Questions for the group at large

[dragonjournal]

I've just finished one manuscript, and in setting it aside, realised that for the first time in eight months... I can ignore it. Which means that I can dip into the Well Of Ideas (TM) again.

While I'm moving in five days, I can still work on world building and character building. Especially since my next main character hasn't sat up and argued with me yet.

So, this is my question:

What are your favourite ways to world build/flesh out characters?
What are your favourite websites/questionnaires?

I've got more than a few already bookmarked:

World Builder Projects A very nice link list that leads other places.

World Building Another link list.

Writing Sci/Fantasy More world building and writing suggestions.

Character setting and integration worksheet What it says on the box.

Patricia C. Wrede's Worldbuilding Questions

That's what I've got, so far. Anyone have any others to add?

Comments

[cheyinka]

http://www.web-writer.net/fantasy/30days.shtml was useful both times I did any serious world-building.
I'm also a huge fan of http://www.seventhsanctum.com/ for its generators.

[elleth]

Congratulations on finishing your manuscript, first of all! :)

As for worldbuilding, I usually go without looking at questionnaire sites until I'm sure my construct is quite finished. Armandû, my first project, grew out of a story I was telling. Letting the characters run free along the plotline, stuff simply happened and it was my job as a writer to find out why it had happened and what it meant. The only in-world source material I had before starting writing was a very rough sketch of the Armandû pantheon and their creations, as well as a map of the world with many, many white patches. That was in 2003. Right now I'm sitting here with several cultures, one fully fledged language, give or take 9000 years of history, several wars, and a tetralogy of stories that are finished to various degrees, and the nagging question who the hell the To Rakif Dove Priests are and what their role in the bigger picture is (and that question has been eating away at me since 2006 when they first appeared).

Long story short: I don't believe in 'artificial' worldbuilding so much. Maybe that's grown out of being a Tolkien fan and gathering an insight into his method of building Middle-earth via the History of Middle-earth series, but all the same... to me, 'planned' worldbuilding often appears too linear and to the point, resulting in a story that feels wrong, probably because it makes your characters less like chance by-products of history, but rather zOMG, the prime objective and justification for everything that's happened before. Of course, by taking an aspect of the story and asking 'why' (e.g. who is this Kierey woman you keep referring to, why is she so important, and why is there a word meaning 'princess' that appears to be linguistically related in the language of a completely different culture?') and then motivating and connecting different dots, you will produce volumes of material that will never make it into the finished/published work, but the world will feel far more 'real'. And while not everything has to be fleshed out in detail, I think by establishing causal relationships between different points helps heaps in exploring your world and your characters. And yes, of course that makes rewrites absolutely necessary, because it can result in quite surprising revelations.

And when all that is done? I grab a checklist and look it over for anything that I might have missed, that seems shaky, unmotivated, or out of sync in other ways, and try to integrate it more smoothly.

Erm... here's hoping that was helpful in some way. Regarding motivations... look around yourself, read books on mythology, ethnology, fantasy novels, what have you. I know mine was heavily influenced by Tolkien, Japanese mythology and the Narnia novels in the beginning, but there's barely a trace left of that as of now, unless you know where to look.

[meleanna]

This is a great question...basically because I never thought about it.

Usually I start with a short story. Some idea comes to me, about a page to three pages long, that establish a conflict and a character. Then I go back and look at where the character is, what information I do have from that story and try and develop a culture around it.

And from the culture usually the rest of the world develops.

I guess that is backwards, in real life my teachers used to say the culture came from the surroundings. So I do my research backwards. But it works for me.

Again, thanks for the conversation. I love looking at what I do and why - and I look forward to seeing if some of these sites you all have suggested can help some of my orphans find new life.

[facet]

My characters often start out as a bit of dialogue. 'Someone' says something in the chaos of my imagination and I have to figure out WHO and WHY and WHEN. Tiny bits of plot conjeal around one point in the character's time and I work outward from there.

I don't know if I have a particular method for world building. I use Google image search for inspiration sometimes. I have a whole folder of pictures that are somehow related to the world I'm currently creating.