#and I started worldbuilding and character building

[oscarwrites]

I might as well do a rough introduction for this project.

Genre-wise it's gonna be high-ish fantasy (medium-height fantasy lol?) and a heavy focus on romance. There is magic, but it's suppressed by a religious power, so the everyday life of the average guy is pretty low fantasy. But the magic will be important in the plot.

(Yeah, I know, I keep coming back to the whole "magic is forbidden" thing lol. Dragon Age's influence is hard to shake sometimes, but it does allow for very interesting conflicts and themes imo so... Bear with me lol.)

For the setting, I'm aiming for a Renaissance-inspired time period (it might change tho, who knows) and a South of France landscape/culture (that one is more set in stone, I think). So I apologize in advance for the hard to pronounce names lol. I gave names to the 5 main characters already and across all of those, there are already 'in', 'an' and 'on' sounds, oops.

The story focuses on a young noble from a city-state occupied by a neighboring empire and his two love interests (yes, I'm doing a love triangle, but, spoiler alert, it's gonna end in a poly relationship). His older sister is betrothed to the son of the emperor to reinforce control over the city-state and he accompanies her to the empire's capital city for the wedding.

Of course the main character and the prince fall in love and trouble ensues lol. The prince's bestie, a sexy knight who happens to be a woman in disguise gets in the way (and in more than one way), not to mention that the MC's sister has her own agenda.

Top that with the fact that the MC's body hosts a spirit that gives him healing powers since his childhood, and the looming threat of being executed if it's discovered ,and you get lots and lots of drama.

The themes are going to center around embracing subversion and healing the damage done by religious trauma. Or at least that's how I'm envisioning the story right now, it might evolve as I write.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

ooo i love it (viciously despise) when my brain wants to do five different things at once, it's So funny (i need to bite concrete)

[deoidesign]

Can you make a tutorial on how you world build and make ocs? I can't seem to make any people in my brain, but then when I try to come up with environments jobs, beliefs and little details to slowly come up with someone, I think: well I don't really know how people have influenced the world- it's a weird loop

To be honest, I don't think I can! Writing is an extremely personal process. The way I write is directly related to how I process things, what I find important in stories, years of my own analysis of my and other's writing, etc... The way you write will be unique to you, as well. But I can explain how I personally think of it.

The short answer:

Write. Write anything and everything, it's a tool to explore your ideas. Analyze your own writing, and write more. Then, as you discover which ideas you want to develop, write more to explore them more. You won't know what you want otherwise!

The long answer:

I think this kind of loop is common. It's easy to feel like everything needs to be done "at once," because our job as writers is to make elements logically fit with each other for our readers. But as you've discovered, developing multiple elements simultaneously isn't really possible, or at least is extremely difficult.

Personally, when I think of writing, I break it into three major elements; characters, world, and plot. As much as possible every scene explores one or more of these, and as much as possible these three things tie back into what I personally consider most important: theme.

Everything I do is in service of the themes I want to present. Without them my events feel aimless. It can take a while to discover them, but they're the core of my work. You will have to discover what you feel is the core of yours. Analyzing other media helps with this too.

Concepts in your brain exist in a state of infinite potential. But when you start writing you have to start making choices, which removes potential as you move forward... But you have to move forward anyways. If there's ideas you want to explore later, you can always explore them later.

What this ends up meaning, to answer your question, is that I don't think of my characters as "people in my brain" or my worlds as something people have influenced... Not at their core, at least. They are tools that I use to represent specific ideas. Obviously they're also my blorbos, but mostly they're serving a specific narrative purpose.

So above all else... Write. Write, and discover what you're writing about, and then start over and write with that in mind. Keep doing this. But you have to write!

[rita-rae-siller]

She is complete…. The Timeline is finally done. Nothing like outlining 35+ years worth of backstory lore only to have to start writing the actual story outline 🙃

[gophergal]

Behold, the six "unique" roles of Stonevale, one of the colonies in Fading Hollow.

I've been thinking about this setting a lot lately, including all the characters. Honestly, I want to make every cat individual under the hood, but that is slowly driving me mad. For now, here are six of them:

Chief Ra'shira - the leader. Aggressive, irritable, but fiercely loyal to kith and kin.

Deputy Haystalk - her second in command and gentle younger brother. He has spent the majority of his adulthood smoothing over the trouble his sister's temper causes

Raven, the Seer - religious leader and second eldest cat in the colony. A grumpy bastard for the ages. The only company he enjoys is Mera and his sister, Blueshell

Mera Yari-tsa - a lifelong queen who has had a paw in raising every litter in the past 50 moons, earning her great respect. The most knowledgeable midwife in the hollow

Acorn - a senior messenger. He won't retire until his former apprentice, Puff, is ready to mentor another cat to take his place

Puff - a young messenger. He seems empty headed and the wrong body type for his position, but he has a fantastic memory and a knack for social situations

[the-bigger-fish]

So like..... Does anybody have any advice on how to build an episodic series for their characters and setting and how to build that into a more continuous narrative going forward once everything's more established in the previous self contained-ish episodes?

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

The Sun and The Void

Venezuelan inspired high fantasy

follows a young outcast swordswoman taken in by her grandmother, the dark sorceress for a noble family, who relies on the magic to keep her alive after being attacked by monstrous creatures

and a young noblewoman who’s the shame of her family because of her mixed heritage and desire to use magic

both are manipulated by those with more power than them into a plot to free an ancient evil god

mineral based magic, politics, nonhuman MCs

[lovesickeros]

Darling: you hate me, it's written all over your face

Reader's resting b*tch face: what?

darling says it just to annoy you lbr. bc no matter how bad your resting bitch face is, the tsaritsa's is worse. darling has had years to learn how to discern the tsaritsa's mood when shes as reactive as a statue.

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

i adore world building because now my adorable little novel with the most fun mecore plot has practically the perfect, most rational society and i want to live inside it.

[baronessofmischief]

Rebel Moon on Netflix is sooooooo soso bad guys 😂 like at least there’s space Charlie Hunnam with a Scottish accent and sometimes the main character has a flashback where she has a better haircut AND there’s a sibling duo who have the best costumes in the movie but the story? The script? The movie structure? Cohesiveness? Absolutely terrible. And there’s still 45 minutes left

[noctiispiri]

is it just me but i can't play in/see 2fort the same way after watching emesis blue

what could be an average 8 hours on 2fort suddenly feels eerie and weird. everytime i go to a certain area my mind just flashes to a scene tied to it, its insane

probably just brainrot taking over again

[bureaumantic]

hey everyone! another day, another world thought up only to be cast aside into the infinite void of forgetfulness that was only spawned on a base instinct

Introducing King Andrew VII.

Andrew is 19. His coronation was yesterday.

He rules the Greater Realm of Colors, a millennia old constitutional monarchy. The largest nation in the world and considered the most important, Andrew has big boots to fill.

His father, King Andrew VI, died under mysterious circumstances. Whispers among the royal court spread rumors of poison.

Andrew was not the original heir. The throne would have fallen to his older sister, Luana. However, she unexpectedly committed suicide when told it was time for her to take her crown.

Amidst this intrigue, Andrew is woefully unqualified---and he knows it. Andrew is not prepared to take power. As a royal child thought to be out of the line of succession, Andrew was raised complacent---lest he develop a lust for power and... force developments. He was permitted to develop his creative passions. It was something that would make good impressions of the royal family and keep him content (supposedly. That's how you knew neither of his parents were artists). Point is, Andrew is an artist---not a king.

Andrew doesn't want to be king, but there's nobody to shift the crown to. He knows that if he abdicates, it would throw the nation into chaos as power hungry militants and politicians fight for control. His best hope is that he'll be forgotten in the history books and that nothing will happen during his reign.

Unfortunately, parliament doesn't seem to be aware of his wish. A growing number of seats have been going to a national militant party, whipping the realm's population into a radicalized frenzy.

Andrew has no clue what to do in the face of this growing concern. In fact, he'd have no clue what to do even if everything were perfect and normal. He has nobody to turn to for help. His family is gone and his advisors are manipulating him for personal gain. And he knows. And they know he knows.

In addition, his advisors are trying to rush his courting process, lest he die and leave neither heir nor partner. The problem is Andrew is having a sexual orientation identity crisis because he's young like that and they have no clue whether to get him a guy or gal or neither. At this point, they'd prefer if he were gay so they could just get him to adopt an heir. After all, it's easier to manipulate a 19 month old king than a 19 year old one.

Uh so I have no idea how to conclude this lorepost. Yeah. Poor Andrew. I'll probably do more lore with him. After all, there's like a big mystery about how his dad died and stuff. yeahhhhh

[birdietrait]

i’m starting a little solo homebrew game using cities without number, ironsworn: starforged and mythic 😌

[gingerwerk]

whats it like to just come up with a silly little fic idea, write it, and then move on? what it like to not have to feel the need to only write 200k+ word fics steeped in deep lore and world building? is it relaxing

[floral-hex]

no see I WILL write something eventually, I haven’t been putting it off, I’ve just been uhhhhh cultivating the story for a couple of years yeah yeah

[hematocephalus]

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