Post by account_disabled on Dec 30, 2023 4:33:01 GMT -5
Perhaps the biggest mistake a fantasy or science fiction writer can make on his first novel is to limit himself to creating a good plot and then start writing his first work, hoping to break into the world of genre literature. A story - any story, even a historical novel, a thriller, a western, even a mainstream one - is not only made up of plot and good characters, but also and above all of a well-defined setting . In creating the setting for his story the writer becomes a set designer, but also a historian and geographer, even a topographer in some cases. And also philosopher, theologian, biologist.
I certainly don't want to say that a genre author, or otherwise, must graduate in all human knowledge before being able to write his first novel. I just want to say that for genre fiction, more than for all the rest, an author must create his imaginary world from scratch : he must think about the so-called world building . The charm of world building The Special Data creation of an unreal, fairy-tale world - or the classic "galaxy far, far away" - certainly slows down the writing of the novel, because in this phase we are not writing anything, but we are "only" laying the foundations for our future story. If a story is based on a solid structure, a genre story is also based on a solid setting. Otherwise, as we slowly proceed with the drafting, it could all collapse on us at any moment.
World building, however, has its charm: the author is creating a world, he is a god who, in well over seven days, creates from nothing a reality that did not exist before, an alternative planet Earth or another similar planet to ours but with a humanity that, although identical to us, is not the one to which we belong. Remaining indifferent to this charm will make us write an incomplete story, full of inconsistencies, even gaps. World building is an integral part of the documentation. How to create an imaginary world? For my science fiction novel “R.” I had to create a post-apocalyptic world, insert the events into a specific nation, create a new world order, invent a society. Now everything is clear to me, even if I sent the plot to Serena, the midpoint expert , because I wasn't sure if my novel had this "central moment".
I certainly don't want to say that a genre author, or otherwise, must graduate in all human knowledge before being able to write his first novel. I just want to say that for genre fiction, more than for all the rest, an author must create his imaginary world from scratch : he must think about the so-called world building . The charm of world building The Special Data creation of an unreal, fairy-tale world - or the classic "galaxy far, far away" - certainly slows down the writing of the novel, because in this phase we are not writing anything, but we are "only" laying the foundations for our future story. If a story is based on a solid structure, a genre story is also based on a solid setting. Otherwise, as we slowly proceed with the drafting, it could all collapse on us at any moment.
World building, however, has its charm: the author is creating a world, he is a god who, in well over seven days, creates from nothing a reality that did not exist before, an alternative planet Earth or another similar planet to ours but with a humanity that, although identical to us, is not the one to which we belong. Remaining indifferent to this charm will make us write an incomplete story, full of inconsistencies, even gaps. World building is an integral part of the documentation. How to create an imaginary world? For my science fiction novel “R.” I had to create a post-apocalyptic world, insert the events into a specific nation, create a new world order, invent a society. Now everything is clear to me, even if I sent the plot to Serena, the midpoint expert , because I wasn't sure if my novel had this "central moment".