World Building
That looks like a good place to pause this story for now. In the mean time, I would like to talk about world building. It’s probably the thing I spend more time than writing on. Sometimes, though I do not like to admit this, I even use it as an excuse to put off the actual writing. That’s not really a good thing, as any writer can tell you.
Yet it’s a fundamentally important step to some writers, myself included. Not all like to start here, some make it up as they go, which is an equally valid way to write. It doesn’t work for me, as I found myself writing into corners more often than not if I don’t understand just were the action is happening. You may ask how you could not know that before you even start, but truth be told, writing is an organic process. You can have a shallow, basic idea of our setting before you write and flesh it out as you go. Like I said, it works for some people.
However, I didn’t start doing this until recently. I have no clue why, but it gave me a more sturdy footing to set my characters, which I always have a better handle on than my setting. Really, it’s the fundamental world building that’s helped me be write as much as I have, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t much, but for me? Fantastic!
I’ll use the first story I started here as my example, as that’s most likely the most fleshed out setting. And no, this isn’t going to be a 2000 word monster like my Superman rant. Let’s start with the locale. It’s not necessarily where my thought process started, but starting there would give away spoilers.
So, when some of the character details came to light for me, it was made clear that I needed to have a setting near Native American land, that had certain characteristics and needed to be near mountains. I settled on southern Colorado, near the Southern Ute Reservation. One thing I loved when going over the area was using Google Earth. You can get really down there. Of course it was also easy to get distracted doing it!
One thing that struck me was the Animas River. Because I read comics, I always disposed the “Anima” comic. The in-joke for it was that it read like an enema. Yeah. It was the ‘90s.
But the river was near the mountains and ran through the reservation, and several towns. One of which was Durango. Love that name. Since I didn’t want to use an existing town, since I’ve never been there, it could take you out of the story, I created a fictional version and called it “Bolero.” Now, there might be a Bolero, Colorado, but I couldn’t find it. Closest I found was in Texas. And hell, there’s a Springfield in just about every state.
Now that I had the town, I needed a few areas of interest. Which I’ll talk about next time. Till then!
Yet it’s a fundamentally important step to some writers, myself included. Not all like to start here, some make it up as they go, which is an equally valid way to write. It doesn’t work for me, as I found myself writing into corners more often than not if I don’t understand just were the action is happening. You may ask how you could not know that before you even start, but truth be told, writing is an organic process. You can have a shallow, basic idea of our setting before you write and flesh it out as you go. Like I said, it works for some people.
However, I didn’t start doing this until recently. I have no clue why, but it gave me a more sturdy footing to set my characters, which I always have a better handle on than my setting. Really, it’s the fundamental world building that’s helped me be write as much as I have, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t much, but for me? Fantastic!
I’ll use the first story I started here as my example, as that’s most likely the most fleshed out setting. And no, this isn’t going to be a 2000 word monster like my Superman rant. Let’s start with the locale. It’s not necessarily where my thought process started, but starting there would give away spoilers.
So, when some of the character details came to light for me, it was made clear that I needed to have a setting near Native American land, that had certain characteristics and needed to be near mountains. I settled on southern Colorado, near the Southern Ute Reservation. One thing I loved when going over the area was using Google Earth. You can get really down there. Of course it was also easy to get distracted doing it!
One thing that struck me was the Animas River. Because I read comics, I always disposed the “Anima” comic. The in-joke for it was that it read like an enema. Yeah. It was the ‘90s.
But the river was near the mountains and ran through the reservation, and several towns. One of which was Durango. Love that name. Since I didn’t want to use an existing town, since I’ve never been there, it could take you out of the story, I created a fictional version and called it “Bolero.” Now, there might be a Bolero, Colorado, but I couldn’t find it. Closest I found was in Texas. And hell, there’s a Springfield in just about every state.
Now that I had the town, I needed a few areas of interest. Which I’ll talk about next time. Till then!
Comments