A hero or villain with cool stuff excites the imagination. Who doesn’t like Jedi Knights with light sabers (Star Wars)? Or albino weaklings with a sword that devours souls and transfers the victim’s energy to the wielder (Elric of Melnibone)? Read More …
Category: Book Blog
Master category for all posts of the book content
Why Is Our Hero/Villain Famous?
Fame Our character is famous for something. This is the reason we’re creating them. What are we hoping to achieve? Do we want someone whose name people fear to invoke? Someone to inspire others in times of trouble? Someone who Read More …
Creating World Figures
Chapter 4: Creating World Figures No book on world building would be complete without mention of those who live there, as they are arguably the whole point. That said, the creation of people will depend on our goals. If we’re Read More …
Where to Start Inventing a Species
A top-down approach to inventing a species means viewing a species at a high level and working our way into details. We might decide on a sea-dwelling species and then face more detailed questions, like whether they have gills or Read More …
How Does Your Species Fight?
Deciding on our species’ morale, society, personality, and body (including dexterity, agility, strength, and constitution), will help us decide on their combat skills. Learn more by getting a copy of Creating Life.
Can Your Species Use High Tech Stuff?
Fantasy In a fantasy setting, technology means things like forging steel weapons, plate armor, or chainmail—the trade of blacksmiths, who are held in high regard. There are more rudimentary elements that our audience is unlikely to care about, including plumbing, Read More …
How Does Your Species’ Do Magic?
If our world has the supernatural, we should decide our species’ relationship with it. This includes not only magic but phenomena – and even the power of the gods coursing through them, like the healers of Dungeons and Dragons.
What Are Your Species’ Relationships Like?
Unless this species is the only one in our work, we need to decide how they relate to humans and other species of our invention, or any public domain species we’re using. Inventing this tends to be easier when we’ve Read More …
What is Your Species History?
We should decide on our species’ history to make them more believable. If they originated in one place and have spread far, this could have implications we’d want to leverage.
What Are Your Species’ Customs?
Inventing customs, or leveraging Earth analogues, can help bring a species to life. Greetings, farewells, dining, and spiritual habits are all good subjects that will figure in our storytelling. Differences between this species and others can cause a misunderstanding, which Read More …