Many
years ago, I attended a panel at World Con on world-building and heard Carol
Berg (whose fantasy novels I highly recommend) talk about designing one’s
fantasy world to test and shape the main character. I thought it was a
brilliant approach. Prior to that, I’d always treated character and
world-building as two entirely separate things, but in truth they intertwine.
When I
started writing In Truth & Ashes, book three of my Otherselves series, I
knew three things. First, the True World was science fantasy—a world which used
magic to do highly technological things. Second, that Belinda’s first scene was
of a magic betrothal going horribly wrong, and, third, that her best
friend/love interest was a demi-god.
Why
science fantasy? In books one and two, I established that the True World lies
at a magical crossroads for the Mirror Worlds. The True World has cherry-picked
the best of all four worlds for itself. In particular it has stolen a lot of
technology from Water World (our earth)—with one big exception. The ecological collapse
of Stone World made the True Worlders decide to shun the internal combustion
engine. Instead they power their world by using geothermal and tidal energy to
infuse power gems, which then act as batteries.
One of
the very important pieces of magic-tech is a neural implant called a genie that
Belinda uses like a sophisticated smartphone. She depends on it and is
distressed when she can’t access it. Her friend Demian (yes, the demi-god
mentioned above) doesn’t have a genie and this technological handicap means
that he relies more on his personal magic. This is where world influenced
character.
Where
character had a big effect on the True World was when I was designing its
system of government. Since I wanted Belinda to be torn between love and duty
to her family and to her world, I needed an atmosphere of privilege and
noblesse oblige. Instead of a modern democracy, the True World has something more
similar to the way Britain’s House of Lords and House of Commons operated in
the 1800s, with one governing body elected by the people and the other a
birth-given right of the nobility. Belinda’s grandmother is the First
Councillor (i.e. prime minister) and she has raised Belinda on tales of how her
father’s marriage to her commoner mother was a political disaster. Belinda
believes she must marry well to secure her family’s power. Breaking free of
this massive guilt trip, while still keeping the notion of service to the realm,
makes up Belinda’s struggle for most of the book.
So, for me, one influences the other in an organic unplanned way.
To read an excerpt of In Truth & Ashes click here.
To buy In Truth & Ashes click here.
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