Lucid Writing Advice IV

Create your world under heavy scrutiny. If your absolutely lost in the void of innocence, grab a map, a globe, fly in space and take a picture of the world, whatever, just so that you get an idea of what a world should look like. And never, ever, use more salt than you need to.

Drawing a map is good and healthy, but there are several disadvantages. It lists every place in your world from below or above sea level, yet fails to name the actors in your manuscript. Go out and by a journal and jot down every detail about your characters from eye color to the scars on their skin. You want them to be life like as possible, and most of all you want to remember what you described them as.

Flag the ones that are very important to your story as characters of importance. Note every character if you wish. Keep in mind, though, that some of them you may never hear from again, but it’s best to keep them around if you intend on writing a series.

Give the character’s origin in the world, their mother and father’s name, list dutifully if they have any siblings or other relatives. But never slow your narrative down by dumping all that information about a character in embarrassing paragraphs. You want to use and write it wisely, and as a matter-of-fact, all of it doesn’t have to be told to the reader. You can keep it for yourself.

Your own little secret.

You can’t have ice unless you freeze the water first. Cupcakes wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t flour, eggs, or milk. Your fantasy world would be nothing but a daydream unless you had a course of history that made things what they where. Things come to be as the result of something that happened before them.

A continent, surrounded by smaller feuding -continents, couldn’t have peace unless a long history of wars granted them so. People usually come into a certain area through migration.

Wars were common in the ancient world. Things never happened without reason. Wars were never fought for foolish things because armies were very expensive to maintain.

You should create a believable enough canvas that you can paint your world on. But you don’t have to go in grave detail about it chose not to. Detailing to your reader from the point that your world was nothing but a clump of smoke floating in space, and then suddenly threading them through history until there are hundreds of cities with houses pluming smoke everyday, will result in quick boredom.

Just state how things became what they are today. What made the main city in your world that it is.

Bust most importantly you have to believe in yourself. If it sounds stupid to you, it will sound foolish to the reader. Research world history, and get a general idea of what shapes a continent and its people. The Internet can offer and abundance of ideas.