Writing Tips and Reviews

World Building: Event

So I just finished four hours of drawing and am munching on a waffle. I'm going to make this quick.

World building itself is a long and time consuming process. Proper world building can take several months to a year while idea worlds can be done in seconds. Safe to say, there are others who are better at explaining that than me.

Events are short periods of time within a world that happen. There should be a reason for why it happened and an effect on a character. No matter what the event is, it should be part of a character's life. It could effect them positively, negatively or neutral, meaning it really didn't have too much of an impact. Sometimes events don't effect a character.

Major events, such as war or the apocalypse, are going to have a bigger effect than minor events. Characters born before, during and after will have a different view on what happened and be effected differently. Not everyone is going to become a blood thirsty killer, sorry kids, that's not how it works. Personality, chemistry and previous experiences are some things that will part of how a character is effected by an event.

Events themselves should make sense in a world. Even aliens make sense in some stories. A world of magic turning into a world of science and technology? Give a reason why. A new ability exists?  What brought up it's creation or how did they find it if it wasn't created during the story? An ancient ruin rises? Why and what is its backstory? A war happens? Why? Between which parties? These are some examples that can have explanations easily made. And sometimes people don't know why things happen. They may figure it out later on or never.

At the very least, if you've created an event that is supposed to be major and a huge plot point. The characters shouldn't be ignoring it. There can even be those who are consumed by it, either because the were present during the time or want to do extensive research or any other reason you want. The major event also shouldn't be what defines a character. They can have it be a part of their character, but if all they do is talk about their shining moment being this event, then they're basically those people who peaked in high school and only ever talk about the good old days when they while they are losers now.