Assuming you did not kill every plant you come in contact with AND you had both the time to garden and the space for it …

What would you plant in your garden?

Roadmap 1

Once upon a time, I thought getting published went like this:

1. Write a Book
2. Get Published
3. Quit Job and Write Forever (possibly from the back of a rainbow unicorn)

Roadmap 2

Then I wrote a book and my road to publishing changed slightly.

1. Write a Book
2. Fix that Book
3. Get Published
4. Quit Job and Write Forever (I traded the unicorn in for a dragon in this particular fantasy)

Roadmap 3

Then I spent a long time watching movies, playing video games, etc. Before I knew it, YEARS had passed and would you believe it? That book hadn’t actually fixed itself, nor had another, BETTER book magically appeared under my pillow like a gift from the Tooth Fairy.

Bemused, I started to do some research. Mind completely blown, I erased my imaginary roadmap to publishing and rewrote it.

1. Write a Book (this is still VITAL. You are guaranteed to suck when you start writing. You have to practice writing to get better at it, and you have to FINISH what you start in order to learn all the necessary lessons about writing.)
2. Learn the craft of writing. Seriously spend time learning how to plot, characterize, revise, etc. Learn those pesky grammar rules that buzz around my manuscript and drain it of its readability, like thesaurical mosquitoes. Create a writing habit. Read, not just for fun, but also critically. Learn to see the nuts and bolts of what other authors have done that I like, and that I despise. LEARN.
3. Write another book using what I’ve learned. Finish it. Polish it till it gleams. Learn from it.
4. Write a query letter and synopsis for that book.
5. Enter the query or excerpts from the book into contests on blogs (such as AuthoressAnon or KOrtizzle or Jodi Meadows) WHILE seeking agency for the book.
6. Immediately begin writing the next, totally unrelated book (NOT the second book in the series to which the first book belongs).
7. Repeat steps 2-6 until I get published.
8. Repeat until writing brings in enough money for me to quit my job and write forever OR I retire and am able to write regardless of how much money I make from writing.

Where I Am

My roadmap will continue to change as I grow and learn. Becoming published, for example, isn’t the edge of the world, beyond which lie sea monsters and treacherous pirates. Right now, being published is far enough away and the publishing industry is changing fast enough that further speculation would be tentative at best.

Even though the endpoint on my roadmap keeps moving farther and farther away from where I am, I am content.

I am exactly where I need to be in my writing career. I am not ready to be published.

If an agent or publishing company had picked up Song of Binding at the point when my co-author and I finished the first draft, we would have published a crappy book.

Furthermore, we wouldn’t have realized what was wrong with the book and taken the steps to fix it. And if we hadn’t tried to fix it, we wouldn’t have realized just how little we actually knew about writing and revising.

Arts and Crafts

Writing is an art, but it’s also a craft. It takes creativity, but it also has nuts and bolts and technical rules. Back when I was in the mental space of that first roadmap, the thought that writing was WORK would have been repellent to me. Depressing, even.

Now, it’s a relief. A balm. Thank heavens I don’t have to flail about in the dark trying to fix my novel. There are rules and exercises and guidelines. Other people have had these same exact problems, and the fact that I have them does not mean that I am a terrible writer and I should just give up.

Writing is work. Writing is effort. Writing is practice.

And that is a wonderful, amazing thing. I am not stuck with just the meager amount of talent I was born with. I can hone and nurture my writing talent as much as I want. I can do ANYTHING.

It’s heady stuff. Powerful. Freeing.

I enjoy writing MORE now than I did back when I was writing purely on instinct. I’m no longer plotting blindfolded or relying on the fickle whims of my imaginary muse to drop down from the heavens and imbue my fingers with fairy dust.

The Temptation

It would be easy to fall into the trap of never moving past where I am now. As Iris pointed out, I could keep telling myself “I’m not ready” for another decade or three before I get moving further along my roadmap. As my husband pointed out, I can keep going back and revising existing books forever without actually writing new ones and moving forward.

I could stagnate here, learning. Finishing a manuscript is dangerous, because then I have to let it go. Can it fly on its own? Will it be rejected time and time and time again?

I will never know until I try. Best case scenario, it’s picked up and published and I’m the next J.K. Rowling (ha!). Worst case scenario, it gets rejected and I write a better book next time, and it gets rejected and so on and so forth …

Even in my WORST case scenario, I’m still writing. I’m still doing what I love.

NaNoWriMo 2010

This – this roadmap, this plan, this dream – is why I’m pouring so much effort into NaNoWriMo this year. I don’t have to wait for November and NaNoWriMo. I could start writing today. But I want to join in the fun of the event, and I want to make sure I don’t rush the writing. The NaNo preparation posts on this blog are for you, but they’re also for me. What have I learned? What mistakes have I made in the past and how will I keep myself from making them over and over again?

NaNoWriMo 2010 is my final exam. Am I ready to move on to steps 3 and 4 of my roadmap?

I think so.

I hope so.

I’m looking forward to finding out.

Housekeeping

Two things I’d like to mention before diving into the first of the posts on worldbuiling.

1) NaNoWriMo.org

You can create an account on the NaNoWriMo website. It’s completely optional, but it does give you access to some word count widgets, their forums, and (most importantly) the motivational emails they send out throughout the month.

You can also link up with other NaNoWriMo participants for fun, creating a friend network.

My account is under the username “tamimoore” and can be found here > http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/621134

2) Disclaimer

I am not an expert. I’m just a writer, trying to do my best to learn from past mistakes and share both the mistakes and the wisdom with others. There is no such thing as “the right way” to plan a novel. This series is “the way Tami is planning her novel this year.” At best, I hope to learn from this process and find out what works for me and what doesn’t. At worst, I’ve spent a lot of time and tossed a lot of useless words up on my blog.

This process may not work for you. It may not even work for me!

I hope it works for both of us, though. <3

Why Worldbuilding?

My husband loves worldbuilding.

I love characters and scenes.

He daydreams of societies and magic systems and cultural details.

I daydream abilities and conversations and interactions.

If you’re like me, the thought of spending a few weeks doing worldbuilding is PAINFUL. You want to get started now! You’ve got all these great ideas and you don’t want to spend too much time fussing with background details that may or may not even make it into your novel.

It may feel like a betrayal to set your beloved characters and plots aside, but it’s vital.

Without a solid foundation, your story is off to one heck of a wobbly start.

Ever read a series where the author lost control of their characters abilities and powers? Ever read about a particular magic and wrinkle your brow, wondering how such a thing even makes sense? Ever read a book written by an American about a country that you live in and feel betrayed by the lack of realism? If you’re a horse-lover, ever read about a character leaping to the back of an untamed stallion and galloping full out for hours and hours?

Worldbuilding Matters

Worldbuilding matters if you’re writing a fantasy and building a new world or layering a magical system upon the existing world. You will lose your readers if your magic makes no sense or if your society has running water and paved roads with no reason for it.

Worldbuilding matters if you’re writing a historical novel. You will lose your readers if you write an independent, feminist character set in feudal Japan. Your medieval peasant better not be eating corn chowder. Don’t know why that’s a problem? I’ll bet some of your readers do.

Worldbuilding matters if you’re writing a contemporary novel. You will lose your readers if your mis-represent existing cultures and locations. Just because you read a spy novel and heard about the Berlin Wall, that doesn’t mean you’re qualified to write a novel set in Germany. Your typical high school student doesn’t speak fluent French. If your character does, find out why.

No matter what kind of novel you are writing, worldbuilding matters.

What is Worldbuilding?

Worldbuilding is the act of defining the laws and rules of your setting.

Worldbuilding is, at its heart, asking questions and then building upon those questions until you have a solid world to thrust your characters into.

How does something work? Why does it work that way?

Start Asking Questions

Start asking questions about your world. If your story is set in the real world, start doing research on any setting you will need to know about. The closer your story is to your current life as you know it, the easier the worldbuilding will be.

It’s actually harder to worldbuild about a real place you know little about than it is to build a fantasy world. Why? Because when you ask a question about your fantasy world, you get to make up the answer. For a real place, you have to do research and make sure you get the answer right.

Good Questions to Ask

What is the climate where your characters are? The terrain? Is it rocky and desolate? Does it rain every day?

What is the political climate of your nation/world/people? Democracy? Monarchy? Religion-based? Are people from all classes chosen to become part of an elite team, or does birth determine a strict caste system? How do rich people stay rich?

What about laws and law-breakers? Who keeps the peace? What happens if you steal an apple from a fruit vendor? What happens if you kill someone?

What do your characters eat? Where do they get their food? Do they trade with other countries or nations? Who grows/gathers the food?

How about women? How are women treated? Perhaps they can’t walk the streets without veils and an armed male guard. Or maybe they can be found wielding a blacksmith’s hammer and drinking the other men at the tavern under the table.

Do you have a tale of forbidden love? The biggest obstacle to your character’s happiness shouldn’t be realizing they have feelings for this other, forbidden person. “Forbidden” means that society itself frowns on the relationship. What happens if they kiss in public?

What is normal for your society? If you have a character who doesn’t fit that “normal”, why are they different and how will other people in the world react to their difference?

Example 1

If your character rubs a lamp and the lamp gets shiny (real world physics and rules), that’s worldbuilding.

• Why does the lamp get shiny?
• If your character doesn’t have some kind of metal polish, then your character is a wizard and you didn’t realize it.
• How does polish work?
• Why is your character rubbing the lamp?
• Where did the lamp come from?

If your character rubs a lamp and a genie pops out, that’s worldbuilding. Because this is DIFFERENT, you should start asking even MORE questions than you did in the above question. Those of us writing fantasy stories have more work to do.

• Why did the genie pop out?
• Does a genie pop out of every lamp, or only special ones?
• Would the genie pop out for anyone who rubbed the lamp, or only The Chosen One or someone who rubbed in just the right way?
• How does the genie get IN the lamp?
• What’s it like for the genie while they’re in the lamp?
• Are they stuck in a smoke form, or do they have their own tiny world inside the lamp?
• How do they leave the lamp – in a cloud of smoke? Is the smoke colored? Does it have a smell? Why?
• Where did the lamp come from?
• How rare are genie lamps? If they’re super-rare, how did your character end up with one?

Example 2

Saying that you have an enslaved tribe of minotaur-like people in your fantasy novel is not enough.

• Where do they come from? Do they have a homeland?
• Why are they enslaved?
• Is it only minotaurs who are enslaved?
• Do they fight back against being enslaved?
• Are some of them freedmen? What kinds of jobs can the freedmen have?
• How do non-minotaur characters react to seeing a minotaur?
• If your main character bucks the system and is anti-minotaur-slavery while every other person in the book sees nothing wrong with it – why? Why would your character, who grew up in the type of society that would enslave an entire race of cow people, raised by folks who saw nothing wrong with it, have a completely and totally different world view from the rest of their characters?

The Best Thing About Worldbuilding

The best thing about worldbuilding isn’t that it gives you a solid and believable background for your novel.

The best thing about worldbuilding is that it twines itself around your story until you cannot possibly write your tale in another setting.

Remember our minotaur example? Maybe the main character is striving to free minotaurs. Maybe his reason for having such a different viewpoint from most of his society is because when he was a young, he was kidnapped by slavers from another country. While in the care of his kidnappers, he was treated as chattel, the same as the minotaurs are. He was rescued, but he can’t stand to see the yoke of slavery on anyone now. Your character now has depth and a history that you wouldn’t have if you’d not done your worldbuilding.

Stained

For my NaNo2010 novel, my spark was a character with a magic power and a particular physical manifestation of that power.

From there, I started asking questions.

• How strong is her magic?
• How common are people with magic?
• Does the color of her manifestation matter with regards to her magic? Why and how?
• Do I have any opinions on her past – was she born wealthy or poor? Does that have any significance?
• How do people react to those with magic?
• Why does she have magic when other people born around her do not? Where does the magic come from? Is it genetic or environmental?
• What is the political society like where she lives? (this ties into my answer for “how do people react to those with magic?”)
• What is the political society like in places NEAR where she lives? What about far away? How is trade done?
• How do those differing political climates result in misunderstandings, tense communication, or war?

And so on.

Write it Down

Take the time to type up or write down your questions and your answers to them.

If you’re like me, you’ll also want to go ahead and start your “Story Bible” now.

Story Bible

Your Story Bible is your reference and the encyclopedia of all your story planning.

My Story Bible is in wiki format, because branching and unexpected growth is part of how I think. I start out by making very broad categories and then following each category into more and more specific information.

I typically have a “Characters” section that I branch down into each specific character as well as a list of mentioned characters that I add to as I write. Major characters get a character sheet along with a personality profile and a history. Minor characters get basic details and mentioned characters get one or two words.

I also have a “Societies” section and a “Place Name Glossary” and a “Term Glossary”.

Build your Story Bible in a way that works for you. I’ve found that I lose details about characters and societies if I don’t write them down, and it takes only a moment to do so. It’s easier to build a Story Bible framework now and add to it as you write than it is to realize you need one halfway through your novel and try to generate one after the fact.

What You Should Get

Your goal in this exercise is to ask enough questions that the world starts to feel REAL to you and you start getting the inklings of conflicts or plots or characterization quirks. You should have a history and hooks to build a character’s backstory on. You may actually get ideas for several plots – several places where the world is on the brink of change, several conflicts that matter because of your worldbuilding rules. This is a sign that your world is alive.

At the end of my process, I will have maps of a few places scribbled out on paper (probably in crayon – every time I look for a dadblasted pen at my desk, all I find are crayons), some naming conventions for people and places (do I use apostraphes? Why? What do they indicate? Why do some words have apostraphes and not others? Note that “because it’s pretty” is not good worldbuilding.), in-depth society notes and a variety of other miscellaneous worldbuilding info.

Not all of it will make it into the book. Heck, I’d be surprised if even half of it did. The rules are there, however, and the world is made richer and more believable for my having that knowledge.

What You Should Not Get

You should not finish the worldbuilding process with this exercise.

Why? Because just as worldbuilding affects your character and plot, so too should your plot and character affect your worldbuilding.

Ideally, as you start to hang the other story elements against the world backdrop you’ve started, you should see more places to ask even more questions and make sure things fit properly.

I will not have every question answered. I won’t even know all of the questions to ask, but even more than that, I want to leave parts of worldbuilding open to my own interpretation as I write. I want to leave room for surprises and inspiration.

Over-Building

Beware the temptation to over-build; you can research a book to death.

Research and world-building can be never-ending processes. Never forget that the point of all this work is to write a book. Much like when I had homework I didn’t want to complete and ended up cleaning the apartment three or four times, research can be used as a tool to avoid writing.

When are you done worldbuilding? When your world feels alive and breathing and its heartbeat is familiar to you.

Some authors take years to build a world, painstakingly mapping out every single vegetable and creating new recipes and languages.  Some authors build the world as they write, constructing it around themselves and their characters.

Personally, I don’t like either of those approaches.

Admittedly, I’m more of a planner than a pantser (seat-of-the-pants), but when I am reading a book, I do not care if the characters stop at an inn and have potato soup or leek soup or tomato soup. I’m okay with them just having soup. I am not, however, okay with the inkeep blatantly using magic to amuse her patrons in a world where magic-users are hunted and killed. I may not care if the patrons are being served barley beer or wine, but if they’re served some specific kind of very rare wine, I’d want to know why this backwater inn had access to such a rare booze, and why the innkeep would serve it to them.

Unless the process of beer-making is central to your character or your plot, you probably don’t need to research it as part of your world-building. You can do it for fun, of course, but that’s not quite the same thing.

Assignment

Start your worldbuilding.

Start your Story Bible, if you think you’ll need it. If you like the wiki idea but don’t know where to start, I have used pbwiki (now called pbworks) in the past and been pleased with it. You can also look into the tiny tiddlywiki if you’re looking for something small and not on the internet.

For those of you with Scrivener or a similar writing software, it’s even easier. You can make your Story Bible directly in Scrivener, so it’s just a click away while you’re writing. For example, Choose’s Story Bible is in an organized set of folders in the “Research” section of my Scrivener file. If I forget the word I keep using every time Hank swears, I can click on “Glossary”, then “Naughty Words” (Hey, may as well have fun with your Story Bible, neh?), and easily locate the word to copy/paste.

You have one week to ask and answer questions before the next NaNo2010 post.

Ready? Set? GO!