On World-Building
There are a lot of different approaches to world-building I've seen over the years. I've probably tried them all at various times.
Why?
Because I want to write stories and I need a world where these stories happen. It's kind of essential that an author has a world with set rules that they can follow so that readers don't end up losing interest when something "impossible" happens. A lot of authors do a lot of research to make their worlds seem more and more real.
For example, I've got an idea for a story about a character who gets tortured and survives it who must go through the healing process after said torture and the story would somewhat revolve around that. I can either A) make up a world where the process goes the way I want it to go making everything up on the fly and possibly destroying everyone's suspension of disbelief or B) do a bunch of research and talk to medical professionals and other people who are involved in healing folks after traumatic experiences and leave everything in the "real world".
Some authors would go with Option A because it's easier. Me, I'll do B... eventually because I hate building worlds in general.
They always come off as being so... fake...
But at the same time, I still do a bit of world-buiilding since the universe I write in happens to be a multiverse. However, I sort of approach it from a different angle compaired to... a lot of authors.
See... I've approached world building from a map, from creating races, from coming up with a single environment, from a Tolkienesque perspective... and none of it really worked for me. I'm not sure why. It's just how I'm wired.
Instead, over the years when I've been creating rules for my world and then throwing them out... while characters sort of pop up and whatever rules apply to those characters become semi-permanent rules for the whole world.
What do I mean?
My whole fantasy multiverse pretty much always somehow depends on the existence of certain individuals:
Why?
Because I want to write stories and I need a world where these stories happen. It's kind of essential that an author has a world with set rules that they can follow so that readers don't end up losing interest when something "impossible" happens. A lot of authors do a lot of research to make their worlds seem more and more real.
For example, I've got an idea for a story about a character who gets tortured and survives it who must go through the healing process after said torture and the story would somewhat revolve around that. I can either A) make up a world where the process goes the way I want it to go making everything up on the fly and possibly destroying everyone's suspension of disbelief or B) do a bunch of research and talk to medical professionals and other people who are involved in healing folks after traumatic experiences and leave everything in the "real world".
Some authors would go with Option A because it's easier. Me, I'll do B... eventually because I hate building worlds in general.
They always come off as being so... fake...
But at the same time, I still do a bit of world-buiilding since the universe I write in happens to be a multiverse. However, I sort of approach it from a different angle compaired to... a lot of authors.
See... I've approached world building from a map, from creating races, from coming up with a single environment, from a Tolkienesque perspective... and none of it really worked for me. I'm not sure why. It's just how I'm wired.
Instead, over the years when I've been creating rules for my world and then throwing them out... while characters sort of pop up and whatever rules apply to those characters become semi-permanent rules for the whole world.
What do I mean?
My whole fantasy multiverse pretty much always somehow depends on the existence of certain individuals:
- Azrael
- Nemo
- Cassandra Troy
- Benny the Cat
- Benjamin Kramer IV
- Jack Achan/Cain
- Coyote/Loki
- Porfirio
- Magenta
- The Alchemist
Just so you know, they're listed in the order in which I came up with them over the years. Some of them are pretty significant in various ways. Others are pretty low on the universal totem pole no matter what's going on at the time in my head. Oddly, the two most powerful are Nemo, who's kind of the closest thing I have to a devil, and Porfirio, who would be the skeeviest God-like being... if he were a God.
He's not... and Nemo's not really a devil. Because in my world, good and evil is a bit more complicated.
So... for the next few posts, I'm going to talk about the people in that list up there and who I think they are, who I've thought they were in the past and how they fit in my multiverse. You might find it interesting, or you might think I'm completely nutters.
I just hope you enjoy the ride.
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