I've always wanted to create my own world. No, reinventing Earth as we know it was not enough, although I have a (pretty long) history of adding supernatural elements, like vampires and oh, shall we say, angels, among other things. This, however, was only good for as long as I dabbled in fanfiction, or occassionally tried my hand at original short stories that never got far. Or, not farther than my notebook.
Creating a world from scratch is believed to be one of the most difficult aspects of writing, but also one of the most challenging ones. And the most wonderful. Really, once you get past the fear of being unable to create something that lives, breathes its own air, and works as a ground for your original characters to walk on, it's exhilarating. One of those days you sit down to compose another phrase, another sentence, one more paragraph that slowly builds your world, and you realize - especially if, like me, you once started out as a fanfiction writer - that you are, in fact, creating your own canon.
It's difficult to really explain what world creation is like to someone who has never tried it. You would say, 'okay, so basically, it boils down to coming up with an idea foreverything. And, unsurprisingly, I started out exactly this way - from trying to wrap my mind around a world that was, by that time, nothing but a vague idea in my mind.
And pretty quickly, I was absolutely sure that I was the wrong person to attempt that kind of insanity. XD;;
So, back to the drawing board, I decided that I would only figure out the essentials; only those elements that were necessary for me to start. This was when Sheindain, as it exists right now, was born. Or made. Whichever. The writer playing god thing sounds rather pompous, but I suppose there is some truth in that. Although Sheindain is, admittedly, not entirely unique - and I will be the first to admit it. It draws heavily on what our world is, was, like. It takes ideas, concepts, beliefs and superstitions and twists them around at its own angle.
It's all about being able to set the boundaries, define the rules, bend and break them at will and having only yourself and your own imagination to blame for any failure that results from it. It's about having a say in what's true and what isn't, what's possible and what isn't, what's right and wrong. Playing god? Very much so. The trick is to have characters in the world you created that will breathe life into it; characters who will affect the world and be affected by it, who will change it, fix it, improve it or damage it if it suits their purpose.
Their purpose. Not the author's.
I am one of those writers who can't work with an outline. I'd had stories die on me in the past because there existed a carefully drawn outline that I liked and was unwilling to stray from. Deciding on every single detail of a world during the process of its creation - not actual writing - is very much like outlining; you sit down and, the way some god or another was believed to do, you say: this is true.
The world creation challenge, to me anyway, lies in being able to let your characters into that world, and allowing them to tell you: no. This isn't true. That, however...
This is how my outlines went to hell. This is how Sheindain, which originally was somewhat based on modern Earth, became what it is today. The people - of both races - I let inside decided they did in no way live in a modern society. They refused to bend to the standard set of rules. They discovered the world as I went writing about it, and THAT - that was good.
awake
