World Building(Blocks)

Into the Realm of World Building!

The biggest payoff of comprehensive world building? The more you KNOW your world, the easier it will be to weave setting and voice into your text without the dreaded info-dump.

There! My number one take-away. :) Read on if you want to know more about the world building techniques that got me going.

This level of world building is new to me. My last fantasy took place solely in the woods. As a geeky kid who spent a lot of time in the woods looking under rocks, catching toads and such, that world came pretty easy-peasy. But with this WIP, I've got castles, taverns, stables, and a plethora of other places where I *wish* I spent more time. I started this story with a cast of characters and a basic plot, but when I tried drafting a chapter outline-- I couldn’t.  I didn’t know the world I was dropping them into. To complete an outline, I realized I needed more detail in four areas; what became my very basic world-building blocks: geography, history, technology/magic/paranormal, and culture. 

4 STEPPING-OFF points that got me started: 

 

Geography

This is was the first area that tripped up my outlining. I have two feuding parties. Were they a day’s-ride away from each other, or a week-at-sea away from each other? I needed a map. I tried drawing a map.  I learned this is not my forte.  Luckily, sites like Wikipedia really helped with this one. It turns our very own planet has plenty of inspirational islands, continents and borders- both geographical and political. The accompanying articles on Wikipedia also provide lots of ideas for goods, trades routes, locations for cities, etc.  

Whether you’re on a space station, pirate ship, horse carriage or land speeder, it helps to know where you are, where you’re going, and what could stop you.  

History

As previously stated, this WIP has two feuding parties, so history is a big one for me. Knowing the background and points-of-view of both parties is important for authentic voice and story continuity. 

There are likely very unique circumstances that led all our protagonists to where they are in life. Generally speaking:

WHY is their world the way it is? WHO is in power? WHO wants to be in power?

I drafted a timeline for my world, it’s very over-arching and dates back about 300 years, because that’s when my inciting incident (aka feud-fuel) occurred. I also needed to chart out the political/social hierarchy of the two groups.  Nothing is concrete, of course. Much of this “structure” could change by chapter three. :)

Technology, Magic, and the Paranormal

As Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Paranormal/Horror writers, we dabble in the fantastical because it’s FUN. Mermaids, psychic aliens, cursed relics—these things are imagination candy. That said, there should be boundaries, right? It’s no fun if a protagonist can cast a spell to save the adventure party whenever needed. Magic should probably come at a cost.  Same with technology. Most readers like a nugget of reality to draw on. In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton gave us dino DNA encased in amber. In Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card allotted for the passage of time on Earth while Ender traveled through space. In The Monstrumologist series, Rick Yancey creates a frightening balance between myth and science. 

"The Monstrumologist" by Rick Yancey (2009) Simon & Schuster. 

Will the gods play a role in your world?  Aliens? Bacteria? If so, become an expert. It’s about consistency in your writing, which leads to the reader buying in. The more familiar you are with these elements, the easier it will be to drop details into your story without the dreaded info dump.  

 

Culture

This is where you can fill a notebook with cool and unique nuggets that make this world your own. Think slang, clothing, food, art, music, social structure, values, customs, religion. My experience was that bits of culture presented themselves to me while I hammered out the above three areas, but once I had a better grasp on those elements the ideas for culture really started coming. 

But maybe for you, the cultural mores of an imagined society are enough to build your world around. What works for you? Is there a book you think epitomizes excellent world creation? Share with us below! 

Prepare Yourselves: NaNo is Coming.

Five NaNoWriMo Prep Steps

It's mid-October. Leaves are falling, Halloween costume selections are dwindling, and it is THE TIME to get prepped for National Novel Writing Month. 

How much should you prep for NaNoWriMo? Some people prep for months. I do not. But I do think that whether you consider yourself a plotter or a pantser, having a few ducks in a row before November 1st couldn't hurt. 
 

Here are five, last-minute prep steps I'm taking to try and get my NaNo WIN. You still have a couple weeks, so if you haven't already, why not:   

 

1) Get your research out of the way. Whether you have just a vague idea of your story's setting (maybe near Devil's Tower?)  or you are absolutely certain your protagonist will need to know the hunting habits of a prehistoric mosasaur, NOW is the time to get those details in order. My NaNo project will feature a colony of bats. I know more waaay more about bats than I need to. But I won't waste any precious time in November looking up the average lifespan of a Townsend's big-eared bat. (16 years, btw)

2) Jot down a tagline. If you have a general idea about your storyline, you could try writing a one-to-two sentences summary. It could give you more focus. 

Example from the screenplay Pirates of the Caribbean: 

A 17th Century tale of adventure on the Caribbean Sea where the roguish yet charming Captain Jack Sparrow joins forces with a young blacksmith in a gallant attempt to rescue the Governor of England's daughter and reclaim his ship.

There are still plenty of holes to fill in the Pirates of the Caribbean example, but it gives you some framework. 

3) Make a few character sketches.  You'll be spending a lot of time with these characters over the next few weeks. If you have an idea who will be starring as your cast of characters, get to know them. There are lots of cool resources for character sketching. NaNo has a good one here. 

4) Let your friends and family know what's about to go down. Writing is a solitary venture. It's also time consuming, and NaNo's 1,667 words-per-day average is whole different level of involvement. 

WAIT. Before you go writing, could we make a 7-layer Jello Mold?

In my case, I'm married with two little kids. I am planning for easy dinners, packing lunches the night before, getting up reeeeaaally early, and have discussed all of this with aforementioned family unit. It's THAT KIND of commitment. 

5) Find Writerly Support. Connect with writing buddies on the NaNoWriMo site. There is a NaNoPrep thread where you will find lots of friendly writer peeps looking for buddies to encourage and support each other.  You can find me on the NaNo site as Arena26. (ICYW, that user name dates way back to a NCAA Online Bracket challenge that ended well for me.) 

How about you? Are you prepping for the NaNo plunge? Have you checked out the NaNo Prep resources on the official site? 

 How do you plan on achieving that NaNo WIN?

Get in your Writing Zone FASTER

Writing time is precious. There are days I battle for minutes of writing time like they’re chunks of raw chicken thrown in the caiman tank.  And believe me, after what we saw during our last visit to SeaLife, those little guys can grapple.

Kind of cute in a vicious, hope-you're-not-a-chicken kind of way.

So when I get in front of the computer I need to get busy. Some days are harder than others to flip my switch to Writer Brain and dive back into the world of my waiting Work In Progress.

There are a few tricks I’ve picked up that help me get in the Writing Zone faster. When I open that laptop, the first three things I do are designed to sweep me back into my story’s universe.  

1)      My Desktop Background picture is the setting of my story. Pretty self explanatory. My story takes place in the deep woods, and there are gazillions of awe-inspiring wallpapers out there to set the mood for me instantly when I open my computer. 

2)     Music. This is the biggest one for me. With some music and ear buds—goodbye, real world. I like soundtracks. For my woodland adventures, Jurassic Park and Avatar are great. I’ve set up a movie score Pandora station too that’s fun for variety. 

3)     If I’m really stuck, I do a Google Image Search. A couple weeks ago I had a Twitter conversation with writers Maria Burel and Julie Segal Walters about this. (It was the inspiration for this post, in fact.) Maria occasionally shares some amazing historic images on her Twitter feed. For visual people, this can open the floodgates of inspiration.

NOTE about Image Searches: This can be a danger zone. For me, research can turn into a total time eater. Setting a timer isn’t a bad idea. But it can also have a huge pay off. I recently introduced a new critter to my cast of creatures and I was having a little trouble finding his voice. I looked at creature pictures until I found one that spoke to me instantly. THAT was my guy.  

Do you have any tips on getting into the writing zone quickly? I’d love to hear them!  

Create an Agent Bible with OneNote

There are so many amazing agents out there! 

Researching them, and determining who might be a good fit for my almost-ready-to-query manuscript, is one of my most favorite procrastination stations.

Something about gathering all this info, reading awesome agent interviews, and stalking Twitter feeds, (as one does) fills me with all the happy feels. One of these fabulous people may become the champion of my book. Squeeee! You know that feeling, right? That hand waving in the air feeling as you yell Pick me! Pick me! Which is totally writer code for please love my book.

When I'm in need of a break from revising, editing , and polishing the MS, I set about working on The Amazing Agent Bible of Awesomeness! (said in booming movie voiceover fashion)

I'm not gonna lie to you, researching agents properly takes time, but it is time well spent. So even though it may technically fall into the category of procrastination, if procrastinate you must, at least this project is of the useful variety. *flashes sideways glance at Pintrest*

There are tons of ways to keep track of all the agent info you garner, but I'm a visual person so I created an agent bible that's informative AND pretty to look at. It also negates having to bookmark all the info and then try to find it later, because there is a LOT of info I want to take into consideration as I narrow down my query list. So let's get started, shall we?

Here's how you can create your own fancy agent bible using OneNote. Tweet This!

In the past, OneNote came standard with the student and *I think* home editions of Microsoft Office Suite, but nowadays it is supplied with all editions, so there's a very good chance you have this program and didn't even know it. If you're not sure, check your Microsoft Office programs folder and see if it's there. If it is, open it up and click File, New and choose a name for your first notebook. Once that's done, click Create Notebook to get started.

*Note: I’m using OneNote 2013, so some features may look a little different depending on your software’s version.

You'll end up with a screen that looks like the one below. Your notebook's name is on the top left of the screen. Beside it is a tab titled New Section.

A section can have many pages associated with it. To the right, you can see one untitled page with a tab above it that says Add Page. You can create as many pages as you'd like within a section. 

The giant white space in the middle is your workspace for the selected page.

 Rename the untitled section with the name and agency of the first agent on your list. To do this,  right click on the untitled section and select rename. In this example, I've named the section Victoria Marini, Gelfman Schneider

Next, type a page title on the line provided in the workspace. Whatever you type here will show in the right column, where all of your pages for this section of your notebook will live. The title of my first page in this section is General Info, because I'm going to include all the basics about Victoria Marini.

Now comes the fun part! You can include whatever information you want by inserting, importing, typing or pasting. Everything you enter in the workspace appears in its own little box, allowing you the freedom to move it around without needing to mess with any formatting. This is one of the main reasons I like using OneNote instead of Word or Excel for my agent bible. Since I paste in so much information and pictures, it's a hassle to keep fussing with the formatting.

On the right side, I've included a picture of Victoria Marini from the agency's website and next to it, I've pasted in all of her contact info from QueryTracker. Note that all the links remain active.  Also, a source link is automatically included at the bottom when you paste from a website. This makes it super easy to revisit webpages without having to scroll through a thousand bookmarks.

I've also included Ms. Marini's bio and what she's currently seeking, which I pasted from her blog. Again, all the links are active and a handy link to the source info is included at the bottom.

Now that you have the hang of it, you can click the Add Page button on the right and add more pages to this section. Remember, when you type a title on the line provided in the workspace, it will automatically rename the pages shown on the right.

For each agent, I've included foue separate pages: general info, submission guidelines, interviews, and clients.

After you've added all the info you want to include for your first agent, it's time to create a new section.

Click the plus symbol beside the tab and rename it with your next agent/agency. You now have a new workspace and blank pages to work with.

Go ahead and add your next agent. I have Sarah Negovetich of Corvisiero Literary Agency. Again, I start with General Info and then add pages to include the rest. I keep the arrangement of each page the same between agents. You'll see why in a minute.

Here's what it looks like once you've added several sections and pages. A notebook can have as many sections/agents as you like, and each section can have as many pages as you choose.

Submission Guidelines

Interviews

Clients

Above, I said that I keep the arrangement in each section uniform. That's because OneNote allows you to export a page, a section, or even your entire notebook to a PDF, Word, or Excel file. I like exporting to Word where I can do more nitpicky formatting. You can do all this in OneNote, but I do find changing the font over the entire document easier in Word.

Here I add headings, change the font and style, and maybe add a picture or two to make it fun to look at. Below is a two page view in Word once I've done a bit of extras.

Once your agent bible is all sparkly and just the way you want it, you can save it from Word as a .pdf file. And voila! You have your very own fancy shamancy Agent Bible of Awesomeness, and you shall be the envy of all your writing buddies!

There are so many other ways to use OneNote as well, like The Story Bible of Awesomeness! But that’s another post for another day. In the meantime, here’s a OneNote 2013 quick start guide that Microsoft has made available for download if you want to explore all of OneNote's features. 

I’d also like to give a huge shout out to QueryTracker! This is an invaluable resource for finding agents that represent your genre, but it’s also so much more than that. If you haven’t checked out QueryTracker yet, please do. Almost everything on the site is FREE! And free is always good. There are some features that do require premium membership, however at $25 a year, it is well worth it.

Your turn! Have you created your own agent bible of awesomeness? How did you go about it? What types of information are must haves when you research agents for your own MS? I love learning about new tips and tools, so please share your own experiences in the comments.