and our own world.
Enjoy.
Meredith Mansfield, Author 