(Way With Worlds runs  at MuseHack, Seventh Sanctum, and Ongoing Worlds)

Every worldbuilder, author, artist has had that moment. That moment where originality seems to be a fleeting illusion.

Perhaps they feel that they can’t seem to do anything original. Every idea they have seems done (and perhaps done better). The fear of being accused of derivation. The sense everything they do seems to be alike.

Perhaps they feel there just isn’t anything left. Everything has been done, there’s nothing left to do.

So let’s address that issue that many a worldbuilder faces – how do we deal with the need to be original? Fortunately there’s an easy answer.

Screw originality, who needs to worry about it?

Pointless Quest, Pointless Question

The need for originality that seems to trouble many a creative person, reminds me a lot of writer’s block. Writer’s block, in my mind, really is something that only has power over us as we name it – and having named it we’ve given it power and made our fear of it a trap. Originality is a case of where we have this vague idea of something and, feeling we must find it, fear its lack.

It’s all fear with little substance.

Let’s ask what originality is, anyway.

Something never seen before? Impossible because there will have to be some similarity in your ideas or your world to something or no one will ever have an idea of what’s going on.

Something new? New may be a matter of perspective. I’m sure with enough work anyone can find a similarity between two ideas. I once jokingly said the anime “Attack On Titan” and the surrealist Cartoon “Adventure Time” are the same – a shapeshifter and a combat expert in a post-apocalyptic future helped out by a slightly off-kilter scientist. So what really is “new” or “different”?

In fact, sometimes the unoriginality is original in another way. I’m reminded of an episode of the show Remember WENN called “Between a Rock and a Soft Place,” where the crew of a small radio station did a show called “Same Dane, Private Eye.” However this hardboiled thriller was really a retelling of Hamlet, with the prince as a two-fisted detective. Original or not? Original in combination of unoriginal ideas? Your guess is as good as mine.

Something where there’s nothing else like it on the market? Depends on your idea of the market – and many a market don’t seem to care about originality.

So I’ going to suggest “originality” is not a solid thing, it’s a somewhat relative, situational term. Useful, indeed, but something that’s better as a whole because it’s parts don’t exactly some up. A map not a destination.

The thing is when we treat originality as a solid thing, then we seek something that isn’t solid. When we don’t find it (and worse, when we’re in a funk, it can be harder), we become depressed or angry. But we’re angry something we can never truly be said to have, because the term isn’t solid.

So stop worrying and get back to worldbuilding.

The real question of your setting is “Does It Work.”

Integration Over Consternation

So really the question a good worldbuilder should be asking is how do their ideas hold together. Does the setting make sense, is the history believable, does the magic work, is the technology properly explained. Does the world functioning a way that people “get it” – and thus they can buy into it.

See, good worldbuilding means creating a setting that makes sense and functions, that people can grasp intuitively. It doesn’t have to be “original.” In fact it may be rather unoriginal. You could even be exploring common ideas so originality isn’t on the agenda.

But if it works and comes to life, people can connect with it.

Part of the fear of unoriginality (but only part) is that one is resorting to tropes and common ideas. Dead concepts, long ago mummified and propped up in many a story, wayposts saying “here’s your big ‘ol standard plot.” We’re afraid, in short of a world that’s just “here we go again.”

But when your world comes to life, when the ideas tie together, then it’s not a world of tropes – it’s a good, solid setting. You may see things that have been seen before, but it’s alive, and engaging, and interesting. It’s also yours, your unique vision, spinning away like an orrery.

Tropes are uninteresting and laughable when dead. But when alive . .. then they’re just common ideas working.

Imagine a bog-standard fantasy tale with your usual ripoff D&D party – the fighter, the wizard, the thief, and the cleric. Sounds boring and stupid. But imagine in brought to life, with magic versus religion, a warrior’s code ruling a person’s life, a shadowy criminals past haunting them . . . and then you have a story that could be interesting. Because it’s alive, even if the individual parts seem like tropes and stereotypes.

Well, seem like tropes and stereotypes until you realize how lively they are. Maybe tropes are what happen when you rip archetypes and common concepts out of their settings and just have their ghosts haunting your works.

Stop Worrying

So stop worrying and go build your damn world. Make it work, live and breathe. Make it function. Make sure it makes sense.

You’ll make a better setting, have more fun, worry less, and get more done. Let Originality be something that’s a laudable goal, perhaps even a good measuring stick, but one you measure by the liveliness of you setting, and one that you on’t let dominate you.

Besides, maybe when you focus on making that world well, originality will take care of itself, because we all know when our minds really get going that’s when the real surprises start . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

There are a lot of interesting genres, archetypes, & storytelling devices out there, some of which aren’t very well-known. Here and there, one week and then another, I’d like to describe some of the ones that I’ve grown very fond of, but which don’t seem to be well-known. Hopefully they’ll be new to you, and maybe even spark an idea.

Girls Underground

An archetype was first described by Kate Winter. It is a particular kind of Heroine’s Journey (which we’ll tackle in another week altogether) which has its origins in mythology but has really come into its own only in modern times.

Kate Winter’s website does such an excellent job of describing the archetype that I’ll just direct you to the info page on her blog rather than copy-paste it here. Fly, my readers! (more…)

Didn’t expect to have a news round up so soon after the last one, but several major announcements came out over the past two weeks too good to sit on.  Let’s get to them.

Showtime announces Twin Peaks to return in 2016.
David Lynch is involved through Lynch/Frost Productions.  No word on whether the new series is a reboot or a continuation, but will be a limited series, with nine episodes.  The big problem with the original series was that the network wanted more even after the mystery was solved.  The nine episode limited series will let Lynch tell the story he wants.

Ghostbusters reboot confirmed.
This isn’t the sequel Dan Aykroyd has been pushing for.  Paul Reig, director of Bridesmaids and The Heat, will be working on a gender-flipped reboot.  Joining Reig is writer Katie Dippold, who has worked on Parks and Recreation and The Heat.  Will it work?  Depends on audience reception, really.  The original Ghostbusters was second only to Beverly Hills Cop in terms of popularity in 1984 and both movies took advantage of music videos to get noticed.

LeCarré’s The Night Manager being turned into a limited BBC series.
John LeCarré’s spy thriller will star Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston in the BBC adaptation.  No word on who the actors will play yet.

Lost Sherlock Holmes film turned out to be misclassified.
A 1916 silent film adaptation of Holmes thought lost turned out to be mis-filed by Cinematique Français decades ago.  This isn’t the 1914 A Study in Scarlet that the BFI was looking for, as reported last month, but an American film made in Chicago by William Gillette.  The BFI is excited over the find.  A Study in Scarlet is still being sought.

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy being adapted.
The three books in the trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, will be adapted for SpikeTV by Vince Geradis, a co-executive producer of A Game of Thrones.  Robinson will be on board as consultant.

World Wide Dredd.
A seven-part Judge Dredd web series has been announced by Adi Shankar, producer of 2012’s Dredd.  Shankar has been working on a project featuring the Dark Judges.  The news follows the Day of Dredd campaign to get a sequel to the 2012 movies done.

The LEGO Movie spin-off announced.
LEGO Batman will be getting his own movie.  Will Arnett will return to voice LEGO Batman while Chris McKay, animation supervisor for The LEGO Movie will be the director.  Release date is expected to be 2017.  I am now wondering how well LEGO Batman will fare compared to Superman vs Batman, and would not be surprised if the LEGO version did better.

Bit of an early update here!

First, the new generator.  After the Writing Prompt Generator I needed to do something fun and simple.  So inspired by cheesy monster flicks, I created the Creature Feature Generator.  You can just get monster names, or get  ones that are intermittently punched up to be “movieseque.”  So are you ready for . . .

• Atomic Tyranosaurus Part 7: The Final Battle
• Daughter Of Two-headed Beast
• Insectobot Reloaded
• Monster Orca : The Next Generation
• Octocuda Versus Atomic Beast Part 5
• Octorantula
• Snakeshark Part 8
• Snakestorm
• The Rise Of Toxic Dragon : The Legend Ends
• Viperasaurus

Of course I’m all ready to see Octocuda Versus Atomic Beast Part 5.  Part 4 really ended on a cliffhanger!

If you have any suggestions for additional creatures to add to the database or cheese extras in titles, like “Reloaded,” let me know.

 

Otherwise mostly been doing some site tweaks for search engines.  I’ve wanted to optimize them for awhile and figured I’d just get it over with.

So how’s everyone else doing?

 

 

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

(Way With Worlds runs  at MuseHack, Seventh Sanctum, and Ongoing Worlds)

My friend Serdar, in writing Flight of the Vajra (which I edited, I admit, but I enjoyed the hell out of it) is fond of noting the plot happened when he realized his setting didn’t hold together. The novel is basically about things not working, or as I like to put it ,having more questions than answers is bad, but more answers than questions is worse.

What Serdar says sounds both wise and flies in the face of a lot of the attitudes heavy Worldbuilders may take. We want things to make sense. We want it to hold together. We want it to work.

But sometimes the tale is what happens when it doesn’t work. Maybe it’s a disaster. Maybe it’s a transition. Things are always in transition anyway.

So before you look at your latest world, at your latest change, and decry how you can’t see how the kingdom survives, or the galaxy prospers, or whatever remember that you may have just found the story you were looking for. The world breaking is the story.

The problem however is that you don’t know if you’ve done bad worldbuilding or that you’ve created a good but unsustainable setting. Maybe the setting falling apart is because your exquisite sense of detail has led to an inevitable conclusion – or maybe you just did a crappy job.

So it’s time for some questions.

Question 1: Why Does It Break?

First of all you have to ask just why your setting seems destined to fall apart. I mean if things are going to break down you have to know why?

• If it is because things just don’t seem to make sense, then the fault is probably yours.
• If the falling apart occurs because of elements in the setting, it may just be an unexpected feature. If you see a race war between elves and dragons as inevitable despite a fragile peace that was hard-won you don’t have a problem – you have a game, a story, or a RPG session

Question 2: How Did We Get Here?

You look at your setting and realize it’s going to go down in flames. Is this a story to tell or is this a mistake on your part? Part of the question is asking why this is all happening.

• * Are there reasons for the setting to get to the point f degrading that make sense in the context of the world? Can you explain why the Star Empire would survive the first hundred years but not the next two? In short, can you see your setting existing, but eventually falling apart.
• * If you can’t explain how your setting would get to the point where it would then fall apart you have a problem. Essentially the setting has shoddy infrastructure anyway and falling over is your mistake, not a feature. It should never have been big enough to fall apart.

Keep Asking

Those two questions can essentially tell you if you have a story – if the breakdown makes sense and the setting is reasonable up to the point of the breakdown. With both those traits you have at tale – without, you have mistakes in your setting.

However, maybe that’s not what you want to great in a story or game or comic . . .

But I’m Not Interested In Writing It Falling Apart

Sometimes we discover we’re not writing the tale we wanted or crafting the game we intended. That’s a bit of a tough call. A few pieces of advice I can provide is:

1. Change perspectives. Maybe the giant collapse is something you can write from a different perspective then intended. Maybe your perspective is the problem, and once you’re in a character or two’s heads the setting’s problems are things you want to write.
2. Back up. Back up a few years before everything goes straight to hell, and tell your story from there – though the coming collapse may annoy you.
3. Jump forward. Jump up your timeline and see if the setting eventually evolves to the kind you want to write.
4. Re-engineer. The hardest thing to do is re-engineer your setting to remove the relevant apocalypse. That is something that’s a bit challenging and potentially can tempt you to dishonesty. I’d say go for it, but if you can’t truly do it, hen you have to conclude your setting is what it is.
5. Quit. Not recommended. Staring over is kind of coping out and you have all that hard work.

Your call on these things. Though I’m not up for quitting – after all if you ram through you may find you want to write the end of the world after all.

It’s Part Of What You Do

Finding your setting is going to fall apart is one of the challenges of worldbuilding. It can shock us and surprise us and derail us.

However it’s also one of the benefits of the craft. Unexpected findings, challenges, settings coming to life are part of the magic of worldbuilding. Though it may alter our lans, at least it’s doing so in a way that truly surprises and inspires and comes to life.

Well, assuming its because the world was well built, but you get the idea . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

Hey everyone, so what’s been up? A LOT.

Trying to get back to generators (as you can see below the last two weekends were packed).  Hoping to get around to dumping some ideas into code so I can get them out of my head (I have notes on three generators now).  I need to get my laptop setup with a proper dev setup so I can code at coffee shops.  I do my writing outside my apartment and figure why not code the same way?  Though fair warning, one or two coming aren’t serious.

Secondly for you career creatives latest job series, “The Dark Side Of ‘Do What You Love’” is complete. It was a chance to explore some more negative approaches to my usual career advice. I thought you folks might like it!

Last week I did Con-Volution. This is a hardcore, old-school SF con with a big focus on skills, writing, socializing, and development. I was on panels on religion and worldbuilding (amazing, has to be done again), general worldbuilding (very diverse), and general careers(with a focus on professional behavior). I’d recommend it to you – give it a check if you can make it, or at least check out their schedule for ideas.

This weekend I did Kraken-Con. Spoke on how to Make Japanese Curry (I’m branching into Geek Cooking and this was successful) and my Fan To Pro panel. Great con and it’s twice a year – only it went from 800 people 6 months ago to about 2K estimated. I’m suspecting it’ll be once a year.  This one also had practical panels (seems to be a trend) and was great fun -plus it is so well organized.  If you’re in the Bay Area, you need to check it out.

I was also wondering if I should run some Sanctum based events at these conventions – you know, do creative jams, etc.  I’m open to any suggestions.

Oh and by the way – this is a great reminder of how I need to pace my congoing  ahead of times.  Thats basically two weekends of being busy . . .

I do interviews with creative people over at http://www.musehack.com/ and was thinking of reposting them here.  Any thoughts on that?  Gives people more exposure and lets you meet fellow creatives who might have advice.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

This past week has been rough on me, not giving me the time to properly review what I wanted.  I’ll throw open the floor to questions, though, and I’ll start with one of mine: What do you want to see reviewed?

(Way With Worlds Runs Weekly at MuseHack and Seventh Sanctum)

So last time I noted how David Brin had gotten me discussing the idea of the Idiot Plot or the Planet Of Morons – the idea the hero(es) are the only things saving the world, which is also corrupt and stupid.

The thing with this plot is it degrades society – and degrades the characters and the world. It makes the heroes stupidly unbelievable, it makes the villains shallow or uninteresting, it makes the world improbable.. It’s in short dumb and inaccurate and psychologically toxic when it’s everywhere.

But I’d like to expand on this in what is hopefully my last Heroes and Villains post on worldbuilding. Yeah, I know, unlikely, but still.

Namely, if you don’t resort to the Idiot Plot and the Planet of Morons (and you won’t, right?), here’s my thoughts on how to make the story or game interesting while preserving world integrity. Because you do want to engage the reader, but you also want to have a good, believable world setting.

First, let’s get to the heart of the matter. (more…)

I like moral dichotomies and moral conflicts in settings. I even, on occasion, enjoy the epic struggle between Good and Neutral, or Candy and Chocolate. But when you have a conflict between the forces of Light and Darkness and they represent Good and Evil every time, well, I get a little exhausted by it. The next go-to option is little better. Order and Chaos? Nowadays that seems to be just as overplayed as Good and Evil. Sometimes even more— or worse, it’s supposedly about Order vs Chaos but these are just synonyms for Good and Evil. (more…)