<![CDATA[io9: Worldbuilding]]> http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: Worldbuilding]]> http://io9.com/tag/worldbuilding http://io9.com/tag/worldbuilding <![CDATA[Wild Talents Second Edition Brings a Superpowered World to Life]]> Arc Dreams' Wild Talents Second Edition dropped last week, and it's ten times as awesome as I'd hoped it would be. This book contains what is probably the most thorough and fascinating treatise on superhero worldbuilding I've ever read. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5510962&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Extinction Events That Almost Wiped Out Humans]]> It turns out humanity has been almost wiped out a few times in our distant past. How did it happen, and what does it mean for the future of human evolution? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5501565&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Iain M. Banks, Please Destroy The Culture!]]> The Guardian's Damien G. Walter issues a passionate plea to Iain M. Banks to complete an unofficial Culture trilogy that began with Consider Phlebas and Look To Windward. But really, Walter seems to want the Culture to die. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5475818&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Lost Culture Of New Island Is 43,500 Years Old]]> You can't find New Island on most maps of the Indian Ocean because its location was a secret for most of the twentieth century. But now one man has chronicled the long, strange history of its ancient inhabitants. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5474214&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Welcome to Snaiad, The World We Will Colonize]]> Welcome to the strange, lush world of Snaiad, home to a future Earth colony. Currently it supports a variety of shocking fauna, which creator Nemo Ramjet has meticulously documented, also providing maps and a geopolitical history of the planet. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5463653&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[A Map Of The Cathedral Galaxy, Including Ancient Alien Artifacts]]> Aerospace engineer Joseph Shoer whipped up this cool map of a galactic civilization in his spare time, when he wasn't researching designs for real-life spacecraft. Not only is this galaxy thoroughly mapped, but it's also got an ultrafast transportation system. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5427587&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Gigantic Fleas and Killer Fish Wait on an Alien World]]> Brynn Metheny's The Morae River is a fascinating exercise in ecological worldbuilding. She populates her alien world with strange and unusual creatures, from man-sized rodents to towering, tentacled arthopods. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5400067&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[All Your Characters Talk The Same — And They're Not A Hivemind!]]> It's one of the biggest problems plaguing fiction — and it seems to hit genre fiction especially hard sometimes: the characters who all sound exactly alike. How do you keep your characters from all having the same voice? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5379280&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[James Cameron Is The Tyrannical God of Pandora]]> The New Yorker followed James Cameron's alien opus Avatar throughout its production and has delivered a fascinating article, detailing Cameron's tyrannical behavior on-set, Peter Jackson's opinion of the effects, and how much more went into Pandora than naked cat people. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5385162&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[What's The Difference Between Denouement And Picking At A Scab?]]> So your space-wizard novel has resolved its epic storyline: Your hero has defeated your villain, or your central mystery's been solved. But unlike your hero, your work isn't done: there's still the denouement, where we find out what happens afterwards. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5354119&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The One Sentence That Can Ruin Your Whole Day]]> Your space-warping, mind-bending science fiction/fantasy novel isn't just action set pieces and breathtaking ideas — it's got character and atmosphere. And when you're developing those things, it's tempting to reach for that great tool, the Topic Sentence. But beware. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5375964&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Questions You Shouldn't Answer, And The Answers You Can't Let Go Of]]> I was lucky enough to be talking with one of my favorite scifi novelists the other day, and I asked him a question he didn't know the answer to. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5347563&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Make Your Epic Space Novel Live Up To Your "Elevator Pitch"]]> The best science-fiction novels boast panoramic world-building and complex ideas. But eventually, you must explain your grand design in a few sentences. This is what's called the "elevator pitch," and it's actually a helpful way of thinking about your novel. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5318070&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Enrollment Open to Teens for "Shared Worlds" Summer Worldbuilding Workshop]]> Are you a teen who is interested in worldbuilding in fiction, videogames, or art? Then we've got the best summer school class you'll ever take. It's called "Shared Worlds," and it's a two-week workshop on a South Carolina college campus where you meet with science fiction and fantasy authors, who help you create the world of your dreams. Enrollment is now open. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5215926&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[How To Start A Novel So It'll Grow Into A Compelling Series]]> Fantasy author Gwenda Bond points us to a fascinating discussion among novelists: How much planning do you put in before you start a novel? And raises a related question: what makes a great book series? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5204215&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Curious Art of Science Fiction Road Maps]]> Adrian Leskiw is one of the rarest kinds of science fiction creators: He does his world-building entirely through the medium of road maps. A self-professed road geek, Leskiw creates extremely realistic road systems for fictional countries or alternate versions of existing ones. Here you can see a map he's created of an imaginary island called Breda in the south Pacific, in the year 2040. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5099082&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Greatest Characters Come From The Weirdest Worlds, Says Eileen Gunn]]> Believable characters go hand-in-hand with surreal futuristic worlds, says Eileen Gunn, author of Stable Strategies And Others and founder of the speculative webzine Infinite Matrix. Writing about a realistic future world or alien planet can seem like an insurmountable challenge, and so can putting believable characters into that setting — but you can solve both problems at once, if you learn to see through your characters' eyes. Gunn gave us a master-class in both world-building and character creation. Check it out! More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5074474&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Secrets Of Great Characters, According To 6 Science Fiction Authors]]> Click to viewAmazing stories need great characters. And when you're writing a story set in a futuristic or fantastical world, it's more important than ever for readers to be able to relate to your characters. It's also harder than ever, because your characters' lives and experiences will be totally different than your readers'. How do you make people identify with someone who lives in the future, or on another planet? How can your main character stand out, against a bizarre and colorful backdrop? We asked six great science fiction authors for their advice. Get to know them as individuals, rather than types. If your characters are cut off from all the present-day cultural references, like "lawyer who went to Harvard," then it's even more important to think of them as individuals, says Elizabeth Bear, Campbell- and Hugo-winning author of Carnival and Undertow. "Try very hard to know them as people," she urges. "That goes for any setting, past or present or future - or alternate reality." In particular, you should think, "'This is a person who happens to have the following traits, and all that they imply,' rather than 'this is a nuclear physicist who grew up in Iowa.'" Try making your characters scientists. Or at least, have them be obsessed with stuff that's relavant to your storyline, advises Kim Stanley Robinson, Hugo- and Nebula-winning author of the Mars trilogy and the Science In The Capital series. Having scientists as your characters lets you "explore the setting and the character at once." And it helps if your characters obsess about the mysteries and explanations in your story. They can also be obsessed with a planet, spaceship, new procedure or alien. Base them on people you know. The most realistic characters are often based closely on your friends or people you've met, says Rudy Rucker, Philip K. Dick-winning author of the -Ware novels and Postsingular. That goes double for your aliens, A.I.s and robots, he adds. It's always better to copy your friends than to lift from "received ideas about how SF characters might behave. Who wants to see yet another a humorless talking head with a BBC accent? The absolute worst thing in Matrix III was when Keanu gets to the virtual office of the Big Computer Mind, and he meets, like, a tweedy professor with a white beard. Ugh! At the very least it should have been a fat hacker in a T-shirt, preferably high on pineal extract." Also: to make your characters stand out, try having them say quirky, unexpected things. "Forget your Star Trek memories, and remember your wild and crazy friends - the ones who say things that Make No Sense," Rucker advises. Give them a thought-out world. The more carefully thought out the world you're placing your characters into, the more we'll be able to believe that they live there, says Tobias Buckell, author of Sly Mongoose. And that also makes it easier to "contrast them against this imaginary place." Figure out what they love, and what they fear. Try to find what drives your characters, including what they want and need, Bear urges. And understand what traumatizes them. "I tell people I like to know what they'd want on their tombstone: that seems to give me a really good handle on who they are." She adds:
Characters we can relate to have fears and damage, but moreover, for me they have to be devoted to something - an ideal, a person, whatever. Even villains become much more sympathetic when we're introduced to whatever it is that they love.
Kage Baker, author of the Company novels, agrees: "It isn't the way a person relates to his hovercar that makes him memorable; it's what's going on in his heart." No matter what planet or time you're living in, there will be "certain constants in human existence: struggle against poverty, rebellion against authority, love and desire, loneliness, curiosity. Any reader can relate to those." Make sure your character has loves and hatreds that readers can see themselves in, and the rest will take care of itself. Don't aim for larger-than-life - and overshoot. One pitfall with science fiction characters is that authors sometimes make their characters "bigger than life, or archetypal" to let them compete with the big, brash colorful worlds they live in. A common mistake is veering past archetypal, all the way into "over the top, or maybe somewhat cliche." If you do try for archetypal characters, think of the classics from all genres, like Sherlock Holmes' quirky genius or Captain Ahab's drive. Don't obsess too much about setting and toys. If you spend pages and pages on dense descriptions of your settings and how exactly your hovercar works, you're distracting the reader from your characters, says Baker.
It's enough to say "He climbed into his hovercar" and your reader will get the idea. You don't need to give a geography lesson: "They were sitting in the courtyard drinking fire-palm wine" or "She trudged back from the well, balancing her water jar" or "They looked out across the desert and saw the yellow mountains of Califia before them" all give brief, intense impressions of a place, without stopping the narrative in its tracks or drawing focus from the main character.
Find out who's hurting. If your story involves a new situation or technological breakthrough, figure out who suffers as a result - maybe that should be your main character, says Robinson, quoting from Damon Knight (who was quoting James Blish in turn.) Keep your characters grounded. The stranger the setting, the more ordinary your characters should be, says Terry Bisson, Hugo- and Nebula-winning author of Bears Discover Fire. "For example, in my most recent story, the narrator 'had a job and an apartment, but that was all.' The story wasn't about the setting but about the character." Your characters should be "totally convinced they live in the present, rather than the future. Because, of course, it IS the present to them," says David J. Williams, author of The Mirrored Heavens. Make sure your world, and your characters, both have a believable past, that anchors their present. "As Gibson said, the future's already here, it's just unevenly distributed. Same is true for the past: it's always with us, but sometimes beneath the surface. How one handles that is the key to character." More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5065556&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[SharedWorlds Creative Writing Program Gets a Sequel]]> If you're a teenager and you spend a lot of time thinking about worldbuilding, then the SharedWorlds creative writing program at Wofford College is basically your homeland. The week-long program, co-organized by io9 contributor Jeff VanderMeer, took place in late July. Teens got to build their own worlds and then write about them, with input and help from VanderMeer, as well as other amazing authors like Ekaterina Sedia and Tobias Buckell. In fact, the program was such a success that program director Jeremy Jones ordered up a sequel. So you can go to SharedWorlds in 2009. Not convinced? Here's what Jones and VanderMeer had to say about this year's program. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5039650&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Rules of Quick and Dirty Worldbuilding]]> Worldbuilding is the art of creating an alternate universe where the rules of present-day Earth life don't apply, and you have been appreciating that art for as long as you've been reading or watching science fiction. Some worldbuilding is epic in scale, and requires thousands of people: the Star Wars universe is like that, if you think of all the people who have helped create the movies, books, art, TV and games from that world. But other worldbuilders work alone. Ursula Le Guin wrote several novels set in her "shared worlds" universe without any help and without spawning any spinoff tales by other people. But worldbuilding doesn't have to be something that just the pros do. You can get in on the cool create-your-own universe action any time you want, and fast. Just follow our five simple rules for whipping up a universe in your spare time. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5039477&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[SF Authors Pick Favorite Examples of World-Building]]> Wonder what makes your favorite SF authors green with envy when it comes to creating strange new worlds? Now's your chance to find out, as the site SF Signal asks twelve prominent writers - including our very own Jeff VanderMeer - just what kind of world-building sets their mind-a-tingle. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5032215&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Why Commericals Are the Best Way to Evoke an Alternate World]]> Searching for a quick, effective way to evoke the warlust-driven future world of Starship Troopers, director Paul Verhoven created a series of fake TV spots that characters watch in the movie. You can see one this clip, a patriotic ad for the Mobile Infantry which captures both the weirdness of a future where humans fight bugs, and the familiarity of a culture where TV commercials are still bizarrely perky and strained. Other scifi creators have also gone the Verhoven route, adding realism to their alternate realities by peppering them with ads. See some of the creepiest and best of the bunch below. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5016034&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Dream-Eaters and Three-Sexed Aliens in the Five Greatest World-Building Novels]]> What would weather be like if you lived in a planet-sized bag of oxygen? What would reproduction be like if there were a third sex who combined the genetic material of two other sexes by linking them at the neurological level and giving them braingasms? What would scientific progress be like in an anarchist-feminist society? One of the ingredients in many great science fiction novel is world-building, the practice of creating an entire unfamiliar (yet familiar) world whose strange permutations allow us to explore how unfathomable environments can dramatically reshape events that happen all the time in our own lives. Here are five cool world-building novels to suck your attention away from the misery of cooling weather and impending turkey day doom. More »
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