Writing Workshop

"Creating a World - and Living With It"
A Workshop for Writers
by Rachel Lee

Sense:  Rachel Lee

Your third basic choice is sense.  Is it an open world where people are friendly, horizons are distant, help is readily available, and most of the scenes happen in daylight?  Or is it a closed world where people are suspicious, woods or tall buildings make short sightlines, your characters are isolated, and much of the action happens at night?  Does your world like your characters, or is it trying to destroy them?  Are the people in power really running things, or do the rest merely indulge them while going about their merry – or sinister – ways?

For an ongoing series, your world’s sense – if it is fairly stable from book to book – will limit the kinds of stories you can tell.  Conard County stories are journeys through darkness in a world that is ultimately hopeful.  The Paradise Beach stories were wacky romps through a world that was ultimately playful.  Office 119 stories were like wandering through a cave complex, each turn leading deeper into the heart of a dark mountain.

But let me warn you about one thing here: don’t create a world you don’t want to live in.  Because it’s going to be your world for at least one book, and it’s going to be your readers’ world after that.  Apply heart to this process, always try to write a world you can live with because your enjoyment of it will keep you happy and because you never know when you might need to write a sequel.  In that sense, you need a world you don’t mind returning to.

I use music to help find a world’s sense while I write, and the music I choose varies with the world.  For Conard County, it’s usually a blend of country and blues.  For Paradise Beach, it was Jimmy Buffet.  For the Ilduin trilogy, it was Lorena McKinnet and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.  I know one writer who gets into a world’s mood by writing snippets of poetry, from bawdy limericks to epic verse, depending on the world she’s writing.  Use any trick that helps you feel the pulse of your world itself, so you can let it have its own sense of being, because that will reflect and be reflected by your characters.

Up next:  Populaton: central, cameo, and continuing characters.

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