Last stream we continued our Rubbish to Published series, where we start from absolutely nothing and create something “publishable.”
We created an outline in the previous stream, so this time we took the next step: worldbuilding.
One of my favorite quotes is: “The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.” This was said by author Tom Clancy, and it’s so true. In reality, whatever happens, happens; you don’t need to convince anyone. But when creating a fictional world, you need to make sure that it makes sense, otherwise your readers will reject it.
The way we do that is by worldbuilding. We make sure the world we’re writing about has an internal logic to it.
My favorite way to worldbuild is to start at the macro level, then go down to the micro level, coming up with cool details along the way. And always asking two important questions: (1) how did it get like this? and (2) why does it matter to the story?
You can see what we came up with for our worldbuilding here:
MACRO to MICRO (BIG to SMALL) WORLDBUILDING
1) The world, the continents, the nations (BIGGEST)
(What are the relationships between them? What is their geographic symbolism? Do they share a border and are at war? Does an ocean separate them and they isolated from each other?)
- The world is post-apocalyptic. There was a giant unknown disaster that killed billions.
- Now as far as our characters know, they’re the last humans in the world, living in different tribes around a magical icy mountain.
- History (how did it get to be like this?)
- The world/Earth used to be great until The Author appeared and created conflict.
- She caused the apocalypse, and our story begins hundreds of years after that.
- The “magical ice mountain” is where the Author resides and her “frigidness” is what causes the snow.
- Connection (why does it matter to the story?)
- The Author resides on top of the mountain in the Artifact, which is what the adventurers will find at the end.
2) Cultures, societies, governments (BIG)
(What are the languages? Races? Social classes? Customs? Religions?)
- There are other villages around the mountain, and each year a different village has The Trials, sending two young people to try and retrieve the Artifact and bring it back to their home.
- History (how did it get to be like this?)
- The villages gathered around the mountain because hundreds of years ago, the artifact shone on top and spoke to them all and demanded that they do this.
- Connection (why does it matter to the story?)
- This year is Moonbeam’s village’s turn for The Trials.
- They run into kids from past Trials from other villages on the mountain.
3) Groups, organizations, businesses (SMALL)
(What are their different philosophies? Goals?)
- Medieval businesses that sponsor the Trial kids with stickers on their body/backpack.
- The Trialers (kids who are still on the mountain having failed), also known as The Trialed (they can’t agree on a name).
- Bandits who live on the mountain, they just live there like it’s no big deal, it’s their home.
- History (how did it get to be like this?)
- Kids can’t go back home after failing the Trials, don’t want to go forward either, stay on the mountain, maybe some of them turned into the groups of “bandits” on the mountain.
- Sponsorships seem like a silly thing at the beginning, but then when they climb the mountain, the Trialers see the advertisements and they order stuff,
- Connection (why does it matter to the story?)
- These are the groups that Moonbeam, Porf and Tiger will encounter on their journey.
- Meeting them will will make them change their mind about bringing the artifact home. They realize they don’t need to bring it back to their village, they can just use it themselves.
4) Individuals, daily life, things (SMALLEST)
(What food do they eat? What clothes do they wear? What animals/plants are there? What’s their daily life like?)
- Moonbeam hunts for food with her paper footballs
- Remnants of past civilization are found littered around (ie: clothes from Hot Topic that people wear)
- History (how did it get to be like this?)
- The Author caused the apocalypse on our Earth, so remnants of it remain/
- Moonbeam picked up a notebook one day (some old school notebook with notes) and it was all she had to fight with, tried making a paper football and it worked (maybe she was running from a buck/bear or something).
- Connection (why does it matter to the story?)
- Paper footballs are how Moonbeam will protect the three of them up the mountain.
- The remnants are what will foreshadow to the reader that there was an apocalypse, created by the Author.
Worldbuilding was pretty easy, since we’d already come up with so much information in the previous sessions.
But still, there were a lot of great surprises today. Even when we thought it might not be important to start at the top level (“world/continents/nations”), we actually found out a lot about our story by filling it in. Definitely take a watch at the links below if you missed it!
After that we moved on to today’s prompt, and chat voted for this one submitted by DannyMethane: “‘Nicole’ is the one who murders the people, in the morning Nick has no memory. Only a bloodstained wig and the taste of cherry lipstick.”
This was one that made me a bit worried at first, since I wasn’t sure how to take it in an interesting way. But once we started building our Idea Toolbox by asking questions, particular the question “Who is Nick?” we started getting some great ideas.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-9:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch Rubbish to Published or the writing prompts on YouTube, or watch the full stream on rerun until Twitch deletes it.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl, forthcoming November 2018.
Featured image: GAHAG