So I’m writing not just a novel (oh, no, that would be too normal) but a trilogy.
Not just a trilogy, but a fantasy trilogy that involved inventing magical worlds, meaning, detail upon detail upon detail, and I am not a detail person.
Just to be clear, I understand that, and yet, here I am, doing this crazy thing anyway.
Somebody save me.
But.
I stumbled across something that, so far, is very helpful.
Create religions and philosophies, governments and lifestyles that are different than your own, that work together, and that feel real. Avoid cliches. Begin using your new culture in your writing…. (181 pages).
I even (gasp!) read the “read this first so you’ll know how to use this book” section.
I know, me, following directions, instead of just diving in? A rare moment, indeed.
Okay, I first dove in and started putting together my notebook to keep my notes and worksheets together but then read that section, realized I was doing it wrong (ahem) and now am doing it properly.
One of the things that “doing it properly” means is–once you get past that “read this first section”–you are supposed to skim the rest of the book and highlight, bookmark or sticky-tab only those sections that actually mean something to you for the world/culture/project you’re creating, and then come back and read those more thoroughly, skipping the rest.
I do like that approach. Eliminates a lot of reading time on things that make no difference. Very practical, I say.
So far it has primarily enhanced ideas I already had. My story, for example, deals with some of the courtship rituals of the world I’m creating. There is also a counterculture, and I knew their courtship rituals would be much looser and less structured. This wasn’t any earth-shattering decision; it mirrors what happened in our own society during the time period. But in reading Holly’s section on “Singles” and “Pairs” it gradually dawned on me that I didn’t have to simply mirror what happened in our own society. In creating a new world, you not only have the opportunity to shake things up and make them totally different, in my case, I was missing the opportunity to make the differences between my culture and my counterculture have meaning. Not simply be different in the ways that are obvious and comfortable and easy for me, because they mirror reality, but make the differences more deliberate and political, and more about defiance of established rules and effort to right wrongs.
Um, this means nothing to you. But just let me say, if you’re writing s/f or fantasy or even having to learn about an entirely new culture that already exists, and you just need a framework to keep your notes together and to help you decide what kind of research/info you need to gather? I recommend this e-book.
$9.95 if you download it, which I did, and then printed it and put it in a binder. The real benefit here is that I can print off worksheets as I need them, as many as I need, right off my printer.
$19.95 if you prefer a bound book, in which case you will need to photocopy the worksheets.
So, has anybody else used these materials?
What do you think?
