The Long-Term Approach to World-Building

Writers who use contemporary settings often set their stories in places they've lived, because they know the little back-alley details that make those places come to life. They populate their stories with people they know, or alternate versions of themselves; look at how many Stephen King books are centered on novelists from Maine.

Historical fiction writers have the treasure trove of human history to delve into. They can cherry-pick people, places and happenings to fill their stories. Today, writers can even take virtual tours of places they've never been using Google Maps, or learn a foreign land's history on Wikipedia. Wherever and whenever a story is set, there's a ton of information on it at a writer's fingertips.

...unless you set your stories in the future, or in mythical lands that never existed. We always hear that you should write what you know, but that old adage takes on a very different meaning for fantasy and sci-fi writers.

Spec-fic authors must engage in thorough world-building. For every fact a contemporary fiction author can look up, spec-fic writers must invent one. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

It's a tall order even for the most imaginative person. I'm often asked how to go about world-building, and unfortunately there's no simple answer. I like to think I'm pretty imaginative, but the truth is world-building is a long, slow process of compiling tidbits of information, most of which will never see the light of day. But there are a few general strategic tips I can give that have made my world-building experience a little more fruitful.

Take it slow.

Don't sit down to your NaNoWriMo project on November first and start trying to build a fictional universe. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was Narnia or Ringworld. These things take time, and it's best to start long before you ever try to set a story in the worlds you create.

You won't be able to flesh out a setting all in one go. As James Scott Bell would say, you have to send it to "the boys in the basement". Even when your conscious mind is preoccupied, your subconscious never stops working. Let your world-building goals stew in your head, and allow tasty morsels to bubble to the surface a few at a time. One way to do this is to...

Keep a world-building journal.

I use Google Keep, but Evernote or a good old-fashioned Moleskine notebook might be the solution for you. Use whatever you're comfortable with, just make sure it's something you have handy all the time. You can't expect to keep a day's worth of ideas in your short term memory while your idea journal waits on your desk at home. You're going to forget something.

I have a terrible memory. I always have ever since I can--or can't--remember. For most of my life it was just a cross I had to bear; people were always getting hurt because I forgot something they wanted me to remember. Understandably, they thought I didn't care about their lives.

Now, I've outsourced most of my memory to Google Calendar, Keep, Mindly, and Any.Do. And every time some setting tidbit comes to my attention, I write it down. Sometimes these are ideas that come to me unbidden and without method--something the boys in the basement send up as a surprise. Other times, it's something I've been trying to think of for days. Still other times, I'll experience some piece of sensory information--a smell or an odd sound--that piques my interest. I keep a "Sensory Info" log where I dump all this stuff, and over time I gradually digest it into my setting notes.

Just today, for example, I noticed how the crawfish chimneys in my yard have become so thickly clustered that the dirt looks like brown cauliflower. Now that the ground is dry, they crunch underfoot like gravel. You can expect to see a description of that phenomenon in one of my stories some day. Only they won't be crawfish, they'll be some strange alien bugs.

Which leads me to my next strategy:

Tweak real-world details.

Just because you're a spec-fic author doesn't mean the wealth of information available to the modern human is useless to you. If you read or hear something interesting in the news, think about how a similar event might play out in the future, or the mythic past. How would the latest mass shooting have been different in the middle ages? In a police-state future, what additional hoops would shooters have to jump through to wreak their sad revenge on society?

If you see an object or place that catches your interest, think how it might be different in a spec-fic setting. Does the neighborhood coffee shop have a reason to exist in Middle Earth? If so, what would be on the menu?

Read history, and think how certain leaders would have acted differently in different time periods. How would World War II have been fought if Hitler was an evil wizard, or a genocidal AI?

Everything in today's world can be useful to you, if you get in the habit of asking yourself the right questions.

Set all your stories in a single fictional universe

This might be considered cheating, but it works for me. All my stories are set in the same universe, even if that fact is never advertized to the reader. Ideally, the reader isn't required to know that.

The main reason I do this is because I really admire writers--like Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert--who developed a consistent story universe that spans multiple books or series. But as I've fleshed the setting out more and more, I've realized that it also makes it easier to build settings for individual stories. With an ever-growing story world, I never have to start from scratch, and every story adds its own cache of details to the whole. Keeping stories in a single universe might sound hard, but I've actually found it's easier than going back to the drawing board every time.

Another fringe benefit of this strategy is that when I flesh out one little corner of my story universe, it will occasionally throw light on some other corner that I never intended to discover. Developing the setting for a story often means coming up with imaginary histories, and sometimes those histories can inspire other stories, unexpectedly link up with other works in progress, or become new stories in their own right.

The one downside to this strategy is that I actually have too many ideas. I will surely die before I see all of them put to good use. But...so what? Even if some of this stuff never sees the light of day, its existence still makes my job easier. My own awareness of the story universe deepens and informs the little tidbits I show to readers. So long as I don't make my imaginary history a prerequisite for enjoying my stories, there's no harm.

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Whether or not the above strategies are helpful to you, one thing is for sure; world-building is not a quick or easy job. It's going to take a lot of time and effort, so it's best to adopt a long-term strategy and not expect fast results. But if you're patient, and you pay attention, you can create a world as real--or more so--than anything in contemporary fiction.

How to Handle Description

Description--how much to use, where to put it, and how to write it--is one of the most troubling issues for writers. Not enough description and you've got mannequins talking in a white room. Too much, and you've got a boring list of facts that's sure to knock readers right out of your story.

The common wisdom is that good writers supply just enough description to kick-start the reader's imagination, and the reader fills in the rest. A further refinement of that maxim says that writers should only report the details that aren't obvious. The reader will fill in the obvious things.

But how do you know which is which? And how do you know when to stop, and when to keep going? This is when I use a little trick I like to call The Inverse Coco Chanel Principle.

Fashion icon Coco Chanel said that when you're accessorizing your outfit, you should "Put everything on, then take one thing off." This means once you have your outfit on, put on earrings, bracelets, necklace, watch, brooch, rings, scarf, headband, etc, etc, then, once it's all on, take one item off, and the outfit is complete.

When describing something in fiction--be it a character, setting, or prop--I take the inverse approach. I pull up a blank document, and write every detail I can think of. I describe it as exhaustively as I can, holding nothing back. Then I begin deleting things until I am left with only those details I cannot bear to part with.

If you can get it down to a single detail, great, but I find that's often not practical; and not generous enough to the reader. But I try to get it to three or less at any cost. Thus, The Inverse Coco Chanel Principle can be stated:

Put everything on, then take all but one (or two) thing(s) off.

And the thing is, this process can still result in a nice, long paragraph, because there are multiple orders of magnitude at play.

Say I'm describing a coffee shop, and the two details I choose to point out are the mural on the wall, and the guy working the register. Each of those things may be a single detail of the location, but they are in themselves detailed things. So for each of them, I can choose one or two details. Each detail can be described in any variety of ways; with a metaphor, or with information from any of the five senses (the more senses you involve, the better, but that's another post).

So if each second-order detail gets a sentence, you still get a generous paragraph of description, organized in such a way that you aren't just listing boring facts about a place, but giving concrete images that spark the reader's imagination.

It's tough to do this right, and it takes time, but the results are always worth it. The trick is to make sure you have the right amount for the situation.

You have to keep in mind that descriptions are observations, and observations belong to somebody. Assuming you're not writing from an omniscient point of view, then any description must belong to the POV character. If your POV character is experiencing an extreme emotional state (like, say Captain Picard in the Cardassian interrogation room), the setting does not deserve a full two-level description, because people under duress seldom pause to consider what the furniture is made of.

However, if the POV character is relatively calm, and the location is important, you should go into more detail. The first time you visit a location you plan on returning to at least once, give a full two-level description of the place. The concrete, sensory details you supply the first time can be used as anchor points every time you return to that setting. The next time your character goes back there, simply fire off one of the details from earlier, and the reader will quickly re-sketch the scene in their minds.

The same goes for a character. If you're introducing a character in the midst of a tense or emotional scene, don't pause and talk about their clothes for ten sentences. Just give us a quick one-level description (or none at all), and make sure the details are congruent with the emotion of the scene. If you introduce a battered mother in a scene where the eight-year old POV character walks in on his deadbeat dad slapping her around, don't talk about her freshly-laundered dress, or her shiny shoes. Show us the messy hair and mascara-streaked cheeks (sorry for the dark example, but it's the best I could think of).

If you're introducing a character in the midst of a relatively calm moment, and if they're going to be a regular in the book, go ahead and give them a two-level description; perhaps one to three details about their face, and one to three details about their clothes.

In each case, the easiest way to arrive at the right details is to brainstorm every detail you can think of, then only supply the ones you cannot part with. Those will be the strongest ones, and they will be the keys that unlock your reader's imagination.

Description is a tricky business, and it has close ties with setting, character development, and point of view. The Inverse Coco Chanel Principle is an effective way to make sure that your description is precisely proportioned to the needs of the scene, and easy to refer back to when you need to re-anchor your reader.

The Ten Commanments of Fiction Writing, Part Ten

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Ten: Thou shalt write what thou knowest, and know all thou mayest.

I think I might have gotten the "Olde English" wrong in the title. Wanna fight about it?

ANYWAY...

This last commandment is one you're sick of hearing: write what you know. It means you should share your experiences in your stories. It means you should create characters you understand. It also means that if you're a middle-class white guy like me, you don't try to write from the point of view of a poor black single mother during the civil rights movement. Wittgenstein put it best; "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."

But there's another side to this old adage, and it's this: as a writer, it is your business to learn and experience everything you possibly can.

Direct experience is best. Every experience available to the human mind has its own secrets. People don't always talk about all the emotional subtleties, and as a writer you can make the experience more real for your readers by exposing them. But sometimes direct experience isn't a wise option. You shouldn't try heroin so you can write about being a junkie. You shouldn't murder someone so you can capture the mind of a killer more accurately.

In those cases, the best resource we have is other stories. Books, movies, and quality TV shows have a lot to share, and they have one additional advantage that direct experience doesn't: they're already structured into stories. Art imitates life, but it is not equal to life. Life is messy. Stories, in order to be comprehensible, should be much more orderly. So it behooves the writer to experience as many stories as he or she can.

But as long as you're living, you might as well try to have some life experiences too. They don't necessarily have to be the big, earth-shaking ones. Every day doesn't need to be a passion play. But the world is subtle and complex, despite its humdrum appearance. There is poetry all around you; from regional dialects, to the unique flavor of a particular coffee, to the unexpected struggles of your fellow humans.

If you've taken my advice about taking notes, you know what I'm talking about. Writers should be keen observers of everything around them, particularly human nature. Watch the people who come through your life. Listen to the way they talk. Study their body language. See the face they present to the world, and try to guess what's behind it.

Never turn down an opportunity to learn about something. Be curious about the things you don't see in your everyday life; from the secret pain of a depressed person, to the daily routine of your local garbage man.

Even the most menial things like the floors you walk on contain hundreds of things you never think about. You never know what might spark an idea. Open yourself to the physical world around you. Pay close attention to all five of your senses, and always be on the lookout for details that aren't obvious. 

I remember the exact moment I started doing this myself. I was in a subway station in LA. Other than the years I spent there, I've never lived anywhere with a subway system. I had been on the NY subway when I was younger, but my senses weren't as keen then. This particular day in LA, I happened to notice the rush of air that proceeds the arrival of a train. You can feel it even before you hear the squeal of the train's brakes. This detail isn't particularly life-changing, but it gave me pause. It makes perfect sense why it happens; the air is being displaced by the train just as water is displaced when you slip into the bathtub. But I had never heard anyone mention it before. And its exactly those kind of details that make a setting real.

Details like that exist for all the five senses, and they cover the entire spectrum of human interaction. If you tune in to them, they will begin to populate your writing even without deliberate effort. The mere act of observing them plants them in your subconscious, and they begin to naturally emerge in your work.

Being open to the world around you is one of the most important habits a writer can develop. If we're to write what we know without writing exclusively about ourselves, we'd better know everything we can. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

A Writer's Look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens

If you're breathing at the moment, you've heard the buzz about Star Wars, Episode VII. Matter of fact, you've probably already seen it. If you haven't, you can't really complain about the spoilers that follow. Get off your ass and see the movie.

Consider yourself warned.

In my lifetime, there has never been a movie like this. Every year sees a handful of hotly anticipated movies; some sequels to successful blockbusters, others high-minded Oscar hopefuls, still others adaptations of already well-known works. But if you added up all the anticipation for every movie that's come out since I was born, it wouldn't even come close to the buildup for Episode VII.

And that, in itself, made it possibly the greatest writing challenge I've ever witnessed. The prequels were big news, sure, but once that first one hit theaters, we were all rolling our eyes for the remaining two. Star Wars has been big business since day one, but those movies--even before we knew they sucked--didn't have the kind of energy around them that Episode VII does. It was like "Hey, they're finally making a new Star Wars. Cool!", and that was about as excited as any 'normal' person got.

But after the travesty that was Episodes I-III, the stakes done got raised. On the one hand, you had what was arguably the most beloved and world-changing media franchise of all time, and on the other, you had a flaccid, blatantly commercial prequel trilogy that just took a massive Cleveland steamer on the whole thing. Never has the ache for redemption been so strong.

I got my hopes up when I heard the important players from the original cast were coming back. That was the first sign, to me. If they had made another Star Wars without Harrison Ford, I would have seen it out of a nerdy sense of duty, not genuine desire. But the cast did come back.

The next worry I had was "Who's writing it?". Perhaps it's professional bias, but to me, the writer is more important than the director (ideally, they're the same person, but I knew this project was going to be a team effort). As long as a director is professional, and doesn't get up his own ass with technique-y gimmicks (I.E. Alejandro González Iñárritu), most directing styles are tolerable to me. Even, mood permitting, that of the much-maligned Michael Bay.

When I watch a movie, I can't help seeing right past the veneer of characterization, exposition, setting, etc, right to the narrative structure. I like stories that display symmetry, minimalism, and a clear causality. I like my stories to have everything they need, and nothing they don't. So I was happy when I learned that J.J. Abrams was in charge, along with help from George Lucas's old pal Lawrence Kasdan, and Pixar alum Michael Arndt. That is a satisfying meeting of minds, and I think it produced a winning script.

The Force Awakens has been criticized for being too similar to A New Hope, and I think that's a somewhat valid note. We have a lonely youngster on a desert planet, with tenuous ties to a family they hardly know getting swept up in an interstellar conflict; a Big Bad in black who will do anything to squash the emerging threat to his power; an adorable droid sidekick who needs to get to his master; a somewhat grizzled mentor character who convinces the hero the force is real...I could go on. We even begin the same way: resistance hero gets in a sticky situation and has to hide a crucial piece of information by giving it to a droid, who runs off and fortuitously meets up with our protagonist. And the climax is the same too: A ragtag group of rebels, spurred on by the cruel display of the badguys' power, locate and exploit the one weakness of the weapon that created said display.

I could go on.  For a long while.

It's true that a lot of things will look too familiar to some. But to me, these things are more about narrative symmetry and paying homage than they are about being derivative. Taking notes from Episode IV was a sound strategy to ensure a higher quality story. I would have done the same. In fact, that's all I know how to do: take inspirations, beats, and elements from high-quality source material, mix them up, and add a few new things. I'm a big believer in the old saying that there's nothing new under the sun, but it doesn't bother me, because shuffling familiar elements has a way of producing sound, likable stories, and the forces of chaos ensure just enough new, fresh material to keep things interesting. So I'm glad that Episode VII took more than a few notes from Episode IV. Anyone who has a problem with something reliably good is a masochist.

The visual element was important to me too. One of the biggest problems with Episodes I-III was that all the CGI was so shiny and fresh looking, it broke the fourth wall. All I could see was special effects. I couldn't see the characters at the heart of it. But it would seem that we've finally entered an era where technology has caught up with the goals of the filmmakers that use it. I can still tell what's CGI in Episode VII, but only because I know what's possible and what's not. just to look at it, the seams don't show at all, and that kept me in the movie.

Structurally, the movie is rock solid. Its characters have the vibrant, timeless quality that made the original engaging. Rey is a great hero; I'm a sucker for a tough chick that can hold her own in a fight; something that Star Wars has always been known for (I.E. Leia). Klyo Ren has been lampooned for being too 'emo', but I actually like that about him. I think his volatility makes him more dangerous, and it keeps him from being just a clone of Vader. His voice under the helmet even makes me think of Tom Hardy's Bane, but at a Teen Titans age.

I was sad to see Han go, but again, I probably would have done the same. Someone had to die to lend credibility to Kylo Ren's villainy, and if you're gonna kill somebody in a story, you've got to make it hurt the audience as much as possible. I can't imagine any Star Wars death that would affect fans more.

The most intriguing things about Episode VII were our two new mysteries: the identity of Supreme Leader Snoke, and the identity of Rey's family. Personally, I think Rey's situation is obvious to anyone who was paying attention. She's a Kenobi, through and through. My money is that she's Obi-Wan's granddaughter. They dress the same, they have the same self-possessed confidence, and when I saw Rey climbing around an area of Starkiller Base that was very reminiscent of the first Death Star, it clicked. And it made the end of the movie all the more poignant: once again, we have a calm, wise Kenobi handing a troubled Skywalker his weapon, beckoning him back into the fray.

Snoke bugs me though. Andy Serkis, who portrayed him in the movie, assured us that Snoke is a completely new character, but I find that unlikely. First of all, it strains against believability; that someone hitherto unknown in the Star Wars universe had the motive, means, and opportunity to attempt to rebuild the Galactic Empire seems crazy to me. How does he have the resources? How does he have the connections? Why does he even want to?

It seems more likely to me that either Snoke is someone we already know, or he has a connection to someone we know. Otherwise, the stakes just aren't high enough. Emperor Palpatine was a mighty, thoroughly intimidating villain who held the galaxy in an iron fist for six movies. He was damn hard to defeat; if it wasn't for Anakin Skywalker's last-second conversion, he probably wouldn't have been. It was one of the narrowest victories ever. And Snoke has to top that, otherwise the third trilogy will actually lower the stakes. I just don't think that a total unknown can come onstage and be more evil and manipulative than the Emperor. Palpatine is up there with Satan when it comes to embodiments of evil. He's so evil, he's a metaphor for evil. So Snoke better have some serious chops, or it will subtly ruin the new trilogy for me.

That said, my hopes are high. J.J. Abrams knows how to spin a web of lies and confusion in order to keep the audience guessing. Lawrence Kasdan knows how to honor the movies that came before, and make use of the best elements in them. And Michael Arndt knows story structure, and has a knack for creating bright, engaging, sympathetic characters. As long as those minds are involved--or at least minds of similar quality--the forthcoming movies will be great.

Top Ten Plotting Pitfalls (FenCon Writer's Workshop Part 2)

Anyone who writes Science Fiction, Horror, or Fantasy knows how easy it is to get tied up in world building. Here are some of the common pitfalls that beleaguer speculative fiction writers and how to avoid them.

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The following series comes to us from guest blogger and author Tom Howard.

Learn more about Tom by visiting his Amazon Author Page, and check out Tom's latest story in The Good Fight, an anthology of superhero vs. monster stories.

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FenCon--a long-running science fiction and fantasy convention in Dallas, Texas--hosts an affiliated writers’ workshop every year, where professional writers share their own experiences with beginning writers in intensive workshops.

My own writing is at a too comfortable plateau, and I attended to learn some new skills to improve my writing. I’ve enjoyed FenCon writing workshops before and always find something to take away.

I attended the workshop with my friend and frequent collaborator, Belinda Christ. I think she has attended them all. Like me, she’s always searching for community and new tools to improve her trade.

This year, 2015, urban fantasy writer, Jaye Wells, did a four-day class for a dozen writers on critiquing each others’ work. Ms. Wells used our comments as a springboard to present sessions on structure, conflict, and the other areas writers need to learn their craft.

Part Two - Top Ten Plotting Pitfalls

1. Shoe-horning – Don’t do your world building last. The world organically builds your characters, because they come from that world. If ideas start coming to you during the writing process, don't be tempted to just mash them into huge paragraphs of exposition. Take a break from writing the actual story and let the ideas flow out. When they have, you can go back through them and decide which ones you actually need at that point of the story.
2. OCDiety – Don't be so invested in the details that the story doesn’t unfold organically. This is connected to shoe-horning; nobody wants to stop reading about a poisoned character to hear a lesson on the healing flora of your world. It might be good for you to know it, but don't dive so deep you can't get back out. Know just enough about your world to write. 
3. Jargon Fouls – Watch made-up words that aren’t necessary, and don’t be too clever with your naming. Reading words you can't pronounce gets annoying fast. It's good to get specific with language when you're world building--even down to slurs and insults in your native language--but don't go so far that it's irritating to read.
4. Does Not Compute – Watch your character's motivations and the customs of your society. Don't put your characters in a difficult-to-believe situation just because it's convenient for the story. Creating something from nothing has to have some internal logic, no matter how fantastic. 
5. Dangerously Derivative – There's nothing new under the sun, but that doesn't mean you can just copy-paste someone else's world and color over a few spots. Be inspired by your favorite stories, but make sure you're bringing something original to the table.
6. The Rube Goldberg Flaw – Don’t make your world too complicated unless you’re George R.R. Martin. The more complicated the plot, the less world building is necessary and vice versa. If you can get your characters from A to B in three steps, don't put them through ten.
7. Conformity – Just because you've worked hard to create your culture doesn't mean you can't rock the boat a little. Consider the culture's beliefs and conformity and then rebel against them. Always be looking for some new element of the world to help breathe some life into the story. 
8. Procrastination – Don’t world build to avoid writing. It's fun, but sooner or later you have to be finished, or nobody will ever get to visit the world you've created.
9. One-Sidedness – If you've created a broad and vivid world, don't just sow us one person's image of it. Everyone looks at the world in a unique way. Think about how different people see a room differently and apply that to your writing. 
10. Dullness – If you've never done anything interesting, how can you have anything interesting to say? Have real-life adventures to provide realism to your work.

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Tom's report from FenCon continues next week with some Common Style Problems.

World Building (FenCon Writer's Workshop Part 1)

World building is the process of establishing the rules of the universe you create for your story. Every genre uses world building to some extent; from hardcore sword and sorcery novels, to the small town detective novel, to aliens in space. The amount of backstory to include depends on different the story universe is from our known world.

------------------------------------------------------------

The following series comes to us from guest blogger and author Tom Howard.

Learn more about Tom by visiting his Amazon Author Page, and check out Tom's latest story in The Good Fight, an anthology of superhero vs. monster stories.

------------------------------------------------------------

FenCon--a long-running science fiction and fantasy convention in Dallas, Texas--hosts an affiliated writers’ workshop every year, where professional writers share their own experiences with beginning writers in intensive workshops.

My own writing is at a too comfortable plateau, and I attended to learn some new skills to improve my writing. I’ve enjoyed FenCon writing workshops before and always find something to take away.

I attended the workshop with my friend and frequent collaborator, Belinda Christ. I think she has attended them all. Like me, she’s always searching for community and new tools to improve her trade.

This year, 2015, urban fantasy writer, Jaye Wells, did a four-day class for a dozen writers on critiquing each others’ work. Ms. Wells used our comments as a springboard to present sessions on structure, conflict, and the other areas writers need to learn their craft.

Part One - World Building

What is world building? Creating a sandbox for your character. Not just the setting, but the cultures, races, history, and everything that influences your character. Characters have to be products of the world; they have to be connected to it. It's not just a set with an actor in front of it; that’s a two dimensional story. Instead, make your world a character. 

World building is not just the map at the front of the book.

Research is key. That will give you ideas for where your characters came from. Build your world by origins. As you’re creating this world, think of how it diverges from the normal world.

World building is the Forest and the Trees; where the forest is macro world building and the trees are micro world building. The more specific you can be, the more grounded the reader feels in that world.

The Five Ps of World Building

1. People
2. Places
3. Problems (from the structure of society)
4. Practices
5. Peculiarities

All are required for the sixth P: Plot. Plot is what happens when People with interesting Practices in a specific Place try to solve their Peculiar Problems. (Like this Quote? Click Here to Tweet it!)

People: Gender? Age? Race? Background? Profession? [Pete: My Character Sheet template might be helpful here]

Place: City/town/village/planet? Geography? [Pete: My General Setting and Specific Setting templates my help with this]

Problem: What’s the problem facing this person or people in this town? Is it a vampire horde? Alien? A murderer? A social issue? [Pete: My Premise Sheet template might be useful here]

Practices: What is the culture of this place or people that might influence the story? What habits or details about the characters influence the story?

Peculiarities: These are the fun details. The twists on things we expect. These details will help your story stand out and give it your unique voice.

As you brainstorm, the most important question to ask yourself is, "Wouldn’t it be weird/cool if…"

Cut out magazine pictures and ask yourself what attracts you about it? Find a music playlist that fits with your world. [Pete: Browse Pinterest for ideas!]

The ultimate goal of world building is for you, the writer, to be fascinated and excited to spend lots of time in this new world. You can create pages of background and not use it. That’s okay because it colors your world and may be important in the next book.

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Tom's report from FenCon continues next week with a list of the Top Ten Plotting Pitfalls!