My recent Google searches have actually begun to worry me. If anyone ever got a hold of them, they would wonder just why on Earth I was searching for things like:
Causes of nuclear winter
Maps of volcanoes on Earth
Gene splicing
Problems with stem cell research
Agricultural revolution
Husbandry
Free radical cancer
Pangaea theory
List of Popes
List of Patriarchs
Fault-lines in Asia
I actually have legitimate and non-violent reasons for looking up things like that. It’s called “I’m writing something and I want more than a half-assed reason for X to be related to Y.”
As some of you are no doubt aware, I don’t usually just start writing something without having at least an outline of what will happen in what order. My outlines are actually more than just that. In some ways, they are flow-charts and feedback loops. As a historian, I understand a great deal about civilization and historical trends. Persons and peoples do not just act randomly. There are forces at play in humanity that dictate certain reactions in certain circumstances. So, if you want to have a people who reacts to a given event in a particular manner, you have to have a reason for that. Religion can be a reason but then, why would the religion teach that? From where does the belief actually derive?
Many writers fail to build these kinds of foundations so they run into problems with their writing. If you’ve ever read something in fiction and then gone “wait, that doesn’t make any fucking sense…” then you know what I’m talking about. Oftentimes, writers who neglect the foundation will try to come up with a reason that answers that question. When the reason sounds very impractical and tacked-on, you know you’ve just come across someone who thinks that you start writing a book by just writing it.
My first few books were done that way. I just opened up a word program and started typing. I had a rough concept in mind and just let the story “flow.” Those books? Suck. A lot.
When I decided I wanted to teach myself to write a series, I decided to start with something established. I started with World of Warcraft. I wanted to explain to myself and to others what was going on and why my characters were involved or cared at all. WoW had recently begat TBC so I decided to try something my teachers used to harp on doing.
I wrote an outline.
And it changed my life.
When I finished Part II, I decided to do a more complicated outline for Part III. I did a simple one first but then I started doing charts and feedback loops. I came to some conclusions based on what MUST happen if X and Y took place. When Cataclysm was announced, I finished up Part III and outlined Part IV.
Doing an outline lets you flesh out your story concept a lot more. It also shows you where your weaknesses are and gives you the chance to shore those up BEFORE you commit a lot of energy to the story. For something I’m writing now, I needed to understand some scientific concepts. When I did my outline, I realized that much Googling was in order. So, I have some absolutely scary search phrases but they resulted in me learning things that strengthened my outline and enabled me to say “I can do this and it will work out.”
Working on an outline, planning things out, and thinking about the underlying causes and effects behind your characters and their societies is required if you’re going to do a solid new-world book. If you fail to do that, you can still wind up with something fun to read but if you tried to build a series on a shoddy foundation, it will collapse.
And, with that, I need to get back to work and then head over to Firelands for my guild’s raid tonight.
