Creating New Worlds for Your Fiction

Let's face it. Writing is hard work. It's a daunting task of getting your scenes and dialogue just right to be believable. It's not a matter of just writing words. People who are not writers don't understand this. We are in an exclusive group, ladies and gentlemen, and I'd like to say right here that I'm so happy to be part of this group of writers I've found out here on blogspot as well at Writer's Digest, and Author Nation. And I love to share what I know, what I've learned through these 3decades of learning how to write. Still learning, thanks to everyone out there!

So, my last post dealt with making up a list of things that we need to know about our new worlds we create for our novels. When I had the beginnings of my first fantasy novel in mind about 8 years ago, I knew once I got into the novel that I needed my sorceress and her family--who came from another planet (I didn't plan it that way, but Zofia Trickenbod had her mind set on who she was, and where she was from from the very start), so I had to figure out everything about her planet, even certain words, phrases and so forth.

The book I bought above, The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference from Writer's Digest Books was the one I ordered and boy, does it cover a lot of ground.

All of us need a little help to come up with some of this stuff. Things that we may not have even thought about, or know enough about. Believe me, I did a lot of research into unicorns for the book, as well as figuring out what my sorceresses could and couldn't do and why. You have to decide if this is going to be an actual separate world, or one that coexist with the one we know, or, as in the case of Charlaine Harris, and Kim Harrison's novels, Earth which has changed a lot since you last knew it.

Plus, it has to be believable. Suspension of belief is a hard sell for those of us who write fantasy. For me, I liked it because I could let my imagination just go. No matter what, if I wanted a tree to fly--it could. If I wanted Zofia to "transvect" she did (a very old word I found in an encyclopedia about witchcraft and demons, which means to fly--usually on a broomstick).

And because when you deal in a totally different world, there is always that pinch of sci/fi going on in it. I mean, my characters had to get from their world to Earth, so I came up with a solution to that. And a few little inventions her husband, Dorian, could always have at his disposal. (By the way, the sorcerers needed a wand, but the ladies did not. I wanted to make a difference in that).

The end result was worth the five years of working on that book. I won't look back at the fact that I had to self-publish. I don't care what the publishing world "thinks" about a self-published work. People who read it loved it, and the question "When is the next one coming out?" was my biggest ego booster (as was the book signings). My husband and another man I know who do not read books said they liked it and it was the only fiction book they'd picked up since. That tells me that I did my job of suspension of belief, that my characters were believable, and the story engaging. It proved was right in feeling so devoted to that book.

Now, any of you who want to order the book above, Writer's Digest has a great price on this one, and the one on Science Fiction as well.

Happy Writing, Everyone!!!