Living the Fairy Tale - World Building
A few weeks ago I posted about the world building for my WIP,
Journey to the Bone Factory. I spoke about the depth of research and about the methods
I use to store all this vital information so that my mind is free to be creative and
write [Press here to read]. This got me
thinking about the differences between the world building between Bone Factory
(YA SCI-FI) and my first book Through Mortal Eye's, and so I decided to post about the
world building in Through Mortal Eyes.
Through Mortal Eyes, is
a very different book; but it is still one that’s heavily reliant on world
building for success. Its fantasy told in a duel narrative, but it’s a fantasy
based in this reality and time. You’d think it’d make world building easier but
that’s not easier it’s just different.
Through Mortal Eyes, is about Fairy tales, but not fluffy one ending with happily ever after, or ones set in different worlds. In the world of Through Mortal eyes, fairy tales are real, the characters moving around in the shadows, and eventually they get entwined with seventeen year old Ruby, who has to bring the all the tales to an end.
Through Mortal Eyes, is about Fairy tales, but not fluffy one ending with happily ever after, or ones set in different worlds. In the world of Through Mortal eyes, fairy tales are real, the characters moving around in the shadows, and eventually they get entwined with seventeen year old Ruby, who has to bring the all the tales to an end.
Of course I need not have to worry about gravitational pull,
and the proximity of planets to their suns, or population density but I did
have a whole lot of reading and world building of two different views and times
within our world. But instead of the physics of the world I was looking more at species
of the world, and making a normal setting seem dark and fairy tale like.
So for the world building I looked at fairy tales, stacks of
them. Then I also had species to work out so research veered in the direction of
ghouls, beast and the un-dead from mythology and folklore across the world. I noted down species profiles, much like character
profiles, but with anatomy, and social histories. I also researched actual history to slip things
to make the species history more believable and add depth; researching the dog-headed
Saint Christopher and the Hungarian Countess, Elizabeth Bathory who murdered
and bathed in young maiden blood.
For places I used the little love town of my youth, using the oldest house in town, and the oldest church with the
hollow tree. Both these places in the
right light with the right words look like they belong in a fairy tale. Also In
the novel there is an abandoned town, which was burnt to the ground in middle
ages, only leaving the church standing. This actually happened to a town about
fifteen miles from the in the novel, but not knowing what it was called I found a great
web-site detailing all the lost medieval town of Berkshire Press here.
Of course sometimes a simple object can be enough to set your mind working, dictating to be used in the narrative and that the world is built to include it. This happened with my dad's old dagger that he dug up on a building site years ago.
All these notes were spread out over an array of notepads, ring-binders and stored virtually. Coming together to build a disturbing yet scarily familiar world.
All these notes were spread out over an array of notepads, ring-binders and stored virtually. Coming together to build a disturbing yet scarily familiar world.