NaNoWriMo Dreamwidth Writers

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.

- Benjamin Lee Whorf



It's Day 9 for Nano Writers's Let's Build a World. Read over Day 9: Language from Stephanie Bryant's 30 Days of Worldbuilding. Open up those notebooks and try out today's ( exercise )

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew.
But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

- E. L. Doctorow



It's Day 7 for Nano Writers's Let's Build a World. Read over Day 7: Recent History from Stephanie Bryant's 30 Days of Worldbuilding. Pull out those notebooks and start today's ( exercise )

I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it.

- Steven Wright


It's Day 5 for Nano Writers's Let's Build a World. Read over Day 5: The Map from Stephanie Bryant's 30 Days of Worldbuilding. Get out those notebooks and pens and pencils and start today's ( exercise )

I like these cold, gray winter days. Days like these let you savor a bad mood.

- Bill Watterson



It's Day 3 for Nano Writers's Let's Build a World. Read over Day 3: Mood & Setting from Stephanie Bryant's 30 Days of Worldbuilding. Let's get out our notebooks and complete the ( exercise )

Stephanie Bryant's 30 Days of Worldbuilding assumes for the most part that the world we are building is earth-like (sun-type, moons, seasons, etc.). This is not as restrictive as this may sound at first as there may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy.

Tim Boothby in his World Building tutorial, also lists additional advantages of basing your work on an earth-like world:

• I read those damned science books.
  
  
• Distances are easier to relate to… "It would be like walking from New York to Chicago."
  
  
• Its much easier to determine approximate climates, figure out on an earth map where a place would be and you can google temperatures, rainfall, flora and fauna, and even common crops and growing seasons.

But the universe is a wide and varied place indeed and for our Nano Writers that want/need to create truly alien worlds, I can recommend the following resources:

World Builders - online "step by step information and hundreds of links to help you design your world"

World-Building - A Writer's Guide to Constructing Star Systems and Life-Supporting Planets by Stephen L. Gillett (Science Fiction Writing Series edited by Ben Bova, Writer's Digest Books, 1996).

And as for our historical/adventure/mystery/thriller writers:

Why not take this opportunity to research your "world" and follow along with the exercises? Your stories may be set in the "real world" but how well do you really know your setting? The name of the tallest mountain in Ireland? The length of the Yellow River? The cause of the Great Fire in London, 1666? The Bakufu response to the 1855 Ansei Edo earthquake? What was fashionable to wear? To eat? Penal codes? Places of worship?

Research that you do now will not only enrich your writing, enhance your characters and enliven your plot but more importantly - will not steal valuable writing time from you in November!


And a reminder: there are 90 days left until the start of NaNoWriMo! What have you written today?

Last month, in anticipation of this month's writing theme, Nano Writer cat_rood asked: What are your favourite ways to world build...? and several savvy members responded, providing some great links! This month, building on this earlier discussion, Nano Writers will look a little closer at the topic and begin by asking...



How do you build a ( world? )