I’ve started adapting my world building posts for video! I’ll be bringing the information to a whole new audience. For those of you who haven’t read my world building posts yet, you can also watch the videos.
Here’s the introductory video, which I never made a post about:
But the second video, or should I say the first episode, is based on a blog post. You’ll find that the post is more detailed, but the video has the most important points. Check out how to choose a star.
This is also the first series of videos I’m making that uses thumbnails that I hope will be eyecatching. Let me know what you think.
World building is an important part of fantasy and sometimes science fiction. Creating new worlds is a very complex task, and it’s something I enjoy a lot. On this blog, I’ve been writing about world building. You can check out what I’ve done so far here.
I’ve made some big plans for it, which I talked about before. I have many topics I want to talk about and go through in detail. I started out very scientifically, but much of what I’ll be doing deals with society, culture, laws, and even things like magic. There are many areas to research and present.
In addition to blog posts, I’ll be doing videos that correspond with each blog post. What I’ll be able to do on video is show you a bit more about the process. I’ll be starting off with choosing a star, then moving on to developing the planet, and a bit of a side video talking about creating a calendar for an alien world.
But if you check out the post I’ve done before, I asked about what else you would like to see. So, if you have any suggestions, then please let me know in the comments below.
I love worldbuilding. I’ve created a world, Ariadne, that is an entire planet with many countries, cities, cultures, and of course a large variety of landscapes. But making an entire world isn’t easy.
For me, some things were difficult. I think everyone excels in a different aspect while worldbuilding. Some difficulties are:
Culture
It’s so easy to create a world that’s populated by people from a single culture. But is that realistic? Not at all, especially if you’re looking at an entire world. In fantasy, it’s extremely common to have several cultures. But it’s also easy to copy cultures from other books. To make a truly unique set of cultures is difficult.
Language
If you’re not a linguist, you may have some difficulties with creating a rudimentary language. But it’s not always necessary to. A lot of fantasy novels use a “common language” or “standard tongue” or something like that, and it’s always written in English. That’s fine. But if you want to make a language, then you should probably try to set up some rules. That’s the difficult part.
History
You can’t have some cultures on a world without a history. It’s extremely important to create a history for all of the cultures. It often helps dictate cultural relations. But to create a history that goes back for hundreds or thousands of years is a lot of work. And that can be difficult.
What do you think is difficult about worldbuilding? Let me know in the comments below.
I already talked a bit about No Man’s Sky and worldbuilding in a previous blog post, but I decided to talk about it on video, as well. However, I go into far more detail in the video. You can watch it right here.
I mentioned that I’ll be putting up images from the game here on this blog. Consider it inspiration for worldbuilding. There are some fantastic landscapes and very interesting animals to see. Expect some posts about that soon!
Let me know what you thought of the video in the comments below. It really has me thinking a lot about what to do with developing the landscapes, animals, and plants of Ariadne.
As you may know, I’ve been playing No Man’s Sky. Every planet in the game is unique. And it’s actually quite inspirational for me. You see, it’s giving me ideas for worldbuilding.
However, we’ve had a bit of a bumpy road getting the game to work yesterday. It’s no fault of the game. It’s Steam that was being idiotic. Watch this video and you’ll find out.
I played the game today, and there was no problem. I’m loving the game. I spent the entire time today exploring this one planet, looking for resources, technology upgrades, and trying to learn more of the language. And the thing that struck me was how beautiful this world was. What you saw in the video above is that world.
The landscapes, ruins, plants, and animals inspire me. They’re giving me ideas for worldbuilding on Ariadne. And as I explore other worlds, I get even more ideas. This world is so colourful. I’d love to show you pictures, but I couldn’t actually take any screencaps of the game today. I’ll have to take photos instead. I want to show you the landscapes, the whole planet, and the animals. I’ll be making a feature on this blog about No Man’s Sky, and I’ll catalogue all the planets and animals I discover.
I probably won’t be playing the game for a few days, though. At least not until next week. But when I do, I’ll take pictures. I’m going to go through all the worlds I’ve been to, as I search for more things. I want to discover all animal species, which gives the player a big reward. Once I’ve done that, I’ll move on to the next star system.
On the topic of worldbuilding, it’s making me think about sketching landscapes and creating the animals for Ariadne. I’m really looking forward to that.
The third part of my mission statement has to do with the biggest aspect of this blog — writing. I use this blog to talk about writing, show my own writing, and direct your attention to my official blog for my writing.
With my efforts to refocus and organise everything for the new year, much of this will be unchanged for writing, but I will work on a regular series. Here are some of the things you can expect to see.
Worldbuilding
I’ve already done a few articles on worldbuilding, but have been silent on that for a while. I’m going to work on getting a weekly or biweekly series on worldbuilding going. You can see the current articles here, and some plans for future worldbuilding articles here. There’s a lot to write about.
Flash Fiction
I haven’t done much of this lately, either. I plan to get back into it and try a weekly flash fiction story about pretty much anything.
Ariadne
Journey to Ariadne hasn’t seen any progress lately, but that’s mainly due to trying to focus on the move to Canada. After the move, I should have a lot more time and more privacy. I’ll be doing a lot more then. However, there are some other things that I’ll start writing up for the official blog, though I will link to them from here. This is what you can expect to see:
Character profiles
Country profiles (though this will be limited to physical geography for the time being)
Animal and plant life
Artwork
Other Writing
I will post about writing as usual about various topics. There’s no particular focus here. Mainly what comes to mind.
What are you interested in seeing? Any suggestions? Let me know in the comments below.
Mythology plays a very important part in establishing the culture and world in fantasy novels. It is often the basis for the magic system, the religious beliefs, and the antagonist. There’s often an influence by gods or other supernatural beings, and the amount of power could be limitless.
In science fiction, mythology is quite different. It may not even be present. In Star Wars, the Force is almost mythological. In Dune, the religions have changed so much that they’ve become the new mythology. In the Hyperion Cantos, the Shrike is often regarded as a myth or legend. Much of the time, mythology draws on older religions, but not always.
In my Ariadne universe, there will be a couple cases of new religions and mythologies that develop. One has an origin that will change over time as the centuries pass, but it’s an interesting mix of elemental and old Earth religion, mainly Christianity. The Christianity part fades away, but the basis is there. In the other case, Earth itself becomes almost mythological, and it’s revered by a large portion of the population.
What are some other examples of mythology in science fiction? Let me know in the comments below.
Today’s visit to the Imperial Palace was a very good one. Just take a look at this.
That is just a small part of the Imperial Palace, where the Emperor and Empress of Japan live. We can’t go in there, but we can go into the Eastern Gardens. That was beautiful. While walking around through the multiple gates, the landscape, and the many native Japanese plants, we noticed how everything was carefully constructed and planned.
Well, looking at how things were built, I had a strong desire to do two things. First is worldbuilding. Second is play SimCity 4. SimCity 4? Yes! It’s one of my favourite games, and I loved watching my cities grow. Unfortunately, the CD is covered in dry food after my daughter decided to play with it after eating. Not sure how I can get it off now.
Anyone else get a desire to do anything like that? Let me know in the comments below.
Worldbuilding is a big task, and there are many things to consider. You can go into as much detail as you want, depending on the scope of your story. You could involve an entire world, or you can keep it to a small pocket of a continent. Whichever it is, you have to answer some questions. Here are some questions I’d like to answer:
Is there skiing?
Where do they go on vacation?
Where do children play?
What kind of literature do they read?
Is there any kind of popular music?
In that case, are there any idols that young people watch?
What kind of weapon do they use for hunting?
What kind of fashion trends are there?
What are the strange local delicacies that outsiders think are disgusting?
Do they go to museums?
These seem a bit random, but they could come up when writing a story, both fantasy and science fiction. You often have to consider the more obscure facts that may not even be normally thought of.
When you read fantasy and science fiction, you often notice that there are place names that are not in your native language. They may be in another language or an entirely fictional language. But let’s take a look at how we can make place names by looking at other languages.
Case 1: Black River
I’ll look at a few different languages for this. I wonder what sounds good.
Japanese: Kurokawa
Portuguese: Rio Preto
Somali: Webiga Madow
Arabic: Alnnahr al’Aswad
Chinese: Hēihé
Greek: Mávro Potámi
Hindi: Kālī Nadī
Irish: Abhainn Dubh
Mongolian: Khar Golyn
Welsh: Afon Du
Case 2: Cedar Hills
Japanese: Suginooka
Portuguese: Colinas do Cedro
Somali: Buuraha Lahaa Kedar Ah
Arabic: Tlal al’Arz
Chinese: Xī dá xī ěr sī
Greek: Kédros Lófous
Hindi: Dēvadāra Pahāṛiyōṁ
Irish: Cnoic Cedar
Mongolian: Khush Tolgod
Welsh: Bryniau Cedrwydd
Case 3: Horse Valley
Japanese: Umanotani
Portuguese: Vale Cavalo
Somali: Dooxada Faras
Arabic: Wadi Alhisan
Chinese: Mǎ gǔ
Greek: Koiláda Alogo
Hindi: Ghōṛā Ghāṭī
Irish: Gleann Capall
Mongolian: Mori Khöndii
Welsh: Dyffryn Ceffyl
So, we get some pretty interesting names. I quite like the sound of some of the Irish, Mongolian, and Welsh names, as well as Arabic and Greek. What do you think? Which names sound the best to you?
The official blog of Jay Dee Archer. Exploring new worlds, real and fictional.
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