Small Updates From The Voices In My Head

small updates from the voices in my head✨

Hello friends!

I hope you are all doing well. This week’s post will actually be a short one today, I promise. It’s been a busy week and I’m a bit crunched for time at the moment. I’ll be heading out to my internship at a local historic site and museum in just a bit, but I wanted to make sure a gave y’all a little update before I forgot. (Also, I have to get my weekly post out for my class assignment. ᕱ__<)

This week my work on this story was a bit scattered. Mostly, I did lots of thinking about how I’m going to approach certain aspects of my worldbuilding. For one, I think I am going to attempt to write a creation myth for my world to get a basis, firstly, on where it even comes from, and secondly, what the people of my world believe in. It will also help me create my magic system because right now I think I want it to work something like how Paladins work in D&D. (Here's a nifty little page that will sort of kind of explain how and where Paladins get their powers.) I also think I want to do some research in the form of reading some of Tolkien's Legendarium, specifically the Silmarillion and study how he developed his fantasy world. 

 I also just finished reading The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings for the class I’m taking on writing witches, harpies, and hags, and it’s given me a lot of good ideas as to how to develop a magic system that works with the natural world. We also just did a writing prompt for that class to attempt to develop a spell of some kind, and that taught me that your girl needs to do a lot more research into herbs and herbal remedies as well as animal symbols and the like so that I can create a magic that makes sense to me. I can’t simply just throw things together for this book, every choice I make has to be deliberate. (The voices in my brain won’t let me do otherwise ᕱ__ᕱ). I’m going full high fantasy with this story and I will create a fully fleshed out world that has and follows its own rules!

So, yeah, that's where my mind has been this week. My goal is to actually do some writing/developing so I can give both y’all and myself a little something substantial next week. And if, and thats a big IF, I get enough done/prepared in the next couple weeks, I may challenge myself to actually partake in my own little NANOWRIMO (not the official one of course bc of all the AI controversy) this year. (If not for writing plot, for doing world building). We shall see.

In the meantime, remember: dot your j’s and cross your t’s! ᕱ__ᕱ

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

me at the moment

One should always have at least 2 craft projects going. That way, when one of them is messed up and misbehaving, you can switch to another, and let the first one sit there and think about what it's done.

taking your own advice is so hard. it’s “make bad art” this and “kill your perfectionism” that until i sit down with an idea i like. the i have to execute it perfectly Or Else

Rick writes kids as kids and I stand by that

never really noticed before how TWELVE percy’s quest companion choices are. its his best friend and that one bossy girl that seems to know whats going on. peak group project in middle school choices

outlining my sandbox

Hello friends!

I hope you all are doing well! I’m doing meh. –__– The third week of the fall semester has just drawn to a close and classes are picking up. I enjoy everything I’m doing, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that I’m doing a lot of different things. One of the things I’m really looking forward to when I graduate is that I can cut down on the variety of responsibilities. I’ll just be doing one job (hopefully) instead of trying to balance various courses. But enough about that, y’all aren’t here for that. Y’all are here for the writing updates, so let's get into it! ᕱ__ᕱ

Sadly, things have not picked up a lot since last week and I haven’t actually done any writing for world-building development. But, I did do some research into the elements of worldbuilding and took some notes. Even though it wasn't the most fun thing to do, I felt it was pretty important. I needed to create some sort of structure for myself (even if it is very loose) so that I know what I should be thinking about, how I should be creating my world, and what I should be including.

Worldbuilding, especially the type that I’m doing in which I am creating a whole new universe from scratch, is super expansive and very intimidating (which is why I’ve been dragging my feet about it lol). It's like looking out at an empty beach full of sand and knowing you have to build a sandcastle, but there is so much sand everywhere that you don't even know where to start. Where is the best place to build it? How big should it be? How detailed? Should you include towers or just a base? How are you going to do this with just your bare hands and a big empty beach? You know there are tools around here somewhere to help, but where the heck are they?!

But now, after I've spent time looking around and gathering some tools, I've at least outlined a sandbox and can dig in to just crafting stuff and experimenting, while making sure I’m in the bounds of what I actually need to be creating and that everything I am creating fits together.

Here’s some of the tools I've gather, in no particular order of importance:

ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS!! To build a consistent world that works, regardless of if it’s fantasy or not, you have to constantly be asking questions. Okay this works this way in your world. Why? What changes because of it? What else needs to change for it to be this way? How does it affect the story or the characters? 

It is very helpful to use the real world as a base for developing your world and its characteristics. What is the same? What is different? Why? 

A lot of elements will overlap in fantasy worldbuilding as they do in the real world. It’s okay! Just keep in mind which elements will affect what and will be affected by what when you are creative. Ex. When you change the climate of an area, that affects what animals and plants can live there and how life looks for the peoples who live there. 

THE WORLD IS NOT THE STORY! Make sure that when it comes to crafting your story after you are done worldbuilding that you create something set in the world not about the world. (Unless that is the goal, I guess?)

And here is the outline of element's that need developed:

Geography & Environment (What does the world physically look like? Are there multiple climates? What is the typical weather? Is the passage of time different? What plants and animals exist? Where?) 

Cultures & People Groups (Are humans the only intelligent life or are there other peoples? What do their cultures look like? What is specific and unique to each? What do they know about each other? Are there different holidays for different cultures? Are there different languages? What does education look like? What are the myths/legends/folkstories of each culture?)

Government & Politics (How are the governments structured? Are there different countries or sovereign nations? What laws exist and how are they enforced?)

Daily Life (What does daily life look like for these cultures? Especially for the main characters? Are there any customs that are normal in this world?)

History & Social Conflicts (What is the world’s history? How did they get to the present time in your story? Are there tensions between peoples? Governments? Religions? Groups or Organizations?)

Technology (What technology does this world have access to? Is it spread evenly throughout the world? Or do some peoples have access to more advanced technologies?)

Magic (What does the magic system look like? What can magic do? What can’t it do? What shouldn’t it do?)

Religions/Philosophies (What religions exist? If multiple, are there tensions between them? Are there deities? Are they connected to the magic system? What moral standards are there? Are any holidays tied to religion? Are there important religious texts?)

Economy & Trade (What sort of economic system does the world operate under? What currencies exist? Who trades with who? Who doesn’t trade with who and why?)

Origins (What is the origin of this world? Is it tied to religion? Are there creation myths? What are the scientific laws? Are they different from real life? How so, and why?)

Like I said before, and I will say again in the future, worldbuilding is a lot. It’s a lot, a lot. But having some sort of jumping off point and a list of things to keep in mind as I go is certainly going to help me get into the sand and get messy because now I know where the edges of my sandbox are, a vague idea of what I need to build, and have gained some tools to help me out. 

Now I just need to figure out how I’m going to build this thing. ᕱ__ᕱ

Until next time, friends! And don’t forget– dot your j’s and cross your t’s!!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

PS. Below is a list of resources I looked at while researching this week!

The Art of Narrative

World-Building: The 10 Key Elements - The Art of Narrative

Learn the art of world-building in your sci-fi, fantasy or alt-history story with these 10 key elements of world-building!

The Darling Axe

Building a Fictional World: A Novelist's Guide

Repeat this to yourself: the world is merely the backdrop. It is not the story. It will want to be the story. It will try. But you can’t let

Institute for Writers

Worldbuilding Checklist

Worldbuilding is usually associated with speculative fiction writers, but even historical, memoir, and romance authors must create a world f

Scribes & Archers

Worldbuilding Checklist - The Basics - Scribes & Archers

Not sure how to start worldbuilding? This checklist includes the most important elements to develop for your overarching world and for indiv

busy-ness + rest

Hello friends!

I have to be honest with you all… this week time has gotten away from me a little bit. For my university, fall break is this weekend and I have been scrambling a little to finish everything I need to get done for my classes and prepare everything I need to complete during break. It’s also a festival weekend at the historic site that I’m interning for so I am writing this post before I have to leave for the day. (I will be there all weekend and I just know I am going to crash Sunday evening when I finally get home.) Regardless, because of all this busy-ness, this post is going to be ridiculously short today.

Some updates on my creative writing:

I have not worked on either project this week

I wrote a short story for one of my classes which could maybe turn into an expanded story someday but I am content with it remaining short for now

I am in the process of developing a podcast with my friend for one of our classes and it is very fun

Other than that, however, I haven’t done much this week. And, that is okay!  ᕱ__ᕱ Sometimes you just need to give yourself a little time and space to breath and let the creative juice stores refill themselves before diving back in. That’s all for this week then!

And don’t forget, cross your j’s and dot your t’s!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

PS. The weather has been getting really cold recently! I love autumn but dipping into freezing temperatures already– no thanks!!