Okay, so our friend, Ryan, is really excited about this whole blogging-as-an-author thing (he was practically bouncing in the hallway after church, talking about it to everyone who would listen), and he cornered me with some questions about writing.
“Tammy, is it okay if I use the same caliber system as we use these days for their firearms five thousand years in the future?”
Now, my first thought was, “Why would they still be shooting bullets from guns five thousand years from now on another planet? I mean, really, where are the energy pistols and all that?” But then the background information he gave me about his world came back to mind, and I thought, “Of course they would – they’re stuck in the armpit of Human Space, they’d need something they could manufacture there, and re-arm themselves. Slug-throwers it must be, so why not use the caliber system we have today? We use the two-horses-wide measurement of old Roman chariots for our railroads thousands of years after the last Roman chariot tooled along.”
When you’re building your own world, though, where do you start? Other than ‘from this one, you dolt,’ there really isn’t any one single answer. Many worldbuilders start with a map, creating mountains and forests and oceans and coastlines, and wonder who lives there and what their lives are like in such conditions as bear on that place. Other worldbuilders start with a character, with her foibles and quirks, her wishes and dreams, and wonder where she lives and why she is the way she is, and what sort of society would shape such a character. Still other worldbuilders start with a germ of a story, and wonder where such a story could take place, and who would take part in it.
There are several ways to come at worldbuilding, and I’ve found myself using several of them to come at ideas from different directions.
Tell us in the comments: how do you build your worlds for your books? We’d love to know!
