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In this episode Lori and I discuss:

• How character, plot, and world are all connected.
• Using the iceberg technique as your write.
• Creating a setting that can take on a life of its own.

Plus, our #1 reading recommendation on how to weave your story’s world.

Link to Episode 469

(Right-click to download.)

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Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 469: Craft Jam: Weave Your Story’s World appeared first on DIY MFA.

If I were a painter, I would daub oil paint across a large canvas. I am not a miniaturist, not one for too much introspection. Back in my dancing days, my dance partner and I choreographed ambitious full-length productions with just the two of us. Later, as an arts manager, I loved producing big-scale theatrical events. When I made a documentary film, it was feature-length. 

As a writer, I love pitching characters into big worlds or challenging situations. In my debut novel, Wayward Voyage, I pitched Anne Bonny into the gritty 18^th Century world of piracy. With Blind Eye, I sent my main character into the murky world of illegal logging. Before becoming novels, both stories were conceived as screenplays i.e. visually.

In my novels, I want to put readers bang smack in the middle of my world. But how do you make scenes real?

Let’s begin with research.

Building the world for The Find

My third novel, The Find, was published in autumn 2022. The seed for this story began with my husband. He told me his idea when recovering from a fever, and I reckon his brain was still scrambled! I loved the off-field premise and urged him to write it down. 

The Find is a high concept “What if…?” Here’s the story outline:

When human remains are found deep in an Ireland peat bog, the National Museum of Ireland takes charge, and their bog body specialist, Dr. Carrie O’Neill, begins to investigate. As more is revealed about the bog body, repercussions ripple throughout the world.

I love research, but bog body science? Where to start?

1. Desk Research 

The internet is my friend. I always work with two monitors open, my laptop to write on, and a screen to my left with the internet ready to explore.

Academic papers by scientists are readily available. I read some, gleaning information that might be useful, and I watched YouTube videos of well-known bog body finds being cleaned. That was visceral, and I could imagine myself in a laboratory picking flakes of peat off old leathery mummified skin.

When considering philosophical angles and differing beliefs, I dusted off old study texts, bought or borrowed new ones, and listened to YouTube and podcast lectures.

And Google Earth was a handy tool.

Over several months, I drafted and redrafted The Find manuscript. My husband was fully invested, loved researching with me, and thrilled to see his initial idea flower into a fully visualized world. He made valuable suggestions on edits and additions, and we argued about one of two things… as you do.

Take away: Anything and everything is available to research on the internet. Make use of it.

2. Specialist Advice

Amongst online content, one academic paper caught my eye. It was an undergraduate thesis from a few years earlier dealing with the practicalities and ethics of displaying bog bodies. Just what I needed! I contacted the British University that had published it, reaching out to the student who by then was completing her doctorate. Might she assist me?

Dr. Emma Tollefsen entered the spirit of my story knowing instinctively to keep the scientific touch “light”. She ensured bog body science procedures and timelines were correct and provided specific information I would not otherwise have known. 

I emailed the National Museum Dublin’s Assistant Keeper. This real-life bog-body specialist provided me with readily available documentation.

Take away: Never be embarrassed to reach out to specialists. They’ll usually be happy to help and the worst they can say is “No”.

3. Boots on the Ground

With my husband, we booked five nights in Dublin combining holiday and research.

First to the National Museum’s Archaeological Museum. This institution is central to my story, with one particular (real) exhibition of major significance.

The Kingship and Sacrifice Gallery is where some of the museum’s own bog bodies are displayed. It was important to experience how human remains were sensitively contextualized.

I paid attention to the layouts of museums and worked out the travel time between sites, driving and public transport. I took photos and videos of interiors and exteriors and became familiar with locations that Carrie O’Neill and her colleagues inhabited.

I was disappointed to find the Irish Times building closed with journalists working from home (Covid restrictions) as I had wanted to see where my character, Finn, worked. However, I know the deli across the street is where he’d pick up a coffee, and I passed a newspaper kiosk where he would pick up morning paper. All helps.

I traveled by bus and tram so I could figure which suburbs I wanted Carrie and Finn to live in, taking photos of streets and houses, and figuring out routes to work.

At St. Stephen’s Green, a city park, I recreated one scene where my character, Carrie, is sitting on a bench soaking up the wintry sun. Did a shadow pass across her closed eyelids when someone walked past, as I had imagined? Did the slatted seat move as someone sat at the other end? My husband re-enacted. Yes!

Take away: Experiencing environments for yourself can be invaluable. There are distinctive smells, sights and sounds that can add color to your story, and details you can only pick up by being there.

4. Beta Readers

It was time to test my story. From some, I wanted general reactions, from others I sought specific feedback. Had I got the nuances of Irish life correct and did the dialogue ring true? 

For example, police are called garda in Ireland, but either name is used. Two readers who grew up in Ireland assured me my story felt authentic. Emma gave me the “all clear” on redrafted scientific sections. As The Find touches on faith-based belief, I sought feedback on whether my story might offend? All good.

Take away: Before offering a manuscript for editing/proofreading, prior to publication, you must be confident the world you have created hangs together. Get feedback from a variety of readers who can comment on different aspects of the story. 

Does research work? The proof is in the pudding.

Once published, nothing gives me greater pleasure than endorsements from people who live and breathe the worlds I sought to create. Here are two favorites.

Wayward Voyage: “Anna is a natural storyteller and a gifted writer using colourful language that makes the reader so absorbed they feel part of the adventure.” Jim Lawlor, The Bahamas Historical Society.

Blind Eye: “This book may be a fast-paced environmental thriller, but for me it is real. Thank you.” Dr. Leonie van der Maesen, life-long rainforest campaigner.

Stories with big themes written as page-turners are Anna M Holmes’s speciality. She loves research–exploring and building worlds and complex characters. The Find is her latest novel following Wayward Voyage and Blind Eye. Initially, she worked as a radio journalist before a career in arts management working with UK Arts Councils and as a creative producer. Writing, reading, dance, and yoga shape her life. Originally from New Zealand Anna lives in South-West London.
To discover more about Anna M Holmes you can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post Research: The Key to Immersive World Building appeared first on DIY MFA.

As always whenever I offer advice I give the caveat that you should take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Not because I’m trying to swindle you or sell you something, but because there are eighty million ways to be a writer and only a few of them are right for you.

For your sake, I hope you encounter every bit of writing advice here and elsewhere with the eagerness of a rookie and the wisdom of a guru. If it works, keep it. If it doesn’t, drop it. And remember just because it worked for you doesn’t mean it’s going to work for your third cousin once removed who wants to be a screenwriter. 

Alright? Still with me? Excellent. Here we go!

World Building Tools

First let me say that there are some great world building tools out there including World Anvil, Campfire Blaze, and One Stop For Writers. Read all about these awesome tech sites for fantasy writers or gamers here: Best World Building Apps

I could geek out about these all day—they look amazing. I haven’t tried any of them yet and I’m finishing my first draft of my third YA high fantasy novel. Clearly, it isn’t required but I have to admit I have been intrigued by these sites for a while and before I start my next project I will be trying them out.

What a World Needs (besides a little love):

Time and Technology 

When is this taking place? A novel taking place in 2045 is going to be a lot different than 1345 unless you’re making up an entirely new planet.

What kind of tech do they have? Weapons? This is the fun part of world building, guys! Captain Picard was reading on a kindle long before they were invented. What amazing things would you like to see in your science fiction?

Alternatively, if you’re writing epic fantasy (hiyo! I see you there!), what kind of science are they using in a time before cars and computers? I recently started reading a book about science in the middle ages (yes, they did have science!) The book is called The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science by Seb Falk. Seb is a medieval history and history of science at Cambridge University and I first saw him interviewed on Star Talk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. I highly recommend this book for research addicts and all those “must be grounded in reality” perfection nuts like me. 

Last but never least, if you’re writing urban fantasy: how does your magic system interface with your technology? Can you cast spells through email? Can a vampire use nanotech to protect them from the sun? So. Much. Fun!!

Setting

An obvious one, but what is the geography of our world? The weather? What is important here and how does it interact with our protagonist and their path? 

You can’t downplay the importance of setting, and I think of setting as my “other main character.” After all, what would Wizard of Oz be without the tornado and the hum-drum backdrop of a boring midwest Kansas town?

History

Who are the heroes? The villains? The underdogs? What are the past tragedies and victories? The political geography? 

If you are setting your post-dystopian novel in a country like Ukraine, researching their history is vital to understanding the current crises. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are hundreds of years of wars and famines and population migrations around the world that will give your world some depth if applied right.

Culture 

(Music/the arts)

Music and the arts are a natural consequence of intelligent life, and always follow a culture with a period of relative political and material stability. 

Have fun with this! I like to research ancient or medieval cultures for my stories but that’s my jam. You might fall in love with the history of music and art in Iran or Norway.

Ghost Stories/Fables

What culture doesn’t have their own version of the boogeyman, the monster under the bed, the villain in the shadows? What they’re afraid of says streams, rivers, oceans about what that culture is all about.

Other Questions to Ask when World Building:

• What are the idiosyncratic features of these cultures? What are the contradictions? 
• How does the protagonist’s worldview impact, hurt, or help them on their mission?
• Are they an optimist? A realist? A pessimist? Or somewhere in between? 

Language

Thinking about creating languages from scratch? Are you an English professor teaching philology at the University of Oxford? No? Then don’t. Just don’t. 

I did. It was a mess. Learn from my mistakes. (Or don’t. Like I said, maybe it will work for you).

What you can do is think about what kind of slang your characters use. What kinds of things do they say or think that are specific to their family or part of the world? 

Let’s not negate what conflicts might arise from people speaking different languages in your novel. 

Do I sense a research rabbit hole coming up? YES. Don’t get me started on this. DO THE RESEARCH RABBIT HOLE. 

We’re writers, gosh darn it! We are not going to be put in jail by the Efficiency Police. We’re curious. Stay curious. Follow all those interesting white fluffy tails down those deep, dark holes, then come back and report to your readers!

World building: it’s not just for fantasy!

Sure, there isn’t a magic system to create in realistic fiction, but you still need to create the world. 

We may share this world but none of us walks through it in the same way. We’re all a hodgepodge of unexamined childhood beliefs, stereotypes, fears, and blind spots. 

You need to decide what kind of world you want your character to walk through. What are you focusing on? What are the bright spots and pain points? The point of view of a middle-aged professional working in Los Angeles is going to inhabit a starkly different world than a young man working a hot dog booth in Queens, New York.

Have I lost you yet?

If I have, it’s probably because I committed the mortal sin of the info dump. I threw a bunch of information at you and didn’t move the plot along at the same time. Basically, I grabbed your sleeve and was like, “wait, wait this is really, cool, no, I promise, it’ll only take like ten minutes and then we’ll have fun okay?”

Sometimes an info dump is okay. If you’re a celebrity or we know it’s going to get really good really fast because all of our friends are reading this book too. If that applies to you, excellent!

If not, better save those backstory tidbits for when they can naturally come out of a scene after you already have the reader’s interest. 

And remember: just because YOU need to know which Queen dispatched which power-hungry noble three hundred years before your main character is born, does not mean the reader needs to know it too.

Tell us in the comments: How much do you love world building?

Angela Yeh is an East Coast Canadian native that lives and works in the great state of Texas. Angela is a black belt wanna-be who loves to garden, write about magic, and eat cake. If you’d like to check out her first published novel, A Phoenix Rises, she will send you cookies (not cake – she’s already eaten the cake). She lives with her husband, two lovely human children, and three cranky fur babies. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram or on her website.

The post World Building without Losing Your Mind (or Your Reader) appeared first on DIY MFA.