World Building in Fantasy – workshop given by Christine Norris
written by Jen Veldhuyzen
We´ve all read agent bios with that one super-vague line: “I´m looking for writers who transport me into other worlds,” or something to that effect. How, we ask, and what does that even mean? According to Christine Norris, we have to balance between Tolkein-esque info-dumping and naked mental terrains. The reader does not want 20 pages about the history of your Smurflings, and often authors invent much more than the story needs—“Please, for the love of Pete,” she says,“Don´t try to cram it all in.” On the other hand, rich details make the whole story, whether in a real or imaginary universe setting, more believable to the reader.
We can classify fiction worlds into five types, with six components. The first type involves high fantasy, or a whole new world, as in Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars. The second type adds on to the real world in which we live. Harry Potter is a good example of this. We can also predict the future, as in Hunger Games or 1984, or we can do the opposite: we can re-interpret the actual past events with alternative history, as in the Bartameus Trilogy, or recreate an entire historic period in a fantasy style, as with steam punk stories. With the last two options, says Christine, world-building is called research.
With any world, we need to have some understanding of geography, history, economics, politics, religions and culture, and technological odds and ends. Christine provided us with a few questions to consider and a few hints and details to flesh out in each category. How do cities get their water? What does money look like? I found it especially helpful to wonder where in the world my YA sci fi characters got their food from. The every-day details like these really help to flesh out the world, but it´s important, Christine says, to include primarily details that matter to the story so they don´t feel “tacked on.” Each fictional animal, for example, must have a purpose, whether as an obstacle, food, or domesticated friend of your characters. Political and religious systems must in some way relate to your character, whether in the plot or in his or her personal life. Does your economic system relate to the class in which your character finds herself? Is religion a driving force for the plot in your story, or does it serve to show how the character feels about authority, virtue, love, etc?
I asked Christine how she comes up with her own worlds. She says sometimes she builds the world around the story—“well I know and like Philadelphia” or “well I need these machines.” Other times she builds the world around the character, asking herself what kind of world would form the character. She´s posted her extremely thorough list of things to think about—from topography to weaponry–at yafantasyworldbuilding.wikispace.com, an extensive database of information for YA world-builders. She´s a very imaginative and detailed person, so if you didn´t get a chance to take her workshop, you should definitely check out it out.
Thank you Jen for giving us a look into Christine’s workshop. Since there was so much going on at the conference, it is nice to hear a little bit about the other workshops we couldn’t attend. Hope the illustration by Alik Arzoumanian and this article helps you stir up some great new worlds. Ali
Megan is looking forward to a quiet Christmas break that doesn't include more adventures in the Library of Athena. But then her wish is dashed when the headmistress gets her father to host a New Year's ball. This means yet more people will be staying at her house. Last time this happened someone died. Then she receives a mysterious gift that hints that someone knows about the library and her connection to it. Looks like this Christmas break will be an adventure after all. The Mirror of Yu-Huang continues the Library of Athena series. Fans of the series will enjoy this tale. So will others who love a good fantasy.
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Please welcome author Christine Norris!
What made you sit up and say, "I have to tell this story?"
Wow, that's right to the point, isn't it? Let me see. I had the idea for this book, this series, way back in...2004, maybe? I think I wanted to write a bunch of shorter stories about a magical library. Because to me, magic IS in the words, always has been. There's something so...mystical, I guess, about writing. The process still amazes me, how our human brains can pull a story together. When I sat down to write it, it developed into something so much more than that. I've kind of mapped out the rest of the series in my head, and it's going somewhere I never imagined when I first had the idea. It's so much bigger now. I was talking about it to another writer, and she said to me, "This could be your signature work." Which is really, just, a mind-boggling idea to me.
Did you do any research for your novel?
This novel and the next one are heavily researched. Becasue they entail a lot of mythology, I spent a great deal of time looking at Greek mythology. Not as much as I did for the next book, which is based in Egyptian mythology. That one was more difficult to wrap my head around. The third novel (in progress) involves Chinese mythology, which has proved to be even MORE difficult. I take artistic license with many things, but I at least want to know what I'm taking license WITH. LOL.
I also use a lot of maps. THE CROWN OF ZEUS has scenes inside The Parthenon. Wanting to be as accurate as possible, I called up an interior schematic of the temple, to kind of put my characters in the proper space. It was very helpful. For the second book, I had a small map of Egypt I used, because there is a lot of traveling from place to place.
Where do you do your best writing?
That depends. Some days I just sit with the laptop in my living room, TV on. Sometimes I need the quiet of my bedroom. When life gets really busy, I take a notebook to work and handwrite, then come home and type it all up. That way works well, because I have the seeds planted and I just need to cultivate them. I usually wind up with twice as much typed material as I had handwritten, because I get on a roll. I also seem to write better in the evenings. I just can't get it started in the mornings for some reason.
What are you reading now?
I have a large stack of TBR books. ALEX AND THE IRONIC GENTLEMAN, by Adrienne Kress, and SEARCH FOR THE RED DRAGON, by James Owen, are on the top at the moment. I also have some classics here in the stack, like FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER, which was just reprinted last fall and is one of my all-time favorites.
If your character were real, what would he or she think of you?
Oh, sheesh, I don't know. She'd probably think I'm some old lady. LOL. Actually I hope we'd get along well, and she'd think I was cool. I'd love to live in her house, I can tell you that!
If your book were a movie, whom would you like cast to play the main characters?
Hmm...I've often thought about THE CROWN OF ZEUS as a movie. I honestly don't know. I'd like to think we'd be able to do something like they did with the Harry Potter movies and cast some great unknown young actresses to play the four girls. It'd be interesting to see who would fit in those roles, because they're all so different, and they pretty much carry the whole story. Everyone else is just background.
Give us a one-sentence sales pitch for your book.
Ah...this is the tagline from the publisher's website: Which is worse: Having to start life over, or being eaten by a Minotaur?
What are you working on now?
Well, we'll be starting on the edits for the second Library of Athena book, THE ANKH OF ISIS, which comes out in e-book format in July. Somewhere in between college courses and work and all that stuff, I have the third novel to finish. That's my main project for 2008 at the moment.
About the author:
Christine Norris is the author of several works for children and adults. She spends her time divided between her writing, substitute teaching, and caring for her family of one husband-creature, a son-animal, a large dog whose greatest achievement is sleeping in one position for an entire day, and a small feline who is very adept in his position as Guardian of the Bathtub. She also works at English Adaptations of novels translated from other languages.
To learn more about Christine Norris, please visit http://www.christine-norris.com. Send an email to Christine at [email protected] or through her MySpace page, at http://www.myspace.com/christinenorris.
A little info about the book. Title :THE CROWN OF ZEUS (The Library of Athena, Book One)
Publication date: February 19, 2008 (this is the e-book release date. Samhain does print ten months after e-book release)
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (www.samhainpublishing.com )
Thank you, Christine!
**Winners in the CONVERTING KATE giveaway will be posted tomorrow!
Thanks for all the great tips on fantasy world building. I write in this genre so it was very helpful. FYI the link at the end of the post doesn’t work.
Thanks, Jen! Hope you enjoyed and got something from the workshop. Thanks for posting, Kathy!
I just can’t get enough reading about writing, for sure! Jen, thank you for writing this, and of course there’s always the “thank you” for Kathy for posting (even it goes unsaid). Lovin’ that we have Christine’s link, too
Also, Kathy, I can’t wait to have time to go back through the many “Illustrator Saturdays” I’ve missed. Alik’s work looks so fun and appealing!