Quite the Life (and all in Times New Roman 10pt!)
Belief systems are part of the anthropologist’s triad – culture, language, myth (belief). These three are so intertwined I can’t imagine studying one without drawing deeply of the others. Our personal library contains ~300 books on different belief/faith/mythological/folkoric systems. If you count ebooks, the number goes over 1,000 volumes (and note my bias there). But … Continue reading “World-Building – Belief Systems”
I’ve yet to encounter a created world that does not make use of climate and weather directly or indirectly. That includes this one. Consider the history of earth and the interdependencies between life and climate become obvious (I hope). Read anything by Brian Fagan and you’ll get a taste of those interdependencies beautifully written. Examples … Continue reading “World-Building – Weather”
[A different version of this appeared on Timothy Bateson’s blog in Oct 2019.] Psychologists and philosophers debate “horror” as a concept. Authors have it much easier. They want to make their readers uncomfortable, nervous. They want to give readers chills. They want readers to turn on all the lights, to check locks on the doors, … Continue reading “Writing Something Horrifying in Three Steps”
There are three basic questions when considering language in world-building: Does language play any role in your world? Does everyone speak the same language, or is there a variety? Do you need to invent any slang or terminology as part of the world-building process? Here I paraphrase Aristotle’s Poetics, “Avoid neologisms unless introducing some new … Continue reading “World-Building – Language”
To me, the key to keeping readers focused on your story is relatability (yes, I know. If you’re reading my world-building posts, you’re shocked). A story is relatable when the reader can imagine themselves in the story, meaning the reader accepts what happens in the story as something that could happen to them, meaning it’s … Continue reading “Relatability”