Shall We Write? Part Two

Shall We Write?

Part Two

By: RavenRoseHeart

3. World

Every character needs a world to live in. The world, or setting, of your story can be anywhere from a magical world to California. An important part about your world is the time it takes place in, past, present or future. If it's in the past, take away modern technology, but if it's in the future, be creative and add whatever advanced technology you like.

Tip: If you decide to create your own magical world, and are struggling to come up with a name, pull out a thesaurus and find a word or two to represent your world.

If you created your own world: You need to decide what climates are in your world, what kind of people live there, how time works, what seasons it has and what makes it special. You also need a map or general layout of your world.

Tip: If you are having trouble coming up with a good design for your world, splatter paint on a piece of paper, crumple it up, then unfold it. Behold your new world!

If you chose to use a real place: If you chose a real place on Earth as your setting, add landmarks into the story, talk about places that are in that area, make it seem real. The readers often count on that; if it is based in the real world show them some reality. However, that doesn't mean every other element in the story has to be realistic. There are LOTS of fantasy and fiction novels based in real world places.

4. Write

Start your writing with your character(s). Introduce them, their looks and only their main personality. The readers can't know everything about them right away, they need to get to know them throughout your story.

Tip: You will have to tell your readers how your characters look, so to make them easier to describe draw them or make some notes on them in a notebook. Also, add a bunch of random facts in the notebook too, these facts will build their personality. Once you start writing, slowly inform your readers of every item on that list of facts so they too may know everything about your characters.

Next, introduce your world. Tell the readers everything you want them to know through context or character thoughts. Write about all the events you produced. Create conflict of various kinds. Then slowly solve each conflict, but I like to keep readers waiting on the solution to the most important conflict until the end. Write about what causes the main conflict, then the most intense part of the story, then how everything falls into place and how the major conflict gets solved. Don't forget a satisfactory ending! 

Tip: Try writing at night when it is quieter. Just you and your imagination. 

"This is how you do it: You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy and that hard."

-Neil Gaimen