We learn something new everyday. Except for me. I learn something new every other day, because I'm smart! Yes, the irony was intentional. You need not look far. Sand dunes and snow are right in the centre of Europe, contained within one country, in Poland. I am well aware of the rivers routes, vikings, importance of roads, and reality of life in a real medieval village, where there'd always be some roads. If not Roman then made by those with whom they traded. I have a decent awareness of history and geography. I still appreciate it the info. The idea of losing contact with colonial settlements is an interesting one. There had been multiple internal colonisation efforts within Europe, so that could be it. And surely, there had to have been some remote villages where the Holy See could not see (haha) the pagan refugees. My wilderness would have to have no rivers, or have them not suitable for use as a highway. This is all interesting, and fine and dandy, but when I get down to the actual writing, I get stuck on things like the names of the piece of the equestrian equipment. I cannot know everything. No one can. Yet I can't help but make myself I feel like I should.
Do you actually want to be a writer? Genuine question. You say storytelling isn't your strong point, so... maybe you don't want do it. Maybe there's no reason to force yourself to do something you don't want to do. If your goal is enjoyment, and you're enjoying what you're doing, carry on doing it. Create wonderful, detailed worlds and explore them with your mind. Fun! Alternatively, if you do want to be a writer, ask yourself why. What is it you're hoping to find? Do you want a published book? Then figure out some characters and a problem for them to solve, and start writing. Or, as you seem to be a planning type, start outlining. (Although I worry that you may be one of the many people who gets totally caught at the pre-writing stage, in which case you could end up fussing over your outline for far longer than makes sense. Watch for that.) You don't need to research everything in the world before you start the story, you just need to research what information is relevant as the story is written. Honestly, though? Writing is hard work. I imagine it's especially hard work for someone who isn't a good storyteller. Maybe you just aren't interested in putting that kind of effort in. Totally understandable.
Hang ups will get you nowhere. Write a skeleton of the story and then add/change things as they become more clear for you. If you won't write the story it doesn't matter if he walk a feet or a mile. He still won't get anywhere. Though since you seem more into world building than the actual story - ever thought of making a role playing game of it instead? More world building, less personal stories. Sure, you'd need history and such, but it's less of that pesky story telling
Worldbuilding is fun. But what is your story about? Something needs to happen in this world you're creating if it's going to become a story. Tolkien did start out by worldbuilding for his story—actually he started out with languages—but with The Lord of the Rings, he decided what the story would be about. Without the quest for the Ring, the defeat of 'evil' and the personal stories that kept us glued, how many people do you think would have wanted to read his book? The worldbuilding was just background, and most of it stayed background. It was what happened in the story that mattered to his readers. Figure out the purpose of your own story, and the rest of it will slide into place. Including the research. You won't be doing research for its own sake any more, but to answer specific questions. That's different from just surfing the net and killing time. Why is this guy traveling from village to village? Answer that question, and you're on your way.
Yes, I would like to become a writer. It's not stories that I have a problem with per se. It's characters. My goal is to improve my skills, and do justice to the idea that I've had for years. That doesn't mean it has to be the best piece of writing, but it has to be at least decent. This is something that I did consider. But I definitely want to write a proper story (whatever that means ). Even when I come up with all these answers, it's so difficult to write about characters on a personal level. I suppose it's difficult for me to write about the "feels", because I'm a heartless cynical bastard. Thank you all for your responses, by the way.
So why is the guy traveling between villages? It sounds like it will require a bit of effort on his part, as that kind of travel isn't easy—and either requires lots of skill or lots of planning ahead, and/or a great deal of luck. So. Why is he exploring? Don't sidestep the question with the heartless, cynical bastard thing, because it's crucial for you to answer it. Why is your man traveling?
Exploring a world is only so much, and it's been done before, a lot. Yes, we like beautifully crafted worlds, but I think readers are no longer excited about simply traveling through them. LotR did a lot of travel, and it made everyone else want to follow in that path. Also, even LotR still had a grand story to tell and "threat" which needed to be dealt with in the world. Simply having a character, especially just one character, going about and traveling to different villages will get boring, and fast. A story needs to have a plot, a reason why we are reading it. Simply reading to explore this world is not going to happen, you have to give us, the readers, a reason to want to explore it. You need a plot. Here is a good start for learning about plots in general: http://www.creative-writing-now.com/what-is-plot.html In order to engage a reader, it has to have a purpose. You don't have to tell us everything about the purpose from the beginning, in fact you shouldn't, but you do have to give some indication that there's a conflict, a "threat" that has to be dealt with by your main characters. Why is this person traveling? Why are they traveling alone, especially when most people would travel in numbers for safety reasons? Are they running from something? That might be interesting, and it would make more sense why this person is going to remote villages (as stated by others on here, most any town or village would get some form or trade, it does happen, but has always been extremely rare for a place to have no outside contact). There's a process to follow, "rules" if you will. You need to have interesting characters, and often times to make them interesting they have to have their own subplots, at least some form of struggle that they personally deal with aside from the main plot, something that has shaped them into who they are maybe. In the story, you have character building, a conflict that arises early on but then is developed over time, then you have that inner struggle for your MC at least, and finally your story starts entering a crescendo. Towards the end, or along the way, you can throw in plot twists, but I recommend studying those and making sure you don't mangle your story accidentally. Once you've reached the crescendo, it's time to let the reader down easy. Yes, most people want a happy ending, there's nothing wrong with that. There's a great outline I found some time ago about hitting plot points and the rhythm a story should have, but I can't find it again. It was about short stories, but applied to novels as well. Take information from all sources though, there truly is no right or wrong way, but there are bad ways, if that makes sense. Give us more than travel, if you're dead set on traveling that's fine, just know it's overdone by every wannabe Tolkien. Put your own twist on it then, give us a reason for the travel, for reading your story to begin with. Some people will say that story does not matter as much as characters or writing style or wordsmithing, etc...poppycock, story is all that matters, period, if you have a good story, the rest falls into place.
This fictional world is full of historical inconsistencies and mysteries. To find some clues, the man departs to reach the legendary boundary that marks the divide between the supposed civilised realm of men and the true wilderness. If such a boundary exists, to cross to the other side and see what lies beyond. The boundary is basically a pile of stones and immediately beyond it is a forest. The man doesn't go deep into it before he witnesses something terrifying that involves the nearby village. I can picture all of this very clearly, but unfortunately, that's all that my "vision" has shown me. I honestly don't know what that could mean, and what he could do about it. I was hoping to figure that out as I write. In truth, I am not one bit inspired by Tolkien. Once upon a time I got a "vision" (as described above) while listening to these two soundtrack pieces. Also, I like gritty stories, love a good villain or an anti-hero, and want the ending of my story to be worse than a stock market crash! I'll check that link out.
Sounds like a good beginning...a bit like those stories where a group of teenagers makes a bet about who's got the nerve for a night in a haunted house, your MC ventures into the wild...and returns with hair turned pure white and a revulsion against ever leaving the village again...until his wife vanishes one night, only for her headless corpse to be found hung upside down beside the boundary...your MC vows to revenge himself upon the monster...travels through the wilderness in search of it, encounters many dangers, which he disposes of, one way or another, before his final fight...only to find that the monster is himself/he has become the monster that he set out to destroy/he kills the monster only to take its place as a denizen of the wilderness. Or you can have a happy ending where destroying the monster brings all the dead back to life.
Welcome to the site! I can't speak for anybody else, but personally: I can't focus exclusively on a setting and let plots/characters develop naturally from there. I have to come up with a few setting ideas on their own, a few ideas for plots on their own, a few ideas for characters on their own, and then see which ones combine best with the others. I spent years working on a fantasy setting that I loved with a few characters that I loved, but didn't have any stories for. I spent months working on an unrelated bank robbery scene that I loved with even more characters that I also loved, but that I couldn't expand into an entire story. Realizing long after the fact that my bank robbery scene could take place in my fantasy setting gave me a story that I am now half-way into I also have a few notes about an eventual sequel that doesn't revolve around any of the villains that I originally came up with for my fantasy world, but rather a villain that I came up with independently and then added into my fantasy world after the fact. Could you see yourself trying this approach?
In that case I'd suggest you put everything aside and practice characters and "feel"-stuff. It could be the same character, the same world, but screw all details and technicalities and other things that get in the way and write a certain scenario (you could probably find some writing-promts or such to get you started). It doesn't have to be for long. Set a timer on ten minutes or whatever and just write how your character get through meeting someone, preforming a task - anything. Force in extra feelings just for the sake of it. Let it be shitty. Do it a couple of times. What I have learned is that things usually gets easier once you've forced yourself to start. And you know what? Whatever you type can be changed again! Magic, right
Then my main suggestion is to develop the plot of that protagonist/antagonist relationship. A few things to take into consideration may seem obvious, but are often times forgotten. Why does the "hero" care about defeating the "villain"? Why does the antagonist do what he does, what makes him "evil"? Is he truly evil, or does he actually think he's doing the right thing? So on and so forth. Ask yourself these questions, interrogate your story and make it prove to you that it's worth telling, and take to other people you trust and ask them to look at it this way. Don't take it to someone who is going to always say "yeah, it's awesome". Take it to someone that can be critical in an outside perspective. If you can't find someone like that who you know, maybe someone on here will take a look. Also, just because it's not derived from Tolkien inspiration doesn't mean other people won't take it that way. As long as you have a really good reason why they are traveling, then it will be fine. Question it though, because the reader will not simply except the reason "just because"...they want a real reason why, something to believe in, even something that makes them feel connected to the story. Hope all that helps you in some way. Remember one thing as well, have fun writing, and feel passionate about it. If you don't, the reader won't either.
That's an extremely good start. You have inconsistencies and mysteries in your world, and there is a boundary between civilisation and the unknown. The man intends to cross that boundary. So dig deeper. Why? Is he some sort of scientist? Is he just curious? Curious enough to risk his skin, if there is danger? Have others before him tried their luck and failed? Disappeared? Were found dead? Just quit? Why is he taking this on? Keep exploring the 'why' not just the 'what' and you will find your story. It sounds promising to me.
I'll be a little contentious here and say that it's great you want to do world-building. I say that because I'm rubbish at it. I'm all for storytelling and character development, but there are so many gaps in my knowledge it's not even funny. Just the other week Shadowfax kindly corrected me when I suggested having a King's funeral several weeks after he had died. That's not a good idea for all sorts of reasons. Yet, despite that I'm not thick. Honestly. I just underestimated how quickly bodies start to smell. You see I'm the opposite to you in that I don't get too hung up over technicalities. I mean, I do think about the setting and try to make it believable as possible but I do this by restricting my vision in some ways. If I'm trying in olden times (though it's almost always fictional) then I stick to small details and try not to show myself up too much. You can actually imply and allude to a great deal without ever saying too much -- this greatly helps if you don't know a lot because the reader may assume you do! It's only a problem when you say something for a fact and bring it to the reader's attention. Then you're in trouble if you're wrong. But it doesn't look like this is your problem. You seem to know your stuff. More than that, you're asking all the right questions. Your moving from A - B and then thinking about C and D. I have a sneaking suspicion you also enjoy doing this and mapping out your ideas and situations as you go. That's all to the good. That is the writer in you and I wouldn't say don't be a writer because I can clearly see it does interest you, it's just your coming at it from a different viewpoint. While ultimately your characters will matter a great deal that isn't to say you can't bring to life a fabulous and colourful world that you've painstakingly created across many months of hard graft. In fact, I'd love to see a world that's so carefully planned out. For instance, I always stop to read Shadowfax's posts because he's so knowledgeable and interesting. It might sound dull reading about it on wikipedia, but it's not dull reading about it from someone who has a passion for history and the past. So my advice would be to get that passion across. Bare facts and the actual logistics are boring unless you dab at them creatively, but they are useful tools to help construct a realistic and enchanting world. I would also then say please don't shy away from your characters or get too worked up. Everyone loves characters, whoever you are. And everyone can write them. The reason they can is because we all interact and we all live among interesting people (even if you don't believe you do) and so sooner or later you'll want to think someone interesting up. But like I say, don't get too frustrated over every single detail. It's good to think that way sometimes, but remember most readers will not be looking at it so closely. They will know if you fudge up, because readers are like that, but they won't know about your ignorance unless you drop a bombshell.
Make it Fantasy, call your donkey a Narfling, and then just do what you want. Readers aren't interested in numbers, they're interested in characters and story. It sounds a bit like you're creating obstacles for yourself because of a lack of confidence. Just write and see where it takes you.
It seems that you've written the story in my stead, so there's no need to exert myself . Why, hello! You suggest a peculiar approach. Aren't characters, themes, and settings, for the most part, intrinsically tied to one anther? Like a dragon slayer and a specific kind of fantasy, or a cyborg and just as specific sci-fi? How many of these assets would you have to make before combining them? I ask this, because I may not be as productive as you, meaning that perhaps I'd only manufacture one product at a time, and not in immediate succession. In consequence, I think it would take me even longer to accumulate enough assets to begin writing, and then I'd be left with excess unfit for the current project. Unless I'm imagining it differently than it works in practice. I do have a sizeable collection of utterly random ideas that I've been slowly cultivating for years. If I come up with a name that I particularly like, for instance, I throw it in there. You're telling me to cast away my dignity, prepare to be disowned, and write a crappy Latin American soap opera? Might be a good idea, ten minutes might be an investment worth making. Could you copy-pasta one that you've done? Ok, so here's a question: what if I don't want there to be a personified villain? A major theme of my story is supposed to be isolation, that's why I mentioned how it'd take the guy periods of months before coming in contact with other humans. How would you go about that? Is there an identifiable point when one should quit answering the "whats" and "whys" and focus on writing? When would that be? My problem is digging too deep into technicalities. This is a different kind of soil, but it too involves digging. Several weeks you say ? Your post is food for thought rich in protein and motivation. Do you remember that scene in The Goonies when they go underground, one of the kids says "it's dark", so the other one lights up a lighter, "oh that's much better". Only it's not! The lighting didn't change. To begin with, it wasn't so that they couldn't see where they were going. As a kid, this shattered my immersion, and I couldn't enjoy the movie. Since then I've learnt to appreciate things that aren't authentic. But when someone aims to achieve a degree of authenticity and flops unequivocally, that's embarrassing and damaging to an otherwise good story. I'd like mine to feel authentic. Thanks, I appreciate the motivation. Based on my writing, you must have realised by now that English is not my first language. Apart from story related technicalities, I OFTEN get hung up on technicalities of the English language, and spend hours checking grammar (curse the guy who came up with it and "th", yes, I realise it was a group effort), and so on. I'm interested in writing to improve my English, but paradoxically, I'm afraid that I'll screw up my story because of my inability. I should also say that I'm interested in numbers! I need to know what size are the armies. How much cavalry, archers, and infantry do they have. How many regulars versus irregulars. How many days worth of food supplies. What type of armour, and what materials it made of. What type of.....
@FifthofAscalante What concerns me the most about your story is actually the isolation part...I understand this is a large part of you story idea, but don't get too hung up on trying to keep it. Some things need to be adjusted, and being blunt about it, I honestly think the isolation thing is boring...like really boring. Interaction is half the story, or more even, and if there's no interaction, then there's no real story here. What exactly are you going to be writing about as this person travels? How will you keep your audience interested, because honestly they'll put down the book as soon as it gets boring enough, and they won't pick it back up. It has to be interesting. You can do it without having a "bad guy", but there still needs to be a reason why this story is being told. Conflict can be anything, but it has to be something. No story works without it.
The way I envisioned it is that the severity of the isolation will become glaring through the contrast between the main character's solitary trek and when he encounters villages of closely-knit people, so the focus wouldn't be on him putting one foot in front of the other. It would him having a hard time, finding a village, and then the focus would be on what the village is like. Then again, he'd never be alone, because he would always have the company of his thoughts, which I want to drive him progressively insane. If he talks to himself in his thoughts, would that count as interaction? Also, lose of sanity could be the conflict, right? What about having to traverse this massive distance with terrain obstacles? Ehh easier said than done.
Do you remember the movie Castaway? Guy on an island with only his thoughts? Yeah...it didn't go so well, I don't know anyone personally that watched the entire movie all the way through. A book would be even worse, and while you might have more interactions than Castaway, they'll still be few and far between. Not to be an ass, but no, don't, just no.
Why of course I remember. Next to Forrest Gump, and Private Ryan, it's a staple of Tom Hanks's talent. It's an excellent example of western show-don't-tell cinema, it's brilliantly immersive-sorry, what was it you said about Cast Away?
Ummm... well, Forest Gump was a masterpiece, saving Private Ryan was pretty good...But Cast Away was a bomb. It's been the laughing stock of cinema. Just because the actor is great doesn't mean the movie is. That's an excellent example of a character not being able to carry a story. I can't stop you, but at least now you can't say I didn't warn you. My work here is done. lol Everything else is great about what you have, except this one thing...but don't take my word on it, @Homer Potvin care to chime in?
Uh... I don't want to weigh in on the larger argument, but I'm pretty sure Cast Away was a critical and box office success... 90% at Rotten Tomato, Oscar nominated, over $400 million box office... I've never seen it, I don't think, but clearly a lot of people did. And quite a few of them liked it...
Maybe it's just me and everyone I know then...but I've also seen much lower ratings elsewhere. Even imdb said "flawed but intriguing". I give it a meh, 5/10, I liked Tom Hanks...but he still wasn't as interesting as Wilson. XD That soccer Volley ball should have gotten an Oscar. lol Edit: Ooops, it wasn't a soccer ball...shows what I know.
Short version: OP has a story that centers around traveling, and much of the book will be MC stuck with nothing but his thoughts for long periods of said book. Good idea or bad? I compared it to Cast Away...but apparently, unknown to me, people actually liked that movie...go figure. lol (Hands you some hard liquor) Hair of the dog.
