Have you ever lost yourself inside a book? Found you wanted to live "there?"
At my first writers' conference I sat in on a seminar with a woman who's pen name is Ann Macela. The seminar was on world building, something I had (up to that point) not even thought about. Sure, while I was writing my first novel, I had to construct my world, but I hadn't thought of it that way until I took her class. Ann wrote about magic, and with magic there are rules, so her class was making sure the rules of magic are consistent. There are consequences for using the magic and there are conditions where it doesn't work. I wasn't writing magic, so I wasn't sure it applied. Until I realized it did.
With every book we write, there are settings and people and rules to follow. You have to build the world your characters live in, whether its magical or not. Jill Shalvis created Lucky Harbor (the first series of hers that I read), where you know every shop in the small town. There are recurring characters in every book to provide "color." The quirky little old lady with the blue hair who puts everything she sees on social media, much to the chagrin of those people who don't want everyone to know their business. Then you have vampire books, where the monster can't come out during the day. When I wrote my first book, my father (my biggest fan and my first beta reader) pointed out that he needed to "see" my settings. While I pictured everything in great detail inside my head, I hadn't described any of it on the page. I didn't know it then, but that was my first experience worldbuilding.
After my class with Ann, I was conscious of building a world when I dipped into the mystical side of my books. I needed to have rules when I wrote the Mist series. I did pretty well for a first attempt with my trilogy. While I thought I stuck to the world I'd built, attentive readers pointed out places to me where I'd wandered ever so slightly out of the realm. (I'm much more structured with my worlds now.)
Whatever genre you write, you need a setting for your characters, the beginning of their world. If it's a small town, you need to know where "Main Street" is and what stores/businesses you'll find there, and who runs those businesses. If you're delving into magic, or mysticism, or ghosts, you need to have rules for that, as well. As Ann said, if your characters practice magic, there needs to be boundaries. What are their limits? Are there consequences for practicing black magic? Does practicing "good" magic come with side effects? What about the community they live in? Is it a magical community, or do the main "magical" characters need to hide their skills? What are the consequences of being caught practicing magic? These are all part of worldbuilding. Once you have the parameters, you need to keep "the laws" in front of you as you write in case your characters go rogue. If you're writing a business district in town, you can't suddenly insert a shoe store because your character needs new gym shoes. It's either already there or it's not.
For fantasy authors, they have to start from the ground up. Not only do they have to invent the world their characters live in, sometimes they reinvent conventions of time, currency, and communication.
While writing my ghost stories, I had to implement rules for ghosts. Trust me, I've struggled with these rules more often than I care to admit. In the Epitaph series, my ghosts had a little more leeway. The question was always if she (Amy) can hear the ghosts, can't she talk to them? Nope. It was a one-way conversation, like listening to a radio for Amy. As I continued the series, the ghosts became more interactive. Different people respond to the ghosts differently. One of the ghosts was actually mistaken for a living person. Still, they followed some basic rules. Ghosts need the living to provide them with help for things they can no longer do.
Now, as I work through my Elspeth Barclay Novels, I have different ghosts with different rules. The dead aren't permitted to speak to the living. Elspeth has a special channel open to communication, but even when she can "hear" them, there are things they can't tell her, and yet they expect her to help them with their unfinished business.
The bottom line: every story has its own world. Whether it's the setting or the unique abilities your characters possess, it has to be consistent. As an author, we need to show our readers every facet of these worlds to draw them in, like welcoming them into the home of our imagination--and showing is the key here. You can tell people about the diner on Main Street, but you need to walk them inside. Look at the menu. Gossip with the waitress. Create a world readers can participate in. If your characters are "special," you need to put parameters around "special" along with what happens when special isn't special anymore, or special is abused.
At any rate, back to my little world. Elspeth has ghosts to tangle with!
No comments:
Post a Comment