World Building: The Solar System

There are a million places to start. You could create a language. You could create a race. You could create a government. But as for me I create the world.

Obviously I'll skip this if I'm using our world but in many cases I'm not. And I like to start big then go small.

I guess you could create the entire galaxy but I don't write (or I haven't yet anyway) worlds where intergalactic space travel is possible so for me it would be utterly useless.

Well not useless because any amount of word building helps you get more of a feel for your world and honestly that's what world building is all about. So even if you aren't planning on using something the more you know the better. But either way, I don't do the galaxy.

I, instead, begin with the solar system.

For the purposes of these blog posts I'm going to create a new world as well. So after each section I'll give an example of the world I'm creating.

Here's how I start out...

The Sun(s)

1. How many? I once read a story (Can't think of the name right now!) that had a whole bunch of suns and the planet was in constant sunlight except for one time every hundred years or so (not quite sure, I read it a LONG time ago) so you can have as many as you want, just think of the implications it would have on the planet.

2. What type? There are a whole lot of options here and each has a different effect on the planet you're creating. There are supergiants, bright giants, giants, dwarfs and so on. They vary in color, size and temperature so many things on your planet will depend on what you choose.

As for me I'm going to be boring. I have one sun which is a yellow dwarf, like our own sun.

The Planet(s)

1.How many?

2. Location? Here you'll want to know the order of the planets. You don't have to name them yet especially if you'll make a language and want to name the according to that but give them a number or letter and decide which one is the planet your story will be on. This way you'll know the number of planets before and after.

3. Type? Most likely you'll have terrestial planet as your own planet but there are others such as gas giants and ice giants. 

4. Habitual Zone?

My world is going to have 5 planets. I'm going to use letters for my planets so A-E are my planets.

A: 1st planet from the sun, a terrestrial planet, and not in the habitual Zone

B: 2nd planet, terrestrial planet, and not in the habitual zone

C: 3rd planet, terrestrial planet, and during half the orbit not in the habitual zone

D: 4th planet, gas giant, in the habitual zone

E: 5th planet, ice giant, not in the habitual zone

The Moon(s)

In actuality moons are satellites but because of the connotations I'll refer to this section as moons.

1. Which planet? If you used letter to name your planets so far here you can go ahead and use the planet letter (say A) and then number the moons (so A1 and A2)


2. How many?

All together my solar system has 8 moons or at least at moons that I'm paying attention to because gas giants usually have a lot of moons but for now I'm ignoring them.

A: none

B: 2

C: 1

D: 3

E: 2

The Orbit

Here we are going to look at 3 things.

1. Shape? This will probably be either circular or oblong


2. Length? I usually do this relative to earth days because it's easiest but you can do it according to your planets own days. Also it's helpful to know that the further away the planet the longer the orbit AND the slower it goes. Think of that while you're coming up with the length.

3. Speed? I don't do this but you can. You can find information here about our own solar system to give you an idea. It's a QA but it'll give you the basic idea anyway.

You'll want to figure this out for each component you have except the sun unless you've created an entire galaxy because the sun too is rotating around the galaxy. For example our sun is rotating around the milky way galaxy.

Here's what I did...

Planet                          A                                B                                C                

Shape                      circular                  circular                   oblong   

Length (days)       172                          417                           543       

Planet                                        D                                E

Shape                               circular                        oblong

Length (days                      1057                           1560

You'll want to do the same thing for each of your moons. Or at least each of the moons of your planet. As for me I'm going to use a moon of planet D for my story so my moons for planet D are as follows

Moons                              1                                 2                              3

Shape                       Circular                    Circular                 Circular

Length (days)

The Solar System

Now that all of that is figured out, draw it to see how it looks on paper.

The Rotation

1. Direction?  This will tell you which way your sun rises on the planet unless your "planet" is a moon.

2. Length: As orbital speed told you the length of your year, this will tell you your planets day.

Take a look at my example.

Moon D2

Direction: Clockwise

Length: Same as orbit

Quick note here. The length of my rotation as you see above says "same as orbit". I did this because most moons are tidally locked to the planet they orbit. This basically just tells us that the same face of the moon faces the planet all the time. For the planet this would mean that the year is as long as the day.

Problems

There is no set number of things here just a place you can put potential issues with the solar system.

Anyone heard that our sun is going to expand and become a a red giant is some billion years? Its said that all the inner planets will be consumed, devoured by the sun. What if that were to start happening right now and not in a billion years? What would we do?

That's a problem. See anything like that for your own planet?

Some problems you'll want to fix because they won't coincide with planet life, however others leave them and have it another obstacle for your main characters. Man vs Nature is a great plot or subplot.

As for me I have a couple of issues I see. Here are a few: Tidal heating caused by the planet it orbits so closely. The length of the day and night. And although this isn't a problem per say I haven't quite figured out the mechanics of the way the sun will rise and set... so I have to do some research for that.

How are all your solar systems looking??

Here's a little extra thing. I made up a quick outline so if you'd like to use my worldbuilding method you can go ahead and use it each time without having to read though my own made up world : ) I'll add one to each section and you can put it together at the end of these blog posts.

I. World Building

A. The Solar System

1. The Components

a. The sun

b. The planet

c. The moon

2. The Orbit

a. Shape

b. Length

3. The Map

4. The Rotation

a. Direction

b. Length

5. Problems

Novel Building: An Introduction

Months ago before little Em was born I talked about the concept of Novel Building instead of World Building. You can read that post here.

Well after months of taking care of Em and little else, I have finally started blogging regularly again so I'd like to go back to that.

Novel building is very personal and I can almost assure you that what works for me won't work for you. Parts may but others you'll look at and either say forget that or think well sure but why not this way.

And nothing is wrong with that. Making it work for you is the key. And what works for one novel doesn't always work for the next. I, myself, was very upset learning that fact.

Anyway, I'll be back here posting in a week to get started on the process.

Next up: World Building: The Solar System

Trips and Writing

To write you need to be in a grove. Or I do at least.

I have to be doing it for a while writing so many words a day for so many days on one specific story to really get into the habit of writing. I write always but if its not for the same story I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere.

It used to be easy to do this but with a little one in the house its a bit more complicated.

Well, I'm trying to get back into that grove so I can finish a novel before I travel to the states in October.

Because during and after vacations its impossible to get anything done. The routine is off and your lost so you don't do anything at all.

So I want to finish the first draft so I can come home and get started on the rewrite instead of trying to pick up where I left off.

And I think 3 months is a good span of time for writing a first draft. I think it limits you in editing while you go and for me that's the key in finishing a project.

So this month I've been worldbuilding and outlining the novel. From July 1- September 30 I am writing 2000 words a day (yikes!) and hopefully by the end I will have 120,000 words counting Sundays off and a few days of review.

I don't actually want a novel with a wordcount quite so high. I want about 90,000 but sometimes I ramble (bet you guessed that already huh?) so I need wiggle room to cut out parts I don't want and especially the ones I don't need.

So that's my plan. Let's hope I stick to it.

Building A Novel

I didn't blog on Monday like I was "supposed" to but for good reason. I've been "Building" my novel. I guess that's just my fancy (or not so much) way of saying I'm planning my novel out.

Most people would actually call this World Building because that's what I'm doing essentially but I have a problem with this terminology.

There are about a half a million websites on how to begin world building. There's books, courses, workshops. You name it, they have it, and each one of them calls it world building. (There is one exception that I'll mention later)

But visit one of those websites and you know what you'll find? World building tactics, yes, but something else. Culture. That, in my opinion, is not world building. It's obviously culture building.

The type of solar system your world is located in, how many planets, how many moons and so on? World Building. Your map, the regions, plants and animals? World Building.

But what about language and customs? What about Ceremonies and Holidays? That's not World Building. Those things have to do with people and their way of life. The world has an effect on it but it's not about the world. It's culture.

For this reason I've come up with a new term. Culture Building.

For most people this is really just about terminology. Who cares, right? World Building, Culture Building, whatever it's called the basic idea is the same and you still have to do it.

Well, for me, I could never get past it. I would do the basic steps and then I was burned out. God, world building takes forever, kind of mentality. I guess it's about moving on, going through the steps.

So that's what I'm going to do. Go through the steps, I'm going to "build" a novel

This is what I've come up with so far. (Obviously, there is just a basic outline. I'll go through the actual ABC's and 123's of it in a later post)

BUILDING A NOVEL

1. World Building: This includes things like the solar system, planets, moon, constellations, orbit, rotation, etc.

2. Culture Building: I'm still working on this because I think there is a lot of work that can be done. I want to have it all even if I don't use it all. So far I have things like People, Social Organizations, Commerce, Daily Life, Home Life, Religion, Government, Community Life. I'm not sure how I'm going to organize any of this yet

3. Story Building: This is pretty simple. I'm going to use Theme, Symbolism, Structure, POV, and Tense

4. *Character Building: Here is obvious. Main, Major, Minor, and Extras. Under each I'll go ahead and come up with what I need to know about each set of characters. Obviously main and major will have a whole lot more than minor. Extras I'm putting in because sometimes an extra can turn into a minor, possibly a major, so I want to at least know that person exists. This can also do wonders for culture building. An extra, a waiter, for example, in a local shop. Maybe there is something specific I need to know about how waiters act in my world. Or something along those lines.

4. *Plot Building: Here I really have no idea. I've never been much of a "plotter" I do plot but small sections at a time and usually not very well. It messes me up later which is why I'm adding it. This I will have to work on.

* Character and Plot are not really separate in the building process so unlike the others that you can pretty much do in a linear fashion this takes going back and forth between the two in both the planning stage and writing stage.

I bet most of you are thinking why go through all this work? Well, I have a couple of reasons.

1. This one is the most important: I can't write. It's just not coming to me so I'm using my writing time as building time. So far it's been working quite well. I have way more ideas about this story than I did before starting. It's actually starting to feel like a real novel

2. Other people have great systems. Most of this information I go from other websites but it's still someone else's system. I'm sure it works for many people but I wan my very own system that I created. Maybe I'll be using the information from others but it will be in a way that works for me.

3. It's really fun! I didn't use to think planning was fun. I thought it was just a thing I had to do so that I could get to the really fun part, the writing. Now, the writing is still the best part, but I think I've learned to enjoy the whole journey now.

How about the rest of you? Any of you "Building Your Novel"? How do you do it?

*****

I want to give credit for all the world building information I've been using. There's quite a bit...

1. http://steph-wordbyword.blogspot.com/p/stephs-worldbuilding-guide.html  I'm using her ideas from Off/On Planet.

2. http://www.seventhsanctum.com/www/wwwfull.htmlHere I didn't use any particular thing but some of the articles gave a few ideas on how to do what other articles just mentioned. I really liked that. Plus it's very extensive

3. http://www.novel-writing-help.com/This website is a cornucopia of novel writing advice. This is where I got "Story Building" from and just made a few adjustments to make it my very own.

4. http://hollylisle.com/maps-workshop-developing-the-fictional-world-through-mapping/Holly has a great website with so much information on how to do just about everything.

5.http://www.amazon.com/Lisles-Create-Culture-Clinic-ebook/dp/B004EYUHRE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355921092&sr=8-1&keywords=holly+lisle+culture+clinicThis is a course, really, and yes it cost but I used this for my own culture building (plus another website) and it's really in depth. I don't like the way it's organized which is why I'm doing it myself,  but it provides a lot of ideas for culture creation. Most things I wouldn't have questioned without it.  Her language clinic is also amazing.

6.http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/I'm using this with the culture clinic to create my own way of culture building.

So those are the websites. Have fun!