Today we get to dive into my personal favorite topic: Worldbuilding. Today’s prompt is
How has your character’s home changed within their lifetime?
This is an especially interesting question for The Half-Elves, because Elk hasn’t been home Continue reading “Preptober Prompts Day 4-5 – 2020”
Something I’ve been exploring a lot lately in my Deseran worldbuilding is worldview. What cultures believe what? How do those beliefs differ from group to group and person to person? How do those beliefs clash with the beliefs of other cultures? I’ve found that I really enjoy exploring these different perspectives, and exploring how they do or don’t capture the real-world truth. So I wanted to write about some ways we can explore worldview effectively through our fantasy worlds, in hopes that some of you will also find it interesting or informative. This is something I’m still learning, so I don’t have it all figured out yet, but here are some of the things I’ve been able to identify from my own thought processes. Continue reading “How to Use Fantasy Culture to Explore Worldview”
A couple of weeks ago, I had the strange idea to write a post about why we don’t have flying cars. “Well that’s random,” I thought. “Where in the world am I going to post that?” And then the idea rattled around in my head for a couple of days and I realized I could associate worldbuilding principles to my reasons for our current lack of flying cars. So… here we are. XD Continue reading “5 Reasons We Don’t Have Flying Cars (and the Worldbuilding Takeaways)”
It’s been wayyyy too long since I last posted, and even longer since I posted something other than a blog tag. I could blame the fact that the Coronavirus goings-on have turned my brain completely upside-down, but that’s really only part of it, so… Regardless of the reason, I apologize for totally disappearing. :P
Anyway, I got a writing question from one of my newsletter subscribers last month and it was on a topic that I find really fun: converging cultures. I had several tips on the topic, so I thought I’d adapt the advice I gave to the subscriber into a blog post and share it with y’all. :) Continue reading “How To Write About Converging Cultures”
There are many methods for worldbuilding. I mean, many. Everyone is going to have a different way they go about worldbuilding, and I personally tend to use a broad variety of methods. One method I’ve found a lot of fun while working on Deseran (my huge “desert fantasy” world, which I finally get to share a piece of with Caithan) is what I call “vignette worldbuilding.” The way it works, I select a piece of the world that I’ve been developing recently, or I latch onto a cool new concept that doesn’t have an official place yet, and I write a piece of short prose around it. Caithan, for instance, was an exploration of the mix of cultures in Teraco, an empire that’s something of a cultural melting-pot. I’ve also written short pieces to further develop races, or to show how certain groups are treated in differing countries, or to showcase the unique traits of the wildlife of the world. There’s really no limit to what you can explore with vignette worldbuilding. But what are its unique benefits? Continue reading “The Benefits of Vignette Worldbuilding”
