Worldbuilding (not an essay)
As we know, Bob, I do find it pretty much impossible adequately to describe my process. It's so internal and particularised, peculiar to me. Which of course is true for everybody, we know that everybody does it differently because the internet tells us so: but those who inhabit the far end of the spectrum from me, the people with spreadsheets and filecards and coloured pens and thumbtacks and string and outlines and synopses and plans, they do at least have a physical actual process they can describe and illustrate and editorialise.
Me? Um. Mumbley-mumble. I mostly start with a first line, and take it from there. No, that's not true: I mostly start with a title. Except when I don't. Sometimes I start with an idea - Steampunk Mars! or Fantasy Taiwan! - but that just sits in the back of my head and becomes. Sometimes it sits for years, as Taiwan did before I could write the Daniel Fox books; sometimes it's only a week or two, as Mars has been. Obviously that is not time enough to do an iota of the research I need in order to build a convincing world, but... yeah. Process, internal, obscure. That's not how I do things. I don't build a world and then inhabit it with story, any more than I plot a plot and then inhabit it with characters. Everything happens simultaneously, ish. I build as I plot as I write; the story is the journey is the headlights picking out the world ahead.
Ish.
As witness. Last week, Mars! Canals! Steam! Lots of unfocused excitement, and I ordered maps of Mars and books on Mars (none of which have arrived yet) and I lined up my SETI experts and my internets and to all appearances there I was, poised to do it properly, research and construct in advance of moving in.
A few days ago I was musing on empire and the Church of England and how it operates overseas. Which led me to graveyards, obviously; and thus to gravediggers, and therefore Hamlet and Harry Gotobed the sexton. There may be more to say, I thought, than this.
And I was musing on Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition, and the World's Fair; and of course there must be a Worlds' Fair, with SteamMars! and SteamEarth! and SteamVenus! all contributing; and oh, if you had a Crystal Palace on Mars, it would be like a giant greenhouse, but can we invert it to keep things cool, and why would we want to do that, and...?
And I was musing on Martians, and water, and surely they would be amphibious, but - oh, wait. Different stages, they can be metamorphic! - Oh wait, didn't Heinlein do that? Well, I can too, damnitall. What's the biology of metamorphism, anyway? Do they have to be insectoid? - Well, why can't they be insectoid...?
And so on - but it's only musings, nothing happens, nothing goes any further in my head until I actually start writing a story. With an opening line, and preferably a title. And then it's not so much like dominoes falling as it is like flowers precipitating from a solution, all that potential storystuff crystalising out from the murky clouds of my thinking.
As witness, I started writing the gravedigger story a couple of days ago. It opens with an inappropriately-grand funeral, which he is standing watching, leaning on his shovel; and that event from his perspective is what solidifies the political structures, and the population mix, and the apparent relationship with native Martians, and what they're called - because everyone's a Martian, y'know? - and how they work biologically (they live backwards!) and and and...
That's how it works, for me. Sort of, insofar as I am able to describe it. As it happens, the Worlds' Fair is no part of this story, but then this story is no part of the novel that I really ought to be writing; but this story helps me define the world and I can't do that without writing it, so. And the Worlds' Fair may be three novels down the line and it may never get written at all, but it too helps to define the world, just by swimming around and being nebulous; but I'm poking at the greenhouse anyway, because giant greenhouse! That keeps things cool! It's inherently cool, and greenhouse-keeper is like gravedigger, it's a job that doesn't have its due recognition, and if I find a first line or a title maybe that'll be a story too, that'll colour in some other part of the world ready for when the novel needs to go there, and and and. Like that.
And now I'm off to SETI for a talk/demo about 3D imaging and the search for life on Mars. Because, y'know. Potentiation. Story. Stuff.
Me? Um. Mumbley-mumble. I mostly start with a first line, and take it from there. No, that's not true: I mostly start with a title. Except when I don't. Sometimes I start with an idea - Steampunk Mars! or Fantasy Taiwan! - but that just sits in the back of my head and becomes. Sometimes it sits for years, as Taiwan did before I could write the Daniel Fox books; sometimes it's only a week or two, as Mars has been. Obviously that is not time enough to do an iota of the research I need in order to build a convincing world, but... yeah. Process, internal, obscure. That's not how I do things. I don't build a world and then inhabit it with story, any more than I plot a plot and then inhabit it with characters. Everything happens simultaneously, ish. I build as I plot as I write; the story is the journey is the headlights picking out the world ahead.
Ish.
As witness. Last week, Mars! Canals! Steam! Lots of unfocused excitement, and I ordered maps of Mars and books on Mars (none of which have arrived yet) and I lined up my SETI experts and my internets and to all appearances there I was, poised to do it properly, research and construct in advance of moving in.
A few days ago I was musing on empire and the Church of England and how it operates overseas. Which led me to graveyards, obviously; and thus to gravediggers, and therefore Hamlet and Harry Gotobed the sexton. There may be more to say, I thought, than this.
And I was musing on Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition, and the World's Fair; and of course there must be a Worlds' Fair, with SteamMars! and SteamEarth! and SteamVenus! all contributing; and oh, if you had a Crystal Palace on Mars, it would be like a giant greenhouse, but can we invert it to keep things cool, and why would we want to do that, and...?
And I was musing on Martians, and water, and surely they would be amphibious, but - oh, wait. Different stages, they can be metamorphic! - Oh wait, didn't Heinlein do that? Well, I can too, damnitall. What's the biology of metamorphism, anyway? Do they have to be insectoid? - Well, why can't they be insectoid...?
And so on - but it's only musings, nothing happens, nothing goes any further in my head until I actually start writing a story. With an opening line, and preferably a title. And then it's not so much like dominoes falling as it is like flowers precipitating from a solution, all that potential storystuff crystalising out from the murky clouds of my thinking.
As witness, I started writing the gravedigger story a couple of days ago. It opens with an inappropriately-grand funeral, which he is standing watching, leaning on his shovel; and that event from his perspective is what solidifies the political structures, and the population mix, and the apparent relationship with native Martians, and what they're called - because everyone's a Martian, y'know? - and how they work biologically (they live backwards!) and and and...
That's how it works, for me. Sort of, insofar as I am able to describe it. As it happens, the Worlds' Fair is no part of this story, but then this story is no part of the novel that I really ought to be writing; but this story helps me define the world and I can't do that without writing it, so. And the Worlds' Fair may be three novels down the line and it may never get written at all, but it too helps to define the world, just by swimming around and being nebulous; but I'm poking at the greenhouse anyway, because giant greenhouse! That keeps things cool! It's inherently cool, and greenhouse-keeper is like gravedigger, it's a job that doesn't have its due recognition, and if I find a first line or a title maybe that'll be a story too, that'll colour in some other part of the world ready for when the novel needs to go there, and and and. Like that.
And now I'm off to SETI for a talk/demo about 3D imaging and the search for life on Mars. Because, y'know. Potentiation. Story. Stuff.
No comments have been added yet.
