World Building & Bibles

This past Sunday, the UGWP group got talking about the issue of world building. There was debate about the best way to do it: if you over-plan, there's the danger of getting stuck in the planning phase without moving on to the writing phase; if you don't plan enough, there's the danger of having to wing it as you write, which leads to the danger of inconsistencies & confusion.
Me, I'm finding that it helps to do a Bible. The Bible starts off with me plugging in everything I already know about the story/characters/world, things like main characters, places, etc. This part came together with Cass after I had written a couple of Cass stories but before I started the novel. So, I had a good idea of certain things, but fuzzy idea on others.

Then, as I wrote and figured out details, I added them to the Bible. This worked pretty well.

Today I finally got a chance to put together my Oracle Bible. This came together a little differently than the Cass Bible, because I've worked on Oracle before, and because different things are important to remember in the world. Overall, though, both have a character section, a section for places, and a section, or two, devoted to relevant mythology. For Oracle, specifically, here's what's in the binder: a map; character sheets; location sheets; info sheets on the four major gods; notes on the world itself, like what their technology looks like; and I also added a sheet for all the names of all the characters to make sure I'm not naming everybody the same things - for instance I seem to really like male characters with names that end in "in" or "an."

As a side note, during my first go at Oracle I put together a sort-of Bible which was a small stack of index cards that I kept in an envelope I glued on the inside cover of the notebook I was writing Oracle in. It worked decent, but is kind of inefficient once I got a certain amount of notes to remember. The binder's more streamlined and keeps things from getting shuffled.

So, now we come to the audience participation part of the show. When you're working on a project/world building, what's your system?

A Trilogy

I'm usually not one to pick up a book out of a series. My main reasons are that I've not been reading at the same pace I used to, which makes keeping up with a series tricky, and since I almost always get my books from the library, I'm at the mercy of what's available, which often means not all of the books in a given series.

But, the other day, a book caught my eye and since it was book one, vs. book five, I picked it up. The book in question was The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I wasn't sure I'd be into it, but once I started reading, it hooked me. The interesting parts are: that for all that it's a fantasy book, the magic element is really downplayed, which eliminates a lot of the pitfalls some fantasy yarns have; the characters are interestingly complex; and Abercrombie's voice has hints of humor that I love.

So, the first book doesn't really stand alone, which is one of the things I dislike about a series, but I'm into it enough that I've put the remaining two books on hold at the library. It's not quite what I expected, which makes me happy.

I'll Take The One About Demonic Forces, Please

In order to aid my work on the new stories, I've started to hit the library. Today I went to the branch by campus and picked up a few to get me started. I've gotta say that checking out a handful of books with things like "voodoo" and "witchcraft" in the titles made me feel like I was an angsty goth teen. I was slightly embarrassed.

I had to fight the impulse to loudly announce to everyone in earshot, "It's not what you think! I'm a writer. It's research."

I'm hitting the main branch tomorrow to pick up a copy of a nifty book called Lucifer Ascending. I should wear black lipstick to do it, don't you think?

Fantastic Art

I've been talking a lot about legends, fairy tales, and magical realism. While I've been focused on writing, I thought it'd be worthwhile to mention art as well. I've seen some wonderful artists in the course of my reading, especially thanks to Realms of Fantasy. Here are some worth mentioning:


Michael Whelan
http://www.michaelwhelan.com/catalog/home.php

Paul Kidby
http://www.paulkidby.com/

Janny Wurtz
http://www.paravia.com/JannyWurts/website/index3.html

John Jude Palencar
http://www.johnjudepalencar.com/

Donato Giancola
http://www.donatoart.com/gallery.html

Wayne Barlowe
http://www.waynebarlowe.com/


While it is by no means an extensive list, these are some of my favorites.