Brian
McBride is a Christian blogger, writer, and published author of a high fantasy
novel geared toward the young-adult crowd. He is a musician, artist, and
amateur photographer. He has recently started his third "official"
novel, which is book three in The Starcrafters' Sagaand is editing book two. He
writes fantasy, horror, dystopian, and science fiction of all sorts. You can
find him on Facebook, Twitter, his blog, and Goodreads.
Sorry about the delay in today’s post! But
welcome to the second post in this sub-series of Hooking the Reader! I hope you all enjoyed Scotty’s post last week!
This post won’t be very long, but I’ll try
to get my point across.
#1 –
Know your world.
You need to know your
world. Especially if you write in a fictional world, where the MC’s goal is to
set off on a journey or a quest. You need to know where s/he is going/coming
from. This will create a sense of realism that is needed in stories set in
fictional worlds. How can you do this?
Well, I like to draw rough maps to get an
idea of where everything is located, which direction my characters would
travel, what they might come across on their journey. Be organized.
Also, know what the landscape is like. If your
character ends up in a desert, know what the vegetation will be like, know your
character’s physical limitations. If s/he ends up on a beach, know where your
beach is. All fantasy worlds should have some realistic base. For instance,
most fictional worlds maintain the North, South, East, and West directional
markers. I keep these in Paradox as
well. Why? Because your readers will know what you are talking about and they
won’t spend half their time trying to remember what you said the direction for
North was.
#2 –
Know your culture.
What reader wants to read a book where the
culture is a jumbled mess? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
If you have multiple races (Elves, Dwarves,
Wizards for fantasy; Aliens for sci-fi) know what their different cultures are
like. Based off of lore and thousands of other stories, Elves are likely to
live in forests or near water. Now, you could create your own Elvish culture,
but this would create more work on your part. Not that more work is a bad
thing. ;) Make sure that you organize your culture accordingly and in an
intriguing way.
#3 –
Know your religions.
If you follow the Go Teen Writers blog,
then you probably know that they did a recent post on made-up religions. I’ll
try not to plagiarize. ;)
As with most other worlds, realistically, a
world should have a set of diverse religions with their own beliefs, even their
own cultures. Know what your different cultures and races believe. Do they
believe in nothing? Do they believe in magic? Do they follow a God or some sort
of religious leader? Be realistic.
Well,
that’s all I have to rant about today. Hopefully this post isn’t as
non-sensical as I think it might be. XP
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