{"id":254,"date":"2021-07-25T18:35:48","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T18:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/?p=254"},"modified":"2024-08-10T21:40:15","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T21:40:15","slug":"su-fiction-for-worldbuilding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/2021\/07\/25\/su-fiction-for-worldbuilding\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiction for Worldbuilding course"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sunday 25 July 2021<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with my last entry, the intervening time seems to have flashed by. On second thought, it’s not so bad: I’d mis-dated by last entry, and looking at the timestamp shows my memory of it only being about five days was accurate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Wednesday, the day after that post, I turned in my story excerpt for the Worldbuilding course. It was 25 pages, and I’d developed it over the last two weeks. I feel quite good about it — not because it is wonderful — but because I believe it’s the first time I’ve written a story, OK, part of a story, that is driven by characters rather than by ideas about technology or worlds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

When I started it — that is, when I finished the first ‘scene’ — I had no idea of a plot; I didn’t even know if the story would be SF or Fantasy. As it developed, it became fantasy, although it took me a while to become comfortable with that — the initial fantasy characters were pretty stock, and served primarily as a foil for technology. That is now changing, and I am getting some more-fleshed out fantasy characters. The characters have spawned other characters, which keeps the writing going, and so the story has sort of grown organically, kind of in a dendritic manner with one bit developing out of a small point of another, or to fulfill a need for plot or structure of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point I am thinking that I need to step back and develop a plot. I don’t believe I can just keep writing new scenes inspired or required by this or that aspect of a prior scene. I do have a plot at the highest level, and the way it is resolved, but I feel like there is a whole of ‘scaffolding’ needed for the middle. Part of me thinks that what I should do is step back and analyze a few novels I like, to get a sense for how the sort of intermediate level of plotting ‘feels’ in terms of its structure and complexity. I will pay more attention to that as we continue to read The Dispossesed<\/em>, for the world-building course. I think I will also look at some other books that are in the same approxiate area of genre space that I am working in. A Well-favored Man<\/em> is one that comes to mind. Perhaps a pieces from the Bordertown<\/em> ouvre, as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CAH very nicely sent me three writing books from SF genre authors (by LeGuine, Delany, and <the 9\/12ths of Heaven person>. I think this is a good time to check them out. I also went back through the critiques I’ve done for the Worldbuilding course to try to figure out what I’ve learned. Interesting, what has been most valuable for me are not the problems I pointed out, but the occasional things I pointed out as strengths. There is no doubt a lesson there… Most of what I commented on where ways in which the authors were doing nice things at the level of phrases, or sentences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are my observations, with examples, grouped very roughly into small-scale and larger-scale moves:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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#<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Notes on what I learned from doing Critiques <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Small-scale Moves<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n