Day 27 Assignment 22 Part 4: Researching Your Fictional World

Research! Every world fictional or non-fictional has a history. A few years ago I went to a youth writing conference they had the Authors of several popular books like Fable Haven come and give seminars on writing, and talk about important things they have learned. Paul Genesse (he wrote the Golden Cord) was my favorite speaker. He talked about how every world has their own superstitions and beliefs. You need to know what is happening politically, spiritually, and geographically to the people your character is apart of. The key to creating a world that is believable and plausible is knowing their beliefs, their fears, and the secrets of their worlds.

Some good questions to answer are:

• Is it a city, suburbs, or in the middle of nowhere?
• What is the year? 1700s or 3029?
• What kind of clothes do they wear? Corsets or perhaps Space Suits?
• What sort of environment is their city in? Mountains or by the Sea? Jungle or Dessert?
• What kind of Technology do they have? Floating lights and flying cars or peddle powered cars and torches?
• What kind of rules exist in their world/society?
• What do they believe in?
• What are their superstitions?
• What do they fear? Sea monsters or maybe the Vikings that live across the lake? The Vampire living next door with his skeleton cat?
• What are the dangers of their world? Are they terrorized by Dragons or is their city overrun with diseased zombie like humans?
• Has their country or people ever been in a war? Who was it with and why?
• Have their people ever been enslaved or enslaved others?
• What kind of planet is it?
• Does it have a moon? Does it have more than one moon?
• Does it have an ocean?
• What kind of animals are on the planet if it is different from Earth?
• Are there any other cities or people living on the planet?
• Are the people at the top of the food chain or are they hunted?
• What is the food like? Dragon meat or Hot dogs?
• Do your people believe in God?

You can see what I'm getting at if you "world" is different from Earth in any way you need to know How it is different, Why it is different, and What is different. You should know your fictional world as well as you know the world you live in.

Well this assignment is supposed to take two days so I'm going to keep working on it and keep asking questions until I know everything possible about Aaron's world.

See you all tomorrow! Good Night! :)