Keep an Open Mind When Worldbuilding

 The idea for my Hathor Legacy series came to me after I watched a PBS documentary on U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After they went into the details of how FDR was infected by the virus that causes polio, I wondered what would happen with a virus that would fundamentally change the person who became infected.

Instead basing the story on Earth, I chose a settlement on a distant planet. Survivors of the infection would be left with PSI powers.

In book two of the series, Hathor Legacy: Burn, I went into more detail. The Guardians (the PSI security force) were descendants of settlers who were infected by a virus unleashed when the planet was terraformed.

Though the Guardians are not like the other humans on Hathor, they have their own culture and hierarchies within that culture.

Once an individual develops PSI abilities and becomes a Guardian, they’re forced to leave their family and give up their family name.

Nadira (the heroine) has to fight convention when she decides to continue her relationship with Jonathan Keel (the hero). Yet, her mother, Minona also fought against the established order.

As with any group, there will be outliers, but with the Guardians, if too many of them push back, it could destroy them and completely rip apart the fabric that holds the society together.

Novacorp needs them to hold on to their control, and yet the Guardians are strong enough to overpower them. At the heart of the story, conflict and tension exists between two groups that need each other for survival, yet don’t trust each other. And ultimately this conflict directly impacts the relationship between Nadira and Jonathan.

That’s how I got from FDR to the Guardians. Certainly not what I expected when I sat down to watch that program!

You never know what ideas will assist with your worldbuilding, and where they might lead.

The three books of the Hathor Legacy series are available on all major online booksellers including Amazon, Apple, B&N and Kobo.

Finding Inspiration for Your Stories

Are there times when you need inspiration to use in your stories? For instance, if you are imagining a setting but can’t quite figure out how it should look. Or how the cities are constructed. Or how people in your story worlds express themselves in art or leisure – there are ways to be inspired.

When I’m not sure about how to build a story world, I do a lot of online research. But there are times when I’m not sure what to look for. Perhaps what I’m looking for doesn’t actually exist in the “real world.”

What I’ve found (and what you probably know) is that authors can gain inspiration just about anywhere. You never know what will spur an idea that will give you one more piece to the puzzle.

There are three YouTube channels that I find especially helpful when looking for inspiration.

Architectural Digest

https://www.youtube.com/@Archdigest

For the most part I watch their videos because I have an interest in architecture. A recent video showed a futuristic home with detachable rooms! Sounds like a setting I could add to one of my stories. 

Another video compared Disney animated castle interiors to real castles. The presenter went into detail with comparisons and history without being dry or boring. So, if I want to use something similar in one of my fantasy stories, I have a starting point.

 

The Met

https://www.youtube.com/@metmuseum

The Met museum's channel has videos about art, music, interviews and performances.  You never know what you might see that will inspire a story idea. They go into detail in their relatively short videos, so you can end up watching quite a few of them at a time. .

 

Library of Congress

https://www.youtube.com/@loc

As with The Met, the LOC includes a lot of information about history, interviews and special events. They sponsor a yearly national book festival, and you can watch the presentations online. 

Even if you aren’t able to physically visit the museums and libraries. There are options for research or just to learn something new. You never know what will spark an idea or help you to imagine a world that’s a perfect fit for your story.

 

Creating New Words for Your Stories

 

Usually, I create words for my fantasy and science fiction worlds, but it can be a challenge to come up with them. Often I research topics I'm basing stories on, and then that helps me to decide.

For instance, for my latest book, Blood Red Moon, one of the main characters is a Templar. One of the supporting characters is the Templar third in command, a woman I only identify as the Seneschal. That rank would've actually been the second-in-command. But I liked the sound of the word.

No, I didn't create that word. Instead, I used one that already existed and was a good fit for the story. If it's possible to use an existing word that works (and if you can use it in your work) there's nothing wrong with that.

Other words I used in the book were from languages, such as, Latin and Spanish. For instance, the phoenix character is associated with a vampire. She's referred to as a blood, or sanguis phoenix. Sanguis, being a Latin word for blood.  The phoenix associated with gold is referred to as an aurum phoenix (aurum is Latin for gold).

In my novella, Heart of Stone, I only ended up creating one word, "Malida." The reason I created it was because I wanted to use it during a conversation between the hero and heroine. Willem, the hero, uses that word to refer to the heroine's grandmother. The grandmother is a former queen of the province where the story is set. In the aftermath of a war, the heroine, Leesa, and her grandmother are (as far as they know) the only remaining members of the royal family.

When Willem asks Leesa about her grandmother he calls her Malida, a term of endearment meaning "great mother." For Willem to know that name, he would have to have known more about the family than he's admitting.

Sometimes words come to me easily, other times I have to do a lot of brainstorming. It all depends on how the word feels to me and whether I think it's a fit. It can be a challenge to find (or create) the perfect word or phrase, but when you hit on just the right one, it adds another layer to the story world.

 

Why I'm excited for Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers: Infinity War is almost upon us, and as of yesterday I’ve already seen the initial wave of freakouts crashing into the Internet. Which means I’ve had to launch Operation Anna Ignores Most of the Internet Until She Can See the Movie!

If you’re in the same boat I am—i.e., not entirely sure when you’re going to get to see Infinity War—fear not. I am not going to talk about the film in this post. But what I am going to talk about is all the work the MCU has gone to up to this point in order to build their shared universe and ongoing storyline, and why this impresses me as a writer.

When Iron Man dropped in 2008, the moviegoing world was introduced to Tony Stark, incarnated so ably by Robert Downey Jr. Had that been a truly standalone movie, that would have been peachy; Iron Man was huge fun. “But wait,” the closing credits told us at the time, “there’s more!” And there was: Nick Fury showing up in a post-credits scene, to bring Stark the news of the Avengers Initiative. And bringing _us_ the first signs that there was going to be a lot more to this story than one film could show us.

Then in 2011 we got both Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. And I was already on board after Iron Man, but Loki and Cap both, in their own spectacular individual fashions, sealed the deal for me. (I could write a whole separate post just on the topic of why I adore Captain America. And may, in fact, next time it’s my turn to post around here. ;D ) But that’s from the perspective of moviegoing audience member.

As a writer, what I really appreciate about the MCU is that over the last decade, they’ve taken the time to show us all these individual characters, which has gotten me to care about them. And at the same time, they’ve kept drawing the individual plot threads closer and closer together. One by one, we’ve seen most of the Infinity Stones show up and have come to learn about their various abilities—in some cases, spectacularly destructive ones. We’ve seen the universe from multiple angles: Earth in various locales. Asgard. The various worlds the Guardians of the Galaxy cast have been to. And, most recently and awesomely, Wakanda. (Which is of course on Earth, but which deserves calling out separately, because good gods I loved Black Panther. But that, again, could be a whole other separate post.)

This is storytelling at an epic scale. Character building across multiple movies—and I almost hesitate to use the term “world building”, since we are dealing with a storyline that spans many, many worlds, so “universe building” is almost more appropriate. I keep seeing posts from various sources on the Internet talking about “superhero fatigue”, but I can safely say that for me, at least, this is so very not a problem. We’re only just now getting to the big climactic fight for a storyline that’s been building over the last ten years—and okay yeah sure that’s asking a lot out of audiences, to stick with a storyline that takes so long to build. But y’all, seriously, I’m an SF/F fan and a devoted reader. I’ve easily taken this long to keep following series of novels that take just as long to build. Doing this for movies? Cake.

And sure, I’ve liked some of the Marvel movies less than others. Some of them I have declined to re-watch, even as I happily go back and watch others over and over again. (The first Captain America is particularly my favorite.) But this, too, is similar to some of my favorite long-running series of novels, wherein I like some installments of the story better than others.

So yeah, I am very, very excited for this latest chapter in the ongoing MCU saga. And trying very hard not to fret about whose chances of surviving this plot are slim! ;D

Talk to me in the comments, y’all! Who all’s going to see the movie this weekend? What are your favorite movies in the MCU? Who are your favorite characters?

--
Angela is totally not in the slightest bit nervous about Steve's chances in this movie NOPE NOPE NOPE (fidget fidget fret). And when she's totally NOT FIDGETING about Steve Rogers, she writes as both Angela Highland and Angela Korra'ti. You can find her books under either name at angelahighland.com! Or come say hi and tell her all about your favorite superheroes on Facebook or Twitter.

World Building-SCIFI Rules!

I thought I'd talk today about world building. Every story has a particular world at its core.  Contemporaries deal with what we know, the world we live in every day.  Urban fantasies are a mix of contemporaries with monsters and fae living among us. Historicals must adhere to what was possible back “then,” as well as tie into the historical landscape. Paranormals make up their own rules, where ghosts, goblins, angels and demons can run amuck in their world.

And then there are the futuristics, one of my personal favorite genres.  Nothing like building a world from scratch.  Planets where the ore is red and priceless, and the inhabitants that mine there are eight feet tall with three sets of hands. Or spaceships that make use of worm holes to travel between galaxies full of fantastic creatures. Are all the aliens humanoid in appearance (hello Star Trek)?  Or do they resemble goo, snakes, blobs of plasm like amoebas?  

The potential for anything goes really exists in the futuristic world, because the author can create anything she/he wants... so long as the rules are consistent. It makes no sense to have the Falu people tall, lithe and purple in one book, while in the next they are short, squat and blue. If the Raggas are built like brick houses and miners, then they can’t suddenly have a history for being thieving, mercenary criminals who are both nimble and built on smaller lines. 

I started out writing futuristics, and I had more problems with consistency than anything.  Until I kept a detailed notebook on my world based in the Vrail system, I found it difficult to write them. Once I made careful notes of what planet produced what goods and what types of people, my stories started really coming together. Fun stuff, especially since the scientists on planet Eyra threw a monkey-wrench into everything by Creating a new race of beings, quite illegally. 

I love when folks break the law in the worlds I’ve created. It gives my peacemakers something to do, and they have a tendency to fall in love in the oddest places. 

And that’s what makes writing so much fun.  A guaranteed happy ending among the stars.

Marie

website | blog | facebookNY Times and USA Today Bestselling Author

Ten worldbuilding trivia items about my books!

Hi again, Here Be Magic readers! Today I thought I’d share with you an assortment of worldbuilding details about my books, to give you an idea of the thought processes that went into building their settings. Hopefully they’ll be interesting, and maybe spark a question or two about further details you want to hear about—whether in future blog posts or in future actual books.

And so, without further ado:

Five things about the setting of Faerie Blood:

1. The Warders originated in Scotland, and from there, they’ve spread in many directions around the globe. They’re most common in places that have been settled by people of Scots descent, which is why there are high numbers of Warders in the UK, Europe, and North America. But they are by no means limited to those places.
2. Given the nature of Warder magic, and how a Warder is physically constrained to his or her pledged city, families of Warder lineage strongly encourage their young people to travel far and wide to make sure they can see the world before they commit to a city, and to improve the chances that by the time they commit to one, they’re damn sure they want to spend the rest of their lives there. This is why most active Warders are in their 30s or older.
3. Since the Warders did originate in Scotland, the Warder lineage did start out Caucasian. However, not all modern Warders are Caucasian. Warders of color exist, descendants of assorted mixed-race couplings across the world and in particular, the last couple of centuries. This will be noteworthy as the story of Kendis and Christopher’s family continues to develop.
4. Likewise, the Warders are a predominantly human lineage. But not all Warders are entirely human. See item #3.
5. The Warders and the Sidhe are not the only sources of magic in the world. Sources of magic I’ve already written about are the kitsune of Japan, and at least one known healer born to slaves during the Civil War era.

Five things about the setting of the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy:

1. Adalonia and Tantiulo are the primary countries mentioned in Vengeance of the Hunter and Valor of the Healer, but there is at least one other known country in that setting, which I’ll be visiting in a future book. Vreyland is considerably east and north of Adalonia, and unlike Adalonia, is a society where elves and humans are living on equal terms—and which also has active magic amongst the human population as well as the elves. A not inconsiderable portion of the elven population of Vreyland are descendants of the refugees of the destruction of the ancient elven capital Astàlleramè, known to humans as Starhame.
2.  Most of the people of Tantiulo worship the threefold goddess Djashtet, but Djashtet is not the only deity known to the Tantiu people. There is a smaller sect of people in that nation who worship the wind god Vo.
3. There are reasons that the people of Tantiulo have their own name for the elves: the Hidden Ones. Primarily because there are, in fact, elves in Tantiulo, another offshoot population dating back to the fall of Starhame.
4. There were once dragons in this world, but if they still exist, they’re keeping a very, very low profile. No human or elf is known to have laid eyes upon a dragon in several hundred years. That there is a particularly vicious stretch of desert in Tantiulo whose name translates from Tantiu as ‘Dragonfell’ may well have something to do with this.
5. Adalonia is smack in the middle of its industrial revolution, and technologically speaking, is one of the more advanced nations of the world. But Vreyland does a lot with magic that Adalonia does with technology, and as the history of this world progresses, its people will face a sizable clash between technology and magic as they must ultimately decide which will dictate the course of worldwide development. Or perhaps whether both will.

And there you have it! If you’ve read any of my books and have other worldbuilding questions you’d like me to address, let me know in the comments! And if you haven’t read any of my books and would like to, as always, you can find everything you need to know about them right over here.

Angela Highland, a.k.a. Angela Korra’ti, a.k.a. Anna the Piper, writes fantasy and urban fantasy, and lives at angelahighland.com. Follow her on Facebook or on Twitter!

The Role of Magic

My first M/M romance, After the War, was the story of two warriors growing closer to each other while on the run from an invasion force. While one of them is a gunslinger, the other's an old-fashioned swordsman, and I felt very certain of its status as romantic fantasy until I started getting feedback: there was hardly any magic in it. Wizards were mentioned in passing, but several readers even wondered if I hadn’t written a historical piece without realizing it. I disagreed--it had certainly felt like a fantasy world I was constructing as I thought up its geography, cultures, even religions. 

But it left me wondering--is there a minimum amount of fantastic happenings to be included in a fantasy story? And is magic one of them? 

For that matter, what counts as magic? Strange creatures? Unicorns may have magical powers in one setting and be natural, if unusual, animals in another. Even beings like vampires, Amazons, or shapeshifters can make a story speculative without including any outright wizardry. In the Middle Ages, alchemists tried to become immortal or transmute metals--things that look a lot like magic to us, although they would insist differently (especially if the Inquisition came around). What about witches? Are they manipulators of the basic nature of reality, or simply wise herbalists? And what about Arthur C. Clarke's law, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"? Some wonderful steampunk has been written straddling the boundaries of science and sorcery. In this world's Victorian era, Forteans and investigators into the Spiritualist wave tried to make sense of the supernatural in a scientific context, preferring psychic powers and hidden dimensions to magic.

Is magic something the characters in a story take in stride? Or is it uncanny, mysterious in origin and beyond human comprehension? Can you see a wizard's duel at the weekly market, or would a feud between sorcerers be a once-in-a-millennium occurrence that threatens the stability of empires? And wherever it falls between those two points, how do ordinary people feel about magic? If rare but benevolent, it may be a miracle. If commonplace and dangerous, witchcraft may become a petty crime. 

In my short story Unnatural Means, I finally wrote about magic...or did I? While Unnatural Means clearly takes place in a world where people believe in--and persecute--magic, the viewpoint character, Isak, is never certain whether his prisoner Sain is a true witch or not. Whether the reader believes Sain or Isak will impact their judgement of the characters, but it's certainly true that Isak feels Sain has some sort of hold over him, bewitchment or not. 

My forthcoming release from Carina, Gardens Where No One Can See, will be my first M/M romance to feature what it unquestionably magic: cruel sorcery so powerful it overcomes the warrior Renad's will, enslaving him. Renad and his friend and lover, Nemaran, aren't magicians, and they don't understand the intricacies of the spell binding him. Instead they have to feel their way around it, working together to learn as much as they can and find a way to counter it. Like Unnatural Means, Gardens is a story that wouldn't happen without the idea of magic, and it's also what I like to call a "nature of magic" story: how sorcery works is crucial to solving the problem the characters confront. 

Although writing a "nature of magic" story was fun and gave me plenty to think about, I also enjoyed exploring the boundaries of fantasy with the comparatively mundane After the War. What I love most about a story are how the characters interact with each other and with their world, whether magic is a major part of it or only a glimmer of mystery at the corners of what they know.

What sort of role do you like magic to play in your stories? Would you ever consider reading or writing a fantasy story where the existence of magic is unclear or unproven, or where it exists but doesn't directly impact the plot? And--my gooey inner nature won't let me close without asking--isn't love the greatest magic of all? ;-D 

Fantasy Week - Enriching the Scene

When I read fantasy I want to be immersed in a new world, one that may resemble our own slightly, but that the existence of magic has made fundamentally different. One of the things I look for in fantasy is the depth and richness of the world and I strive for the same in my own writing. Writers call this world-building, and it is more than a history. It is clothing, food, architecture, language, culture and customs, often for several different peoples or races. It is geography and biology, flora and fauna, climate and a dozen other things.

Some writers spend months inventing hundreds of years worth of history for their worlds before they set pen to paper. I don't (okay, can't) work this way. World-building is something that I layer into my story, adding details and building up through successive drafts.

Here is an example of an early draft of a scene from chapter one of Gate to Kandrith:

EARLY DRAFT:

The uncobbled side street she was running down was almost pitch-black with only the moonlight gleam of puddles to guide her.  Her slippered foot slid and the skirts of her gown trailed in muck, becoming sodden and chilly.  They clung to her legs, slowing her progress. 

She started to edge backwards, farther away from Claude and his servants.  A sanguon ran up holding a lamp, panting.  "Here, milord."

"Don't wave it in my face," Claude said irritably.  "Go look for her."

How many others were there in the dark, searching for her?  Sara struggled to remember how many had ridden with the coach.  The driver, Claude's bodyservant and one or two guards.

The lamp was easy enough to avoid.  Sara backed steadily away from the splash of yellow light and listened hard.  Another curse from Claude as he stepped in something unpleasant and over there a small splash, someone moving through a puddle.

I liked the scene, but felt the setting was too generic. It could have been any muddy alley in any fantasy city or even a historical novel. I wanted to show that my world was different and new and interesting. More subtly, I wanted to show that my main character grew up in a different culture and has been shaped by her beliefs.

NEW VERSION

Sara ran, guided only by the moonlight gleam of puddles.  The skirts of her gown trailed in muck.  The sodden material clung to her legs. 

"Sara!"

Sara tried to speed up, but her foot slipped in the mud.  She found herself slowing, her drugged body unwilling to run any farther.  The jazoria inside her whispered to stop, wait, let herself be caught.  Let Claude take her.  Anything to make the horrible, clawing need go away.

No.  She would not give in.

Sara looked around, trying to get her bearings in the dark.  Which way lay safety?  She moved farther away from Claude and stumbled upon a raised path. 

"Lady, it isn't safe, not here."  Claude's slave, Gelban, spoke this time.  "Do you know whose temple you're at?"

Temple?  Most temples were scrubbed free of mud by diligent dedicants.  Only one--

"I don't want to say His name, Lady," Gelban said.

Vez, God of Malice.  She'd entered His temple.  Sara's heart jumped as her memory supplied an image of temple courtyard full of black mud with Vez's statuary facial features rising up out of them.  She must be walking on the obscenely long, lolling tongue, about to pass through Vez's mouth into the courtyard.  Although Vez's assassin-priests had been outlawed over one hundred years ago and his worshippers driven into hiding, no one had dared pull down the God of Malice's temple.

"You don't know who might be out here in the dark," Gelban said.  "Please, come back to the carriage."

Sara tried to think.  Was Gelban right?  The dark seemed suddenly malevolent.  All types of scum were rumoured to come out at night to search the mud for the gold coins thrown by those buying a curse.  She could end up with her throat slit or sold into slavery.  In comparison, the early wedding night Claude wanted was nothing.

"Where is the little twotch?  We've lost her."  Claude swore with surprising viciousness. 

Her determination to escape Claude hardened. Ducking her head to avoid the sharp statuary teeth, Sara entered the mouth and the Temple of Vez.

Inside, her foot came down in ankle-deep muck.  The mud in the courtyard was said to be studded with sharpened stakes.  Vez only wanted worshippers who hated enough to be careless of losing a little blood.  And if they died later... the God of Malice played no favourites.

Not only is the second version considerably more creepy, but changing the setting from an anonymous alley to the Temple of Vez gave me a chance to salt little chunks of world-building into the action like diced potato in a stew. If you try to shove a whole potato’s worth of information or backstory down your reader’s throat in one lump, they may choke on it.

Similarly, the world-building needs to be integrated into the scene: my character has a reason to be thinking about something that everyone in her world grew up knowing. Nor is the information included here a mere footnote: Vez is the force behind my villain and important to the story. Going off on a tangent about history or architecture is as off-putting as adding sugar to your stew.

What are your favourite fantasy worlds?

Othello in Space, or How Not to Build a Sci Fi or Fantasy World

I had all kinds of amazing ideas for this blog post, but those were superseded by an urgent need to talk about how NOT to build a fantasy or Sci Fi world. Consider this a PSA. A rambling, not terribly informative PSA.

I was recently reminiscing with a friend over a high school version of Othello we saw years ago. Maybe “reminiscing” isn’t the right word. “Eviscerating” probably fits better. The innocent “hey, do you remember…” dissolved into me ranting about the utter lack of respect for the cadence of the verse and the pronunciation of the words (But lo, what emPHAsis from yonder, wrong sylLAble breaks?).

There were also a number of random pelvic thrusts. Have you ever run into an out-of-the-blue hip gyration? It’s baffling. I get that Othello contains both insinuations and overt accusations of adultery. I do. Apparently the cast was also clued in to this, but they weren’t sure exactly which words were naughty, because the final product looked a lot like this:

Othello:

“Had it pleas’d Heaven

To try me with affliction, had they rain’d

All kind of sores and shames on my bare head,

Steep’d me in poverty to the very lips,

Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes (pelvic thrust)

I should have found in some place of my soul

A drop of patience (pelvic thrust)”

-Shakespeare, Othello (Pelvic thrusts are mine. Well, not mine, mine.)

Maybe we just saw the production on an off night, which would explain the director sticking his head around the scrim and stage-whispering: “Psssst: ACT!” a few times. Regardless, I raved about this for fifteen minutes, after which my friend chimed in with, “Yeah, and I can’t believe it was set in space!”

Whaaa?

I have a vague recollection of geometrical set pieces, large headdresses and silver and purple lamé clothing. And this brings me to my point – which should come as a relief if you’re still reading. I had no idea this Othello was set in space. None. What was there to clue me in? From what I could tell, it was set in a kingdom that adored Euclid, was full of women with strong necks, and had a keen desire to show metal how easily it could be mastered and turned into ill-fitting pantsuits. That could be anywhere, anytime. It could be happening in your home town right now! Though I hope it’s not, because pantsuits are not flattering.

I’m not saying that Iago should have come out with a giant “Saturn or Bust” bumper sticker on the side of a suitcase. I don’t love the obvious info-dump. If more than half of the first chapters of a Sci Fi or fantasy novel describe the rules, history and minutiae of the world outside the immediate context of the characters, I zone out. But I also don’t care for window-dressing worlds, stories that could easily exist here and now but happen to be in space!, or underground!, or on an Earth where the sun has set permanently and humans are slaves to vampires decadently living out their final decades as the planet cools (!...wait, that actually sounds sweet).

Ilona Andrews' Amazon Page

There has to be a balance but, more importantly, the environment – this world that the author takes so much time and thought to create – has to impact the characters and plot. Ilona Andrews is someone(s) I often point out to new authors when showing them how to create a dramatically different world. In their Kate Daniels series, paranormal and mythical creatures exist, but that element isn’t what makes that world unique from the real world. Magic battles with technology and the two ebb and flow erratically. Which of the two is “up” at any given time is integral to the story. Characters can go from powerful to frail, or sane to mad during these shifts. Long distance communication can be instantaneous one moment, and impossible the next. This results in conflict and drama and peril, oh my!

So, I guess what I’m saying is that, if you’re going to festoon your world in triangles, those triangles had better be important, not just pretty, pointy things. Also, please keep your ill-timed pelvic-thrusts to yourself.*

*I was going to put a “the more you know” here, but I don’t want any major networks to sue me.

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