Writing 101: Language Construction

After a number of false starts on a "How to Construct a Language" 101 post, I have come to the conclusion that there is just one piece of advice I really want to share. How do you construct a language?

Don't.

End of lesson! ;) Okay, seriously though, I tried my best to make phonetics sound interesting, and the fact is it's just kind of a grueling topic if you're not a linguistics nerd like myself. And man, even then, I feel my eyes glazing over when I reread some of what I wrote. Eek!

For most fantasy writers, constructing a fully fledged language is not necessary. So today I'm going to be teaching you the alternatives. But never fear if you were looking forward to diving head first into linguistic nerdery. There is already a fantastic resource available to you, the Language Construction Kit. Believe it or not, the Kit was my first introduction to linguistics, and I loved it so much I ended up majoring in it in college. So maybe Mark Rosenfelder has a gift I don't for making this stuff cool. ;)

For the rest of you who just want a system for coming up with character and place names, and maybe adding a little local flavor to how your people talk, I'm here for you. Now my number one piece of advice is...

Cheat.

Yes, today's post is a sordid affair! Just as I'm a proponent of stealing ideas from history, I also steal real languages. Note that this method only works for human languages, and if you're inventing a language for aliens or some paranormal creatures, I want to direct you back to that section of the Kit.

The first thing I want you to do is pick two languages you like the look of. If you don't have any ideas, head to Omniglot and look at some transliterations until you find a couple you want to work with. Now go to Google and start looking for vocabulary and name lists in those languages. Remember to go for the transliterations in the Roman alphabet, since presumably that's what you're going to be writing in. Get really used to what the language's words look like. The idea here is to familiarize yourself with its phonological constraints, or what sounds and orders of sounds can occur in a language.

Now, you're going to start transliterating from one language to the other. Let me show you what this looks like with the two languages I've chosen, Korean and Japanese.

I'm going to take the following Korean names: Ae Sook, Hwa Young, and Myung Ki. And I'm going to write them in a roughly Japanese style: Eisuku, Wayon, and Myunki. Now, probably none of those three words are actually Japanese words. But they are words in my shiny new conlang!

If this task seems confusing or daunting to you, I want you to instead take just one language and make up your own changes to it. I'm going to use Arabic and set the following parameters:
All words must end in a vowel.
There is no z or b.
If a word starts with a vowel, I have to put an H at the beginning.

So these Arabic names: Aaban, Hafiz, Razzaq become Hapana, Hafisi,and Rasaqa.

Easy, yeah? I want to stress that you should do this casually and have fun with it. Sticking to your rules in general will give your language a cohesive look, but don't worry about consulting a list exhaustively every time you need a new name. You should get a good feel for your new language quickly, and then it will get easier and easier to modify words and make up new ones.

There's one big aspect I haven't mentioned here, and that's pronunciation. For reasons I will get to in a moment, I want you to pronounce your new conlang the way you think it should be pronounced. Go with your gut. You can also approach this process in a different way, and that's to take a language you like the sound of rather than the look. Take Welsh for example, which to English-speakers' eyes doesn't look anything like how it's pronounced. Listen to some Welsh words and write down what you think they sound like, then modify them.

And there you have it! I hope I haven't made this process sound scarier than it needs to be, blinded by language nerdery as I am. I've been conlanging on and off for ten years, and like I said, I studied linguistics in college, so... if you ever have questions, tweet me! @lauren_m_hunter. No really!

Some Suggestions for Using Your Language

• Keep names short.
  One to two syllables max for most names. Your readers don't want to take time out from the story to figure out how to pronounce Krimkruploa.
  
  
• Make pronunciation as intuitive as possible.
  Figure out what audience you're writing for; for most of you it's probably English speakers. Consider how they will want to pronounce a given name. If you want Racha to be pronounced with the ch as in Bach, consider spelling it Rakha instead, since that better approximates how an English speaker will read it.
  
  I don't follow this rule to the letter, since sometimes the aesthetics just bug me -- Zirek is pronounced Zeereck, but I definitely didn't want to spell it that way. As a general rule of thumb, if you need a pronunciation guide included in the front of your book, it is not intuitive. Most readers skip them. If you're okay with that, of course, go right ahead -- it's your novel! But be aware that not everyone will pronounce things the way you intended.
  
  
• Avoid diacritics, also known as accent marks.
  Why? Because there are no universal rules for what accent marks do. In one language an acute accent (slanting upward) puts stress on a syllable; in another it changes the pronunciation of a vowel entirely. And you know what that means... not intuitive!
  
  There are sensible exceptions; for example, if you're writing for English speakers, putting an acute accent over a final e is a good way to show that it's pronounced ay and not silent. Just remember, you should have a good reason for using accents -- and never, ever use accents that do NOTHING! That's a sure way to annoy readers and language lovers alike.
  
  
• Resist the urge to "show your work." That is, avoid gratuitous foreign vocabulary.
  Your language should speak for itself in the form of people and place names. If you include random words and sentences from your constructed language, it pulls readers out of the story. Besides that, it just doesn't make sense -- presumably the characters are all speaking in this language and you're "translating" it into English, so why did you neglect to translate that one line? If you're writing from the point of view of a character who doesn't speak the language in question, remember that it will sound like gibberish to them. If you hear people speaking Spanish and you don't understand a word of Spanish, you aren't able to break it down into individual words and their spellings -- it just all runs together.
  
  There are, of course, valid reasons to include foreign vocabulary. The one that comes to mind first for me is when a character is learning another language. And, alright, I understand -- sometimes, for artistic reasons, you just want to show off a line of poetry in this language you invented. Just do it sparingly.
  
  
• Be aware of cliches.
  Consider this sentence:
  
  Mat minich'ebuli akvt goneba da sindisi da ertmanetis mimart unda iktseodnen dzmobis sulisk'vetebit.
  
  Something out of Mordor or whatever, right? Nope. This is a real language, Georgian, and it can have up to six consonants in a row. Consonants, in particular those "hard" ones like k and z and x and v, don't make a language evil.
  
  Now consider this:
  
  Tá bua an réasúin agus an choinsiasa acu agus dlíd iad féin d'iompar de mheon bráithreachais i leith a chéile.
  
  Oh, right, that's some fairy or elvish language, yeah? Actually, it's Irish. Celtic languages are used really often in fantasy fiction, especially when a mystical or magical quality is desired. I'm not saying they should be off limits; one of my own naming languages is based on Gaelic. But use your imagination! Consider why you're drawn to a particular language, and if you might prefer something more unique.
  
  
• But don't forget: real people speak these languages.
  What I mean is, if you base your conlang off a living language -- no matter how "obscure" you think it is -- someone out there speaks it, and there's always a chance they could pick up your book. Put yourself in their shoes. If you had a book in a language other than English, and the main character was named Buttchiecks, wouldn't that kind of throw you off when you tried to read? If you know a native speaker who's willing to help you, it can't hurt to run the names you'll be using by them and see if anything raises eyebrows.
  
  
• Make up proverbs and idioms.
  This can be really fun! Look at this website to get an idea for the variety that's out there. (As an aside, I wouldn't necessarily trust that website to be accurate, but it does open your mind.) Make up daily sayings as well as words of wisdom your characters might use. If you have a character who is not a native speaker of your language, have them make odd turns of the phrase which presumably come from their language.

And that's it for today. If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

Writing 101: Map Making

Today we have a hands-on workshop here at Paper Hangover. We're going to be making maps! This project is designed for those of you writing secondary world fantasy, but anyone can join the class if it sounds fun. ;)

So, I have this problem. Whenever I try to draw an imaginary land mass freehand, it ends up looking like a piece of fried chicken. To wit:


Oops. (Don't even get me started on those southern rivers that don't make any sense.)


I was all proud of myself for this one until my boyfriend pointed out it looks like a thigh. God damnit!

So, I don't bother freehanding it anymore. Instead, I spill stuff. But before we get into the messy part, let's examine why exactly you might want to make maps.

Get real, Lauren. Fantasy books with maps in the front are so 1990s.

I want to make it clear that these maps you're drawing don't have to be for readers. If your characters travel around a lot, a map might make it into the book, but otherwise probably not. So the two main reasons you'll want to draw some maps for your story are:

1. Come on, maps are cool.
2. So YOU can keep everything straight!

Because of number 2, I recommend you draw maps for the towns or cities your story takes place in, and even floor plans for the buildings. Otherwise your character might end up walking to school uphill both ways, and nobody likes that.


YOU WILL NEED:

Paper (I'm using blank sheets for the pictures, but you can definitely use scrap paper)
Old coffee, black tea, or red wine
A large waterproof surface
A pen or pencil



Now, quite simply, we're going to make a mess.



Dribble. Splatter. Splash. Pour.



Press two sheets of paper together or fold them in half. (Caution: may start to resemble a murder scene.)

Leave the sheets out to dry.

Now, you're going to get a lot of amorphous blobs, long thin streaks, and just generally stuff that doesn't look anything like land masses. But somewhere in your collection of spills should be some usable shapes. When the paper is completely dry, outline them in pen or a dark pencil. Definitely take advantage of tiny splatter marks -- islands!



This one kind of looks like severely squished Europe from some angles, but we'll ignore it this time.

The paper you spilled on is going to be warped, so you'll have to get a clean sheet and trace over the original. Now it's time to fill in the blank space!

Use whatever key or color coding you like to indicate various natural and manmade features. The main thing you want to keep in mind is avoiding a Patchwork Map. So:

-Got a mountain range? Find which body of water is closest to it. On the opposite side from that body of water, you will have a desert, grassland, tundra -- some sort of arid landscape. That's because the mountains squeeze all the moisture out of the air before it gets to the leeward side.

-Think about other ways in which climate relates to geography. For example, the so-called "desert island" doesn't really exist -- small lone islands get a lot of rain because there's nothing blocking them.

-People need fresh water. If you have rivers, there will be settlements on them. If you have big rivers, there will be major cities on them.

-Rivers originate at high elevations and follow the path of least resistance to the sea. In flat areas, they will wind a lot, but not in hilly ones.

Of course, this is all assuming your world has Earth-like geology. Feel free to throw this advice out the window for awesome reasons, such as a magical river that springs up out of nothing. :)

In contrast to the chicken pieces of my earlier days, here are a couple of maps I've made for my stories using the spill method: Dominy, Kolay and Chosa. The Sunset Sea in that second one was a product of uneven spillage!

If you have any questions, tips, or corrections (hey, I'm not a geologist), please leave a comment. Thanks for reading, and good luck with your map making!

Writing 101: Building a Religion

A Common Omission

Pre-modern people were really religious. Really, really religious. Religion influenced every aspect of life. Before our modern concept of science was born, religion explained the way the world worked -- from birth and death, to the weather, to how best to prepare food. To the common person, atheism was unheard of. In the short and brutal lives of peasants, religion was often a singular comfort.

So why, then, does religion show up so sparsely in fantasy fiction? It's a fun world building opportunity, useful for explaining the culture of your imaginary peoples, and it can even influence the plot. Now, I have a feeling that if we all wrote our stories with religion as prominent as it was in real life, they would be kind of hard for modern people to relate to. But I still encourage you to include religion in your fantasy story, probably more than you were planning to. Here's some tips to get you started.


What People Believe versus What's Real

At this point I want to make it clear that you don't have to have actual deities, spirits, and so forth in your fantasy world. As the author, you get to say how your world is really run. But the people who live in it will have ideas about it that you know aren't necessarily true. This is especially the case if you write about more than one culture -- whose religion is right, if anyone's?

You don't have to make the distinction; I just want you to know it's an option, especially if you're not entirely comfortable with religion. And if you do make the distinction, you don't have to make it obvious in your story. As a reader, my favorite is when it's ambiguous who, if anyone, is really pulling the strings.


Basic Design Questions

1. Are there gods and goddesses? (Not all religions have them.) How many? If there are multiple, are they truly discrete beings, or are they just different aspects of the same divine force? Has a deity ever been human? Did they start out human and ascend, or did they go into the world as a prophet or messiah?

2. Where and how did this religion originate? Religions tend to travel, so the country your story takes place in might not be where the religion came from. Who spread the word? Were there prophets, enlightened wise men or women? How widespread is the religion now?

3. Are there any holy books? If so, are they considered to be the words of the divine, or messages delivered by prophets? There might be a canon of texts considered most holy, as well as later texts that are more like opinion pieces. What about books which are considered to be dangerous, like the words of false prophets? On the other hand, some religions don't place much if any importance on texts.

4. What is the religion's creation story? Is there an end times predicted? If so, will a new world be created after, or will the god/dess(es) be finished with that whole creation business?

5. What's the afterlife like? Is there a heaven, hell, multiple versions of each? Does a person reincarnate? If so, for how many lives? What determines where a person goes when they die -- their beliefs, their actions, or just who they are? Do you end up in the same afterlife for eternity, or can you work your way into a different one?

6. What is the organization of the religion like? Is there an equivalent to the Catholic Pope, or any other hierarchy? Can someone chose to live a monastic lifestyle, i.e. a monk or a nun? Do you need to be initiated into the religion, and if you break the rules, can you be kicked out?

7. How does the religion interact with government? It might be more powerful than emperor, have no influence at all, or be somewhere in between. Sometimes they are one and the same. Are there laws pertaining to religion, such as what you can and cannot practice? Can you be thrown in jail for heresy? Keep in mind that "separation of church and state" and "freedom of religion" are relatively modern concepts. What about magic -- encouraged, forbidden? Certain types only? (Those questions might sound familiar.)

8. How accessible is religion to the common people? For example, is there a liturgical language? (For centuries, you had to be able to read Latin if you wanted to read the Bible, and some Catholic services are still performed in Latin.) Do the people in your culture have to be well-educated to study religion for themselves? Are there priests and priestesses, shamans, or other individuals who serve as a bridge between ordinary people and the spirit world? Or can people petition and contact the spirit world on their own?

9. How inclusive or exclusive is the religion? Some religions, like Christianity and Islam, are strict about their believers only following that one path. However, the way religion is practiced in many Asian countries is much more eclectic -- religious practice in China tends to be a mix of Buddhism, Taoism, and folk religion.

10. How has the religion affected people's morals, if at all? To me, this is kind of a chicken and egg question. Do we think stealing is wrong because the religions that have shaped our societies say it's wrong, or do those religions say so because people already sensed that stealing was wrong? But you can take it unique places -- say the primary deity of your religion once lived in the form of a young child, so children are considered exceptionally sacred.


Plot Goodies

Although religion can merely be a world building tool, I think it's fun to incorporate it into the plot. Here are some ideas.

Interpersonal conflict. Two people who follow different religions, or just have different ideas about a shared religion, might butt heads. This can be a major or minor plot point, even just serving to increase tension throughout the story. You can also ramp up the scale: holy wars, anyone?

Divine intervention. Your characters might receive (or believe they have received) a message or sign from the gods. Or something more dramatic could happen, where the physical and spiritual worlds meet. I'm not advocating a literal deus ex machina, however! Your characters should solve their problems by themselves, and if divine power is involved, at least foreshadow it.

Routines and inconveniences. Do adherents to your religion need to say a certain prayer or do a certain ritual every day? If so, that could cause problems when they're off adventuring. Are they obligated to offer food or gifts to some being? Imagine what a pain that would be if you've only got enough money for one pint of ale. If it's a high priority for a character, they might go to great lengths and get into trouble to fulfill their duty.

Getting in trouble with the religious law. You see a lot of stories about outlaws, but not many about religious outlaws! Remember that in real life the clergy has often been as powerful as the government. What happens if your characters piss them off? And remember my question about canon versus forbidden texts? Maybe your characters could stumble across some information they're not supposed to know.

A crisis of faith. Despite what I said before about atheism being nearly nonexistent in pre-modern times, your character might not be completely at peace with their religion. Maybe they realize they've been following the wrong deity. Maybe the discovery of that apocryphal text that gets them in trouble with the clergy also shakes up everything they thought they knew about the world. The fact is, in the old days most people didn't have an opportunity to question what they were taught. But you can give your characters one!


I've tried to make this post thorough, but don't feel as though you have to follow it religiously (hah! haha. ha. ...) during your own world building. Take what you need to make your story interesting and believable; tweak it as you go. Good luck!

Writing 101: Soft Magic

In search of information on different styles of magic systems I found a disproportionate amount of emphasis placed on hard magic. So I wanted to focus this post on the lesser discussed style of magic systems: Soft Magic.

“Too long; died reading.”

Hard Magic = Rules are explained + Magic solves the story’s conflict(s).

Soft Magic = Rules are unexplained + Magic is, or causes, the story’s conflict(s).

The above formulas’ are broken down to each style’s most basic form and is more like a guideline. There’s certainly a lot of leeway with both and a middle ground where you can blend the two together. But we’re talking extremes today to help you understand what either is, if you don’t already know.

I borrowed the terms “Soft Magic” and “Hard Magic” from Brandon Sanderson's First Law. Brandon Sanderson’s essay delves into the different styles very insightfully. I highly recommend the read if you’re using magic at all in your story. Also, in this post I’m using the concept of “magic” in its broadest sense, including any time it doesn’t involve wizards, or the like, casting spells.

Hard Magic

With hard magic, the rules of that magic system are laid out for the reader so that when the characters solve a conflict using magic, the reader isn’t left scratching their head in confusion or thinking that magic can just do anything. They’ll have already known what magic can or can’t do by the time the use of magic is what defeats the big bad boss in the climax, avoiding a dues ex machina.

Lauren posted some awesome questions on our blog that you should consider when building or maintaining any magic system. Many of the questions would lead one down a nice path toward a solid hard magic system. Bless her cotton socks.

Click to enlarge.

Caution

There’s a danger in explaining a concept that no one needed or wanted an explanation for.

In the original Star Wars trilogy, The Force was a mystical power (soft magic). In the prequels, George Lucas introduced the concept of midichlorians—a microscopic life form living inside the Jedi (hard magic). This enraged many fans that preferred the former explanation of the Force.

Soft Magic

The more I studied the different styles of magic systems in my favorite stories I discovered that my preference might skew a little more towards soft magic.

These stories are usually more interested in the characters than the mechanics of its magic system. That's not to say that hard magic isn't interested in its characters. The two styles just do the same thing differently.

Sometimes, readers just don't require an explanation as to how or why the magic system works. It just does what it does and that's perfectly acceptable. All the Disney movies that I can recall off the top of my head are soft magic. Most children’s fantasy books are soft magic. Still, just because you write for adults doesn’t mean you can’t use soft magic in your story.

Examples of soft magic:

• Cinderella: It's never explained how the pumpkin turns into a carriage or why it changes back at midnight. It just does. We don’t need no stinkin’ explanation.

• The Wizard of Oz: How exactly do ruby slippers send, not only Dorothy back home, but her little dog too? It just does. We don’t need no stinkin’ explanation.
  
  
• Groundhog Day: It's never explained why Phil Connors (Bill Murray's character) was repeating the same day over and over or how (Spoiler alert!) he manages to escape the loop and finally enter the next day. It just happens.

“Seeing my shadow gave me magic driving powers. That’s all the stinkin’ explanation you’ll get.”

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Willy Wonka made gum that never loses its flavor, ice cream that doesn't melt, and Everlasting Gobstoppers that never get smaller no matter how much you suck on them. It’s all fantastic enough that we readers don't care for an explanation of how that can be. Had Mr. Wonka sat down with Charlie and friends and told us how it all works, that would probably ruin the sense of wonder which hooked us in the first place.

“Everyone gets an Everlasting Gobstopper!”

“…after my presentation on the concept of mass-energy equivalence. Please, turn off all cell phones.”

The common theme in the above soft magic stories is that the magic itself causes more problems for the characters than it solves.

Cinderella had a fantastic night dancing with the Prince, but Fairy Godmother’s magic couldn’t last forever. That very night, she was forced to return to her harsh living situation. Dorothy is lost in the Land of Oz with all these strange people and is just trying to get back home. Reliving the same day over and over isn’t fun for Phil Connors who never wanted to be in that town on any day of the week. The Chocolate Factory tortures many of the characters with all the things they thought were cool.

Even when the magic isn't creating problems, it’s simply ancillary to the plot. Its visual spectacle, cool images to keep us hooked.

But wait! Slow down. Just because you might choose soft magic for your story doesn't mean that you’re free to use magic in any kind of way. You still must maintain internal consistency. What you do with the rules you create will determine: the style of magic system you present to the reader, the nature of the story’s conflict and how it is solved in the end.

How to use Soft Magic

Show the magic working in your story the way it’s supposed to, and by virtue of seeing it in action, the reader will simply know that it works and will need no further explanation. Don’t make it into a mystery that the characters must figure out unless you don't mind if the reader also makes it into a mystery that they will try to figure out. Give the magic less importance to the overall plot/conflict. When the conflict isn’t solved with the use of magic, the nuts and bolts of your magic system are unimportant.

Cinderella won the Prince’s heart because of who she was as a person. The magic only provided her access to attend the ball, not necessarily to even meet the Prince. With the help of friends, Dorothy defeated the Wicked Witch with water, not magic, and by accident. Phil Connors escaped the Groundhog Day loop by surviving his character arc. Charlie won the Chocolate Factory because, as the last kid standing, he proved himself to be the best candidate to keep Mr. Wonka’s most precious sweet-making secrets. None of these climactic resolutions involved magic. If anything, they put an end to all the magic.

Caution

One issue you could potentially run into with building any rule system is creating a mystery where there is none. You’re not prepared to solve it because to you there isn’t even a mystery that needs solving. You’ve built this fantastic world, you’ve fallen in love with it, and you want to show it off, so you include everything you know about it in your story. Forget the potential for info dumps here, but the more you place focus on a specific concept in your story the reader will also focus on it, and wonder about it, and ask questions about it. It’s natural. You can use that to your advantage, but if you aren’t careful it can hurt the story you wish to tell.

The TV show LOST played around with blending “magic” that was hard (Dharma Initiative) and soft (Jacob/Man in Black). Among the many freaky things going down on that island, there was a mysterious smoke monster that could shapeshift into people who had died on the island. There was such an emphasis and build up to the question, “What is the monster?” that viewers naturally wanted to find out what it was exactly. The monster's nature was often inferred but never outright explained all the way through the end of the series.

This, amongst other mysteries that went unexplained, polarized viewers between those who demanded more answers to the island’s mysteries and those who had gotten all the answers they needed. Both viewers were right. None of them were wrong. The viewers who needed more answers were just watching the wrong show. And those that got all the answers they needed were watching the perfect show for them. But what sparked the outrage in viewers was how the writers blended hard and soft magic. By including both, viewers who liked getting answers felt cheated when the writers naturally glossed over concepts that were merely part of the soft magic portion of the show.

Hard or soft magic; neither is inherently better than the other. As the storyteller you must decide which audience you’re writing for. The easiest way to find out which one is to determine whatever it is you like to write, what do you find most interesting, what do you like to read, what kind of feel are you going for in your story. You won’t be able to please everyone. You shouldn’t even try. But whether you’re shooting an arrow at a bull’s-eye, a bullet at a target, or a basketball in a hoop, aim for something. Sometimes you’ll miss, but if you don’t aim you’re more likely to miss.

I hope this helps guide you. Thanks for reading

Writing 101: The Magic Next Door

This week will be the first of multiple posts on the big question: how do you develop a magic system?

Making magic is tricky business. All fiction requires some level of suspended disbelief, but fantasy authors have the extra challenge of writing about things we're reasonably sure could never happen in the real world. Done well, and you can win over readers who love fantasy as well as those who shy away from it. Done poorly and you risk yanking readers out of the story, something a writer should almost always try to avoid. So how do you come up with a system that's interesting, non-cliched, and that makes readers want to suspend their disbelief?

I'm going to use one of my favorite words now: verisimilitude! (Try saying it out loud, it's a blast.) It means something that looks and feels true. It's a quality you want to strive for when writing about magic. Give your readers a magic system they can believe in, and you've got an attentive audience.

Today I'm going to go over some tips and basic questions you might ask yourself when working on a magic system. These topics are designed to bring out the verisimilitude of your magic.

Waaait just a minute... am I saying this is the only way you should write magic? Definitely not. Stay tuned for posts from Michael about some different styles of magic systems, which you may prefer. What you get today is my method!

HOW do you use magic?

Is it an innate skill, or can it be taught? How much training is required for basic use, for mastery? Is it voluntary and/or controllable?

What traits must a person possess to be a magic user -- physically strong, intelligent, imaginative? Maybe it's a skillset unique to your world, but maybe not.

Close your eyes and imagine you're a magician in your story. What do you do? Where are you drawing the power from? The air around you, a spiritual force or higher being, yourself?

What effects does magic have on the user? Does it leave you hungry, thirsty, tired, ill, sneezy? If magic comes from within, magicians sure as hell better get exhausted if they do it for too long. Nothing comes from nothing. Something has to be used up, gathered, transformed, or what have you before it turns into magic.


Maintain internal consistency.

Magic that can do everything is boring and strains a reader's suspension of disbelief. Figure out what your magic can do; figure out the logical extensions of that; figure out where it can't go. It can be a huge help to write down physical laws of magic. Then make sure you don't break them.

How far can magic travel? How long does it last? And on that note....


Have ontological inertia.

Forgetting about it is a common trope. If you bake a cake and then you die, the cake doesn't stop existing. So if you make some magical creation or effect/illusion, why would it go away when you die? Of course, there's the possibility that you're constantly working at it to keep it in existence... just, make sure that's what's going on if you take that route.

Then again, if you bake a cake and you die, the cake would eventually start to mold. (Note: death not a necessary precondition for molding cake.) If you mix the batter and then you die, no cake happens, but the batter is still there. What happens to magical creations in your world if left alone for a long time? What if they're not completed?


What are the laws surrounding use of magic?

A blanket ban, or at least ostracization, on all magic is a common plot device. What spins can you put on it? Is there a certain type of magic that's outlawed? Classes or types of people forbidden from using magic? Do you need a license to practice magic, and if so, how do you get it? Are there any safety regulations akin to seatbelt and helmet laws? If your magic hurts someone by mistake, to what extent are you liable?


Can animals use magic?

And if not, why not? Don't handwave it!


Can magic be used to hurt people?

An unfortunate truth is that if it can be, it will. Don't have your people be all unpleasantly shocked when some mastermind decides to use magic in a completely obvious evil way.


What technology has your society developed with magic?

Generally speaking, sci-fi is good at showing the ramifications of technology in many areas of life. Fantasy, not so much. For example: if people in your world have the magic to make things levitate, why aren't there elevators? You can put in constraints if you like, but do make sure they're there. Similarly, consider what technologies would never be developed or would be obsolete. Given that same power of levitation, would the wheel ever have been invented?

Of course, no technology happens overnight; it builds over time. Just don't assume human civilization with magic will mimic human civilization without.


What about other societies in your world?

Do they use magic too? Do they use it differently? Have they discovered aspects of it unknown to other cultures, or on the flip side, are they still "developing"?


If anyone would like to share some of their answers in the comments, go right ahead! I'd love to see what people have come up with.

Writing 101: Bigger Than Big Is

Some fantasy worlds seem huge while somehow appearing to still be holding tons of information back. Some of the best fictional settings give the reader a sense that the world beyond the main characters is alive. It feels as if that world could truly exist somewhere over the rainbow even if the main characters had never been born. We, the readers, just so happen to experience the world through the point of view of said main character. How do authors do this? That’s what we’re going to discuss in this installment of Writing 101: How to create a setting that's bigger than big is.

Zoom in on specific details in your setting.
Each character is the main character of their storyline.
Brief tangents enrich your world.

This topic alone could fill up a book all by itself. A single blog post won’t do it justice, so we may end up revisiting this in the future. Some of these techniques also might be a little more suited to fantasy writers. Some genres simply don’t require the story’s world to feel large at all. As always, take what you need and leave the rest. Here a just a few ways to expand your world for the reader:

It’s the Small Things That Count

Novels are unique in relation to other forms of entertainment. Fiction is allowed a certain leeway to go on tangents whereas time constraints placed on movies and TV shows prevent those stories from stretching their legs. This is the advantage of the novel. Authors can take their stories off course a little and should be encouraged to do so. It makes for a meatier storytelling experience, and it’s what separates the novel from all other forms of entertainment. The key is to not go overboard. But that's true with anything, right?

Think of your world as the Big Bang. Begin by introducing small details and then, little by little, branch out with bigger revelations as the story unfolds. To start out, pick a unique part of your setting and explain it in explicit detail. The reader will feel that since you as the author know so much about the small stuff that when you gloss over the big stuff later, they’ll simply ride along with you. They'll understand that there's too much to tell and will accept the illusion you've created.

In this case, it’s a good idea to know your world inside out so that you'll have a detail to zoom in on in the first place. J.K.Rowling charted out everything, and not all of her ideas made it into her books. Whether you outline extensively before you write, or if you learn about your world as you go along, you must know a whole lot more about your world than you're ever going write about. You don't always have to know everything up front. Sometimes you discover things about your world as you write about it. For me, that's part of the fun and I’m a strict outliner.

Abed Delivers A Baby

Each character is the main character of his or her own story. Think about how in real life everyone’s got their own thing going on. You might sincerely care about your friend’s problems. But they’re not always central to the running storyline that is your life. We all have a life of own, and depending on the scope of the story you’re trying to tell, so should each of your characters.

Awhile back on the TV show Community, the writers pulled off a really cool concept. One of the main characters had a mini adventure that took place entirely in the background of the show. [YouTube Link] A good idea to remember is that even though your story’s plot should always revolve around your main characters, your world, more often than not, shouldn't. Allow some of your key minor characters to go on their own "off screen" adventures. It isn’t necessary to jump into their POV either (although that’s an option). Whenever they show up naturally in your story, they can tell the main characters about their adventures à la Gandalf the Grey every time he disappears and returns.

At times in Harry Potter, every character Harry met had a moment where they seemed to have something else going on that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with Harry at all. Hermione had S.P.E.W. Hagrid had Aragog, Grawp, and Norberta. Although the plot of each book revolves around Harry, the wizarding world itself could have gone on without or without Harry's existence. Some of the characters could have even had books of their own written about them.

Every single character doesn’t need to have some wild adventure going on “off camera”, but it does need to appear to the reader that there’s a world out there doing its own thing. One small way to accomplish this is to simply show you minor character or bit player doing the very thing he’d be doing if your main character wasn’t around. Have your MC show up and interrupt the minor character from their daily routine.

Caution: Your main characters always come first. Never give an off screen adventure to a minor/background character at the expense of the main plot. Don’t let your minor characters take over the story. Don’t make their adventures so much cooler than your main characters’ that your reader starts to wonder why you didn’t write that story instead. Or maybe you should write that story instead.

“A Royale with cheese.”

Give your characters the freedom to chew on the scenery. Have them allude to significant moments in the history of your world. Let their conversations go off on tangents to show their personality, what they care about most, their likes and dislikes. This could go against the grain of the rhetoric "tension on every page", but all of our favorite authors do this successfully. Done right it isn’t even noticeable in a negative way. Your favorite author reels you in with juicy conflict, teases you with tension, and entices you with sympathetic or interesting characters. By the time they serve you that low-tensioned tangent scene in Chapter 10, you had already been salivating for more information about the characters and the world, and you eat it all up when it finally lands on your plate.

Allowing your characters to talk briefly about things that have nothing to do with the main plot is one way the reader can learn more about the characters and their world at the same time. Keyword here is briefly. I want to caution you to be extra careful with the tangents. Not to discourage any writer out there, but not all of us can pull a tangent off. Not all readers even enjoy them. In some instances this very technique can be a detriment to the telling of your story. There are many scenes in fantasy novels that go on and on and nothing (in terms of conflict/tension) ever happens. Many readers do enjoy that aspect of books, but keep in mind that just as many readers don’t like it very much. Know your audience.

Caution: Keep tangents brief. Get back to the main plot as soon as possible. At all times try to make your tangents relevant to the characters (in how they feel or view the world, etc.) or the setting (how it changed or is changing etc.). Tangents should come off natural and shouldn’t feel out of place storywise. If your tangent is just something you think is cool or funny and really has no purpose other than that, be honest and murder your darlings, please. Never include extraneous information without intending to for a story specific purpose. If it’s your goal to input a slice of worldbuilding life in a particular scene, by all means do it. Only as long as you know the purpose you're providing it for the reader. Make sure you know your intentions with that scene. All readers may not appreciate the tangent, but at least it won’t be in your story by mistake. Haters gonna hate.

How To Incorporate These Techniques Into Your Story

None of these methods should ever take over your main plot. Sprinkle them throughout your story in little doses. It's all about creating the illusion that there's more to tell. Zoom in on a specific detail while leaving large chunks of information out of the story on purpose. Hint at things going on in the background, but don't give the full story or maybe not even a resolution. Interrupt those tangents with the main plot just when the tangent was getting interesting. When reader's only get bits and pieces, we naturally grow curious about what isn't said or hasn't been explored.

Any questions?

Writing 101: Steal Ideas from History

I want to start off with a guessing game. Below are three historical anecdotes. Two are true and one is false. Can you guess which is the fake?

1. In the late fifteenth century, Swiss officials summoned an infestation of beetles to court on charges of destroying grain supplies. The beetles, however, failed to appear.

2. In the 1670s, a mob of angry Dutch people killed and ate their head of government.

3. During one night of the Austro-Turkish War of 1787, two units of the Austrian army engaged in a drunken argument that quickly erupted into a full-blown battle against each other, leaving around ten thousand soldiers dead or wounded.

Okay, think you've got it?

...

......

.........


If you picked 3 as the dud, congratulations! Although this was kind of a trick question because even that one is a real story; it's just probably not true. Those wayward beetles and hungry Dutch people, however, are. But don't despair if you guessed wrong. My point, of course, is that reality really is stranger than fiction. History is a goldmine of outrageous stories, and happily, you can "steal" ideas from it with abandon!

I know a lot of you are cringing or groaning right now. Unfortunately, public school turns many of us off from history completely. In the U.S. at least it's taught as a series of dry, lifeless events perpetrated by dead white men. But if you take a chance on the stories your high school textbooks neglected to mention, or if you approach history the way real historians do -- as a collection of mismatched puzzle pieces to be questioned and analyzed -- you might be pleasantly surprised by how strange and exciting it can be.

Now, this post is not about writing historical fiction. I greatly admire historical fiction writers, since the amount of research involved is beyond daunting to me. But stealing ideas from history for use in a fantasy or contemporary novel is the lazy woman's way. You get all the juicy bits without having to worry about that pesky thing called "accuracy."

Let me give you an example from my own work. While skimming through the book China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty, I came across mention of a tiger who found its way into a city and settled down in a minister's ancestral shrine before a general killed it with a crossbow. Being a fan of tigers, my reaction went something like "AWESOME," and then, "Bummer about it dying, though."

I was at that time planning my own story, set in a culture based on pre-modern China. I decided I could incorporate that tiger incident as a major plot point. Because I was writing fantasy, I didn't have to get the details exactly right. I decided the people I was writing about considered tigers to be sacred, so they couldn't kill it -- instead, the tiger left on its own after doing what the plot required. Hurrah! I'm now finished with the story, and my beta readers have been enthusiastic about the tiger plotline. And it wouldn't have existed if I hadn't been reading a little history.

If you read Michael's post last week about asking why and what if, the wheels might be turning in your head right about now. The key to stealing ideas from history is to find something that jumps out at you and then start asking questions about it.

At this point some of you may be thinking, yes, this is all well and good, but how am I supposed to find these strange and exciting parts of history? Truthfully, it will take a little detective work on your part, but probably no more than the rest of your research will. (You ARE doing research, right?) Here are some tips to help you out:

• To make this task less intimidating, remember that you really only need bits and pieces. Don't feel like you need to sit down with a lengthy narrative and study it carefully. Like I said, details aren't critical when you're just mining for ideas. Wikipedia can be a big help if you dig into the more obscure topics.



• If you're basing a fantasy culture on a real one, consult sources that include anecdotes from the history of the region. That book on Tang Dynasty China I linked before is a good example.



• The kind of history you should be aiming for is personal. The large-scale changes of nations aren't going to help you much. For this reason, consider looking into primary sources, in particular things like letters and journals. They can be difficult to read at times, but you're just looking for the gist. Go to Amazon and type in "eyewitness history" for ideas.



• A lot of the most outrageous stories involve royalty and nobility. Fortunately, there tend to be a lot of records about them. Pick a royal family (think outside the Tudors box) and start looking into its characters and dramas.



• Branch out from that white-male-dominated version of history you learned in school. Contrary to popular belief, women didn't experience or change history less than men; it's just not as commonly written and read about. Similarly, if you were educated in a Western country, look outside the history of Europe, the U.S., and Canada. Civilizations thrived all over the world for thousands of years before Europeans came along. Expand your mind and discover the escapades humans everywhere have been involved in!



• And what about other marginalized peoples? Slaves have lived on every continent (and still do). Homosexuality has, at various times and places, been reviled and revered. There have always been people with disabilities. Try to find their stories!



• Know any history buffs? Ask them to tell you their favorite stories. My boyfriend is majoring in history and it's been a passion of his since he was a kid. I call him my personal history teacher. "Tell me some story from history about... siblings," I'll say, and he'll think for a minute and come up with something.

Contemporary writers can do this, too! Even if your story is set in modern day, you can take inspiration from history. History is about people, after all, and although people can be radically different across time and place, our basic dramas of family, friendship, love, and desire remain the same.

Next time you're starved for ideas, have run into a corner on your story, or are doing research for worldbuilding, make sure you don't forget to check this hidden treasure chest. I hope this post has inspired you to dig deeper, or for those history haters out there, at least made you a little less scared. Good luck, and happy researching!

Writing 101: Brainstorming

Hey guys! Michael here with our first Writing Tips post. Before we delve into the deep topics, I wanted to begin this series with the most essential, yet often overlooked part of worldbuilding: brainstorming. Whether you’ve just begun a new story or are well into a developed story, you can brainstorm anything at any time. Some ideas will pop into your head fully formed, while other ideas you’ll have to work a little harder to bring them out. I’m going to show you a couple of the easiest techniques to get that inspiration following and help solve your current story issues.

 

Ask ‘what if?’and ‘why?’

Make a list

Asking Questions

Two of your greatest tools are these two questions: What if? and Why? If you’re just starting a story, read encyclopedias and ask yourself 'what if?' Find pictures on the Internets that inspire you and ask yourself 'what if'.

Even if you’re well into a draft, it’s never too late to ask yourself these questions. The answers may lead you down the road to turning that cool idea into a cool story or help beef up what you’ve already written.

Example

What if all fire in the entire world turned cold, while ice became so hot that it melted fire? How could that even be possible?

The laws of physics are going haywire obviously.

But why?

Because all the elemental spirits are ill. Fire has the chills. Ice has a fever. [Main character] needs to first figure out how they got sick and then he must heal them with [Mysterious Magical McGuffin] before the world goes kablooey. Always a bad thing.

At any stage of the writing process you can ask yourself, ‘what if?’ If you're just starting out with a blank page, anything goes. Write every idea that comes to your mind. Your mantra should be, "Nothing sucks until I write something better." And even when you do think of a better idea, never immediately delete the unused material. Sometimes those silly ideas look quite sophisticated after a little bit of polishing. You never know. So, keep your notes around for a while. They won't hurt you.

If you’re further along in your writing, you can take scenes from your draft and prune them. For instance, your main character successfully achieved a goal in Act 1. What if instead, she failed? Or what if she succeeded, but her win only made things worse, unintentionally?

If you're on submission and haven't been getting the response you desired from agents/editors, you might want to consider trying this technique out on your manuscript. What if you approached a pivotal scene from a different perspective? What if you erased a character entirely? Would that harm the rest of the story or not?

See, what I did there? Asking yourself ‘what if’ and ‘why’ are just starting points and are certainly not the only questions you should ask yourself. There’s also: how, when, where, who, etc. Always be as specific as possible. The more specific your question, the more specific your answer will be, which will lead to the building of a detailed story if you’re in the beginning stages or a more solid story if you’re in the final stages. To keep yourself organized, you can make lists. I love lists. They’re super flexible.

Making a List

Let’s make a list using the results from my example above. Lists can be numbered,…

1. Fire is cold. Ice is hot and melts fire
   
2. Elemental spirits are sick
   
3. Main Character is on the case
   
4. Mysterious Magical McGuffin heals the spirits

…bulleted,…

• Fire is cold. Ice is hot and melts fire
  
• Elemental spirits are sick
  
• Main Character is on the case
  
• Mysterious Magical McGuffin heals the  spirits

…or simply a series of words and/or sentences fragments.

Fire is cold. Ice is hot and melts fire

Elemental spirits are sick

Main Character is on the case

The frozen donkey wheel moves the island…wait. What?

Lists can also be formed out of a combination of all the above methods. I usually go with the sentence fragment approach because it’s faster and less clunky. But this is your list. It's your choice in how you structure it. The great thing is no one else besides you is going to see it, so the structure doesn’t even matter, as long as you can understand it. Here’s you chance to free yourself from the evil clutches of grammar and punctuation.

Your list can be as long or as short as you need, but probably should be much longer than my four-tiered examples above. Keep in mind that the longer the list, the more ideas you have to choose from, and the easier it will be to cut ideas that don't fit the story you want to tell.

When building a list, try to always think in story terms. Always attempt to solve your story’s issue, whatever that may be. You may not know exactly where you’re going, but you should aim toward some specific direction. Specificity is what you’re always striving for. Detours can lead to some amazing finds, but most road trips have a particular destination, a reason to drive. It’s what will propel you to keep going without turning back. Joyriders eventually get bored with circling the city and they go back home.

You can create lists for brainstorming character names or character motivations. Lists can help you build potential names for your Mysterious Magical McGuffin or organize scene structure. You can list the turning points of a plot that takes place in a single book or milestones that occur across a series of books. For those that may not know, that would be called an outline (one form of it anyway).

Lists can aid you well if you have a polished manuscript that you plan to make significant changes within. Before you make any major revisions, create a list of the changes you would like to make. This will give you a preview of how the story would look in its new state before you hack it to pieces.

Of course, this is all optional. Sometimes you won’t need a list or need to ask yourself questions. As I mentioned earlier, there are times when great ideas arrive fully formed in your head. You may even have a different method that works better for you than making lists. There is no “right” way to eat a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup or to write a book. Take what you need and leave the rest.