Building the Stage: Nuravol and Soravol

All right, we've got Vilhelm the Nuravol, Olwen the Vesna, and Nathanael the Soravol. We know that the Nuravol and the Soravol are rival tribes with ancient history in common, and we know that each has a "mirror" tribe on a higher plane -- the Hild and the Vesna. We also know that Nathanael was raised as a Nuravol, and that he is gone. Vilhelm and Olwen are looking for him.

There needs to be more. Well, okay, some people might think this is enough to start, and that's fine. But I live for this stuff, so I want to write some ancient history for these people.

Since this writing exercise is being contained on this blog, I'm going to keep things small and manageable, with room for expansion if I ever decide to develop things further. History begins shortly after the world is utterly devastated. A few groups of people survived, but they wound up isolated. The people in this story all live in the middle of a ring of mountains. Anyone who climbs the mountains and looks outward will see nothing but devastation, so there is no reason to try exploring. Enough time has passed that no one remembers that life used to exist in the outside world.

Inside this ring of mountains is a forest and a lake. A river runs into and out of the lake, from the northern mountains to the southern ones. For the first several generations after the crisis, the people who lived in this area were able to live peacefully. They cleared out some of the trees for farmland, built homes, and looked to the future. Eventually, economic classes developed -- people with money on the top, people with skills on the bottom. While it wasn't ideal, most people accepted it as life.

Then there was a long drought. The river grew weak and the lake level dropped. The rich hoarded water, even hiring guards to patrol the river and prevent others from drinking. Everyone else suffered. Before long, there was an uprising, and after a bloody conflict, everyone had water again. Things were relatively stable until the drought ended, when the unifying desire for free water became irrelevant and different people had different ideas of how to run things. Thus the Nuravol and the Soravol are born.

Not bad so far. The next question, of course, is where the Vesna and the Hild came from. I'll save that for another time.

Character: Vilhelm

Okay, I'm going to try something new today. Maybe it will rock, maybe not.

I went over to BehindtheName and used their random name generator to give me a name. With the meaning of the name as a starting point, I'm going to attempt to create a character. I went into this with no preconceived ideas of what kind of character I wanted. If this ends up sucking, blame Elen, since she sparked the thought process that led here.

Name: Vilhelm
Meaning: derived from wil "will, desire" and helm "helmet, protection"
Implications for the character:
- always wearing a helmet or hat
- intrusively defensive of others (think of awkward sitcom situations)
- not many friends, on account of that being a bad strategy for self-defense
- hell, he could play a "defensive" position on a sports team, if he ends up in a story that would have sports. otherwise, he could make armor or something.
Appearance:
- needs to be physically strong
- descriptive language should have some sort of defensive undertones when possible (i.e. "towered above his enemies", or "brought the wall of hurt down upon this suckah")
- can't be pale - needs to look like he's been outside
- if he wears a hat, a beard should hide his face. If we wears a helmet, the beard is optional. I guess a hood is an alternative to either, because hoods are badass
- scars
- frowns often
Background:
- primary parental-figure needs to exemplify self-sacrifice in a way that he isn't quite imitating
- perhaps he feels guilt for the eventual downfall/failure of said parent-figure

...and there we go - a first stage character sketch. It's pretty generic, obviously, but I think it's a pretty solid foundation to build a more nuanced character on.

From here, I think the next step is choosing a setting for mister Vilhelm, as that will help me nail down the details of his life. But that's for later. In the meantime, he can act as the writing equivalent of a coloring book page -- feel free to supply your own colors to suit your own fancy!

Constructing a World, part one

Today I'm going to talk about a specific act of writing, rather than a general concept. As you may have guessed from the title, it's going to be about building a world for your characters to inhabit. While this may sound like something that only applies to sci-fi and fantasy, it comes in handy for realistic settings as well, because you really end up doing the same thing, just on a smaller scale.

I'm currently in the process of building a world, so all of this is in the first half of "trial and error." That means I reserve the right to contradict myself in a few months.

Every work of fiction takes place somewhere. I can hear people objecting, saying, "I wrote something that takes place in a guy's mind!", but I would just say that for our purposes, "world" simply refers to the setting of the story (where and when the story takes place) and the foundation upon which that setting is built (which may or may not involve itself in the story). Basically, "a guy's mind" would be considered a part or the whole of the world in that particular story.

While the setting involves a time period, location, objects in the environment - things that directly affect the character - the world exists beyond the scope of the story and its qualities shape the story and its characters. One of the first things to get a grasp of is the world's immediate history. Figure out what the top headlines would be -- was someone robbed or murdered? If so, how close were they to the characters involved in the story? These are the kinds of things that will weigh on people's minds for a time and potentially affect the way they see and interact with the world. Also know about smaller things, like if a new subdivision recently replaced one of your characters' childhood hangouts. These  are important details to know because they provide a context for your characters to meet and interact in. It's the difference between having an actual set and having cardboard cutouts behind the actors in a movie -- the cutouts might get the job done, but it's a whole lot easier to believe in the set.

Once the immediate history is settled, take your characters for a test drive. Get started on your story and ask yourself, "Do I know enough about the past for this story to work?" If the answer is yes, then great! It means you're that much closer to the final product. If no, that means it's time to go back even further.

If you need ancient history, your best bet is to start reading. Learn about real-world history, even if you're planning on creating an entirely fictional world. It also helps to look into the various mythologies that have existed at different periods in time (I recommend pantheon.org) to help shape the beliefs of your characters. Draw on these things as you create your own universe, as it really helps make your characters more complex.

Challenge: Write about an event that took place a thousand years before the story you are working on. Re-write that event as you think it would be known to the characters of your story. Keep in mind the tendency of time to distort the truth, particularly if good records are not kept.