Hi, I'm not too sure of what things I should & shouldn't say here, so here goes something: I'm a zoology student (reaching my third year at uni) and volunteer aquarist, currently living in Wales. I do most of my work with cichlids and crabs, but also get to do some fun stuff with octopuses and mantis shrimps every now and again, which is a great source of writing inspiration! I've been trying to crack out a decent story for a few years now, but sometimes always I end up getting into a rut over Worldbuilding, as I feel like I need to know everything about the story's setting before I can get going with the actual plot. Because of this, my plotting isn't very good, so I'm hoping this forum will be able to help me generate some plotting ideas and motivate me to some writing down on paper instead of trying to figure out every nook and cranny of the world. My preferred genres are fantasy and new weird, but I've recently become rather interested in the superhero genre as well (surprisingly enough not due to the recent influx of Marvel movies). So... Yeah. Hopefully I can make some good contributions to the forum and not come across as too annoying
Hi there Seems like I am the first one to welcome you. I feel with you with regard to worldbuilding, man that is a pain in my backside! A teeny tiny piece of advice here.. stick to your characters and what they know about their world. A novel is not about you, the author, but about them Annoying? You are in good company if so
Thank you for the welcome! I am trying to limit the Worldbuilding to the perspective of the characters, but because I tend to work on fantasy stories, it means that I need to understand the setting in order to understand the character's perspective and what they would/wouldn't know... It's a vicious circle
Welcome! Glad to see my behind-the-scenes magic still works. Perfunctory links: Forum Rules and New Member Quick Start Question for you: Since I had to manually validate your account, did you still get the Welcome PM from me? I'm curious to know. Wrey
Oh well.. I am writing fantasy too but I am stuck inside my character's heads Give them backstory, make it vivid. Feel it, smell it, see it all around you. Let it colour your perspectives, and then you will know what to write, I promise. And you won't get stuck anymore. At times I think I live five lifes, my own and four others, at the same time. Try it with politics thrown in and THEN you can complain
@Wreybies yes I did get the welcoming PM! Not sure why the email thing didn't work though. @Lifeline oh goodness politics is hard to write, especially for someone such as myself who isn't very politically versed.
You know what? I used to hate politics! *snorts* now I hate them even more.. in a weird way. Love-hate describes it well So I am going to cheat, and write MCs who are not politically minded, but have to deal with them.. in their own way
Unfortunately the current story I'm planning out involves politics, but thankfully it's only involved from the character's perspective in a rather small degree. I needed to look into historic political relations quite a bit though, but the results were very interesting At some point tomorrow (or today, I guess, depending on what time zones people are in) I'm going to try formulating a post to aid in the Worldbuilding stuff. Is it more appropriate here to make a single thread with lots of questions, or to make multiple threads to address each question in more detail? I ask because I have questions on creating a plot, character development, some Worldbuilding stuff, and some questions about the genre in general for the same story, and I'm unsure how to go about organising it all. Edit: I hope the two of you don't mind, but I'm going to tag @Lifeline and @Wreybies here in case either of you would be willing to help.
Usually people just post in the specific subforums (i.e. Character development, Setting,..), that means different threads. We recently had a thread which combined all questions into one, I guess it depends on how in-depth you want your answers to be. Just try it, I don't think anyone will jump down your throat Try current political relations - this gets enlightening, I promise
