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I am beyond thrilled to be launching my world-building 6-week intensive session! For the next six weeks, every Sunday I will be posting about a different facet of world-building. I'll have a ton of resources for you to start creating your world!
World-building is tough, but it is also a ton of fun! I'm excited for you to join me on this next adventure. Take a look at the infographic for a sneak peak about the topics we'll be covering. As always, any questions? Leave them in the comments! Hoping I'll touch on something specific? Let me know!
Photo Credit: M. M. Kastanek
(If you're new to my style of writing prompts, head over to this blog post for more information. Feel free to use just the picture, just the prompt, just the words, or a combination of any of the three write your paragraph! Don't forget to comment with your practice!) Prompt: My eyes scanned the pockmarks in the cliff face... Words: momentum, squawk, trigger, glamorous, wheel, crusted My Paragraph: My eyes scanned the pockmarks in the cliff face for a flash of red: the telltale sign of a vripsto bird. I motioned to the driver to cut the power to the hydroWheel. We bobbed over tiny crests of waves, the momentum still propelling us toward the cliffs. I gripped my launcher and blinked several times to moisten my eyes. I could feel the salt crusting around my lashes. Willing myself to stay focused, I shifted my weight and leaned on the railing of the boat. A spark of red flitted between vines of green. I raised my launcher, resting my elbow on my knee and slowly squeezed the trigger. Squawk. Plop. More flashes of red crept out of their holes in the cliff face. Squawk. Plop. Squawk. Plop. Though not a glamorous way to make a living, I had just secured myself seventeen isos, a weeks worth of labors even after I paid the owner of the hydroWheel. I couldn't help but feel pride. Three vripsto birds in one outing. I whispered silent thanks to whatever forces lingered in the sky, imagining the weight of those bronze isos coins in my palm, and smiled. Today was the day I would buy Gieta back from Sister Zainya. Not even the Barons could stop me today. Don't forget to share your practice in the comments! I'll give feedback to each paragraph posted! The Five Senses. We learn about these in grade school. Some English teachers touch on them on vague creative writing assignments. And then they're forgotten. However, a great writer uses sensory language to evoke a sense of presence in the reader, a sense of being in the world the author has created. One of the ways good books go to great books for me is when I am sensory overloaded by the author's descriptions. Senses ground us and immerse us in an author's world. Which is why it is so important to incorporate tangible descriptors in our text, especially in fantasy. When you're building a world from scratch, as impossible as this world is, it must be tangible and real to the reader. Not "real" in the sense of no magic or dragons, but real in the sense of tangibility. An author must be able to bring the reader into their story with the smell of garlic weaving with freshly cooked meats, the bubbly ale, the crunch of gravel under a boot, the derelict child with a crooked nose, and the brittle leaf of a dying magical plant. These descriptors are much more immersive than simply saying meats, ale, gravel, child, and dying leaf. They give the reader a sense of presence, a sense of being the one to touch the brittle leaf that crumbles to powder in their hands. A reader can feel that! I bet you heard the gravel when you read that sentence. Maybe you even smelled the garlicky meats. In fact, using precise descriptors to evoke the sensory images in your reader is backed by science! Check out this article that I loved (and that supports using the senses in fiction writing) from the New York Times. When we read certain descriptors, areas of our brain light up as if we are actually experiencing it! Even social interactions in books are experienced as if we are actually having those experiences. How cool is that?! Your writing has the power to make the reader feel as if they are experiencing your world! That's magic.
Comment a practice paragraph below using all five senses to build the start of a world. Feel free to use the ones I provided in the infographic, or use your own! As always, I'll give you constructive feedback on whatever you post! Photo Credit: M. M. Kastanek
(If you're new to my style of writing prompts, head over to this blog post for more information. Feel free to use just the picture, just the prompt, just the words, or a combination of any of the three write your paragraph! Don't forget to comment with your practice!) Prompt: The footsteps ended. As if no one was meant to travel beyond this point.... Words: fingers, crystallize, vanilla, eluded, mirror, isolated My Paragraph: The footsteps ended. As if no one was meant to travel beyond this point. Ibarth knelt, allowing his fingers to drag across the ripples and the rivets. The morning wind had not yet buried evidence of his quarry's passing. But the tracks ended here. Ibarth squinted his eyes, searching the shadows of the desert hills. How could the beast have passed this way without leaving prints? He scratched his beard, hands still stained with the scent of vanilla from the oils of her skin. But he couldn't focus on that now. Not while the beast eluded him. The frost crystals of night evaporated on the desert bushes as the sun grappled its way into the sky. He scanned the hills and valleys again. Nothing. Isolation. No movement of bird or beast or bug. Then he saw it, a flicker of light like a mirror catching the sun to the west. Ibarth suppressed a grin. You're far from your home, aren't you, Chimera? Don't forget to share your practice and feedback in the comments! Let's grow as writers together through practice and critique! Finished with this prompt? Try this one next.
Your turn to practiceHow would you change some of the adverb sentences I have in magenta above? Take a sentence with adverbs from your own writing and comment below with the original and how you'd change it.
Adverb questions? Wondering how to get rid of some in your current work in progress? Comment below and I'll give you feedback!
In honor of jumping on board NaNoWriMo (MMkastanek - find me), I put together my tips for beating writer's block. I've used these tried and true methods for years to get my brain back into writing. Most days, they work. Some days you just have to accept the fact that the muses are busy helping someone else and instead do something else to make your creative heart happy.
Comment below with some ways you beat writer's block! Photo Credit: M. M. Kastanek
If you're new to my style of writing prompts, head over to this blog post for more information. Feel free to use just the picture, just the prompt, just the words, or a combination of any of the three write your paragraph! Don't forget to comment with your practice! Prompt: Funny, how in the middle of chaos and destruction, a tree, a hedge, grass. Life. ... Words: crystallized, bone, exonerate, imp, migration, inch My Paragraph: (I chose to use just the prompt and picture) Funny, how in the middle of chaos and destruction, a tree, a hedge, grass. Life. I turn my eyes away. I don't deserve it - don't deserve to breathe in the fresh smell of new growth, to feel the slippery petals of the butterblossoms, to look upon the gnarled roots of the ogretrees. Not after what I've done. My hand tightens on the rocky half-wall separating me from this small paradise. I want to leave, to continue my conquest, but my eyes are held by the presence of life among the death that waits for me. Don't forget to share your practice and feedback in the comments! Let's grow as writers together through practice and critique! Done with prompt #3? Head here for prompt #4. |
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