Tag Archives: characters and plotting

April 7, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to Story part 10 – science and magic as world-building #writing

I can’t deny my sincere love of all things sci-fi or fantasy. While I read in every genre, speculative fiction is my “comfort food.” I purchase both indie and traditionally published work and read them all.

Two months ago, we began our series, Idea to Story. The previous nine installments are listed below, but throughout the series, we have built our two main characters. Val, (Valentine), is a lady knight and captain of the Royal Guard. The initial enemy, Kai Voss, is the court sorcerer. Both are regents for the sickly, underage king. Most of the other characters are in place.

I must be honest—both sides of the publishing industry, indie and traditional, are guilty of publishing novels that aren’t well thought out. Thus, we are planning our novel so that we can avoid contradictions.

Inconsistencies in the science or magic system are usually only one aspect of haphazard plotting and world-building. When an author or publisher skimps on the revisions or ignores the beta reader’s concerns, they can be unaware of the contradictions built into the narrative. If they rush it to publication, the book fails the reader.

Magic must be treated the same way science is. It must be presented as a naturally occurring aspect of the world our characters inhabit.

  • Magic and the ability to wield it gives a character power.
  • Science and superior technology also give our characters power.

Power and how we confer it is the layer of world-building where writers of science and writers of magic must follow the same rules.

Science is not magic, and it should not feel to a reader as if it were. It is logical, rooted in the realm of both factual and researchable theoretical physics. Science is limited by the boundaries of human knowledge and our ability to build technology.

However, an author’s imaginative exploration of theoretical physics makes the possibilities boundless.

In my opinion, magic should be like science. It should follow certain natural laws and have limits. Magic is believable when the ways it can be used are restricted and most sorcerers are constrained by the laws of nature to mastering only one or two kinds.

But why restrict your beloved main character’s abilities? The obvious answer is to allow your character to grow, to give them a true character arc. No one has all the skills in real life, no matter how good they are at their job. Limits create tension, and tension keeps the reader reading. When too many people are given superior powers, you make things too easy.

I have read many sci-fi and fantasy novels featuring characters with empathic gifts.

  • In fantasy, it is portrayed as a form of magic.
  • In science fiction, it’s portrayed as a mysterious property of the quantum universe that some people can access.

If an empathic gift has entered your narrative, ask yourself these questions: what sort of empathic gift does your character have? Are they good at emotion reading, mind reading, healing, or foresight?

  • How common or rare is this gift?
  • How did they discover they had it?
  • What can they do with it?
  • What can they NOT do with it?
  • Is there formal training for gifts like theirs?
  • What happens to people who use their empathy to abuse others?
  • Has society made laws regulating how empaths are trained and controlled?

Are you writing a book that features magic? I have a few questions that you may want to consider:

  1. How do they learn to fully use their gifts? Apprenticeship? Trial and error? A formal school, ala Harry Potter?
  2. Are there some conditions under which the magic will not work? Is the damage magic can do as a weapon, or is the healing it can perform somehow limited?
  3. Does the mage or healer pay a physical/emotional price for using or abusing magic? Is the learning curve steep and sometimes lethal?

When you answer the above questions, you create the Science of Magic.

So, what about superpowers?

Superpowers are both science and something that may seem like magic, but they are not. Think Spiderman. His abilities are conferred on him by a scientific experiment that goes wrong.

Like science and magic, superpowers are believable when they are limited in what they can do.

If you haven’t considered the challenges your characters must overcome when wielding magic or weapons technology, now is a good time to do it.

  • How is their self-confidence affected by this inability?
  • Do the companions face learning curves, too?
  • How can they remedy this situation?

These limits are the roadblocks to success. Overcoming them offers opportunities for action and growth.

In the story we have been plotting for the last nine weeks, Kai is the court sorcerer. At their father’s behest, he was trained in the art of sorcery by his half-brother. Donovan is slick, always playing the long game. He made sure that Kai does not have full knowledge of the craft, although, at the outset, Kai is unaware of this treachery. When Donovan makes his move, Kai is utterly defeated and ends up in the dungeon.

Val springs him from the dungeon when she escapes, but then what? How can we resolve Kai’s knowledge gap and give him an edge his brother can’t detect? We need to find him another teacher or two.

Valentine’s grandmother is an herb woman blessed with some empathic abilities. She has knowledge Kai could benefit from. She also has friends who are practitioners of a way of magic that is considered beneath the formal school Donovan and Kai were trained in. If Kai can stop being a spoiled rich boy, he can learn what he needs to know.

Val has no magic but has knowledge of available military technology and ideas for how it can be used in unexpected ways. All she has to do is stop looking down her nose at Kai and work with him.

Her grandmother will resolve that situation with a sharp dose of reality for both our protagonists.

Excalibur London Film Museum via Wikipedia

The limits of their magic and technology force Kai and Val to be creative. If they are going to rescue the boy king from Donovan’s clutches, they need to use that creativity. Our characters must become more than they believe they are.

Whether your story is set in a medieval castle or a space station, limiting the personal power of the protagonist creates tension, raises the stakes, and makes the story more believable.

Next up – Genre, Themes, and the Expected Tropes of our story

Previous in this series:

Idea to story, part 1: novel, poetry, memoir, or short story? #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 2: thinking out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 3: plotting out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 4 – the roles of side characters #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 5 – plotting treason #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 6 – Plotting the End #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 7 – Building the world #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 8 – world-building and society #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 9 – technology and world-building #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

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March 31, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story part 9 – technology and world-building #writing

Today, we’re going to look at how the available technology affects the believability of our narrative. Eight weeks ago, we began our series, Idea to Story. The previous installments are listed below, but over the course of the series, we have built our two main characters, Val (Valentine), a lady knight, and the initial enemy, Kai Voss, a court sorcerer. Both are regents for the sickly, underage king.

We also have our ultimate enemy, Donovan Dove, Kai’s half-brother, and most trusted advisor. The basic story arc has been plotted (an enemies-to-lovers romance), and we have a working title that speaks to the genre of romantasy (fantasy romance), Valentine’s Gambit. We may keep the title, or we might not.

When we began this journey, we allowed the characters to tell us the story as they saw it. They showed us snippets of their world, and we started placing the set dressing in each scene. Our characters’ place in society has been determined, so we have an idea of their preconceived notions and cherished prejudices.

At the outset, the characters and the plot leaned toward a pseudo-medieval type of society. A large segment of the fantasy genre is set in a pseudo-medieval era. The most common failure I see in this type of fantasy is the assumption that only minimal technology can exist in a medieval era.

Yes, sewers were often open trenches, but while much of the available tech was reserved for the upper classes, it did exist. One can only admire our ancestors. Their creations are the foundations of what we consider modern amenities.

So, let’s talk about the level of technology for your novel. No matter the genre or era you set it in, no matter the world, each occupation has a specific historically available technology. What tools are available to them?

  1. Hunter/Gatherers?
  2. Agricultural/farming?
  3. Greco-Roman metallurgy and technology?
  4. Medieval metallurgy and technology?
  5. Pre-industrial revolution or late Victorian?
  6. Modern day?
  7. Or do they have magic-based technology?
  8. How do we get around, and how do we transport goods? On foot, by horse & wagon, trains, or space shuttle?

Our sample story is set in a pseudo-medieval era, so what sort of technologies are available to Val, Kai, and young King Edward?

We must do the research.

Sanitation: In Europe, how was public sanitation handled during medieval times? We can go back to the Etruscans for this, circa fifth century BCE. In the better parts of town, folks had covered sewers. According to Wikipedia:

Sanitation in ancient Rome, acquired from the Etruscans, was very advanced compared to other ancient cities and provided water supply and sanitation services to residents of Rome. Although there were many sewers, public latrines, baths and other sanitation infrastructure, disease was still rampant. The baths are known to symbolize the “great hygiene of Rome”.

Around AD 100, direct connections of homes to sewers began, and the Romans completed most of the sewer system infrastructure. Sewers were laid throughout the city, serving the public and some private latrines, and also served as dumping grounds for homes not directly connected to a sewer. It was mostly the wealthy whose homes were connected to the sewers, through outlets that ran under an extension of the latrine. [1]

These modern amenities traveled with the aristocracy to all the lands conquered by Rome and remained available into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

What other amenities might our quarreling couple have? In the article,  Medieval Technology, Hanna Woody at Clemson University tells us that these (and many more) technologies we think of as modern appeared and were in use during medieval times. [2]

Thus, if the plot goes the way we planned, Val and Kai will have all the conveniences of a Tudor Castle, an herb woman’s forest cottage, and a mud hut. Valentine’s Gambit will be nothing if not classy.

If you are writing about a craft that you are unfamiliar with, DO THE RESEARCH. You will interpret your research and will either get it right or be way off the mark. Either way, it’s your story, but readers will point out where you got it wrong.

Are you writing science fiction?

TED Talks are a fantastic resource for information on current and cutting-edge technology.

ZDNet Innovation is an excellent source of existing tech and future tech that may become current in 25 years.

Tech Times is also a great source of ideas.

Nerds on Earth is a source of valuable information about swords and how they were used historically.

Digital Trends

If you are writing a contemporary novel, you need to know what interests the people in the many different layers of our society. Go to the magazine rack at your grocery store or the local Big Name Bookstore and peruse the many publications available to the reading public. You can find everything from mushroom hunting to culinary, survivalist, and organic gardening. If people are interested in it, there is a magazine for it. An incredible amount of information can be found in these publications.

If you seek information about how people farmed and worked in historical societies from post-Roman times through to the late Edwardian era, Lost Country Life by Dorothy Hartley is still available as a second-hand book and can be found on Amazon. This textbook was meticulously researched and illustrated by a historian who personally knew the people she wrote about.

Resources to bookmark in general:

www.Thesaurus.Com (What’s another word that means the same as this but isn’t repetitive?)

Oxford Dictionary (What does this word mean? Am I using it correctly?)

Wikipedia (The font of all knowledge. I did not know that.)

Looking things up on the internet can suck up an enormous amount of your writing time. Do yourself a favor and bookmark your resources, so all you have to do is click on a link to get the information you want. Then, you can quickly get back to writing.

Next week, we will look at science and magic and talk about how limitations offer opportunities for action.

PREVIOUS IN THIS SERIES:

Idea to story, part 1: novel, poetry, memoir, or short story? #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 2: thinking out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 3: plotting out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 4 – the roles of side characters #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 5 – plotting treason #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 6 – Plotting the End #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 7 – Building the world #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 8 – world-building and society #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

 

Credits and Attributions

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Sanitation in ancient Rome,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sanitation_in_ancient_Rome&oldid=1277682552 (accessed March 28, 2025).

[2] CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license. To the extent possible under law, Clemson University has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Science Technology and Society a Student Led Exploration, except where otherwise noted. (Accessed March 28, 2025.)

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March 24, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story part 8 – world-building and society #writing

We have been plotting a novel for the last seven weeks in our series, Idea to Story. The previous installments are listed below, but at this point, we have our two main characters, Val (Valentine), a lady knight, and the enemy, Kai Voss, a court sorcerer. Both are regents for the sickly, underage king.

We also have our ultimate enemy, Donovan Dove, Kai’s half-brother and most trusted advisor. We have plotted our basic story arc (an enemies-to-lovers romance) and have a working title that speaks to the genre of romantasy (fantasy romance), Valentine’s Gambit.

We have allowed the characters to tell us the story, and we have begun building their world, placing the set dressing in each scene.

But we have more world-building to do. This is background info that will be hinted at in the narrative, shown in small ways rather than dumped. But this is crucial information for us, the author, as it tells us why our characters see things in a certain way and what their gut reactions will be.

A character’s place in their society affects the way they interact with each other and how they interact with people they meet. Whether they hold a position of privilege or grub the soil on an absentee lord’s estate, they will have assumptions to overcome. Social class is the window through which they view the world, the root of their gut reactions and judgments.

Val (Valentine) comes from a lower middle-class background, having worked her way up through the ranks of the Royal Guard. She was raised by her grandmother, a respected herb-woman and healer for their village. Gran gave Val the best education she could, teaching her to read and write and count coins, insisting she speak properly. “People don’t respect you when you use gutter-talk.”

The fact that she was educated in the basics and taught early in life to speak properly is why she was able to rise through the ranks to become Captain of the Royal Guard.

Val’s regional accent gives away the area she grew up in, and she speaks more like a member of the merchant class than a peasant. A soldier at heart, she dislikes court dinners but attends them because she is one of Edward’s guardians.

Let’s just say that Val has a lot to learn about her assumptions.

Kai is the sheltered heir to an earldom. He is highly educated but completely ignorant of many things that the majority of people in their society are familiar with. Our sorcerer is fully at home at court, the epitome of what a nobleman of his society should be. He will lose everything he has ever known, and like Val, his most cherished assumptions will be challenged entirely by the time we reach the midpoint of the story.

In most communities, a family’s social class determines their level of education and the neighborhood in which they grow up. Local dialect forms their casual speech habits and regional accents.

No one “has no accent,” although some will claim that. We all have an accent that reflects our roots.

We sound like the people in our hometown unless we make a conscious effort to erase our roots. If dialect is holding us back, we might retrain ourselves to sound more like what we perceive as the upper echelons of society, to make ourselves sound “posh.”

World-building requires us to ask questions of the story we are writing. I go somewhere quiet and consider the world my characters will inhabit. I have a list of points to consider when deciding where my characters fit in in their society. Here are a few of them:

First, who has the wealth?

  • Is there a noble class?
  • Is there a servant class?
  • Are those who enter religious orders a separate class?
  • Is there a large middle class?
  • Who makes up the most impoverished class?
  • Who has the power, men or women—or is it a society based on mutual respect?

Ethics and Values: What constitutes morality, and how do we treat each other? Is marriage required?

  • What is taboo? What is “simply not done” among that group?

In any village or town, someone is always in charge. There will be a government of some sort, an overall system of restraint and control. Think of it as a pyramid, a few at the top ruling over a broad base of citizens.

Something to consider if you are writing historical fiction or fantasy: In a medieval-type society, the accepted age for when a child becomes legally an adult will be much younger than we consider it today. When the majority of people die before the age of forty, adulthood comes at the same time as puberty. This includes kings and queens.

  • Regardless of their age, the ruling class might be unaware of how their decisions affect the lower classes.

Val is determined to raise young King Edward to understand even the lowest of his subjects and have compassion for them. At first, Kai doesn’t think sheltering him from the realities of peasant life is a problem, but by the end of the story, he will be Val’s strongest ally.

This is because Kai will see firsthand that war breaks up families. It takes the laborers out of the fields and puts them on the front lines, limiting food production.

He will understand that while this hurts everyone in one way or another, it destroys trade, harming the merchant class. The toils of war fall heaviest upon the peasant class, but the middle class pays society’s bills.

A common trope in fantasy is magic, which brings up the need to train magic-gifted people like Kai and Donovan. Will our sorcerers/mages rely on dumb luck and experimentation? Will they apprentice themselves to other sorcerers?

  • Or, as in the case of Harry Potter, are they graduates of a school of some sort?

Magic does come into Val and Kai’s story, so we will discuss how magic can make or break a fantasy before the end of this series.

The Church/Temple is the governing power in many real-world historical societies. Some religions shape how their followers view and interact with the world.

Religion does not come into Val and Kai’s story other than in a peripheral way, but it might in yours.

Some people are prone to excess when presented with the opportunity to become all-powerful. If you were unsure what your plot was before you got to this stage, now you might have a real villain, one presented to you by your society.

Donovan is our ultimate villain. He is highly educated and privileged but has been shaped by the way his society views his illegitimacy. Beneath the urbane exterior he presents to the world is a man who profoundly resents his father’s casual assumption that he is satisfied to be subordinate to Kai—just because his younger brother was born from the right mother.

We DO NOT want to turn him into a cartoon villain, but he needs to be very dark and complicated.

Next week, we will look at how to ensure that the available technology we write into the narrative fits the era in which we set the story as well as the genre we choose to write in.

PREVIOUS IN THIS SERIES:

Idea to story, part 1: novel, poetry, memoir, or short story? #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 2: thinking out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 3: plotting out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 4 – the roles of side characters #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 5 – plotting treason #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 6 – Plotting the End #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 7 – Building the world #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

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March 17, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story part 7 – Building the world #writing

We have just finished the first six parts in our story creation series. We talked about developing characters and allowing them to help us plot our story, and the links to those posts are down below. Now, we’re going to let our characters show us the environment and landscape of their world.

First, even though the sample plot we’ve been working with is for a pseudo-medieval fantasy, you don’t have to write in that genre to benefit from listening to your characters. Our characters will tell us what their world looks like, no matter what genre we set it in.

The plot of our sample story as it evolved over the last six weeks tells us it will be set in several places: a castle fortress, a manor house, a cottage in an as-yet-nameless village, and a hut in a forest.

One problem I have noticed as an avid reader is the tendency to build contradictions into the geography of our world. It happens as we lay the story down on paper, expanding scenes and interactions. One of my favorite authors is consistently guilty of this despite having published more than eighty novels.

We don’t want to build flaws into our narrative, but we all want to speed up the process of finishing the first draft.

I find a small, hand-scribbled map is the best way to do this. I begin with the opening location, and each time the group goes somewhere, I add it to my map. That way, I have them going in the right direction consistently, and it takes the same length of time to get there each time they must make the journey.

All we need is some idea of directions and distances, an idea of how long it takes to travel using the standard mode of transportation.

In my own writing, I keep the visuals simple, basing the plants and topography on the Pacific Northwest, where I live. It’s a lot less work to write what we are familiar with when it comes to flora and fauna, as well as mountains and seas.

When Val looks out the window, she sees a hilly country covered in a forest of firs and cedar trees interspersed with clearings. Wherever a giant tree has fallen, sunlight creates places where ash, maples, and cottonwoods find fertile soil. In turn, those trees offer shelter to the young seedlings of the fir and cedars, ensuring that the forest continues its cycle of life.

When Val and Kai move their troops for the final battle, they must travel over hills and valleys and cross rivers. They must know where the villages that are sympathetic to them are and avoid those controlled by the enemy.

  • As the rough draft evolves, sometimes towns must be renamed or may have to be moved to more logical places.
  • Whole mountain ranges may have to be moved or reshaped so our characters encounter forests and savannas where they are supposed to be in the story.

The topography isn’t the only thing Guard Captain Val must contend with from day one. It’s a fantasy so there may be rare beasts to deal with.

Also, when we decided she was captain of the royal guard and co-regent for young King Edward, we implied a Renaissance level of technology. This means they are pre-industrial, relying on horses, mules, and oxen for personal transportation and transporting goods. Thus, wagons, carts, and carriages will provide transportation when one doesn’t want to ride horseback or must transport large quantities of goods.

We will go into how available technology affects what our characters can do later in this series.

Any story set in prehistorical times is a fantasy, as the author must imagine social interactions and environments based on the information available in the archeological record.

  • Historical eras are those where written records have been archived and passed down to us.
  • Any story set in a society without written records is a fantasy–no matter what genre you label it with. Although mythology, conjecture, and theorizing abound, few scientific facts exist until an archeological expedition can investigate any artifacts and ruins they left behind. And even then, there will be a certain literary license to the archaeologist’s conclusions.

If you are setting your novel in a real-world city as it currently exists, make good use of Google Earth. Bookmark it now, even if you live in that town, as the maps you will generate will help you stay on track.

Our characters will reveal the sights, sounds, and scents of their world to us. They will tell us if they feel at home in the forest, as Val does. Or they will indicate unease and fear, as Kai does when he is thrown into an environment he has never experienced.

The metallic aftertaste of terror overrode the musty scents of damp earth and rotting leaves. The rank odor of startled skunk lingered, but the occasional calls of small forest creatures went on around him as if everything were normal. It wasn’t, but hell would freeze before he admitted it. As cold as it was, it probably had.

When it comes to geography, the “three S’s” of world-building are critical: sights, sounds, and smells. Those sensory elements create what we know of the world. What does your character see, hear, and smell? Taste rarely comes into it except when showing an odor or emotion.

Scene framing is an aspect of world-building. It is the order in which we stage our characters and the visual objects they interact with. It shapes the overall mood and atmosphere of a scene.

The atmosphere of a narrative is a long-term feature of the story, winding through and evolving over the length of the piece. Atmosphere is conveyed by the setting as well as the general emotional state of the characters.

The mood of a story is also long-term, but it is a feeling residing in the background, going almost unnoticed—subliminal. Mood shapes (and is shaped by) the emotions evoked within the story.

Once we have our characters in place, they will show us the furnishings, sounds, and odors that are the visual necessities for that scene. All we have to do is let them do their jobs.

In the first draft, our primary task is to get the bare bones of the settings down. We must write the story as it falls from our imaginations first. For example, I won’t worry about the details of that gorgeous tapestry hanging in King Edward’s bedroom. I’ll just write the scene where Donovan kidnaps him. If the tapestry becomes important later, we’ll have a closer look at it.

World-building gets expanded on or trimmed back during the revision process. It is an aspect of writing that continues through every draft of the manuscript. Beta readers will mention aspects of the world that need attention, and even in the editing process some adjustments will be made.

Next week, we’ll look at the different levels of society that shaped our two main characters. We will see how their most cherished biases were formed, and with that understanding, we will understand how and why the whole debacle that is our story began.

PREVIOUS IN THIS SERIES:

Idea to story, part 1: novel, poetry, memoir, or short story? #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 2: thinking out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 3: plotting out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 4 – the roles of side characters #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 5 – plotting treason #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 6 – Plotting the End #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

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