How Worldbuilding Should be Like Glitter
Okay, so a quick story. When I was in color guard (it’s a team sport where you dance and throwing flags as visuals for the marching band), one season we wore costumes with glitter. And no matter how many times I washed it, glitter would get everywhere. It would dust the bus seats, freckle my hands, and pepper all my other clothes. Basically, it would cover everything it came into contact with. And for months, glitter became part of my world.Which got me thinking how your fictional world should work in the same way. Worldbuilding should be everywhere in the story, to the point that your readers don’t even realize (because they are that immersed). To the point where the glitter is inside the characters themselves, messing with their point of view. Yes, their point of view should be glitterified.Example: Say your fantasy world has red tress, that may or may not be important to the plot. Your characters should not notice that the trees are red and think that’s weird. To them it’s just glitter. They are always like that. Yes, describe them, but describe them as we would the green trees. Don’t beat us over the head with it. Don’t write: “and the trees are GREEN! Like really GREEN!”Be subtle and consistent throughout. That’s how you immerse the reader. What I also like about this comparison of worldbuilding techniques to glitter is the idea of sprinkling. You never dump a gob of glitter in one spot and expect the whole artwork to shine. One must plan out where exactly the bits and pieces should go to be most aesthetically pleasing. To avoid the dreadful info dump, you must sprinkle the worldbuilding in, bit by bit.And you can do this through:Dialogue - This might be the easiest way to get wrong because you have to make sure the characters are saying these elements in a natural way. They need to have motivation and reason to talk about the world and not just as a way for you to get the information across.Details –Think about what the character would mention about the setting. The ‘how’ a character would describe something brings personality and life into the POV. It also should connect it to tone and the atmosphere of the piece.Internal thoughts – What does this character feel about the world element they are describing? This can reveal character just as well as worldbuilding. This also ties into voice. Voice is one of the most difficult writing concepts to teach, but I think it starts with character’s perspective and showcasing the glitter of the world in a way that is authentic to the story. Instead of telling us their backstory, showcase it in little hints on how they look at their surroundings. What do they love? What do they hate? What do they want?Parting note:Portal fantasy is a little different, in that your character may be coming from our known world, and thus can be surprised when all the trees are red. We learn every new concept through their eyes so you can fixate on how different it is. But, if any of your characters live in the secondary or futuristic world, they will engage with the worldbuilding naturally. Because, after living for months in glitter, even I got used to it.Happy Writing!
Being a Writer and Finding Others Out There
Can we talk about shyness for a moment? Shyness is hard. You think, well I’ll grow out of this… hopefully. But you don’t really know how that’s going to happen, especially when in your free time you like to be alone, in your room, typing on a keyboard, creating people and interactions that don’t exist. Life as a writer is seen as introverted weirdness or crippling genius where a glass of alcohol or a cup of coffee must be included in the frame for authenticity.Well, I’m going to say that life as a writer doesn’t have to be like either of those choices. In fact, in many cases it isn’t. But how is a beginner supposed to know that? How is that aspiring artist supposed to know how this thing called writing is done?Unlike learning or a musical instrument or a sport, there is no mentor guiding the fresh-faced creators out there. Sure, I had English teachers like anyone else, but writing a novel is not like writing a paper. It feels related sure, you smack the keys in the same fashion, you put each word down, one behind the other, but it’s so much more than that. Even this blog posting feels simple and easy compared to the months or years of work and confusion and doubt that is the novel.If you want to write, the mentors and experienced people of the world are not going to find you, pick you up by the bootstraps and tell you how to overcome the plot hole you have in chapter eight. No, unfortunately you have to find them.This is where the shyness comes in. You might say I’m a writer, recall paragraph one if confused by how some of us operate. Room. Alone. Typing. Remember?I say - shyness is hard.But so is putting in the time to write. So is creating worlds. So is putting yourself out there and getting rejected (a lot).So here are some avenues to finding your group:
- Local Writer Groups
Find your group by searching local writer groups out there. If interested and in the Dallas Fort Worth area, I am part of the DFW Writers Workshop and we welcome all.Website here: http://www.dfwwritersworkshop.org/
- Social Media
There are some great Youtube channels, interviews and blogs that talk about writing and how it’s done. There are Facebook groups designed to find critique partners like Sub It Club Critique Partner Match Up. The Internet is a beautiful thing full of advice and opportunity to ask for beta readers, partners or get questions answered.
- Contests and Literary Journals
Enter a contest. Seek out avenues where other authors are submitting. Writers, I find, are a supportive bunch. The main goal of some contests is to connect fellow writers or writers to agents.
- Take Classes/Go to Conferences
This is the expensive option (I know), but always worth it. My first conference taught me a lot about craft and I made connections, but it also opened a window into how the publishing industry works.Happy Writing!