Building A World
To keep me motivated and progressing on my fiction writing, I have added a new word count status section within The Write Stuff section in the sidebar. My ultimate goal is to write around 5000 words a week on fiction pieces but I think, like most things, I will have to build up to that. I need to get into the habit of writing regularly before I can set stretch goals. So my first goal is to get into the writing habit and achieve at least 1500 words a week. I am hoping publishing my progress and having you hold me accountable will be a great help. I'll start each new week on Sunday.
I made time to work on one of my novels last week and it felt great. I was busy creating history by developing independent scenes of the world that my characters live in before the story begins. This has been incredibly helpful because this is a fantasy novel and a good deal of it will take place in a world I have to create. The world exists before the story starts so I need to understand the world before I start. To aid in this, I started writing short scenes about the environment and the lives of my characters. Some of the characters have been secondary, some throwaway, but all have been important in helping me get a feel for life in this new world.
I wrote about the character whose job it is to awaken before the rest and prepare the early meal for everyone. I wrote about the leader’s mate, who may or may not be alive by the time the story begins. I wrote a scene about a young boy and his often absent caretaker. I wrote a scene describing the great hall in which these creatures gather and another about the leader’s private living quarters. I wrote paragraphs just about the lighting and atmosphere. I can now visualize the world and explain with a lot more clarity what a day in the life there is like.
My friend calls this act of creating history “world building.” I like that. It is empowering to have the ability to create a world from nothing but your imagination and keyboard clicks. It can also be overwhelming because I want this world to be new and fresh to the reader and at the same time I want the reader to quickly feel at home so that they want to stay. My mind keeps going back to two books I read that created new worlds, Wicked by Gregory Maguire and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. In Wicked, I felt lost most of the time. The book was written using vocabulary that was difficult, if not nearly impossible, to recall and understand. I am not discounting the skill of creating a new language and a new world as he did but this book was not a pleasant read for me. I never felt engaged in that story.
Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid's Tale, on the other hand, was beautifully written. Though it took place in a fantastical world, it was still familiar and easy to navigate through. When she used different vocabulary, she used words whose meanings were easily interpreted by the reader. I felt involved in the story, not hopelessly on the outside. That is what I wish to accomplish with this novel.
fiction, goals, writing in About Writing 
Reader Comments (3)
I always enjoy Atwood. I'm commenting simply to say that I'm reading her right now - "Oryx and Crake" and it's very enjoyable for a dystopian novel. After reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, which I found very painful and repetitive and pointless and so terribly disappointing, it's a pleasure to see Atwood's take on the end of the world.
Ooh, I don't have that one yet. Will add it to my "Bulk up my bookshelves with Atwood" list. Thank you!
This process is fascinating. I look forward to hearing more about it!! I don't recall that feeling about Wicked, although I think I found the entire book so strange and different that it was probably rolled up into those feelings. Good luck, hon! :)