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Tag Archives: world building

How Kathy Writes a Book…Part 2: The Notes

30 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by Kathleen Palm in Thoughts, writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

calendars, character development, notes, thoughts, world building, writing, Writing process

Writing is a solitary process. Everyone does it differently and ISN’T IT WONDERFUL!??!!?! How all writers sit and end up with so many words on the pages and no one approaches it or executes it the same. No one. Well, one thing is the same. The blood, sweat, and tears. So many tears.

So here’s my tale of how the stories magically (okay not really magic, like I said, there’s a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears) become stories. It’s fun to know how others do the wording. It can be helpful. It can be entertaining.

So last time on How Kathy Writes a Story, I shared the beginning of the process…the idea. How one tiny spark…an image, a sentence, a question…grows until it starts to scream in my head.

Then I move onto the next phase.

*cue dramatic orchestral music with lots of brass*

The notes.

The scribble-scrabble days or weeks or months of taking pen in hand and putting thoughts on paper. Yup. Paper.

Gimme all the notebooks. All the glorious blank pages full of possibilities.

I set out to neatly arrange my notes. A place for characters. A place for world building. A place for everything and everything in its…

Yeah, well, that lasts for about two seconds, then I let the mess happen. That’s how I work, in chaos.

I write whatever my mind tells me to write. My thoughts flicker from characters, to emotions, to the world, to bits of dialogue, to scenes…it’s a great ball of tangled string that I get the pleasure (really, me, pleasure?) of unwinding as I write.

ALL THE NOTES

Characters. What do they look like? What is their background? What do they like? What do they hate? What do they want? And for my main character…the character arc.  How do they grow and change during the story?

World. This can get complicated. I have created so many worlds…most for a series of three books. From fantasy to reality-based, the world is important and, for me, can be a character in itself. For fantasy, I design worlds based in a purely visual sense. I paint it in my head, making sure the colors and textures all play with each other. I add the people, the creatures, the flora. If it’s a fantasy world, I bring it to life with a history, religion (if any), government (if any). In both reality-based or fantasy, I need to know what the characters believe. I draw maps, of the worlds and towns and neighborhoods. I draw houses and jot down what color the rooms are, where the furniture is. I need the visual reference. Class schedules. Work schedules. There is so much to know.

The action. Any scenes that pop into my head, I write them down. Any snippets of dialogue are recorded. Pages of scenes, all needing to be put in place.

Any thoughts that come into my head are scratched onto a page.

All the thoughts.

All the things.

If I think it…I write it down.

That organization thing I pondered at the beginning gets completely lost. I rip out pages and shove them here and there to try and keep the illusion of organization. I keep important pages separate.

Though I do spend a lot of time going through those notes searching for that one thing I KNOW I WROTE DOWN SOMEWHERE WHERE IS IT…

But, hey, when you live in chaos, embrace it.

So where’s the outline? Yeah, nope. Outlines don’t live in chaos. I have a different method. The calendar. For reality based, this is easier with a calendar already in existence. Months, days…I know what happens when. I pencil in events that I know happen, leaving all sorts of blank days for all the things surprises to happen. For fantasy-based, this is harder. I have made up calendar years for worlds, but I have run into the problem that structured time just doesn’t work. In my Doors books, going from world to world makes it impossible to have a calendar.

Note writing is the most fun. Listening to the characters, asking them questions, dreaming up the whole thing is a happy place for me. Though most of it never makes it on the page, it makes the world better…deeper, stronger.

But, eventually, the note writing moment ends. I have to start writing. Do I know everything? Nope. But I know enough. Let the games begin.

To be continued…

 

The Wonders of World Building

18 Monday May 2015

Posted by Kathleen Palm in Thoughts, writing

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Believing, bring fantasy to life, fantasy, thoughts, world building, writing

As I set off into writing the sequel to DOORS, I come face to face with one of my favorite things. World building. My imagination runs wild!

Monsters-Skipping-In-Field-Gif

I love making stuff up. My writers’ group couldn’t believe all the weirdness in my head. But there’s so much more to creating a new world than mere stuff. The world has to live, exist, it must breathe even when you aren’t reading about it. It must be real.

In DOORS, my main character Bryn spends time in multiple places. Don’t ask me to name them all, I’m not sure I could as there might be at least twenty. Not only do I get to return to quite a few of them, I get to set foot on completely new ones.

cheeringstarterfor10

I have to admit the whole if I can dream it I can make it real scenario is very appealing. If I want a world with an orange sky and blue trees… BAM! There it is. The visual is important. What do we see? Make the reader want more. Being an artist, I love painting the picture of each new world. I love playing with colors and textures in the landscape. Colors accompany emotions, a palette of blues and greens give the feeling of calm, until you let a heard of bright yellow monsters crash through the scene. Or maybe that blue world is filled with haunting tunes that come from a rock.

Alicemad

Maybe a bit mad, but it’s okay. It’s fun!

The animal and plants, if any, bring a planet to life. Ever watch a movie that takes place on a different planet and notice all the little things going on in the background? THAT. It’s not a backdrop, not window-dressing, but real. The cries of hidden birds or beasts. The way a plant changes color or suddenly moves. When all we can see is rolling hills of grass, but a tremor makes us wonder what lurks underground… or maybe somewhere the grass ends at a black pit.

Psychshawnwhat

I know! Just go with all the craziness.

The people, if the world is inhabited this brings it all together. Every world has it’s own residents with their unique culture. For every religion, or system of beliefs, there are hand movements (like the sign of the cross) or prayers. Their slang or phrases to show joy or love can settle in the minds of readers forever. (After reading Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, I said thankee say for months.) The way the people dress or wear their hair (if they have any) all weave together to form a cohesive race, a living, breathing reality.

The history of the world sculpts how the people speak, what they say, how they act or react. The past gives us concrete reasons for how the world is. It’s so important.

Anything is possible in the realm of fantasy, but every world has rules and those must be set. Or no one will accept it. But if they do, it can live on in their minds forever.

Narniawonder

The world of Solun is complicated. I still have more to reveal of its history and people. I will travel back to the Gether world to check on the nots and journey to other unseen places. But the undiscovered worlds call to me… who lives there? How do they live? What can Bryn learn from the people she will meet? What can she teach them?

When writing made-up worlds (except that’s not quite right, for they become real) take the time to build it so readers can be transported. Like Star Trek, Star Wars… like Dr. Who, give us what lurks in your imagination, give us what we have never seen before, give us worlds to change our perspective on life… on everything.

tangledrapunzel-in-awe

As Bryn says, “Keepers shine!”

 

Sharing my search for magic in everything.

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Kathleen Palm, Author

Kathleen Palm, Author

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