Jeffe's Top Five Worldbuilding Tips

SHADOW WIZARD coming September 29, 2022! Preorder now!!

     

This week at the SFF Seven, we're sharing our top five worldbuilding tips. Since I just returned from WorldCon in Chicago, where I gave a workshop on worldbuilding from a character-driven perspective, I'm going to cheat ever so slightly and pull from that.

1. All stories require worldbuilding

Even a story set in our contemporary world, written as realistically as possible, still requires worldbuilding because it's impossible to to replicate the complexity of our world. You will always be picking and choosing relevant details. Choose wisely. (And see Tip #5.)

2. Don't allow worldbuilding to be displacement activity for writing the actual story

Worldbuilding is fun! Writing is hard. It's easy to spend tons of time on research and worldbuilding and kid yourself that it's writing. It's not. Don't become the person with megabytes of maps and details and no actual text.

3. The world is yours to shape however you like - build it to challenge your characters

Story is about characters facing conflict. The world they live in creates external conflict for them and informs their internal conflict. Since you get to play deity here, build the world with challenging your characters in mind.

4. RPGs - role-playing games can distort your worldbuilding sense.

Many creatives learn worldbuilding from gaming, which can be a great exercise, but - as dedicated gamers have pointed out (I am not one) - game worlds often don't make any internal sense. Use caution in emulating that model.

5. Use the iceberg model

While you should know - or discover - all about your world, most of that detail should be like the iceberg beneath the surface. Only the tip of all that knowledge should show up in the story. If you've done the work and your world is internally consistent, that tip of the iceberg will be representative of the rest.

Top 5 Worldbuilding Tips

Worldbuilding! What's in a world? A LOT. Ultimately, you can read posts like this all day, but many ideas might not come to you until you sit down and start writing. Still, there are plenty of things to think about beforehand, especially if you require a solid foundation before you start writing a story. Here are a few things that rumble around my brain when it comes to creating worlds.

1. Think about your magic system. This one is hard for me, because I don't know all the bits and pieces of my world until I write the book. Then I go back with knowledge in-hand and revise. But you still need a general idea of the rules of your magic system, its limits and costs, and its availability across your world. Just remember that too much planning on this part can possibly create boundaries that come at an expense to the story. So a little freedom might help.
2. Language: And I don't mean spoken language, although that's a given. In my novel, The Witch Collector, the ancient language is Elikesh. It's spoken completely different from the common tongue. It's also how the witches in my story create magick, and my heroine, who was born with the inability to speak, uses a hang language to communicate AND build her magick. So yes, language in that sense is critical to grasp. But also your story language. Consistency and uniqueness. Words that make your story YOURS and not like everything else. I have a background in history, so I pull from that knowledge for setting and word choice. I wanted my books to feel familiar and yet foreign at the same time. Word choice is so important. I can't stress it enough. Pay attention to those types of details when you read other books. They're what make a world come to life. Don't call it a glass bottle if it can be a cruet. That type of thing.
3. History and Lore: Every culture has a history and their own lore. Consider what your world's history and lore and legends might be. A fun exercise is to sit down and put yourself in your main character's shoes and point blank ask them what their world was like 100 years ago, 500, 1000. And just free write. It's an amazing experiment. Your brain will likely give you a great background to begin with.
4. Religion, Society, and Politics: Who worships who? Who doesn't worship at all? What is society like at large? How do people trade, source food, clothes, etc? What are the world's politics? Who rules? How do they rule? This list can be long, and again, I advise letting your creativity guide you after you have a fairly solid understanding of how the world works.
5. Consider diversity. Writing a diverse world can be a little intimidating, because if you're like me, you don't want to do any harm. You want the world in your stories to look like the one you live in, but more so, like the world you WISHED you lived in. We CAN create worlds with cultural, sexual, and gender diversity, we just need to do it well. In my fiction, I write characters of all stripes, and I wanted to have a world where being something other than cishet isn't taboo or sinful or any other negative labels that get painted on members of the LGBTQ+ community in our everyday life. Instead, they live, love, and fight like everyone else, and everyone else thinks nothing of who they kiss or don't kiss at night. Being LGBTQ+ is part of the norm instead of the exception, and it's respected. I also color my world. And again, I don't make being white the default. If you only ever describe the skin tone of people of color, then you're actively saying that white is the default and needs no clarification. So be careful, do your research, and use sensitivity readers, but please consider diversity.

Good luck and have FUN! 

~ Charissa

On My Mind: Incorporating Accessibility Challenges into World Building

On my mind this week: the real-world challenges for people with declining physical ability and how to incorporate that into fictional-world and character building to enhance stories while planting seeds in readers' minds that may carry outside the story to make small gains in the real world. Representation matters, right?

There's nothing quite as heart-wrenching as living with someone whose body is steadily declining--far faster than normal aging--and witnessing society slamming doors in the person's face. As a relatively able-bodied person, there are so many things about accessibility and product design that never cross my mind. Now that my loved one's muscular degeneration disease has passed a certain threshold, their limitations can no longer be masked/hidden. Many small-to-medium modifications/adaptions would allow my loved one to continue to engage with society if adopted. Some would be (sadly) costly, while others are merely a matter of consideration. There are improvements beyond ADA building codes and standards (and yes, my voice joins the chorus already demanding that ADA minimums be required for all new builds including residential, nationwide) just waiting to happen. Here are three minor examples:

1. Restaurants, Lounges, & Waiting Rooms: Have some chairs with arms. Provide a few pub-height tables with corresponding seats 24-28inches from the floor and arms on the seats. Folks whose knees, hips, or leg muscles have gone to crap need chairs from which they can lever themselves into an upright position. That starts with seats that place their ass above their knees. 
2. Drinkware & Wherever Drinks are Served: Lightweight cups with large handles. Some folks need the added stability of a handle on their drinkware, aka a mug. Standard mugs have handles for average-sized hands that are often too small for average-sized people, much less larger-than-average folks, while oversized mugs tend to be unbalanced and heavy. "Light and large" applies to disposable cups too.
3. Slippery Surfaces: If a product is meant to be held or grabbed, stop making its surfaces slippery. From body washes to takeout containers to doorknobs, "sleek" is an exclusionary design choice. A firm grip is relative, and even the firmest hold can result in dropsies.

There are many more examples and many an article/tweet/post about accessibility challenges. A character stubbing a toe on an interior threshold built too high reads like a comedy setup, but if that character has a drop left foot and the extra beat is taken to show the emotional toll of a seemingly minor inconvenience, then...then a seed is planted. That seed might just grow into a vine of consideration that bridges fantasy and reality. 

Weather: From Window Dressing to Antagonist

 Question of the week: How often does weather/climate factor into my stories?

Sometimes the presence of weather/climate is negligible. Others, it's an external conflict for one arc of the story. Occasionally, it's significant enough to be the primary antagonist for the whole book. 

Climate was less of an issue in my Immortal Spy UF series. It functioned primarily as window dressing to show the seasonal passage of time or establishing "this is not earth" settings. Once in a while, climate changes served to show-vs-tell the upper levels of magic in action. It rarely took center stage because my protagonist would be slightly inconvenienced by such changes, but not threatened. She's the kind of not-a-human who has to remember to wear a coat in the blizzard simply to blend in, not because she's cold. 

However, in my Fire Born HF series, the grueling hot, arid climates in the first book were boons for my fire-warrior protagonist. OTOH, the persistent winter in the second book was a huge problem for her since ingesting moisture of any kind is toxic and relentless cold is crippling. Her circulatory system isn't blood-based, it's fire-based. Fire + water = bad. Safe to say the climate in Book 2 was an inescapable antagonist.

My current HF WiP takes place in a world of elementals, so climate is more than pivotal, it's personal, political, and very present.

Climate/weather is such a wonderful tool for writers. It can be a passive presence that sets the mood or a violent death-insisting character. It can dominate as a theme or subtly evoke emotions in the reader. 

All Hail the Rebels

 

Sometimes, the rule of the land is meant to keep the powerless powerless. All hail the rebels who mean to change that.

~ Raina Bloodgood, The Witch Collector

Politics. Not my favorite topic. I do enjoy reading about politics in world history, as well as the causes of ancient and even more contemporary wars, but I am not one to sit and watch the news. It depresses me, every time. That being said, politics still plays into my fiction. I'm not the best at the governmental aspects of worldbuilding, I admit, probably because of my aversion to stupid people being in positions of power.

But! In The Witch Collector for instance, political tensions are a huge part of the backdrop and drive the external conflict. Since this is book one in a triology, however, and thus act one in the story arc, I narrow my lens and focus mostly on the relationship of the hero and heroine, my rebels.

Book one follows Raina Bloodgood and Alexus Thibault as they navigate the initial story problems that will later propel them from their normal worlds into a world they've either avoided (Alexus) or never seen (Raina). They live on what's called the Northland Break, a small piece of the broken empire of Tiressia, a supercontinent that experienced a tectonic shift millions of years before, and was once under the rule of a succession of human kings, each of whom answered to the gods.

But then the gods came down and took their own rule, one in the Northlands, one in the Eastland Territories, one in the Summerlands, and another in what's known as the Western Drifts. Much of the conflict that developed is of a godly nature, meaning greed, insatiable appetites for all sorts of pleasure, and complete adoration was paramount in their focus. They wanted what they wanted when they wanted it, regardless of the humans, halflings, witches, magi, and sorcerers they had to step on or destroy to sate their desires. 

As tensions rose, bad things happened and two of the gods, Asha and Neri, were condemed and buried in the Summerlands. The City of Ruin is where their bones rest, at a place called the Grove of the Gods on Mount Ulra. Another god, Urdin of the Western Drifts, the best of the deities, died battling the Eastland god, Thamaos. Both were also buried at the grove.

Part of the conflict that led to all four gods' destruction was two simple human lovers. The fallout of that romance was not only a catalyst to the gods' demise, but left the Tiressian world with two immortal rulers, a Frost King and a Fire Queen, cast north and south of one another, who would never again be able to survive the other's presence. 

In this story, greed and revenge reign, and even gods can rise again, unless a witch and a Witch Collector can become allies and prevent worldwide calamity.

So. Yes, I use politics in my fiction. It won't show as much in book one as the next two books, because the MC has to learn the hidden history of the world she's occupied for twenty-four years and correct the thinking that three centuries of false lore have impressed upon the Northland people. This is a story of a young woman who lives a very sheltered existence and doesn't even realize it. She thinks she understands her world, and that it's the immortal king of the North who's ruining her life. Little does she know at the onset how protected she's been, and that sometimes, the world we don't see is absoutely stunning and beautiful and can open our minds to different cultures, but it can also be a rude awakening. Sometimes, the lives we think are so terrible are nothing in comparison to the trials many people live through day in and day out. My goal is to show that through Raina, to show her understanding of the complexities of Tiressia, and how those complexities affect her as an individual, deepening with every page.

If The Witch Collector sounds like a book you might like to read, I would love it if you added it to your Goodreads. If you'd like to pre-order the e-book, it's available on several platforms now. Print will be available in September!!

XOXO,

Worldbuilding and Political Landscapes

 

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is politics and - no, wait! Come back!!

Politics in FICTION, okay???

We're asking how politics and the political landscape of the world flavor the outcome of stories.

This is my particular catnip as the political landscape of my books is always as important - if not more so - than other facets of the worlds I build. I even teach a workshop called "Worldbuilding: Political Systems in Conflict." Why politics? Because they are about the conflicts that affect an entire society - and societies beyond them, too. As we've all learned from the political turmoil of recent years, politics affects the bedrock of our lives, our very rights as sentient beings. 

So, I argue that the political landscape is always going to flavor a story, perhaps more profoundly than the actual landscape. Sure, some stories try to present themselves as absent of politics, but basics aspects of the characters' lives - access to food, housing, education, etc. - are always going to be influenced by the political landscape.

Right now I'm looking at the release of Book #2 in my Bonds of Magic series - BRIGHT FAMILIAR releases on July 9! - and so I'm getting impassioned messages from early readers. Often when I wake up in the morning, because they're staying awake all night reading it. (Best compliment there is!) Many of them are commenting about the power dynamics and how much resonance they have - on a personal and sexual basis, but also on a societal level. When I set out to write Book #1, DARK WIZARD, I wanted to portray an entire society based on a fundamental, incontrovertible power imbalance. In the Convocation, all political power derives from the ability to wield magic. Wizards can. Familiars have magic, but can't use it - so they become the ones who are used. 

As with all of us, the politics of who has the power affects what rights we have - and which we don't. In life, love, and the pursuit of all that is worthwhile. 

     

He wanted her with consuming passion... and so did the monster within.

Lady Veronica Elal has been freed from her tower—and entered a life of servitude. It doesn’t matter that her wizard master has odd ideas about circumventing Convocation tradition and making their relationship equal. Nic prides herself on her practicality and that means not pretending her marriage is full of hearts and flowers. Besides she understands that, despite her new husband’s idealism, they face obstacles so great the pair of them could be crushed to nothing, even without dashing themselves brainless trying to fight the Convocation.

Lord Gabriel Phel has come this far against impossible odds. He was born with powerful wizard magic, the first in his family in generations. He’s managed to begin the process of reinstating his fallen house. And—having staked his family’s meager fortune to win a familiar to amplify his magic, a highborn daughter to be mother to his children, his lady, and lover—he rescued Nic in a distant land, successfully bringing her home to House Phel. Though she’s cynical about their chances of success, he’s certain they can defy their enemies and flourish. Together.

But, the more Gabriel discovers about working with the fiery Nic, attempting to learn the finer points of wizardry and marriage, the more illicit fantasies plague him. His need for Nic—and the dark cravings she stirs in his black wizard’s heart—grow daily. Though Nic has reconciled herself to being possessed by Gabriel—and indeed yearns for even more from her brooding and reluctant master—creating a new life for herself isn’t easy. Especially when Gabriel seems determined to subvert the foundation of her world. Starting with her father.

Painted Yourself into a Corner? Retcon FTW!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "World Rules and Painting Yourself into a Corner: What's a rule of your world established in a previous book that complicated things for you in a later book?"

This has happened to me SO MANY TIMES.

It's a downside of writing for discovery or being a gardener - which some people call "pantsing" - because I discover the world as I write the story. Sometimes I'm writing a later book in a series and I discover that some decision I made in an earlier book is limiting what I can do. The real bite is this is almost always some minor, stupid detail that I just threw out there for no good reason. Very often, it could've been left out entirely and nothing would've changed.

I've actually learned from past errors this way, and I'm much more careful these days about adding random worldbuilding details unless I'm SURE I want to live with them.

Mostly, anyway.

Except for one I found recently.

I've been writing book 3 of the Forgotten Empires trilogy, THE PROMISED QUEEN (cover teased above). That means I've been listening to the audio books of THE ORCHID THRONE and THE FIERY CROWN, just to gather up all the threads of the story. Well, I found a careless remark in THE ORCHID THRONE that blows a huge part of the worldbuilding reveal in THE PROMISED QUEEN. As in, totally contradicts what we discover later. 

And it's not even important, that toss-off line in THE ORCHID THRONE! I could've deleted it and no one would've cared or noticed. 

But no.

What to do???

I had three choices, I figured:

1) Change my big reveal in THE PROMISED QUEEN*

2) Pretend I didn't know about that line in THE ORCHID THRONE**

3) Retcon*** it.

Door #3, please! 

I'll even confess here how I did it, though I won't give the details of the exact mistake. I had Lia said she lied. It actually works just fine because she's an accomplished liar - self-confessed - and she had good reason to lie about that thing, at that time and place. Is it perfect? Maybe not. Does it work? I think so. 

And now you all know...

___________________________

*No way
**Risky, because I know one of you would pick up on it
***For those who don't know, retconning is short for "retroactive continuity" and it means to "revise (an aspect of a fictional work) retrospectively, typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events."

Political World Building

Political world building, next on Nov. . .no. Wait. I'm not PBS. Sorry. Still. We are examining the merits and deficits of governmental bodies in our world building.

The original question was president or monarch - I'd like to think that from a SF standpoint there are more options than that, but you wouldn't know it based on my work. My answer to the question is: Both. At the very least. Because in my main SFR series, I have at least four separate populations vying for territory and resources, I have more than one option for structuring governments.

Confession time. Never, ever in my life did I aspire to write political stories. At. All. Yet here I am, having painted myself into a corner because you can't write military-ish SFR without talking about the governments that send people into battle in the first place and the philosophies for which they're fighting. Whether for good or for ill.

Tagreth Federated Council - this is a presidential government and several chamber council system that knits a group of planets together into a pooled resource. It has draw backs because the seat of government shifts world every few years so that no one world gets all the economic advantage or becomes the seat of power. Until a ruthless, power-hungry man who thinks he's the only one with all the right answers gets hold of the reins. Things go bad fast. My heroes and heroines have to claw their way back up from the debris pile before they can do anything like damage control.

The Claugh nib Dovyyth Empire - this is a monarchy. The queen has her nobles council and her elected council of the people to which she's beholden, but she has very broad latitude, especially when it comes to serving the people. So you don't often see her cowering in a corner while the bad guys are attacking. She's usually out there on the front lines. She's more than a figurehead, less than a living god. If that makes any sense. She's young and open-minded about how a royal ought to go about ending a war. So she's willing to make alliances no one else would consider. It's earned her a few enemies. Some of them roost close to home.

The other three governments that I can think of in the books all operate based on councils. There may be a single leader at the front of that council. Or a trio. Or some number. But the point is that in SFR having just one person standing up in front saying, "This is how it's gonna be just because I say so." is only going to last as long as someone showing up with a laser pistol and really good aim. But give a population the feeling that they're represented and at least partially heard? They'll wait for someone else to rise against the government.

The only thing I wonder is whether the people in my made up worlds avoid answering the phone during election cycles the same way that I do.

Presidential or Kingly worldbuilding?

It’s no secret that my heart…or rather, my head, belongs in the clouds. Particularly clouds shaped like dragons and castles. So, it stands to reason that my fantasy books are centered around monarchies. 

Kings and queens, heirs to the thrones, lords and ladies, some of whom have magical powers or may be wizards. It’s all dramatic, and oh so much fun to read and write. 

What makes it fun? Honor. Honor goes hand in hand with knights and royalty. They’re supposed to be stuffed full of honor, right? Except when they’re human like us and make mistakes, or succumb to the lure of the wrong side of magic such as the True Father in the Earthsinger Chronicles by L. Penelope.

Honestly, the honor concept is also how I formulate my science fiction governments. They're all based on honor or the lack thereof. You can have space royalty, Jessie Mihalik’s Consortium Rebellion series is a great example of ruling families in space. There can also be galactic governments, has anyone heard of Star Wars? So many varieties of government, but they have a common thread.

Presidential or kingly, it all comes down to honor and how you build the rules around it. Then you’ll know if your spells, or blasters, will be pointed at the castle, or outwards, at the invaders. Even if the focus of your story isn’t centered on political upheaval, the laws of the land, the honor code, it still has to be there.

If you’re world building right now, are you wearing a crown or holding a gavel?

Worldbuilding: Picking a Government

This week at the SFF Seven, we're asking: Presidential or Kingly - How do you decide your world's structure of authority and/or governance?

It's funny... as a staunch believer in democracy, I've never considered making one of my fantasy worlds have a government elected by the people. Why is that???

I mean, the easy answer is that it never occurred to me, but then I need to examine my underlying assumptions.

• Fantasy means monarchies with cool castles
• Crowns and the trappings of royalty are pretty awesome
• It's an alternate world, which means not the one I live in

There's also the aspect of creating a political system where a government could be chosen by the people, which assumes a certain level of tech - or a very small population. Still, I could do it. I probably should - and now it's in my head, so that will probably brew up at at some point into something...

All that said, I do love writing about people born to the throne, taking up the noble cause and trying to do the right thing by their people. Interestingly enough, I take this to another level in my Forgotten Empires trilogy, amping up the theme in book #2, THE FIERY CROWN, where the nobility is magically tied to the land. It's an old, even pagan concept, and fun to explore.

Next up: a magical democracy? Hmm....

What I Have and What I Want

As requested, I've put THE SNOWS OF WINDROVEN, HEART'S BLOOD, NEGOTIATION and THE CROWN OF THE QUEEN into print format! You can find those on my website. 

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is One thing we're really good at as an author and one thing we'd like to do better.

Hrm. If I go by what I hear most, I'd say that I'm really good at worldbuilding. That's the compliment I get the most often on the books. Personally, I think I'm good at characters and dialogue. Really, I think the most important authorial skill I have is a strong work ethic and daily writing habit.

What would I like to do better? It's kind of intangible, really. I'm constantly trying to improve my craft, to make each book the best it can be. Frankly, I'd like to be able to write faster and not need to revise, but I'm not sure that's a practical plan. The intangible is that I'd like to write a book that appeals to so many readers that it becomes an enormous hit. That's not practical either, as phenoms like that aren't predictable. I guess I'm going to say I'd like to approach my writing work with consistent delight and gladness. THAT I can control.

Representation in Stories: Intention Matters

I can't believe that THE ORCHID THRONE releases this week! Feels like it was forever away for so long, and suddenly it's here. Woo hoo!

Our topic at the SFF Seven is Creating representation in our stories – how do you do it, and make sure you do it well. That last bit is key, right? Because about the only thing worse than not having representation of marginalized groups in our stories is having them in there, but in awful ways.

Yeah, we've all seen it - those cringeworthy stereotypes that only point up the problem.

The last few years have seen accelerating and intensifying conversation on representation of marginalized groups. Most everyone - with the exception of trolls and fascists (oops, is that redundant?) - agrees that representation is a positive thing that needs to happen. The thing is, authors not in those marginalized groups are nervous about doing it well.

This is a big topic, and I'm looking forward to thoughts and methods from the rest  of the crew here at the SFF Seven, and I'm going to focus on a first step.

Intention matters.

Yeah... we all know about good intentions and the road to hell. That saying comes about because simply having good intentions without thoughtful execution can go sour real quick. Also because "good" intentions often aren't. They're motivations shrouded in the appearance of goodness. Motivations that are selfish or self-serving, or plain terrible.

So, the first thing to do is examine our own intentions behind the desire to create more representation in our stories. In other words, if we're setting out to do this because we're afraid of getting in trouble if we don't, or because we're "supposed to," or because that's the hip thing to do, then there's a problem - and those are the kind of surface "good" intentions that lead to hell on earth.

One clue? If you're looking for a set of rules to follow, or boxes to tick off, then maybe you're not setting out with the right intentions.

A better mindset is to start from a place of wanting to include characters who don't share our exact life experience. Get in the habit of indicating the skin color of ALL characters, the sexual orientation and self-identified gender of your characters, having people from a broad array of socio-economic backgrounds. Keep a list if you have to and check to see if they're all, say, het white guys. It might be equally weird if you have one each of some other flavor. Mix it up. And you don't have to put it on the page necessarily - especially if you're trying to tick your boxes for the reader - but be aware of that character's lens on the world.

Include those different people because they enrich the story and flesh out the worldbuilding. Think about what makes a fully realized world - do you have people of all ages and degrees of ability? Are there those in your world who have chronic diseases or disabilities? How does your world handle the nurture of children? Please don't just stick them back at the village with their mothers. Likewise, don't bury the disabled in their huts - they should be out living their lives, too. A lot of people fall somewhere on the spectrum between straight and gay, so flavors of bisexuality can be part of who a character is. Skin color is a descriptor, but making the choice whether that has political implications should be thought out and part of the worldbuilding.

See what I mean? It's a complex effort, sure, to incorporate greater representation in our books. It requires careful thought to move past our knee-jerk recapitulation of our own experiences.
It also requires the best of intentions - the authentic kind.

Do You Need a Critique Group - Or Something ELSE?

Yesterday I cooked brunch for writer friends Jim Sorenson and Sage Walker. (That's me in my Orchid Throne apron that the amazingly talented Minerva Spencer made for me. Isn't it awesome??)

We sat in the grape arbor, listened to the bluebirds feed their nestlings, and talked all things writing. Sage and Jim are in the Santa Fe crit group I used to attend. I stopped going last fall because... It just didn't feel worth my time. In fact, it sometimes felt counter-productive as a few of the guys in the group always took pains to mention that they weren't my readers. Fair enough - but then how is their critique useful to me? I stuck with it for quite a while (two years or so), because I thought it MIGHT be useful to me, to get feedback from different quarters. When I was first asked to join, several of my friends gave me the head tilt and said, "But do you need a critique group?"

I thought maybe I did, but it turns out I mostly wanted to talk about writing with other writers.

I liked that aspect, I really did! And I believe in critique. I've been in other critique groups and I've had many critique partners over the years. I cannot emphasize how much those relationships have helped me to develop my craft. (I touched on this in my blog post the other day Silly Writer! Reviews Aren’t for Craft.) But one key skill in being a career author is learning what critique to listen to and what to discard. It's not always easy to get past the emotional flinch at someone criticizing your work - so you have to learn to look past emotion and rationally evaluate the feedback - but you also have to be aware of when that feedback is actually damaging.

For me, I noticed that I came away from the critique sessions feeling bad about my work. Not from everyone. Some in the group found flaws and problems, but that feedback had me fired up to fix it. A few other people... well, I just felt bruised. The big test was when I, weeks later, pulled out some written notes they'd made, and the negative impact just slammed into me.

Ouch. And this was on a draft of The Orchid Throne, which St. Martin's liked enough to buy for decent money.

I mention these specifics to add helpful details, because I know it can be really difficult to parse the flinch from the injury. I'm not casting blame at all, because sometimes that's just how it goes. Not everyone who gives you critique is the right person to do it. (Sometimes jealousy factors in and people are mean for no more reason than that, but usually they mean well and are simply not a good fit for your thing.)

What I've found at this point in my writing career is that I really like - and sometimes need - to talk through story stuff, but not necessarily the full critique drill. With Sage and Jim yesterday, we talked about this world I'm building in this New Shiny book/series. They're both super smart about SF and we argued some of the finer points of how this world would work. That was awesome! I liked that they got me to defend my choices, and they suggested a great solution to a conundrum. It was super helpful and fun. Sage has also sent me some thoughts on what I've written so far. I also asked Marcella Burnard - our Friday poster on the SFF Seven - to take a gander at my opening chapters. She had no context or previous exposure coming into the story, so she was able to give me useful thoughts on what information she needed.

So, all of this is by way of saying that there's lots of ways to get feedback from other authors on our work - and also to give it. Knowing what will be helpful to another author whose work you're reading is a skill worth building, too. (And, to touch back on the reviews thing, that is NOT something a reviewer needs to know how to do. They need to know how to give useful information about a book to other readers, so they can decided if the book might be for them.)

What's most important is to do what's right for the work.

Rules Schmules

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: That one "rule" that you gloriously, ecstatically love to break.

Now, I’m an iconoclast by nature. While I’m stubborn on issues of integrity and my own system of right and wrong, I’m not much for Rules. My usual response to most Rules is “Why is that a Rule?” Which really annoys those who love Rules.

Newbie writers look for rules. It’s understandable. Writing is a nebulous art with few restrictions and no discernible career ladder. Though there are some opportunities to learn – writing workshops, MFA programs, various courses – for the most part it’s self-taught. You learn to write by doing a LOT of writing.

It’s natural to look for the Rules of Writing. After a while, though, we learn that those early Rules we clung to? Those are there to be broken!

So, what Rule do I gloriously, ecstatically love to break?

I’m going to make up my own fucking words, and you can’t stop me.

I figure, this is the privilege of being a writer. Language is my medium and I will twist, tweak, massage, contort, redefine, and invent words. I am the bane and despair of copy editors. Most of the people who’ve edited me long-term have given up on several hills where I have proudly planted my flag.

Yes, I’m going to use “suicide” as a verb. I stand by my use of slurk. I don’t care if it’s archaic or British, I like “dreamt” and “leapt” way better than “dreamed” or “leaped.” Don’t tell me to use “sneaked” instead of the compact and powerful “snuck.”

Yes, I’m going to use metaphorical language. A person’s face can be sere. Someone can feel a susurrus of emotion. Inanimate objects absolutely can appear sad or lonely.

And yes, worldbuilding is one word. So is wordcount. I defy you to stop me.

Retconning and the Reader Contract

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Channeling JK Rowling: Any apologies due your readers for the way you treated a character?"

I'm not sure exactly what the person who suggested this topic had in mind so far as apologies to readers for how she treated characters. Likely this is because I've never been a huge Harry Potter fan.

*gasp*

I know - anathema.

Thing is, I was an adult when HP came out and even my stepkids were old for the books. I did read the first two - mostly to grok the phenom - but as someone who'd read every fantasy and fairy tale book I could lay my hands on, I found the stories pretty derivative. They never quite lit me up. Just a me thing. So I don't really know, outside of things I occasionally hear people mention - something about the red-headed family? - what terrible things Rowling did to her characters.

I *do* however find it very interesting to observe the kinds of retconning Rowling has been engaged in. Retcon stands for "retroactive continuity" - which is to "revise (an aspect of a fictional work) retrospectively, typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events."

For those not in the know, Rowling has made various announcements about characters that very much change interpretations of events in the books. For example, saying that a major character is gay and had a homosexual relationship with another character - when there's no evidence of it in the actual books. Fans aren't bothered by this reveal so much (with some homophobic exceptions, of course), but it's problematic because the author claims "oh, I have these gay characters" without having to deal with really representing them in the story.

Also, for those readers who LOVE the books, these kinds of retcons change the stories in dramatic ways. One of my friends in the publishing industry said to me, "Every time she tweets something new, we're all PLEASE JUST STOP." (Paraphrasing there.)

It's fascinating from an author perspective, too, because one thing that we deal with - especially SFF authors - is worldbuilding. In order to define a fantasy or science fiction world, we establish rules. Sometimes we box ourselves into corners storywise with those rules, which can result in much gnashing of teeth. BUT, we abide by the rules we set up. Anything else is a betrayal of the contract with the reader.

My writer friend Jim Sorensen shared this excellent article from Tor.com with me. It explores what we do when we create fictional universes - and what obligations we have not to continue to fiddle with them.

I suppose my take is that I'd rather create an entirely new world than tweak a previous one. That way I won't owe any of my readers apologies.

At least not for that.

Worldbuilding - Foundation Process or Procrastination?

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven - one entirely appropriate for science fiction and fantasy authors - is "spending time on worldbuilding vs. actual drafting – what’s your balance?"

I've included a map here that first appeared in THE MARK OF THE TALA, the first book in the original Twelve Kingdoms trilogy. (For those who don't know - I didn't before I drew the map - the split down the middle is to accommodate the book binding.) Quite notably, I didn't draw this map until after the book had been written, the next books sketched out (very sketchily), and a couple of levels of editing completed with my publisher. At that point my editor asked me for a map of the world in the story. He thought it might make it easier for readers to follow the travels of the heroine, Andromeda, the middle princess.

So, I drew a map. Before that, the world had existed only in my head. But I'd envisioned it in vivid detail, so the task of drawing it out ended up being fairly straightforward. I spent most of my time figuring out how fantasy world maps should be drawn, and fixing logistical details like putting the split down the middle.

Later, however, I discover that most people thought I was crazy to do it this way. In fact, many SFF authors spend considerable time, even years, detailing their world maps and building out the details of the society, before they start writing.

Some of this approach, I think, comes from storytellers emerging from role-playing game experiences. In those, a great deal of effort goes into creating the world and rules before the game can be played. This is not me.

I also think that worldbuilding can be a form of pre-plotting. By creating the world and the details, the writer creates a kind of framework or outline for the story to evolve in. This is also not me.

So, it could be that I worldbuild the way I do - which is discovering what it's like by riding around in my characters' heads and observing it - because I write for discovery. That's how my process works on all levels, and faithful readers know I always say the most important thing is to own your process.

There's another reason, however, that I don't do worldbuilding before I write. I decided long ago that the only way I'd get a book written was to put down words. That sounds self-evident, but the decision is a profound one. I made a choice that NOTHING mattered more than putting down words - which includes things like drawing maps and other worldbuilding exercises.

When aspiring writers ask me about worldbuilding, when they tell me what they're doing to create their worlds, I'll say those things are great but they don't count as writing.

Only writing counts as writing.

Strategy Games and Martial Arts in SFF Worldbuilding

When I was in Denver for the RWA National Conference, my friend and writing buddy, Darynda Jones, and I took a lunch break at Ship Tavern in the Brown Palace Hotel. While there, I spotted this guy and snapped a pic. It seemed like a good omen, because I finished THE ORCHID THRONE during our mini-writing retreat there, and now (finally!) am going back to THE ARROWS OF THE HEART. This image is highly relevant to the story, for those of you who've studied the cover. 

Once I finish this blog post, I'm diving back into THE ARROWS OF THE HEART. It gave my own heart a little stab to see I haven't opened the document since March 20, 2018. That's over four months ago. A third of a year! Where has it gone??? I have no idea. 

Anyway, our topic this week at the SFF Seven is: If you had to invent a sport or game for your novels (or ever have), what would it be?

It's probably telling about me personally that I've invented several games, and a couple of martial arts systems, for my books - but never any sports. I'm so not a sports girl. If I were to invent a sport, it would probably be something forced on children where they're forced to deal with objects flying at them at speeds as fast as the scorn of their peers is scathing.

Not that I'm scarred or anything.

Despite my early clumsiness in all things Phys Ed, I later discovered Chinese martial arts - and studied with a school for over fifteen years. I drew on that practice in Tai Chi Ch'uan, Pakua Chang, Hsing-I, Shaolin Temple Boxing, and others, to build the martial system that's part of the worship of Danu in The Twelve Kingdoms, The Uncharted Realms, and even in The Chronicles of Dasnaria. (Fun fact: Jenna's dance, the ducerse, is a modification of a Pakua form that can be performed as a slow dance with saucers of water or lit candles.)

Invented martial systems are a terrific way to flesh out a world in SFF. Many draw on religious or philosophical tenets (as mine do), along with the physical training and more aggressive applications. A character devoted to a martial practice like these will have their entire worldview and choices informed by that. 

I've also invented a few strategy games, such as kiauo in THE PAGES OF THE MIND. That game serves several purposes in the story. The shape of the game board and the pieces give important clues to the culture and what they hold sacred. The game itself allows communication between two people who don't speak the same language - and they build an understanding of each other through it. Also, a strategy game gives character insight in the same way martial systems do. Strategic thinking occurs in more places than on a battlefield. 

Sports can do this, too - JK Rowling's famous sport of Quidditch being a prime example. Come to think of it, it IS a way to torture children and subject them to the scorn of their peers, isn't it? TOLD YOU. 

Researching the Future - How Do You Do It?

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "doing the research" - and what that means for building new fantasy or alien cultures.

I'm at a weekend conference sponsored by my local RWA chapter LERA. We brought in Michael Hauge to teach his Story Mastery. Great stuff. Yesterday was his general seminar, and today a dozen of us are doing an intensive advanced story mastery session where we workshop our concepts with him. I'm super excited because I'm working on SOMETHING TOTALLY NEW.

So new that it's science fiction.

Agent Sarah has already seen the concept and given it the thumbs up, so now I'm just working up the details. With my COLLABORATOR.

There are so many new and exciting things here that I can't wait to share.

At any rate, being science fiction, in a universe we're basically creating whole hog, albeit on the foundation of our own, there's a lot of worldbuilding involved. One interesting challenge is that my heroine is a scientist, but obviously operating at a much more sophisticated level technologically.

I know she's made a mistake in her past. I know the results of the mistake and that it has to do with genetic manipulation. I just need to figure out HOW she might have done it. This will require beefing up my current understanding of genetics and how genes are spliced using modern technology, then extrapolating that to a possible future.

I'll likely do this by going to the current scientific literature, but not the hard core stuff. I'll look for cutting edge research as explained in journals intended for broader consumption, like Nature, Science, or Scientific American. I have an advantage that I'm trained as a scientist, so I know how to read and assimilate that kind of information - but I also know that I'm pretty stale, and I never was an expert in genetics. I won't attempt to read the stuff intended for working scientists because I doubt I could keep up. Certainly not without devoting a lot of attention to it and... I probably don't want to do that.

My favorite way to tackle this sort of thing - the ideal shortcut - is to find someone who is a current expert and picking THEIR brain. There's still no search engine that compares to finding a smart person who knows their field really well and getting them to think about the answer.

So, if anyone knows a cutting-edge genetics researcher... :D

Fandom: the Gateway Drug to World Building

The picture has nothing to do with the subject today. It's just the season for butterflies in the zinnias and I was lucky enough to be out there with a camera when this one flitted in to have a snack.

World building, huh? Well. I have a theory.

Fandom is the gateway drug to world building (and often to writing . . .)

Pretend for me that I'm not the only one so invested in a fandom or twelve that I tell myself stories inside the world of whatever story/movie/book/game du jour that I love. I mean, you have a thing you love. Maybe it's Dr. Who, or Anime,  or Star Wars, or Sponge Bob. I don't know and I don't judge. Much. But after you've binge-watched all you can binge-watch, what happens?

If, like me, you go into immediate withdrawal, you probably start daydreaming yourself onto the bridge of the starship Enterprise. Or into some tiny New England sea-side town mysteriously afflicted by madness and rumors of something terrible lurking beneath the surface of the waves. If you do that, you're world building. If you've ever shipped a non-canon partnering in that thing you love, you're world building. Sure. Both are on a small scale and in someone's pre-built world. But you are and you know what they say. The first taste is free.

It's a slippery slope. First you're playing through mental movies of you starring in that thing that gives you life, the next, you're resentful of the restrictions that come with working inside someone else's constraints. I mean it's a stupid rule that Sponge Bob can't fly, right? So you shift worlds - you create a new construct, one that's all your own, one that won't hold back your imagination. The world you create may be based off of something that already exists - whether book, game, TV show or movie, but you'll have tweaked it to suit you. And that's it. You're hooked on world building. You're spending your time debating the finer points of whether magic that requires blood makes the mages of your world vampires and if it doesn't, where exactly IS the line between blood mage and vampire? (Do they ever cooperate? Share blood recipes, maybe?)

World building is a game, one that begins with 'what if?' and ends in narrative structure, conflict and some kind of resolution. You mix and match and create something wholly new. Like a mad scientist. Oh. Oh. Do you suppose this makes one of us here the Walter White of fiction?

Worldbuilding Indulgences: Quantity Varies by Subgenre

What worldbuilding do I do that isn't necessarily about the story itself but is a personal indulgence? It depends on the subgenre I'm writing.

There is so much worldbuilding necessary in second-world fantasy--the kind of story that doesn't take place in a recognizable period on Earth--that everything I include has to be relevant to the story; otherwise, the worldbuilding dominates the plot and character development...or I end up with a 300k tome. The first round of cuts I do in my second-world fantasies are the TMI details of the world. Does the reader really need to know where the water is sourced? Purified? Only if there's a plot-relevant problem with the water--scarcity, poisoned, monsters--or if an important character is employed in that industry. Infrastructure usually takes the first hit in the cuts, because I absolutely write that info in the draft. The administrative necessities of running a nation/tribe/horde? Again, it gets cut if it's not plot-relevant. A little bit of mundane is necessary, but too much can bog down the pacing and distract from the story rather enhance it. Weeds. I know them too well. Alas, getting lost in them is part of my process of immersing myself in the world I'm creating. Gods bless editing.

In contrast, for my upcoming Urban Fantasy series (releasing Jan 30th!), the worldbuilding there is all about pointing out the uncommon amid the common. That is where I allow myself the luxuries of sneaking details that--if they were missing--wouldn't impact the plot. Silly things like how dust is applied to shelves or why guys are wearing flip-flops in the dead of winter. I indulge my love of creating fantastical explanations for the one-offs in our everyday lives. I try not to be heavyhanded with them, but they do make me snicker.

In the end, worldbuilding indulgences are a lot like pepper on pasta. Flavor enhancements.