NaperWriMo Wiki

Intro

• Get all of your ideas down; as it changes, write that down.
• 20 people in attendance

Worldbuilding & Character - Anna Gabrielli (OddSoul)

• slides
• Scene Settings Activity
• Top Down and Deeper worksheet
• Top Down Worldbuilding Worksheet
• Worldbuilding Workshop Sources and Stuff

Genres of participants

• Fantasy ...
• Mystery .
• Thriller
• Dystopian humorist
• Womens ficiton
• Historical
• thriller SF
• modern day FS
• YA Contemporary Fantasy
• Speculative ficiton
• Memoir
• General
• Horror/adventure

Objectives

• Providing you with tools to approach your story in different ways

Story

• Plot
• Character
• Setting - provides a context for the story
• Conflict is the story glue that ties the other three elements together (they grow and change and play off each other)
  • the way the characters interact with the world and each other
  • the tension that results

Worldbuilding approaches

• Build the macro aspects of the world first
  • elements are well-integrated and make sense
  • BUT it is very time-consuming and it delays story development (worldbuilder's disease)
  • when you craft everything, it becomes TOO logical
• Bottom-up - build the character or plot first
  • immediately useful for storytelling
  • only necessary details
  • BUT can develop inconsistencies
  • AND it can feel shallow
• Top down and bottom up combination
  • immediately useful for storytelling
  • maintains overall consistency
  • BUT can also be time-consuming

Top down approach

• Differences with developing a real place vs. fantasy places (in your own head)
  • real world places require more research
  • you can focus the areas of research depending on what your character does and what your story will be
• How do you figure out what to put in, what to leave out when planning your novel? Hard to judge of what goes into 50K words
  • put everything in; when you revise it, you can add in other things
  • focus on the essential story
• Two aspects
  • physical setting - things that exist even without people
    • natural setting aspects: plains, islands, trees, flora/fauna, moons, planets, climate, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans
    • this affects the cultural things (e.g., islands will have more isolated cultures; different food and clothing if the climate is warm or hot)
  • cultural setting - things that exist BECAUSE of people
    • language
    • architecture
    • clothing
    • food
    • customs / traditions
    • religions
    • political institutions
    • governments
    • art
    • social classes
    • gender
    • education
    • age
• Choose 2 or 3 elements that you find fascinating--what do you want to write about? (will help you stay interested in your story), then build your world around these things.
  • mountains
  • food
  • art
  • maybe the mountain region is difficult to live in
  • Santa Fe
  • gourmet food presented as a piece of art
  • compostable art made out of food
  • cook who wants to be an artist
  • reality tv cooking contest where people have to make mountains out of food
  • foraging for food
• Goal: extrapolate as much as possible
  • who would inhabit this world? What would they know about the world?
  • who would benefit from the structures of the world? Who would struggle? Who would love it? Who would hate it?
  • if difficult to find food on the mountain, everyone would struggle; people who enjoy nature might
  • How could the system be exploited?
  • What kinds of jobs exist?
  • Think about the little things and every day things--these are what your character interacts with the most
• Look for sources of conflict
  • the character with the most at stake = the main character

Go Deeper rather than broader

• Show a fewer number of things more deeply rather than a wider number of things.
• These smaller number of things well-explored will feel wider than a large number of shallowly-explained htings
• Focus on how story/character intersects
• Show the implications/ramifications
  • how/why
  • smaller details will imply the larger world aspects
  • this will give a broader sense of the world
• More details can be layered in later if necessary
• Things the character and the reader can experience first hand; the way the character feels about those things will imply the larger picture of the world.
• Not everything needs an explanation or can be explained (it can't)
  • there are limitations of science and knowledge; historical stories have been lost or purposely destroyed
• Think about what your character would know about or care about.
• Follow the awesome (what are you interested in)

Activity: Top down worldbuilding -- going deeper - guided brainstorming

• an island
• dragons on the island
• dragons are to be feared but also reverenced
  • dragons are gods
• dragons have taken people
  • why? to be their servants or slaves
  • maybe they take representatives (sacrificed) - strongest, prettiest, smartest
• not allowed to kill the dragons
• advanced society takes advantage of the less advanced people
• slaves work with the dragons, have intimate knowledge and understand/respect dragons more than the common people
• Where are the resources?
  • fresh food; people -> above
  • engineering, metals, chemicals -> below
• climate is more hostile above ground
• Below-ground is safer but no fresh food
• Upper class is below
• dragons are picky eaters; they need people to prepare food for them
  • dragons are herbivores (vegetarians)
• uprising from those above the ground
• culinary schools down below
• chief of the tribe up above benefits from the fear of the dragons
  • people with the missing kids don't like the status quo
• dragons like the status quo
  • farming dragons in the end
• People who don't like living underground aren't happy
• inciting incident
  • chief's child disappears--rigs the selection so that she was chosen
    • she got to know one of the dragons (mutual respect)
• complication
  • someone up above who loves the chief's daughter wants to lead a raid on the dragons to rescue her
  • someone down below has come to love the chief's daughter (after she arrives)
• group 1
  • people who live on a river (crafts aren't powerful enough for the oceans)
    • an ocean
  • land people have a more expansive world with easier resources than the river people
  • two moons: river people honor one; land people honor the other
  • boats are very important to them (an art form that is familial)
  • house boats created over time (take pride)
  • river people: believe that it is safe to leave the river when their moon is full.
  • river is in a ravine (cliffs to get to resources on the land they need for their boats)
  • if river people explore when not a full moon, they can be enslaved (but they don't know what happen to the river people who disappear); they are then considered dead to the river people.
  • fishing is one of the most important productions
  • an astrologer helps to track the moons; there will be periods of time when both moons are full (dangerous)
• group 2
  • we, too, have a river
  • Riverwalk in Naperville
  • years ago was a quiet place for nature; now there are restaurants, kayaks, tourists and crime
  • find a dead body in the Riverwalk
  • person is a worker in the Naper Settlement, a blacksmith
  • there are people who love enjoying the Riverwalk; there are others who live 10 minutes away but stay away because of tourists
  • expanding and tearing down the library; protests
• group 3
  • Victorian England
  • Language and Art (Dickens, Austen)
  • fog
  • cityscape
  • class
  • conflict: out of class and what would happen if Jane Austen got stuck in the slums of the city
  • why would she be stuck there as an upper class lady?
  • having to write letters and not having phones or electricity
  • conflict between Austen's Victorian world and Dicken's Victorian world

Bottom Up

• Going from something smaller and building the larger world around the smaller details
• Build character first
  • Questionnaires
  • Profiles?
• You can put characters into different situations, generating a lot of stories
  • having a strong character really helps
• There are many character building tools, asking questions about trivial things
• I like building characters on the bigger things
  • what they are afraid of (you can make them face that fear)
  • what they love (you can put this at risk)
  • what they are afraid of
  • what situations make them feel least at ease
  • biggest vulnerability
  • what makes the character feel real is how they interact with other characters (knowing how other characters see that character) -- other characters seeing how that person is
  • characters can be different people around other people or in differrent settings
  • what places do characters go to when they want to feel at ease
  • where do they spend most of their time
  • what do their spaces look like
• When you have a basis for a character's fear, you can ask HOW and WHY
  • what kind of world would make a character feel that way
• We are all products of our environment and our experiences; they affect how a character sees the world
• Does the character fit in or stand out in the world?
  • what makes them uncomfortable?
• What places are important to the character? Who might be present there?
  • everyday places
  • emotionally charged places: love/hate/avoid
  • developmental places: milestones, memorable vacations, etc.
• You can write a character in a prequel to your novel; this can help instantiate them.
• Do some freewriting on the character in your head (doesn't have to be interesting). What do they notice or feel about the world.

Scene Settings Add up

• Brainstorm scene settings
  • what makes sense for your character (what places would your character want to go) and story
  • what does the character need? What are the character's goals?
  • use the emotional impact on a character to brainstorm scenes
  • go with the obvious and convenient place ONLY when you have to (better to choose something unique)
  • details give clues to a greater sense of the world. E.g., a scene in a character's house, the type of decor, small details will build a sense of the whole house and the character's reactions to that. E.g., express a character's dissonance with a house if they have a bad relationship with a parent in that home.
• Look for conflict and complications between a character and their environment
  • how can the world make things harder for the character
  • obstacles, people who might provide tension with the character
  • how comfortable does the character feel in that place?

Activity: Building up from scene settings

• Make the scene unique (e.g., based on time of day, season)
• What kinds of people might exist in that setting
• Something from the character's past that would make this more personal
• Kingdom, character has to flee (parents killed); ultimately, she wants to return
• at the very beginning
• she and her twin brother are two years old; parents still alive
• open the kingdom to the world around them (trade), inviting others
• then a group wants to take over the kingdom (kill the king)
  • they instill fear in the kingdom
  • marries the queen then kills her
  • royal guard saves the kids, give them new identities (5)
• the kids see the mom killed
• in the castle, the guy has married their mom
• normal day after that
• two of them have to go to sleep (in their bedroom)
• midnight
• Leader of queen's guard comes into the room and say they have to leave
• as they are sneaking out, the mom was the one who commanded her guard to do this
• they see their mom talking with the group of bad men; the husband killed the queen with a kitchen knife
• he wants sexual relations with her but she refuses
• palace
• kids are in the palace wall (cracks in the mortar) in the brick
• dark back there
• head of the guard claps hands over the mouths of the kids
• kids are trained to not reveal any sounds; or sister claps a hand over her brother mouth
• they thought it was a rat
• the princess had earlier taken her brother through this tunnel for fun
• group 4
  • main characters are a brother and sister (5-7)
  • parents are king and queen in a kingdom
  • king and queen open up the kingdom for trading and cultural exchanges
  • a group of people from another country enter with bad intentions
  • kill the king in secret
  • leader forces queen to marry him
  • he wants her, but gets frustrated and wants to kill her
  • the kids go to sleep one night, around midnight, the leader of the palace guard was sent by the queen to get the two kids out of the kingdom
  • the kids are being escorted out of the castle, taking a secret tunnel the brother and sister played in
  • they see their mom with the leader; he gets frustrated and kills her
  • two kids see their mom die
  • they have to leave, dealing with the grief and shock that happened where they had happy memories
• group 2
  • detective who hangs out at the Empire bar, the roof
  • bartender keeps Old Style on tap, only beer he likes
  • it is upstairs, November (quite cold)
  • he's the only one there, there are Christmas decorations (aggravating, it is Nov beginning)
  • distracted by the sound of a dish breaking in the kitchen
• group 4
  • young lady in Victorian England, visiting from somewhere else
  • late in the day in the market, England fog rolls in, she is separated from her family
  • falls into the Thames (filled with sewage)
  • rescued by a group of 12 year old boys (thinking they would get a reward)
  • she has no money to offer them; they take off; she follows them back to where they live (tent city)
  • other women there see she is dressed better; they take her clothes and give her their clothes
  • she is stuck there--doesn't know how to get back (but she comes from a completely different level of society)
• group 1:
  • superheroes
  • two part room: new superheroes are brought in; tested on one side of a glass wall
  • one is hanging mistletoe in the observation area
  • they bring in a new superhero
  • they give him a serum to calm him down, breaks wall, reptile man (best superhero) is slowed because of the cold
  • kids escaped
  • hates Christmas, goes to the mall to kill Santa
  • feels a bit out of place in the Mall
  • he notices that Santa's elf is a lost love of his. She manages to talk him down.
  • "you used to work at the footlocker, I work at the ..."
  • "Thank God we've connected again"
  • go to the winter formal (she in her Elf outfit, he covered with broken glass)
  • he discovers she is actually an elf but pretended to be human so she could go to high school