Does "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind " Count?

Alright, so while I was trying to find a simple name generator on the internet to help me out - I am HORRIBLE with original names - I stumbled upon something far more valuable. A woman named Stephanie Cottrell Bryant had created a series of helpful guides when it comes to world building. One of them caught my attention enough that I decided to not only use the guide, but also create this blog as a means to keep track of the daily exercises and sort of drive me to hop online each day in order to continue working on my world. Granted - I will probably NOT be on daily, because I'm lazy like that and my life is a mess. But I can still pretend I'm going to, right?

Anyway, the guide of Ms. Bryant's that I'm going to be relying heavily on is her 30 Days of Worldbuilding. It may not jump into the meat-and-potatoes good stuff that is fun when it comes to world building, but it seems to build the skeleton masterfully. So let's try it out, shall we? The italicised sections each day will be excerpts from Ms. Bryant's guide.

DAY 1: Climate and Variety
How often have you read a book or story on "the ice planet" or "the desert planet"? These things simply do not exist. Humans are immensely adaptable-- if there's a section of the world they don't live on, they will do their best to figure out how to get there. There are now people living on platforms on top of the sea, as well as people living in habitats under it. The Middle East, the most hotly-contested region in the world, is in the middle of a desert.

The reason why books and stories try to limit the climate to one type or another is because the author wanted to hit upon a mood or a theme by presenting the story in a setting that is somehow related to that mood. Who doesn't have some emotional response to a frozen wilderness or a lush, verdant field?

Today's exercise:
Get out a map or go to an international website like National Geographic. Look everywhere. Antarctica. Saudi Arabia. The rainforests of Brazil. The rainforests of Central California. Look at how the different climates behave and appear.
The first fifteen minute exercise is to write down all the different climates you can think of-- if you need to just say a city name, do it. Sometimes "Seattle" is more evocative than "northern damp temperate climate." Write these names down in a list.
Then, go through that list and write one or two words that describe how that climate, either the word itself or the way the place itself may have made you feel, if you've been there before. Try to stick to abstract adjectives; emotional words, if you can, but nouns are also okay.

Tricky exercise given the fact that I haven't traveled much. I have only been to New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Cape Cod, Orlando, Bush Gardens/Williamsburg, and white water rafting in Ohio. Not too many differing climates. But no excuses, let's see what I can do in 15 minutes.

Rainforest - exotic, mythical nature
Desert - death, die-hard inhabitants
Tropics - peaceful, honeymoons
Rainy Cities (Seattle, London) - dreary, industrial
Beach (is this a climate?) - playful, freeing
Tundra - cold, wasteland
"Dry Heat" (a la Texas/Arizona) - ranchers, desperados
Humid (a la Florida) - hot, vacation
Temprate (seasonal) - average, populated
Cold Temprate (is this a real climate?) - Canada, kanucks
Marsh - dangerous, uninhabitable
Swamp (that's different from Marsh, right?) - corpse, dark magic
Grassland - Open, potential
Savana - Arabian Nights
Mediterranean (another I'm not sure is a real climate) - Grecian, Rustic
Forests - Common, Bohemian
Alpine (like the Rockies or Alps) - Rugged, conquering

OK, I'm not sure I did this right. It was hard to come up with words that come to mind. I used this as sort of a word association thing. I have no clue if I did this correctly. *shrug* Maybe tomorrow's exercise will go better...

If you don't like this world, create your own. ;-)

In the beginning...

"In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." - Genesis 1: 1-2

That's how the bible starts, and, although definitely NOT the bible - or even anywhere near it for that matter - this blog is all about world building. So why not start off the tale of my world being created with the same passage used to tell the story of Earth's creation? Pwah, God can smite me later.

OK, so the world has gone completely chaotic lately and I kind of don't want to stay in it. But it's the only world I have, right? Right? WRONG! I decided to create myself a new one. A world I can escape to every once in a while. I blame Window's Vista not allowing me to install The Sims. That would have made life easier!

Anyway, I've been a storyteller quite literally as long as I can remember. I play RPGs. Ever since I met my fiance I've been absorbed into the world of D&D. I am becoming a larger and larger fan of fantasy literature and movies. I have become entranced with this glorious idea of creating such a detailed world that all who enter feel like it is a real place - even for a little bit.

I started creating my first world about two years ago. I had invested so much in the creation of my D&D character that I wanted to expand her use into that of fiction. Making that decision led me to create a world for her. I got as far as one country, and even that remains incomplete. I stalled - mainly in my attempt to accurately populate the region. I haven't attempted to conquer world building again in months now.

So why start up again now? Well, out of inspiration as well as a need for escapism. This particular world I'm attempting for now wasn't originally going to be made - per say. This world started with a simple love for a game and a desire to write FanFiction for it.

Back in college I played the Big Blue Box premiere game Fable. I fell in love with the world of Albion, and thought of the multiple stories one could create with the Hero. After playing around with it a little, I wanted to include my favorite video game franchise: The Legend of Zelda. I then sat down and spliced together Albion and Hyrule, the Hero and Link, Jack of Blades and Ganondorf. The story progressed, but I was also strongly influenced by the animes Inu Yasha and The Vision of Escaflowne. Now my Link/Hero hybrid was also handed traits from InuYasha and Van. The show heroines Kagome and Hitomi were melded together. And a whole new breed of story was put together. Now I wasn't writing a weird Fable-hybrid fanfic anymore. Now I threw in the popular Anime element of "someone from our world is magically thrown into a new one and chaos ensues." I needed to figure out how my female lead ended up in this Albion/Hyrule hybrid world. I also needed to figure out how the two worlds could possibly be connected in the first place. This was a whole new beast and I decided that my answers could only sound plausible if I knew more about my world.

My world was still Albion, and Hyrule, and yet not. It was something more. If I was going to continue on my task of writing a story about this place I needed to learn about it. That was when I decided to start this blog. I'll slowly build the world here. Hoping to take you on a journey of discovery with me. Perhaps, once all of this is done I will continue this blog by posting plot elements and character descriptions. Following that, perhaps I'll post chapters for my story. Who knows how long I'll continue this.

If you don't like this world, create your own. ;-)