THE RELIGIONS OF YOUR WORLD
In our continuing series on world building, you cannot forget about “relijjin.” Yup, that often uncomfortable subject that quite often gets people riled up, fired up, on their toes and ready to rumble. There are many ways to use belief systems that color your world. We’ll discuss that now.
WHY USE RELIGION AT ALL?
There’s no rule book that says you have to use religion in any book you write. It’s purely a matter of taste and whether the story calls for it. It can be a matter of plot or just color. If neither calls for it, don’t add it “juss cuz.” There has to be a reason. On the other hand, if you’re creating a world, such as in fantasy, it adds more realism and color to have real-world cultural thingies like religion, just as there are different languages.
REAL-WORLD FICTION
This plays into regions as much as the characters you utilize in the story. If you’re in South America, Catholicism is going to play into local religion. If you’re in the Middle East, Islam is going to be hard to avoid.
Here in the You Ess And A, it can be a mixed bag of beliefs and you can go with one of hundreds of beliefs based on region, or any grab bag you want.
On the other hand, you can mention no religion at all if you choose. It doesn’t HAVE to be part of your world.
I must mention that by religion, this could also include atheism and agnostic and non-religious beliefs, because after all, they are beliefs – philosophies of life. If they somehow play a key role in the story, use them.
FANTASY OR SCIENCE FICTION WORLDS
In world building for fantasy and science fiction, religion and belief systems are hard to ignore when creating your world. They’re integral parts of almost any society. With that comes the complexity of rules, prejudices, rituals, icons, and all the trappings. How far you want to go with it is up to you.
Does said religion dominate the story?
Does it only play a minor role?
Does this religion affect the plot?
Is this religion just color?
IS THE RELIGION OR LACK THEREOF A POLITICAL OR PHILOSOPHICAL STATEMENT?
This is where things get dicey.
It’s one thing to add real-world authenticity to your story, regardless of genre. It’s quite another to add an agenda. If it’s simply reflecting your observations of the world, fine.
On the other hand, if you have an agenda, watch out.
If you’re out to preach, you could alienate a lot of readers.
You have to step carefully when you add in a religion and start doing stuff with it that comes off not only as preachy, but promoting a specific agenda.
If you slip a bit of philosophy in and not shove it down the reader’s throat, that’s one thing.
If you bludgeon them over the head with it, jerk them out of the story with blatant preaching or bashing, you’ve not only violated their trust, but alienated them as future readers.
What you now have done is made yourself a pariah.
SUMMARY
Religion can be used to great effect to color your world. It can also be avoided if so desired. Either way, if used correctly, it’s a tool to help your world come to life. Used incorrectly, it can ruin a good thing.
Choose wisely, Grasshopper!
Happy writing!
THE LANGUAGES OF YOUR WORLD
I’ve alluded to languages in several other articles here at Fred Central, so I wanted to get that out right up front. In this one, since we’re specifically on a roll with world building, languages is an important part of that effort and should be addressed on its own. Recently, fellow blogger Richie Billing brought it up as well. Lately, we’ve been following similar paths with world building, and he specializes in fantasy, where my usual output is more in general terms. I’ve been concentrating on world building, with an emphasis on fantasy because of several Facebook threads I’m a member of. You can check out his wonderful articles at https://richiebilling.com/
Whenever you create a world, whether real life or made up, people speak to each other. They communicate in some fashion or tuther.
How they do that is important.
REAL WORLD FICTION
With real world fiction, it’s pretty simple. If your story takes place in Spain, some of your characters are going to speak Spanish. Therefore, you need to sprinkle certain phrases and idioms specific to the regions in your story to give it authenticity. If the story takes place in Russia, same thing.
If you have characters from such and such a place, they may say an occasional word or phrase in their native tongue.
SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY
This is a case where we can mix both genres together. Since they take place in alien/fantasy worlds, whatever languages exist are purely up to you, the author’s imagination. You can use any words, phrases, names for said languages you want. The alphabets, symbols, context, virtually anything is entirely up to you.
The only caveat is that, like with any other form of world building, you have to follow your own rules!
RESEARCH
When it comes to languages, research only applies to real-world languages. For instance, if you’re going to use a Castilian Spanish speaker from central Spain, they might pronounce the word for the number five “cinco” as “thinko” if they’re of the older generation. This is something the younger generation of Spaniards doesn’t necessarily adhere to anymore. THAT is what you need to think about when you utilize a non-native tongue, especially when you’re site-specific in your story. Otherwise, you have to keep your choices vague.
That’s only one example, but illustrates my point. When you cite a foreign language in your story, you have to keep in mind regional dialects versus Berlitz, Rosetta Stone, or just looking it up on the net in a generic translation dictionary.
You may never be called on it, but…
In completely made up languages, this is, of course, never a problem. However, you have to establish your own rules and make sure to follow them. There are some readers out there who actually keep track! I’m not kidding. If you pronounce “lool,” or use it one way in chapter 1, then a different way in chapter 10, they’re going to call you on it.
USING ALL THESE “FURRIN” TONGUES
Now, the critical part.
It’s one thing to create and utilize these furrin’ tongues.
It’s quite another to make them palatable to the reader.
There’s nothing more annoying that to try to slog through sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, page after page of Cho’’trak’ga’ga’bleadet’ta’quoi’ga’a’a’agdta’aaaa’fa’da’.
Get it?
It’s okay to throw in the occasional foreign word or phrase, an off-kilter pronunciation, an accented phrase.
On the other hand…
NOBODY LIKES TO READ IT ENDLESSLY!
It’s annoying to try and read not only a slew of unpronounceable words and phrases, but using that tired and true trick of putting them in italics.
Sorry folks, but that italic trick doesn’t work. It’s annoying.
The point is, you need to create the impression of the language, not actually write it!
There can be many languages in your world. There can be many words and unique rules and pronunciations.
DON’T BEAT THE READER OVER THE HEAD WITH THEM!
Sprinkle them in very small doses. Create the illusion that they’re there, don’t actually saturate the text with them.
The text should be English (or whatever native language you’re writing in), not foreign gobblety-gook (and English might be that foreign gobblety-gook).
You get my point, right?
Whatever main language the book is written in, THAT should be the dominant language, NOT the foreign languages, whether made up or real-world.
SUMMARY
Languages are an important part of world building. They align with culture, races and regions. They should be represented, but should not dominate and get in the way of the writing or the story. They should not jar the reader out of the story.
Happy writing!
THE PHYSICS OF YOUR WORLD
Okay, as part of my world-building series, I cannot leave out the uh…rather uncomfortable one, at least for some of us. That’s the physical world. First, I have to give you a little bit of background.
I’ve been into astronomy, or rather telescopes, telescope making and looking “up” for over fifty years. I’ve had at one time, a deep fascination with the mystery and the wonder of outer space and what might be going on above our breathable air.
Telescopes was the only way I could reach out and touch that outer everything physically, by reaching out to the time machines of photons travelling toward earth, and seeing them in an eyepiece. Why did some of that stuff happen and what formed it? At first I wanted to know until I actually got into the science part of it. Then what I discovered about real astronomy, the stuff you think you know about the subject, was just a glorified math class in high school or college. It involved not only (to me) incomprehensible math, but the very subject of our article today, physics.
I can tell you, if I didn’t have such a deep passion for the mechanics of telescopes and the visual beauty of just “looking up,” all that math and physics would’ve just sucked the life right out of my interest in “astrominny.”
To this day, I don’t really prefer to be called an amateur astronomer. I like to think of myself as a visual observer who happens to use a telescope. However, for simplicity’s sake, and so as not to pick at straws, I just leave it as an amateur astronomer. Why complicate things?
It all boils down to physics. The physics of astronomy in that case. However, the physics of your world is something that doesn’t have to be bogged down in math.
REAL-WORLD FICTION
In real-world fiction, your physical world is already built for you. The rules are already there. All you have to do is follow them. That means your research should be focused on getting the weather right, making sure you know your guns, using any astronomical phenomena correctly, any other physical things that any normal person would know.
Pretty simple.
SCIENCE FICTION
With science fiction, when you actually build a world, by the confines of the genre, you have to comply with certain scientific theories. In other words, you can’t just break every rule of physics without completely losing credibility. You have to be a lot more careful when you do something that’s scientifically impossible. Now, if it’s something that’s theoretically possible but hasn’t been proven true yet, that’s one thing. When it’s something that’s been theoretically thought of as false, but someone is still trying to make it work, go ahead and stretch.
However, when you go so far as to do something that has been clearly proven impossible, or something that nobody has ever thought of and is clearly not possible, think hard before you use it. You may still be able to get away with it, but at the same time, your book may be ridiculed, or it may be re-categorized as fantasy. If so, it might not be accepted in that genre because it really isn’t. Things to consider.
FANTASY
Fantasy is where your physical world is what you make it. This is the one case where you make up your own rules. If it always rains up instead of down, if salt is hot and pepper is salty, if water isn’t wet, those are your physical rules. You’re free to do just about anything you want, even if it doesn’t make physical sense in reality.
However…
It HAS to make sense within your world. It cannot just be nonsense. It cannot be there just for shock value, or “color” to jar the reader. It has to have a reason.
The key is that whatever super-fantastic physical rules you make up for your world, you need to stick with them and make sure that physical these effects parlay into other effects that correspond.
If water travels uphill, make sure you have lakes on the top of mountains, not in the valleys.
RESEARCH
One of the fun things about creating a world is that you may or may not research. Some love the idea of research, while others loathe it.
If you want to throw some realism into your fantasy world, such as when it comes to medieval weapons, research real sword and axe and halberd fighting through an Age Of Chivalry group. If you want it to rain acid, maybe reach out to a volcanologist.
When it comes to real-world or science fiction writing, you have to research or keep the details so vague as to not get yourself in trouble. It’s almost inevitable you’ll have to do some.
SUMMARY
World building can be a fun experience. Whether you map it all out, or like me, do it on the fly, there’s a sense of accomplishment knowing you created something unique and all your own.
Happy writing!
THE INHABITANTS OF YOUR WORLD
In the second part of this geography lesson, I’m going to talk about the inhabitant side of the geography angle. Like I alluded to in the previous article on geography, it’s taught less and less in schools, to the point that most younger people nowadays don’t even know what it is…or that it has two parts.
I that last article, I talked about physical geography, or the landscape of your world. In this one, I’m going to talk about the inhabitants, or the people and critters (icky bugs), monsters of your world.
REALITY
It goes without saying if you’re writing a real-world story, you need to get your facts straight. If your novel takes place in Spain, for instance, and it’s up north near the French border, you can’t discount the Basque population. If it takes place in Eastern Turkey, you can’t discount the Kurds.
You also have to consider languages spoken throughout these places. Just considering here in the You Ess And A, or how about good ole’ Canada and Quebec? You can’t ignore French Canadian and the French speaking population up there.
Right here in the Southwest, there’s a heavy Spanish speaking populace which could come into play in your story.
FANTASY
A fantasy story is a completely made up world. There are certain tropes that one does NOT have to comply with. Many readers expect a certain amount of them, but who says you have to use any, or all of them?
There should be regions within your world where there are populations of “whatevers.” They can be a certain creature or creatures, they can be a mix. They can be anything you want. How you decide and what you base them on is up to you, they just have to make some kind of geographic sense.
WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF YOUR ICKY BUGS?
Most fantasy and science fiction has fantastical and alien icky bugs (monsters/creatures/beings). What’s your source?
Many use the standard Tolkein/D&D tropes and sources and tweak them to make them their own.
We have elves, dragons, dwarfs, vampires, zombies, faeries, and usually, but not always humans, and just about anything out of the D&D monster manuals. You can take real-world animals and alter them to make them your own. Many take inspiration from the D&D manuals and tweak some of those monsters into their own versions not only to make them their own, but also so as not to violate copywrite.
Others have never read or seen those old manuals and just make stuff up on the fly.
RULES
Now, you’ve created your critters as you go along if you’re a pantser, or if you’re an outliner, you created your stock of beasts beforehand (and maybe added a few along the way).
Now, you’ll need to create rules of geography and rules of physics for these creatures.
Where can they exist, and what regions are they restricted to? What kind of climate can they tolerate? Where do they thrive and what areas do they avoid? What kills them and what makes them stronger? Where do they hide out, what kind of burrows or hovels do they live in?
Your heroes are, of course, going to run into these beasts, whether friend or foe, along the way, so you need to set up the time, place and conditions for them.
This, of course, not only goes for icky bugs (a loose term), but for civilizations as well.
You then can’t just have a desert bug show up in the snow, right? That’s breaking your own rules (as an extreme example). If you do, you have to have a big reason for it, a logical one that affects the plot.
TYING IN WITH THE REAL WORLD
Even if you have certain monsters and real-world creatures mixed in to your fantasy world, they have to make some kind of sense. If they don’t, you either have to dump them or find a way to explain them to the reader so they make sense.
You can’t just create something illogical, even in a fantasy world. You have to give it some kind of logic, even if you’re making the rules. Those rules have to make some kind of sense to justify what you’re doing.
Sometimes, you may make a rule based on something you know for a fact from the real world. It may be something others may not think is real. In one of my recent readings to my writer’s group, I ran across this situation with one of the critiquers. He thought what I was doing did not make sense. When I explained, he still did not believe it until several other people chimed in because they knew exactly what I was talking about. It made sense to them because they’d experienced the same thing. As long as you can back it up with reality, you can use it, but it had better be reality and not just rumor.
Creating your own world and your own rules is fine as long as they make sense.
SUMMARY
World building can be a lot of fun, whether you do it on the fly, or map it all out ahead of time.
Geography, both physical and inhabitant is an important part of it.
Happy writing!
THE GEOGRAPHY OF YOUR WORLD
When you’re creating your world, as part of world building, you have to consider the geography. I’m not even sure if they teach that subject in school anymore. If it doesn’t apply to apps, well…never mind. If figured I’d have to ask my grandson if he even knows what geography is. Maybe they still do teach it.
In this article, I’m referring to the physical geography, not the human (or inhabitant) geography.
Since I originally wrote this a few weeks ago, I did an unofficial poll and added in this paragraph. My grandson knew basically what geography was, but hardly through school – mostly through his mom and us. As for other people, of course, the older ones were taught in school. My kids had some, but the younger kids nowadays, the millennials, so to speak, depending on where they go to school, are a mixed bag. Since Las Vegas is a melting pot, I got all kinds of weird answers and cannot pin down a particular region where they consistently teach geography, per se, in any particular school. So, the consensus I got was that it’s fading to be virtually non-existent, except a mild matter of interest because it’s not being taught to test. It’s not a universal requirement.
REAL-WORLD FICTION
For real-world fiction, it’s relatively easy to get the geography correct. It’s basically already written for you. All you have to do is a bit of research of the area where the book takes place, and you’re done.
The worst thing you can do as a writer is get the geography wrong! If your story takes place in Las Vegas and your characters have a chase scene through a tropical jungle, well…you have a huge credibility problem! That’s a drastic example, but, it illustrates my point. I used to get a kick out of the TV show CSI. They’d have scenes clearly taken down in Ellay (Los Angeles) or more likely, Santa Clarita, California, where the climate and geography are far from what it’s like in Las Vegas, even with the restrictive camera angles they used.
A more subtle error is naming the wrong river in a state or country. This can lose a lot of points with your readers.
FANTASY FICTION
In fantasy, this is where you almost have a free reign to set up your own rules of geography.
Are you going to follow the rules of science and physics from the real world?
Or…
Are you going to create your own rules and devise geography that’s completely whack compared to what you’d find in the real world?
Or…
Will your fantasy world be somewhere in-between?
Fantasy worlds are often a mix of fantastical elements with blends of science fiction. The science being alien worlds combined. That means throwing in a few twists that might be possible, just not on Earth.
DO YOU RESEARCH?
Sometimes I’ve seen the “Is this possible” questions on the forums, when it comes to geography. To tell the truth, I’m just glad these younger people are actually paying attention to a subject that’s getting less and less attention in school. I also wonder how many young people (or even older ones who never paid attention, or just forgot) even know what the word means. So, in a nutshell, I appreciate the question being asked. These people ARE doing the research, whether on line or by any other means.
Transition zones from desert to swamp, forest to tundra, whatever to whatever, are all geographic zones to consider in building your world. Right here on Earth, with a little searching, you can find all kinds of geographic extremes. There are many sources for this including, of all things, National Geographic, Google, and of course, on line forums.
If you want to stray from reality-based geography, just make it up on the fly. Why not? Just remember that it’s your world and if you’re going to create a rule, per se, stick with it or your readers will notice and call bull on you.
SUMMARY
Geography is a fascinating subject and is something that’s right under our feet. It makes our world a living, breathing part of our story. Use it wisely, Grasshopper!
Happy writing!
WHEN YOU JUST DON’T FEEL LIKE WRITING SOMETHING
This article isn’t about not having a muse, per se. That dreaded no inspiration thing, like writer’s block. It’s more about just no interest in a certain subject.
FLASH FICTION
I see all the time on forums challenges or prompts to come up with flash fiction. These are great writing exercises. They’re great ways to exercise your writing chops. To hone your skills. After being at this passion for twenty-four years now (as of this article), I love to write. I’ll write anything if I have a mind. However, I personally have no desire to write flash fiction. Does that mean I have no muse, no inspiration, no imagination?
Nope.
I just don’t feel like it. I have other things I’m more interested in.
Period.
I applaud those of you that write it.
WRITING CONTESTS
While I DO have a pet peeve about writing contests, especially ones where you have to pay to enter, I also will not participate in them for other reasons, which I’ve discussed before here at Fred Central. Without going into that detail, I will say that once again, I have better things to do. I’ll leave it to you that want to deal with the gamble and almost certain rejection. Pretty much like submitting blind to an agent, right?
If I’m going to write a short story, I’m not going to write it on any premise based on a contest. I’m going to write it because an inspiration hit me.
ANTHOLOGIES
I usually submit to my writer’s group’s annual or biannual (depending) anthology. I get rejected as much as accepted, so there’s certainly no guarantee. However, seeing as how it’s once a year or every other year, it’s about how often I feel the muse to write short fiction. If not, oh well…
There’s no real pressure. When the muse strikes, it is almost always out of the blue. It can be purely fictitious, something non-fiction like my latest submission, or who knows? Something in-between, like my last rejection. You never know.
Do the rejections ever discourage me?
Uh…not exactly, as my double-decade history should show. I still have every story I’ve ever written, rejected or tutherwise. The rejections are all waiting to be tweaked and resubmitted somewhere if I feel like it. In fact, some rejections HAVE been resubmitted at various times. One was even eventually published. I won’t say which one! On the other hand, one day if my luck ever explodes and I become a famous writer, I may save all the rejections for my own personal anthology and the world can decide.
WHEN ASKED TO WRITE A SPECIFIC SUBJECT MATTER
I was recently asked to write a short story for an anthology on a specific subject matter. That’s a cool idea on face value. I’d love to participate except for one thing.
I have (or had) no particular idea at the time.
Not only that, but I’m not going to force myself to come up with something because not only will I know that, the reader will pick up on it as well.
If the muse strikes, which looks like if it does, it’ll miss the deadline, I’ll just have to save that story for a different anthology.
The particular subject matter isn’t something I’d normally write about, so if I forced myself to write about it, it would be mercenary, which would make it technical writing. While I loved my job way back when – after all, I did technical writing for nine years – I was given the subject matter and source material and my creativity was on a different level.
On the other hand, as I write this, the perfect idea just came to me!
As it turned out, after I wrote this article, that inspiration turned into the perfect story and I whipped it out in about an hour. No starting, stopping, hesitating, going back and re-thinking. It just flowed out from A to B. There you go! Not forced, not mercenary. It hit me at the moment and I “whipped it out,” as Frank Zappa once asked his sax player (Ian Underwood) to do in the original Mothers Of Invention.
I might just make that deadline after all.
You never know.
Happy writing!
POV REARING ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN
Not only does the subject of point of view (POV) come up a lot in the writer’s forums I participate in, but it’s always on my mind. This is especially true around the holidays, when I usually get a batch of icky bug books from Amazon.
As often happens, I have to resort to that huge you-know-who on-line retailer for my creature feature novels because the only game in town physical bookstore doesn’t carry them. As often as not, the big six rarely, if at all, publish icky bug. If they do, it’s the standard fare by Dean Koontz and Stephen King and a select few other authors. Granted, once in a while these guys and gals hit one out of the park, but not that often. Let me backtrack a bit. Koontz used to all the time, while to me, King never did until his latest one. That’s just me. Then again, I never considered their work that much creature feature except maybe Koontz’s earlier work.
There are plenty of other authors in the past that have snuck through in the big six, but nowadays, I have to slog through the science fiction/fantasy shelves only to waste most of my time and come away empty handed.
Hence, I can go on-line to you-know-who and have instant access.
The only drawback is that most of these tomes are self-published, or of self-published quality. That’s not a slam at self-publishing per se, but an indication that these authors don’t have to follow any rules. Not that the big six necessarily do, either, especially nowadays, but it’s a lot more blatant with self-publishing, especially with creature features.
WHAT I GET
I got a big box of Christmas presents, per my choosing, chock full of icky bug. Creature features galore! I read one that was outstanding. I personally know the author, and knew what I was getting. In this case, I wasn’t disappointed. Score one five star.
My next one was a killer shark feature. Uh…let me back up a bit.
I’ll tell you right up front. The very first thing I do is check the “Look inside” feature on each novel. I scan through it, just like I’d do in the bookstore. I check that it’s in third-person, past-tense. That’s my only requirement at the outset. I don’t go any deeper than that because I don’t want to spoil the potential surprises.
What that quick scan doesn’t tell me is how well the author handles POV. I get that once I dig deep onto the actual reading.
In the case of the first shark story (there were a few more), oh boy! This turned out to be everything I wanted in icky bug. Lots of monster (one each), and plenty of mayhem. The ending was redeemable as well. The problem was the horrid writing.
There was NO POV whatsoever! The author head-hopped all over the place, not only within chapters, but within scenes right down to within paragraphs and from sentence to sentence. There was no way to get invested in any character. The only thing that saved this story at all was the limited number of characters so that I was able to latch on to the two hero cops that were sort of the MCs. Unfortunately, one was so unlikable right until the very end that it was hard not to root for him to get eaten.
Not only that, but the grammar, syntax and typos were reeking of self-publishing quality. At least the cover was great.
The third one was an alien icky bug and just like the shark one, the POV was all over the place. The head-hopping wasn’t quite as bad, but it was still bad. There was no way to get emotionally involved in the characters because I couldn’t get inside their heads when all of a sudden, it shifted to another character, then back and then on to another character. To top it off, the ending was a bummer. Score another three star for that one.
The next one in this batch was marginally better, writing-wise, but the point of view was all over the place, just like the shark one. So goes the rest of the batch. There were a few gems mixed with the duds. I sort of enjoyed all of them, but the ones I really enjoyed had controlled point of view and survivors, not to mention decent editing.
This is really disappointing that the only way to get good creature feature stories is with the same old lousy omniscient and head-hopping point of view with no emotional investment in any of the characters.
It just plain sucks!
WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE FORUMS
There have been multiple discussions on the forums lately about point of view and their various forms. I get a lot of flack for my opinions.
The biggest one is “why limit yourself?”
Ah duh!
After 60+ years of reading, I’ve had plenty of time to experiment around and find out what works best and what doesn’t.
I know my limit for self-torture.
I suffer enough already just reading third-person omniscient. I’m certainly not going to suffer even more with first-person or anything present-tense.
Yet, I have all these authors pressing for first-person, and present-tense and what’s even worse, mixed POVs. I find that very annoying and jarring. I’ve seen that style used lately from the big six as well.
I can see a POV shift when it comes to maybe a diary entry if it’s kept short. However, entire chapters?
Sorry, that’s pushing things.
I CANNOT SPEAK FOR EVERYONE AND DON’T INTEND TO
There are plenty of you who do not see things my way and that’s fine. I will not buy your books. There are people who will maybe buy one of your books, and never again. There will be people who will become huge fans. That’s great.
I know I’m also not alone I my feelings.
I’m just presenting my side of things.
Third-person past-tense CONTROLLED POV is by far, at least to me, the easiest and best way to write.
You don’t have to agree, but after 60+ years of reading, I’ve found that when I read a book and it’s done right, I don’t feel like I’m reading at all. I feel like I’m escaping into another world, and the writing is not getting in the way of the story.
I’m not having to overcome the writing to get to the story.
It’s as simple as that.
It may not fit your paradigm and that’s fine.
I know for a fact it DOES fit for a lot of others.
Happy writing!
The Worlds Of Fred Rayworth 