Building a magical fantasy world...

So I've decided to attempt a character-driven story set in a magical fantasy world... but how do you build a magical fantasy world that is both compelling and uniquely yours? How do you weave in fantasy tropes (magical trinkets, a perilous quest, etc.) without unwittingly copying everything that's come before?

Brandon Sanderson talks about how The Lord of the Rings changed the landscape of fantasy literature forever—and perhaps not for the better:

[Tolkien's] work was so revolutionary that the market couldn't deal with it. Readers wanted more books like LotR, but other authors weren't ready to produce high fantasy yet. The only thing they could do was try and do what Tolkien did.

But they didn't do what Tolkien did. They didn't create a new world, with its own mythology, its own society, its own technology, its own races and creatures. This wasn't their fault—they just weren't ready to jump to that level. So instead they applied their considerable creativity toward copying Tolkien. Instead of creating true high fantasy, everyone created more low fantasy—but they used Tolkien's world as a base instead of our own. The result was a kind of tainting of the entire genre, a 'Tolkienizing.' Fantasy didn't mean 'the genre where the author creates his or her own unique setting.' It meant 'the genre where the books include elves, dwarfs, wizards, and quests.'

(Link to the rest here.)

Well, crud. And conversely, if I am going to build an entire fantasy setting that's uniquely mine, owing nothing to Tolkien et al.... where do I start? The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America has a great series of fantasy worldbuilding questions to ask yourself... but now there's the threat of being overwhelmed by the scope of this thing before I've even written one word. For example:

• How are the continents laid out? If there is more than one moon/sun, how does this affect winds, tides, and weather generally?
• How much land is there, and how much of it is habitable?
• Is the axial tilt and orbit the same — i.e., does the world have the same seasons and same length of year as Earth?

I could of course just start writing the story and figure out these details later, but that's going to make for some tough writing.

Have you tried to build a magical fantasy world? If so, what was the experience like for you? What were some helpful things to keep in mind?

Brainstorming Week Eight, continued

Per my resolution to make writing fun and not work (or to work at having more fun... whichever) I'm going to try something new with Week Eight's prompt, which is to use the idea behind it to inform a character or scene from a larger work.

A larger work? Doesn't he find the shorter works difficult enough...?

Well, faithful readers, the goal has long been to write a fantasy/sci-fi series of some kind, but I've always felt too overwhelmed by the scope of such a thing. And of course that's still the case, but a few broad strokes have started to fall into place and I'm approaching something not unlike an outline. With very, very general characters.

And here's where Week Eight's prompt comes in: I want to use the concept to flesh out and explore one of the series' major characters. This may or may not become part of the larger work, but for now I'm just interested in the kind of exploratory writing that prolific writers (those mythical, dignified beings for whom writing is never a struggle) do on a daily basis. 

I don't know much about this character. I think she's a she, kind of a capable rogue type, a Gypsy-like person (or has been traveling with them for awhile)... quick to use humor as a defense mechanism, pretends that she is pragmatic and crass but deep down she's disappointed by how things have turned out for her. Her careless actions are contrary to who she wants to be, but in line with the kind of person she thinks she is.

Hey-oh! Week Eight's theme. Wham.

I still don't know how fantasy this fantasy world is, the names of the continents or kingdoms or if there even are kingdoms. I don't even know her name. All I know is that she's made a niche for herself in a merchant caravan of some kind, but she came from a very different life...

fun.

[Not the musical group. Though I also enjoy them. Well, the two songs of theirs I've heard.]

New manifesto: I have resolved to stop trying to be meaningful and poignant and just try to have fun with my writing. If it feels like work it's going to read like it too, and so the new edict is FUN.

Poignant and meaningful will creep in regardless, because, mixed with levity, it's exactly the kind of thing I enjoy, but from here on out we dispense with Literary characters in Literary situations thinking Literary things.

It's high time I tried to tell an actual story. With, y'know, conflict and a plot.

It'll be fun! (It'll at least be interesting...)

An extroverted person in an introverted person's job

From Kristine Kathryn Rusch, extremely profilic indie author/editor:

Most successful writers are introverts. They’re happy spending 99% of their time alone in their own heads. But I’ve met some extroverted writers, and they struggle with the alone time. They write in Starbucks or some local restaurant. They open an office and share it with other like-minded authors.

Mostly, though, they gravitate to writing jobs that require more than one person, like writing for television. There, writers bat ideas around in a writers’ room, sometimes writing while the meeting is going on. Many gaming writers do the same thing, and so do some comic book writers.  Journalists spend more time with people than away from people.

Fiction writers, though, even those who collaborate, do so by themselves.  And some extroverted writers often try that for a few years before it drives them completely batty. Those writers quit writing fiction, and find ways to write that require a group effort.

Read the rest here!

I go back and forth on whether I'm an introvert or an extrovert—it's probably a 40/60 split: an extrovert with introverted tendencies. Or maybe an introvert who's gotten good at playing extrovert.

[Then again, the fact of writing an autobiographical blog probably makes the split more of a 30/70.]

Anyway, I did want to write for television for awhile, and this was exactly why—it's collaborative, and I suspect that I'm a much better collaborative writer than I am an author. (Also, $$.)

But I am very intrigued by the idea of opening an "office" for like-minded writers to come and work. Like a writers' retreat you attend 9am–5pm, Monday–Friday. You could brainstorm with others, take breaks to chat by the water cooler, or just plug in the earbuds and write. There would be occasional workshops for the willing, and of course office parties, because we all know writers can throw down.

Who's in?

Brainstorming Week Eight

[The Unwritten Kitten was sick for a week—like, three-visits-to-the-vet- and forcing-nourishment-down-his-gullet-via-syringe sick—and so my writing output has been not so much. But he's better now, and so we return to our regularly scheduled blogging endeavors...]

Week Eight's challenge reminds me of a phrase inscribed in the "buoy's" bathroom at Outward Bound's Hurricane Island center many years ago: "The true measure of a person is what they do when no one's watching." I used to really take stuff like this to heart—I was very lost, but still searching like hell for home. Somehow, these aphorisms felt like guideposts, even if I didn't quite know what to do with them.

[Also, isn't it great that even the bathroom graffiti at an Outward Bound center is meaningful?]

Which is all very interesting, but how to turn the sentiment into a story. "You are a person of little worth if..." isn't the most interesting theme. I don't particularly want to read about someone the author has judged to be of little worth. It's going to read like a parable.

I could turn the prompt inside out: write about a person of great worth who is deliberate with his/her non-verbal actions.

Every so often I come back to the idea that I ultimately want to write in a literary/genre hybrid style, but for some reason in these prompts I keep pushing toward straight literary. Maybe this person of great or little worth lives in a magical fantasy world? Or on a spaceship? Or on a spaceship in a magical fantasy world?

Maybe it's not about a person of variable worth, but the question of how to determine worth is somehow central to the story?

Man. I dunno.

Maybe you don't have to write every day...?

Courtesy of Nathan Bransford:

One of the most common writing myths out there is the idea that you have to write every single day in order to be a writer.

[...]

I worry that this myth intimidates people who would otherwise excel at writing from pursuing their writing dreams. Every single day is a major, major commitment, and not everyone could or even should do it. Sometimes your brain needs a break to unlock a problem or maybe you just have a different rhythm.

Read the rest here!

I still have not found my "rhythm." I know that I feel pretty good when I've written at least a little each day, but it's also true that when I break my streak it's much more difficult to build back up to one. Is this because I do need the consistency of having written every day, or because I'm finally just burnt out from firing on all cylinders for weeks on end?

How about you? Have you found a rhythm that works for you, or, like me, is it a lot of starting and stopping?

And they said print was dead...

Your daily book/architecture/book architecture porn, courtesy of benonsensical.com:

I really think I need to visit this place someday.

We're #2!

Yes, I Googled my own website. Because sometimes I am vain, and also it's Friday.

If these sins are forgivable, I just wanted to share with you that this website is the second result when you Google "Unwritten Word." (Number 8 if it's "The Unwritten Word.") Not bad for a blog less than a year old!

Thanks so much to everyone who's read it, enjoyed it, and/or shared it with others. Google notices these things. Google knows all...

You are probably not an Anti-Reader

Jen Doll of The Atlantic Wire wants to know: What kind of book reader are you?

For the record, I'm pretty sure I'm a Multi-Tasker with Delayed Onset Reader #1 tendencies. I am also a Sleepy Bedtime Reader, but not exclusively. I don't understand Hate Readers, and Cross-Unders fill me with a nameless dread.

And you?

Step 6: Acquire loyal pet

Courtesy of Grant Snider from Incidental Comics:

[Original post here.]

Thanks (I think) to my sister Sarah for thinking of me when she saw this. I got a big kick of out it, but I'm specifically sharing this with you today because I have at last progressed to the sixth panel of this comic: Loyal pet.

We're bringing him home from the shelter today, so to be fair, there's no knowing just how loyal he is. But he is a consummate cuddlebug with lots of personality. I believe in him.

The folks at the shelter named him "Toast" because he came to them in a sealed toaster box with holes poked in the side. I want to rename him "Gandalf the Grey" but my girlfriend has doubts. Maybe she's right. It's been awhile since I read The Lord of the Rings, but I don't recall Gandalf nestling in to anyone's lap and purring.

What do you think? What would you name this guy? Bonus points if it's a literary reference.