Playing God

One of the best parts of fiction writing is having the ability to really share your creativity and come up with amazing people, places, and things, spawning a world that you, and only you, can control. It's a great feeling, being able to bend and break the rules of our own world as you create your personal universe. But as far as story telling, how do you convey your world to the readers? How do you show it off? Even then, how do you make a world that's good for sharing?

I think if you're a creative writer, then you're always playing god in your mind. Random ideas come and go, leaving behind glimpses into new worlds and new sets of characters. Every single one brings with it an urge to write and create, to put  your glimpse on paper. Although you can make great short stories of these small ideas, it takes a grand one to really make a great novel.

This world that stews in your head will need to meet some qualifications before you write about it though. First of all, and most obviously, it's needs to be unique. Of course I'm sure you'll have many elements that we see in day by day life, but you need to bring something new to the table. Something that has never been read or even remotely heard of before, something that grabs peoples attention and doesn't let go, something that spurs the reader to not only want to read more of your book, but learn more about this world that you've created. Secondly, it needs to be expansive. The real world is humongous with millions of things to learn and explore; people, places, history, sciences, creatures. The world that you create should be similar, with hundreds of facts and interesting things to share. This way readers always have something new to read about and learn, then they will not only become hooked, but stayed hooked. This goes hand in hand with my last point I'd make, which is that your world should be well rounded. These expansive details and creations shouldn't focus around one genre of things, but should represent everything from technology to politics to biology. You should be able to talk for days about all these minute details you've envisioned for your world!

Lets take a look at some of the greatest modern fictional worlds that have some of these traits. The worlds of Eragon, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones, for example. All three series are great examples of large series's that feature amazingly large and detailed worlds. (If you haven't read any of these three, I'd highly recommend it) My favorite is Game of Thrones though. Its unique world that, as far as the reader knows, takes up literally a whole planet; it has it's own continents, oceans, seas, islands, everything. Going past the geography, the series is layered in rich history that is subtly mentioned throughout the five books. I'm pretty sure there is enough for you to learn that you could actually major in Game of Thrones history. It's seriously crazy how much time has been invested to that world and all its characters.

Anyway guys, I hope you learned at least a little something about writing from this. Until next time, peace.

-Ink