World Building- A Helpful Guide - Part 2

 World Building

A Helpful Guide

Part 2

The other half of writing your novel and building the world within is its people. We're all influenced by both history and pop culture. We look at the ancient Egyptians, seeing a grand people of many gods and interesting practices. With pop culture we see the lightsaber wielding jedi or a powerful wizard like Gandalf, thinking I want my characters like that. This is all possible within the story your writing. I wrote a manuscript where the people of a culture represented the rage of humanity. Humanities negative side mixed with a strict set of religious practices to be specific.

Your range of what the people are like within your novel is infinite and settling on specifics can be tricky. Look to what interests you or what you've been raised on for resources. Say your Japanese and love the culture of your heritage. You can use that along with say an interest in steampunk. This can make for an interesting combination.

I want to clarify I'm coming from the standpoint of a fantasy writer. You may write horror, romance or westerns in which case your influences for writing will be far different than mine.

To continue, creating the characters around your protagonist the use of the five senses is need. What do people smell like? Is the sent of your main character's spouse something he or she draws memories from? Comfort perhaps? Is the typical day noisy? Does your main character live in the desert, waking up to a dry taste on their tongue? All these questions can be answered with what you want the people, as well as the protagonist, to deal with in their day to day.

Beyond culture and the fives sense there is possibly the most important part of creating the people around your protagonist. Morality. This is where you can experiment on how right and wrong works. Humans tend to also walk the line on these two and the definitions can be subjective. Say your protagonist is a thief. Did he or she grow up not getting what they want thus forcing them into thievery? The people this character grew up around could be similar or completely different in upbringing.

A lot of this might not sound concrete, but world building really isn't until you start forming solid idea of what you want for story in your mind. That is why novels take time to be written. I ask that you don't put yourself on a deadline until earning the attention of a literary agent, editor, or small press.

This concludes both parts of World Building, A Helpful Guide. I hope both part one and two give you an idea of where to start. If you want to discuss world building with me check out Twitter. I'm under @hwjohnston7.