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Neal Shusterman won both the National Book Award and Golden Kite for CHALLENGER DEEP, his novel about mental illness.

"What I know about world building doesn't come from books, unless you count the books I've written. I was a bad world-builder when I first started."

World building is the hardest thing we can do as writers. We sometimes learn this the hard way. He's come up with 10 rules of world building (a few of which we'll share here).

1. There are no rules except for the ones you make. 
2. Be prepared to live by the rules you make. 
3. Logic, logic, logic. Story must follow logic and characters must act accordingly. 

1. You'd automatically know guilt or innocence
2. Everyone's head would be filled with noise
3. Romantic relationships would go upside down
4. We'd all know who you're really voting for
5. There would be no surprise

Among the things M.T. Anderson talked about in his keynote address at last week’s SCBWI conference in LA was using our creativity to extend the worlds of our books. In addition to the example of futuristic slang in his FEED (which he did not mention), he pointed to language invented by Sean Beaudoin in a forthcoming book (which I think must be YOU KILLED WESLEY PAYNE coming in Feb 2011, but don’t quote me).

But the invention can reach far past the usual stuff. Language and maps are pretty routine among fantasy folks, though less routine among the writers of realistic stories. Similarly, new transportation devices and weapons are staples for sci-fi and alternate histories. But other possibilities are infinite. How about an invented religion? A club or association? A type of clothing? A holiday?  Such stuff can not only help inform the world of the book, be an additional creative outlet for writers, and open new opportunities for reader  interaction. Check out Anderson’s invented Tourist Guide to Delaware for a few unusual examples.

What invented stuff have you read lately that really lit your fire?

— Joni, who has invented senses and communication devices, but really likes the idea of alternate maps for real places

I’m at the SCBWI International conference in LA and easily the biggest draw for me this year was the chance to hear M.T. Anderson speak again. (I am not easily star-struck, but he is a star in the writing firmament for me. The man is a brilliant writer, and no shambles as a speaker — or a singer. Check out the Team Blog entry for an explanation of that bit — unless you live in Delaware. Oh, actually you need this post for the explanation. But look at both.)

Anyway, the point is this: He spoke in large part about the idea of writing about exotic lands and creatures as a way to come home with new eyes… to see the familiar anew, either because the familiar is really lurking in that foreign land, by analogy to our own, or because the experience of being in the foreign land of the story helps us see our own world with a fresh perspective. One example (paraphrased)… perhaps we in the U.S. embrace fantasy lands so warmly because we see so much of one town blending into the next, all chain stores and strip malls and so forth, and we therefore long for cities of brass, cities of fluted towers, places of difference and distinction. Similarly, Ray Bradbury’s MARTIAN CHRONICLES works not so much because it is a tale of people in a foreign place, but because we are all strangers in a strange land.

What of your familiar life do you see in your favorite fantasies? (Or vice versa?)

Or that’s too abstract for a Friday, try this: go to his website and learn things you really never knew about Delaware. And toy with the idea of what that means about, and to, world-building.

— Joni, who got to hand out bookmarks for THE Tobin Anderson today.