Sci Fi/Fantasy I - Assignment 4

Lesson 4 Assignment

Short Answer:

1) Read the following article by author Victoria Strauss, "An Impatient Writer's Approach to Worldbuilding," at http://www.sff.net/people/victoriastrauss/impatient.html

2) Ms. Strauss states that when she wrote her way into a story without planning out the World setting first, she boxed herself into corners and would have to rewrite earlier portions. What do YOU think?

Yes. I agree. I have done that before, even in fiction that was not science fiction or fantasy. I have found the more I know about how my world works, what it looks like and everything else I can think of about it the easier it makes my job of writing. I disagree with her when she says that you don't want to make up too much detail because you will want to use it even if you don't need it. I've found it makes my writing much more consistent if I have a picture of as much detail as possible in the back of my mind, even if I don't use it all.

One of the advantages science-fiction and fantasy have over mainstream fiction is that you can go back and use the creative process to write yourself out of holes you've created for yourself. But like she said, there is a ripple effect. I've done this and ended up with a completely different novel from what I first intended this way. So a little bit of getting yourself in a corner is good but for me it's often gotten me in trouble.

Do you prefer to simply wing your way into the story?

No. I'm learning the value of world-building in this class and am applying what I'm learning in the novel I am writing for my Novel Writing class. I now realize that if I had not done the large amount of work I did in researching and building my world before starting writing, I would have been lost. Doing the world building first for this book actually helped me decide which direction to make the plot go. When I limited my setting inside certain parameters, it helped determined which ways my plot (conflict) could go.

Do you prefer to build your World first off the bat? Remember, we're dealing specifically here with Speculative Fiction: Fantasy and Science Fiction, so please direct your answer accordingly.

Honestly, before I came into this class and was given the proper directions to build a world, as well as having the importance of world building stressed so much, (three weeks worth of lessons spent on it), I think I only did a partial job at world-building before writing. I would make a plan of the world that described some of what I needed to know and answered some of the questions that I knew would come up but I didn't do the complete kind of job I've done in this class. It really showed.


3) Find a Magic story on WDC (my search just produced 2,988 items). Read it, and give me a brief "literary analysis" in terms of this lesson. Two paragraphs on how magic is used in this piece as a tool of World-Building, and whether it was effective or not (why or why not, please.) Include Item link as well.

ID: 1424903 Invalid Item  This item number is not valid. by Not Available.

This piece is first rate. It started with a small amount of description of the setting and continually built on it throughout the story without slowing down or detracting from the plot. The world he built seemed almost realistic except that from the premise of the story, his ship had gone down and he had gone down with it. For that reason the world could not be part of reality. Instead he describes a plausible setting for after death. But I really thought the evolution and development of the setting held as much interest for me as the story. In fact the author was successful enough interminging it with story it was part of the story.

There were some things I guess I just didn't get. That is, I didn't see what the point of his inclusion of the locket was. If he was trying to make some kind of point about a previous romance of this man, it wasn't clear to me.

Write about your preferred writing style (up until beginning this course). Were you a plotter/outliner or a "pantser" (writing according to the flow of inspiration without regard to the finished product, at least during the first rough draft). How has reading the material in this course, both Lessons and links, and working the Assignments, changed your perspective on this? Or has it not affected you?

I was definitely someone who tried to be as organized as possible - especially when it came to attempting to write an outline to follow loosely as I wrote. However, my outlines were rarely good enough at first, and I usually had to do them over multiple times before I knew what I wanted my story to be. I know some writers say they can write one draft and then edit it and be done with it, but I can't. My work has taken too many stages and too much time for me to be effective as a novelist if I ever do get good enough to support myself full time as a writer. To be professional one has to meet deadlines, and for me the process is taking way too long.

Part of the reason I am taking this course, and one of the main things I have really felt I have found in this course, is this idea of world-building. Since I go through so many outlines before I am happy with what I end up with, anything that can help me get through the intermediate stages is worth the price of gold to me.


Final Story:
Referring to your proposed story or novel chapter for the Final Assignment, briefly set out the tools of your World-Building, according to the Plan above. That is,
In the Beginning: God?/Magic?/Theology/Spirituality
Day One: Physics
Day Two: Weather
Day Three: Geography
Day Four: Astronomy
Day Five: Zoology
Day Six: Anthropology
Day Seven: Rest of the Story

Just one or two paragraphs should suffice, explicating how you intend to work these into your upcoming story. This will help you get a handle on how you intend to approach the World-Building necessary for your story.


My In the Beginning starts with two wizards, one white and one black, who are also good and evil gods respectively. The story takes place on a post-Apocalyptical island cut off from the rest of the world. The physics will be limited to demons from the black side and Messengers from the white side having the ability to drain the solution that provides life to humans. They can then pass on that drinkable fluid to maintain the life of living humans and other creatures. The weather is coastal and temperate enough so that the humans don't need to wear too much clothing. The Geography consists of a volcanic island. The dormant volcano is centered in the middle of the island and takes up the entire island as it leads down to the beaches. The island is circular, about 40 miles in radius and filled with numerous caves.

The astronomy does not play a factor except for the fact that when either the good or bad wizard exits the island; it is believed they go to another planet. There are no animals on the island. They were all driven to extinction in the Apocalypse. The lack of game forced the humans to engage in cannibalism at the beginning of recorded history, prompting the white wizard to cast the spell making the life fluid of humans extractable from dead men. He then finished the spell making it transferrable as the liquid solution that could nourish humans and demons. The anthropology consists of humans being subject to the demons and the royalty. The black wizard cast a spell on the life sustaining liquid to contaminate it. When they drank the impure substance they were tempted to engage in vices such as gambling, and prostitution. The tainted brew made these activities enjoyable to them whereas they weren't before. The rest of the story deals with the battle between the two wizards over trying to get the human population to partake of "pure" juice from the white wizard or the contaminated source from the evil wizard.