We had so much fun with our exercise this week: to read and attempt to critique the Very Bad Prose that Lindsey posted for us, courtesy
Dangerously Curvy Novels.
We are now fairly sure that, yes, it is terrible prose, and we all came away from it with extra determination to be aware of our reader's expectations, not only with
how a text should look on the page (typos, breaking up paragraphs, punctuation etc.) but also that
somewhere there needs to be a point. And if bad use of language and distracted narrative obscures the point ...? We'll likely chuck the book.
World-building
Thanks to Jerome for an informative and practical view into the art of world-building.
Two key starting points, especially for writers of fantasy, that you can't go wrong with:
Geography
A great place to start is by
drawing a map of your world because this will inform the action, the history of the land and its inhabitants, the character of the people/creatures ... it can also kick-start great plot ideas (e.g. How exactly are they going to cross that mountain range in winter? What if the delta is flooded?).
Magic
A writer should always be aware of
what exactly is possible to do with their magic (or new technology).
Say, for example, you have
a box that can record people's thoughts. There are many questions you can ask about that box:
- From what distance does it work?
- What happens when there are multiple people in the same place?
- Does it need to be calibrated to a person, or does it work on anyone?
- How big is the box?
- And so on.
You need to know the answer to
all of these questions, and fix them!
If a technology (or magic) is very powerful, look at all your scenes and consider if the problems your character faces could be solved with it, because even if your characters don't remember, your readers still will!
Secondly, remember that
all magic must come at a cost.
An exercise
Pick anything that could be the cost of your magic ...
e.g. What if the cost of casting a spell is a loss of air around the person casting the spell? What if you lose some hair when you use magic?
Now think about all aspects of that, and how this tension/friction will inevitably impact on the society's infrastructure, its culture, its religions, the world around the characters, the way those at either extreme would be treated, and so-on.
