M.D. Presley's Blog, page 2
February 22, 2021
Map Infographic, New Worldbuilding Gig, and FREE Book
I've been silent a while, but have not been idle. As my last post alluded, I've been screenwriting again. Or at least should have been were it not for some development issues that unnecessarily left us spinning our wheels for five (!?!) months. But that's taken care of now, and I'm finally writing again. In fact, I should start the finale of the beat treatment tonight. I will, however, not say when I expect this script (or the next) to be finished so as to get back to my book writing. Because I ...
October 27, 2020
Outlines and Treatments: Who, What, and How
I’m currently writing my first screenplay in several years. Or, I will be writing said screenplay soon. My producers (one of which is the director and also creator of the initial idea) and I are still stuck on the treatment phase, which will be turned into the executive producers (read: investors) in the next few days. They will then give some notes, okay the basic flow of the story, as well as get a good idea of the scope of the budget for the film itself.
At least they should. This has been...
October 13, 2020
The Importance of Characters
A few nights ago I finished the last episode of Schitt’s Creek, a show that I loved enough that I used a scene from as my exemplar to explain subtext. This was a show overloaded with ability, not just in the incredible actors, but in the writing, dialogue (obviously), and zeitgeisty pitch. Everything was stacked in its favor, and yet the last season felt tired and almost perfunctory. Perhaps it was the cliched decision to end it on a wedding, which is second only to a pregnancy in season/ series...
September 2, 2020
Bottom-Up Worldbuilding Worksheet
Note: This is a counterpoint to my previous post, Top-Down Worldbuilding Worksheet. Since planners and pantsers use exceedingly different approaches, I’m assuming you bottom-up folks aren’t reading the previous post, which is why I’m recycling some of it. Please forgive me, all y’all folks who use both approaches (although I’m one of you).
Anyway, after speaking with some readers of 101 Worldbuilding Prompts as research for my greatly expanded how-to book on fantasy worldbuilding, I thought I w...
Top Down Worldbuilding Worksheet
After speaking with some readers of 101 Worldbuilding Prompts as research for my greatly expanded how-to book on fantasy worldbuilding, I thought I would put together some worksheets for world builders to keep their ideas straight.
These are based around the concept of fantasy functions, which I explore in depth in Worldbuilding for Fantasy Fans and Authors, but should still be useful for those who haven’t gone through all the theories and best practices in that book. I mean, you can drive a ...
September 1, 2020
Top Down Worldbuilding Worksheet
After speaking with some readers of 101 Worldbuilding Prompts as research for my greatly expanded how-to book on fantasy worldbuilding, I thought I would put together some worksheets for world builders to keep their ideas straight.
These are based around the concept of fantasy functions, which I explore in depth in Worldbuilding for Fantasy Fans and Authors, but should still be useful for those who haven’t gone through all the theories and best practices in that book. I mean, you can drive a ...
August 10, 2020
Worldbuilding For Fantasy Fans And Authors
Well, it’s been a long three+ years to get to here. Or it will have been in two days when this book finally comes out. As I discuss in the opening chapter, it was back in 2017 when I was in SPFBO and thought I should really hone into this whole worldbuilding thing people complimented me on. It would be easy, thought past-Matt, and I would be an expert on the subject in a matter of weeks.
SMASH CUT: Three years and many tears later as the author still sits alone in his room thinking about imagi...
Worldbuilding For Fantasy Fans And Authors
Well, it’s been a long three+ years to get to here. Or it will have been in two days when this book finally comes out. As I discuss in the opening chapter, it was back in 2017 when I was in SPFBO and thought I should really hone into this whole worldbuilding thing people complimented me on. It would be easy, thought past-Matt, and I would be an expert on the subject in a matter of weeks.
SMASH CUT: Three years and many tears later as the author still sits alone in his room thinking about imagi...
August 4, 2020
Fantasy Worldbuilding Survey Results (pt 2)
This is a continuation of my last post on worldbuilding survey results. As I said last time, the respondents mostly came from /r/worldbulding, /r/fantasy, Facebook, Twitter, and some Slack and Discord channels. There were ~400 respondents, and here are their results.
What Other Genres Depend on Worldbuilding?
This one threw a wrench into one of my theories as well since I made a point to only discuss fantasy, science fiction, horror, and historical fiction when divvying up speculative f...
Fantasy Worldbuilding Survey Results (pt 2)
This is a continuation of my last post on worldbuilding survey results. As I said last time, the respondents mostly came from /r/worldbulding, /r/fantasy, Facebook, Twitter, and some Slack and Discord channels. There were ~400 respondents, and here are their results.
What Other Genres Depend on Worldbuilding?
This one threw a wrench into one of my theories as well since I made a point to only discuss fantasy, science fiction, horror, and historical fiction when divvying up speculative f...
