Ten Thousand Years Will Give You Such a Crick in the Neck!
Howdy to you lurkers out there! Camy puts us all to shame with her prolific postings!
Camy asked:
I like how you're so incredibly logical and methodical about this. I think I'd just throw some species into the story and make it up as I go. Do you really do all this before you write their story?
Yes & No.
This is the first time that I've ever attempted to go bit-by-bit and actually chronicle the race construction. Most of this is usually done in my head, with just the sketches as reference points. By the time I've got the species sketch and the planet sketch a story idea will already be beginning to form, and that helps kick start some of this other stuff.
I'm already getting to the point now where I’m really going to need a story framework to give me the characters that will unveil more of the world. But I’m not quite there yet. (I'm currently working on a new novel that takes place in a setting where all this stuff is still mostly just in my head).
Today we need to construct a timeline of major world events that occurred on Och over the past ten thousand years. These will be events that will have shaped the Krikicho culture worldwide in one way or another. May not have a direct impact on the story I end up writing, but will help when developing the characters. Some of this will correspond with similar biblical events on Earth, while others will be totally unique.
0 – Creation of Och, Fall of the Krikicho
2,123 – The great Freeze, the Ice caps form
4,620 – Ika'cho led through the Mikatha desert to found the holy nation "Ika'kroch"
5,032 – Krakicho Empire formally established, rules fifty percent of the exposed coastlines of Och
5,713 – Ika'kroch nation is absorbed into the Krakicho Empire
6,413 – Incarnate Savior
6,793 – Krakicho Epire fragments due to civil war
7,401 – First Deep-Sea Colony established.
8,240 – Chikaoch Syndicate's bid for world power thwarted through a catastrophic tech-plauge, 90% of Krikicho bio-tech killed.
9,352 – Ikochia declared Matriarch of the Kikako Sovereignty, begins campaign to bring all Krikicho under her banner.
10,000 - Classified
Obviously this is a very vauge time-line with large gaps and such. But the local history directly related to a story best comes from the characters themselves. What this does for me is help germinate ideas for legends & myths that may play into a story as well as what kinds of things characters may come across in terms of ruins from the past or ancient artifacts. And just helps get an idea of how the culture has been shaped.
Thoughts? Accusations?
Camy asked:
I like how you're so incredibly logical and methodical about this. I think I'd just throw some species into the story and make it up as I go. Do you really do all this before you write their story?
Yes & No.
This is the first time that I've ever attempted to go bit-by-bit and actually chronicle the race construction. Most of this is usually done in my head, with just the sketches as reference points. By the time I've got the species sketch and the planet sketch a story idea will already be beginning to form, and that helps kick start some of this other stuff.
I'm already getting to the point now where I’m really going to need a story framework to give me the characters that will unveil more of the world. But I’m not quite there yet. (I'm currently working on a new novel that takes place in a setting where all this stuff is still mostly just in my head).
Today we need to construct a timeline of major world events that occurred on Och over the past ten thousand years. These will be events that will have shaped the Krikicho culture worldwide in one way or another. May not have a direct impact on the story I end up writing, but will help when developing the characters. Some of this will correspond with similar biblical events on Earth, while others will be totally unique.
0 – Creation of Och, Fall of the Krikicho
2,123 – The great Freeze, the Ice caps form
4,620 – Ika'cho led through the Mikatha desert to found the holy nation "Ika'kroch"
5,032 – Krakicho Empire formally established, rules fifty percent of the exposed coastlines of Och
5,713 – Ika'kroch nation is absorbed into the Krakicho Empire
6,413 – Incarnate Savior
6,793 – Krakicho Epire fragments due to civil war
7,401 – First Deep-Sea Colony established.
8,240 – Chikaoch Syndicate's bid for world power thwarted through a catastrophic tech-plauge, 90% of Krikicho bio-tech killed.
9,352 – Ikochia declared Matriarch of the Kikako Sovereignty, begins campaign to bring all Krikicho under her banner.
10,000 - Classified
Obviously this is a very vauge time-line with large gaps and such. But the local history directly related to a story best comes from the characters themselves. What this does for me is help germinate ideas for legends & myths that may play into a story as well as what kinds of things characters may come across in terms of ruins from the past or ancient artifacts. And just helps get an idea of how the culture has been shaped.
Thoughts? Accusations?
posted by Stuart at 10:49 PM
5 Comments:
Dude, you are the only writer I know whose character backstory spans millenia and not just a few decades.
Camy
*points at Shannon(Shennandoah) and Lee(Loriendil)*
They're worse than I am ;)
Ask Lee about her moons sometime :)
I do worldbuilding before and during. I"m in the "during" part now. But in the before, I at least sketched out the various epochs (because we measure civilizations by epochs and changes), and what they were called and a phrase that typified it, and at least ONE major hero for each. I also based their numerical outlook on fives. I came up with a surname system configured from numbers and letters. I had to consider the governing system (though not in huge detail yet). I have identified a few major literary figures, and have had to create poetry to quotations. And now I'm working on the religious set-up.
I can't really write SFF if I don't have some idea of the feel and background of the world. It doesn't have to be 100 typed pages, but I have to have an idea. And because I'm literary, a lot of my worldbuilding has to include literary works and figures. In our civilization, we quote Shakespeare and the Bible and Bob Dylan and Cole Porter and Dickens. Well, I want my world to have the equivalents.
Mir
cool stuff Mir :)
I usually leave details like Heroes & works quoting of Literary to be discovered during the acutal writing through the various characters, since I'm anything but Literary :)
I always enjoy hearing how others go through the world creation process.
Ahem. Yeah, I am SO out of my league on this blog. As intriguing as it is, it blows my mind to read about this process. For a seat-of-the-pants writer like myself, I just get a vague idea in my mind, piece together a few sketchy details of my characters, get a little background to understand what drives them, and sit down at my computer to write.
Everything else happens as I go along. And specifics are enhanced or removed during the edit phase. But all this prep work beforehand would drive me absolutely nuts! (and no comments on already being there. *g*)
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