I do not have
a snippet for you today. That doesn't mean that I'm
not continuing to chug along on my WIP. I'm at a little over 16K.
WOOHOO. This is good for me. With all my life's distractions I don't have huge
chunks of time to devote to writing. Le Sigh. Maybe one day when all the bills
are paid, I won't have to work a day job.
But I do have a song and something that I want to talk about. Culture. When you are writing contemporary you pick a culture that exists, breath it into your character and voila you have a real person. Or you don't even think about the culture and just start writing the person and your own culture leaks into the person you have created.
Now in fantasy you have leeway. You can create a culture. Especially in high fantasy. Lord of Rings anyone? Hobbits and second breakfasts. I know someone around here speaks Elvish. Cassie, are you out there??
With my book I have 2 very distinct cultures colliding into each other. Ones that had no idea the other existed. Let's discuss.
Callan
Now lets looks at where he lives..
Images removed.
Images removed.
And this is what dominates his world...
Piper
Images removed.
And now we have Piper's world. What dominates her world?
Knowledge...Technology...The Future...Brilliance...Paganism...Deceit...Anything is Possible...Entrenched Beliefs...Amazing Creations
You get the point. A small town boy meets a big city girl and they fall in love.
Have you ever created a culture? A belief system? Traditions? I am finding it exhilarating and fascinating. And a bit of research too. What is your favorite part if you have? Or if you haven't, what is your favorite part about creating a person?
To help me with the feel for 2 worlds colliding, I've been listening to a ton of Male/Female duos. I love the push and pull of their voices intertwining. This is Snow Patrol.
Have a great Easter weekend. Over at Falling for Fiction you will find the letter F, brought you by Cassie Mae and Hope.
I love creating new worlds. I think one of the coolest things about creating a new world is that you can't just think about how it affects your characters, you have to think about it globally, how the rules and boundaries you create affect everyone and the implications of it are, which I think, really helps create depth in the story.
ReplyDeleteLove Snow Patrol!!!!
Well, in one of my books I perpetuated an existing culture and tailored the dialog, and plot to that culture. It was so much fun writing the book with all that in mind. It took a lot of work with research on my part, but it was well-worth the price I paid to writing it!
ReplyDeleteI like reading created cultures. I have one in my MS and it was so fun to do :)
ReplyDeleteGood for you on the WIP progress!
ReplyDeleteWorldbuilding is one of my favorite activities. Although, I am not creating any cultures out of whole cloth. Each culture in my fantasy world is based on something from the real ancient world. Though I allow myself to pick and chose which aspects of the real world I want to use and supplement them with things from my own imagination.
ReplyDeleteI've created that!! SO much fun. Yay for Casden in Fraction of Stone. :)
ReplyDeleteTooga! ;)
Love the images you have put with your story! As you know, I've created traditions in my WiP, it's fun to play with that stuff! I'm a huge fan of male/female duos, I've noticed a lot on my Ipod :)
ReplyDeleteI've created a world on it's own too. (But no one has read that catastrophe, lol.) I really admire people who can do it so well. Like let us picture exactly what they do in this completely different place no one has been to.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
:)
I've created numerous worlds, some full of traditions, others not so much. But I enjoy crafting each and every one of them as much as I like reading about the worlds others have created.
ReplyDeleteThe only world I've created so far doesn't have a story attached to it. I'm just building a world because I can :-)
ReplyDeleteWorld crafting is wonderful. I love creating alternate worlds like Lyric World (where all countries are replaced by music genres) and Normal (where on planet Airee being normal as we know on earth is punishable by being treated as a second class citizen and loss of some basic rights including choosing where to go and what to wear). Both novels are incomplete but I plan to finish them one day.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on beating the 16k mark on your WIP. And yes fantasy gives more leeway. Wait...Cassie speaks...elvish? Oh man, that's awesome. *Stares hard at Cassie* Teach me! Anyway, I love how you use pictures to show Callan and Piper along with their world. The second house on the right under Callan has me thinking of the SyFy series Merlin for some reason.
Anyway great post. One of the best in my opinion. Can't wait to hear more on your WIP.
Creating a new world is so hard! I really struggle with it. I have a few ideas and partial manuscripts waiting for me to figure out how to get it right. lol
ReplyDelete