World-build with me! pt. 1 // on fantasy races & species
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- The first in a series examining different aspects of my fantasy world, and also including some tips and suggestions for world-building. More of a conversation than advice & I hope you will join in!
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The Hidden Lands books:
The Sorcerer's Concubine: books2read.com/...
Doll Girl Meets Dead Guy: books2read.com/...
The Broken Queen: www.amazon.com...
Contact: fabulousfrock@mac.com
Look, the two ace parents trying to be very supportive of their son who likes girls is both a heartwarming concept and peek comedy.
i was giggling so much when the little comics popped up!
They're so wholesome, I love that family so much
I love it when something silly spirals into something existential! I tried to write a light sci-fi romance for nano one year with a soldier character who could be re-cloned if he died so I could have a fun blam blam aliens backdrop without becoming a Serious War Novel. Don't know how I expected that to be anything but a ship of Theseus-style exploration of identity and the mind-body problem. I laughed out loud when you connected the dots between your doll people and Nightmare at Christmas though, so fun to see the inspirations.
Oh yes! I can see how that idea could start out fun and quickly go very deep!
Although I am not a fantasy writer, I do write time-travel novels.. which, in a way, you have to build the world that your characters are transported to, so I am LOVING listening to you. It is so helpful to me and reassures me that I am not over-describing what I imagine the landing of a time-traveler would be like. Thank you.
Yes, time travel novels (as well as straight historical) definitely involve world building!
@@lidiyafoxgloveauthor Great news. Your creativity and boundless energy are spurring my imagination ... who is to say that would could not time travel to some alternate universe full of strange beings????
“Begin with your area of interest and build from there.” So true. I’ve been crippled with my worldbuilding because I was overwhelmed with trying to reinvent EVERYTHING for originality, ie to get away from the “medieval Europe” flavour prevalent in fantasy. I wish I knew how to establish enough originality without getting bogged down. Don’t suppose you have any “quick, easy, fail safe tips” for avoiding the medieval Europe trope?😂
I have also been struggling with this, I don't want to do dystopian or medieval european but those are the ones that are most prevalent to draw inspiration from
This would be a good topic for a whole video, but I think the best basic advice is just to expose yourself to a lot of other cultures. Histories, memoirs, and books on the culture of other places, travel narratives, and of course just stories (novels, movies, etc) from other places and cultures.
I tend to pluck things from a lot of different sources based on what makes sense and end up with what is hopefully a good mixture so you can't QUITE pinpoint an obvious source. That's not a fast track answer but is just good practice for world building long term.
As a Nonbinary person I would ~Love~ to be a Fanarlem! 🎉 Keeping my soul in my eyes would be poetic and convenient. And I could live a life where I could potentially be relatively pain free aaaand pick my gender at will? Sign me up.
Now where is that truck? I have a new world I need to be isakai’d into💕
(Also can I just say that you are such a badass for uploading so much! We are always so happy and in disbelief how quickly we get to see you!)
I would also love to be a Fanarlem, I have to say. As long as it's farther along in the timeline. Things are kind of rough for them at the point I've been writing, but in the modern era, sign me up, I'd love to have a male body on the side.
Long ago I saw in a book on graphic design a fascinating picture of people who all looked the same, just with different hair and different clothes.
Whewwwww I'm a pantser so my worlds evolve as I write--and the races are expedient to the story at first, then evolve to fit the greater "offscreen" picture. In my YA sci-fi novel, stories are a commodity that some risk their lives (or the lives of others) for. So we have a game that tells a story, books and videos consumed like Halloween candy, and certain people employed to retrieve stories from their origin point. These concepts were inspired by Star Trek: TNG's The Game, and Star Trek: Voyager's Prime Factors. All the races are alien to ours, but one appears humanesque.
I like how in depth your character and world development is...and how much you consider before writing.
In my current project, the topic of different species co-existing is a really important one! Humans from different, isolated corners of space have undergone lots of genetic editing to better suit their environment, and now hundreds of years later Humans have basically speciated into tons of new "human-adjacents" that are adapted to living in all sorts of extraterrestrial habitats. An entire galaxy of what look like aliens that are actually completely genetically compatible, leading to an even greater influx of new human species over time! I designed it like that because it's gonna be a big part of the TTRPG character creation to track your characters ancestry. What corners of the universe are you all from, what adaptations do you have from which sides of your family, which ones stayed, were mixed or are absent? I'm hoping this system will lead to a lot of player creativity
Tracking your ancestry sounds like such a fun way to choose character traits!
That sounds really cool! I love these comments. I also am always that person who is always super curious about where ancestors are from, so that's quite interesting!
Listening to you talk about the different races in this story make me curious to read the story now!
My world started with my wanting to have floating islands work logically.... Eight years later here we are
Oh I do love a floating island. How did you reckon with that one?
@@lidiyafoxgloveauthor I hate CZcams replies I never seen them 😭
Thank you for your interest ❤️ basically they're lil things stuck to the rocks/inside the rocks that work opposite to gravity and makes it float! And they're magically tethered to the ground so that they rotate with the planet :) what I love about these lil things (I'm in the process of renaming them? but they were called Oscillium) is that they're usable by people and animals too! So that they can fly with wings even though they're too heavy without it, or just make themselves weigh less so they can grow bigger overall :D or just float around by canceling out their weight. :3
I find it interesting when I find people who have races who are very similar. You mentioned that at some point you had a group of matriarchal winged people, which I do as well. I also have a race of psychics and while they aren't their own race, doll people are definitely possible in my world as well. It's fun to see how our ideas are similar in some ways but very different in others.
I find that fascinating too! Whenever I come upon a book with a different take on one of my more uncommon fantasy races I always have to read it.
I have dieselpunk dwarves in my story that live in the underground dungeons that have few entrances all around the globe, as well as rococo themed doll people (the pupellon) who live in forest clearings, in their cottagecore-rococo mixed small towns. I also have Elves, but they live mostly in swamps and near bodies of water and have a general kawaii-goblincore mix aesthetic to them, but are also heavily covered up (in clothes in a similar shape and fabric as traditional middle eastern clothing) and always wear veils to protect their heads from the sun (they easily get sunburned no matter the skin colour and they all have purple undertones).
There's so many more races, but that's because I love making different races and cultures. My favourite race so far though has to be my most developed, the fae. They're only 3cm tall, have very specific beauty standards and are almost entirely nomadic tinkerer's who are highly technologically developed, especially for their size, but they still live in wooden and mud houses, because those are quick to build and take with you.
I also love my other races, like the succubi and incubi who are arcadecore inspired, or the princess/princecore, niqab inspired garment wearing vampires. But they're all still underdeveloped.
I'm digging the mix of "cores" you have going on here. Rococo doll people! Awesome.
BTW, everybody, the little comic shown in the video about “The Talk” features the current incarnation of Death in the Hidden Lands.
I don't worldbuild cultures that well, I just haven't really done it, but i like putting humans in interesting situation - my current project is people being trapped in a clearing in a dark enchanted forest and the drama that happens within (normal life, trying to survive in a harsh environment and trying to escape!) - think it started from me wanting to write about nature and animals lol
Okay, LOVE your advice about using theme as a base for races. Supes helpful if you have a theme in mind or notice one with your already existing races.
What are your thoughts on doing time skips? What makes a time skip good vs annoying in a novel? If you have time to answer, no pressure of course. It was lovely chatting during the premier.😊
Tbh I struggle with time skips a lot as a writer! Like, it's hard when your primary thing is developing character relationships. I'll have a romance or friendship or family drama going on and it's hard to figure out when to time skip without missing something important with the intimate relationships. The books I see doing time skips most often have a more epic, broad tone that is more about the sweep of history instead of those micro character moments. So it depends on the type of story you mean, I guess? Let me know if you're struggling with something particular.
even though i'm mostly a mystery writer, and can not write fantasy for the life of me! i am really inspired by you!
I really love the fantasy races you came up with! The doll people are such an amazing way to explore gender. Which of your books in this world would you recommend I start with, once I get around to it? ☺️
For my main fantasy race, I was actually inspired by the Wraeththu series by Storm Constantine (and it’s like a whole extended universe, there are like, dozens of short story collections and spinoffs lol). Wraeththu also explores gender, basically humanity begins dying out and young people can transform each other with their blood into a new species that is both male and female at the same time. I absolutely devoured those books, and want something similar but with more magic and more fantasy creature characteristics. I’m a perfectionist, though, so I restart every project dozens of times... but one day 😭😂
Ooh Wraeththu sounds very interesting. Tanith Lee also has some interesting gender swapping themes in Biting the Sun, and so progressive for 1976. I am very drawn to stories that explore this theme in interesting ways.
Doll Girl Meets Dead Guy probably has more detailed stuff about Fanarlem sexuality and I love that novel so much. It's also a standalone so a good starting point in that regard.
The Cursed Soul trilogy comes first, that one deals more with class and privilege probably, although Velsa does have a moment of questioning her sexuality. You get a pretty good introduction to the world as a whole if you start with that one because Velsa and Grau basically move to a different area with a different culture in every book, trying to find someplace to belong.
So, either of those!
Not writing anything about it, but I think Vampires are ideal for space travel. Dont need to eat, or sleep, or breath or age really. Have all the intelligence of humans without the upkeep costs, and most of their drawbacks are earth based - but space is essentially unending night. Plus they wont be able to eat people in space. Just their own happy little existence as science vampires, exploring and learning the cosmos.
The only problem is they need blood! Otherwise it makes sense
I recently wrote a fanfic that was supposed to just be a simple less than 2,000 word ship fic when a girl character who got enrolled at an all-boys school chooses to wear a dress to a formal dance and the guy who bullied her has an "oh no shes hot" moment, but then it spiraled into a wholeass gender commentary/coming of age 10,000 word story that barely even involved the ship.
Does the opposite ever happen to you, whereas instead of a fanfic sending you into a spiral about a irl concept, were you ever inspired to write a story specifically from a real life occurrence, time in history, or some concept you’d like to explore/think about, and built a story from that?
I've been inspired by history a lot. Prisoner of Silk is heavily based on the life of Marie Antoinette, and there is historical influence all over my Hidden Lands world, although in that I try to let it just pop up organically because I don't want it to feel like anything there is just a direct thing from our world
I haven't done fantasy, I wrote a science fiction first contact story. My inspiration was largely inspired by needing a plot that gives my heroine enough difficult and complex challenges to lend credence and depth to her coming of age story. The inspiration for my planet's natives is physical and biological. The politics, cultural complexities, and economics all stem from my world's terrain and climate. The world our human protagonists get stranded in is a tropical jungle (think Amazon). The natives are quite hominid in some ways and truly alien in others. They are matriarchal (based a lot of the culture on pre-Christian Ireland - also matriarchal). The natives have "flown under the radar" and are unknown to the human settlers on this planet because they use no electro-magnetic power. They are the greatest biologists in the known galaxy, instead. For instance, they don't build their cities - they grow them. I find it fascinating that you started with the peoples, while I started with the need for a complex geo-political set of challenges for my heroine to deal with in her coming of age story arc. Getting a lot of value from your content - thanks!
I think the starting point is so interesting and either way, it can end up branching into so many other areas! I love the cities that grow rather than being built.
@@lidiyafoxgloveauthor Thanks!
I think a part that is often forgotten is change and history. Like some of the classics, LotR or GoT, have a long history but it feels like technology, fashion and society itself didn't evolve. Even during the middleages, which lastes several centuries, fashion and customs changed, so did religion and technology, but we see it as one era. This can be hard to include, especially if you want to write a standalone, but just a sentence from an old person that says: "dresses were much shorter/longer" or something like that shows how quickly things can change. Or the old person still dresses in a way that is considered old fashioned.
I watched a video about a horror game calles 'Forbidden Siren' that takes place in a rural village in Japan, cut off from the rest. But even they have western clothes. There is also technology and media, that would need to come from the outside. If your locationm is cut off and didn't change for ages, you need a really good reason why things are unchanging.
Also this isn't to dump on Japan, just to say that Japan is a very traditional country paired with a cut off location one might think that could be good reason why people would still act like they're in the meiji era, but that it's actually kinda lazy worldbuilding.
And a little rant about my own project: My merfolk reproduces asexually, if at all, as they have long lifespands but also don't like company. And the way to communicate gender among humans is by painting a symbol on your forehead or rather for people to know which pronouns to use when talking about you. And that got me thinking, if gender is so fluid, what about the parents? So I decided mother and father isn't about the gender but the biological role while reproducing, so no matter if you're cis, trans or non binary, when someone says "They're my mother" they know you gave birth to that person. Also clothes are very similar regardless of sex, similar to the Áo dài in Vietnam. I choose this, as a lot of culutres at some point had both genders at the same time wear a tunic/dress with a long skirt/pants underneath. It can be easly fitted and worn in a lot of variety. And I took inspiration how in some countries in Europe (maybe also other places, but I didn't deepen my knowledge in that direction) new born and toddlers wore long dresses and gowns and those were reused when they grew up. So new borns get something called 'the first dress' which can be shortened with buttons, so they don't trip over it and when they get older can be reused.
I love everything about this comment, super interesting. I love this take on merpeople. It's also stuff I would think about too. There are a few notes in my books about fashions changing, such as how the Halnari are still wearing "fashion from the Age of Kings" (and thus seem incredibly fussy and antiquated), or Una and her friends gossiping about unfashionable old ladies wearing draping sleeves.
I really like to consider, in general, what is new and fresh in a world's culture, what they think is "modern".
Oh my... where to start? I have many species in my world, many of which are from mythologies of our world, such as vampires, werewolves, weretigers, ghouls, zombies, unicorn etc and some of which I have created myself even as long as years ago when I was 11 years old.
There is really no limitations of two different species having a child together other that it is more possible between species which are from same tree. The Guardians (the deities of my universe) removed this limitation to ensure more species would survive during a chain of war between them and humanity.
There are immortal species who can re-start their lives from infant age when they "die" and will just fade away once their time in the world is over and mortal species who, while able to live up to thousands of years, can die and become a part of the circle of rebirth.
Great video. I was just pondering some races for a book idea. Two warring races and whether to make them completely different or similar. I've also been pondering why they are at war. I enjoy your videos. I need to read one of your books, preferably one with these races in it. What would be a good book for me to start with to visit your world?
Probably The Sorcerer's Concubine/Cursed Soul trilogy is the one that gets the most into the cultures, especially throughout the trilogy, because it starts in the trade routes, backwaters and military bases of the Daramon lands in book 1, then moves to the wealthy Daramon political/spiritual center in Nalim Ima in book 2, and then they end up in the Miralem lands in book 3.