• Bomb Shelter Found in the Brooklyn Bridge
• Tips Found on Writing and Pre-Writing
• How Time Flies
• What is a Meta-Story
• NaNoWriMo Day 2

Miss Cora Strayer’s Private Detective Agency originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on February 3, 2012.

Since I’m not certain yet which game system I’m going to be using for this – or even if I will be publishing it without one – I’m sticking with purely narrative descriptions of the locations. Later, I’ll go back and in the game mechanic crunch and other details.

And since this is an ostensibly worldbuilding blog, here’s an example of one of the descriptions I wrote up yesterday:

The Baron’s Tower (Inn)
Cheap rooms (with matching prices). Beds have threadbare sheets and are probably infested with fleas and other nasties. Visitors are usually more comfortable sleeping on the floor – and less likely to leave with unwelcome passengers. The common room on the main floor serves crappy food and drink at inflated prices.

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Hart’s Deep – The Map’s Done originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on February 2, 2012.

Hart’s Deep is a very big project, with not only region mapped, but the city itself as well. The city, upon which the region is named, will be almost fully detailed. By almost, I mean every building in the city has been put into place, but not all of them have been assigned occupants or purposes. What I’ve done is figured out what the most important businesses and locations are (from a player’s point of view) and then put them on the map. Each location will be described, with information about what it is and who the proprietors are. The map of the city will also include maps of the mines, caves and caverns beneath the city. I haven’t decided yet how detailed these will be.

The image above is a snapshot of part of the map – if you click on it, you’ll be taken to a larger version of it. The write up of the city will be by quarter. The sample above is the old craftsman quarter, and it’s without all the fancy stuff Campaign Cartographer 3 can do.

I haven’t decided yet how exactly I’m going to publish the book – whether all at once, or each chapter or part as an installment for a subscription. I know I’m going to use the subscription model for the adventures (and the campaign) set in Hart’s Deep.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been working on and is keeping me so busy.Similar Posts:

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The World of Hart’s Deep – A Snapshot originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on November 28, 2011.

I did a bunch of writing over the past week. About 1500 words all total, but not for my WIP, but writing is writing so it counts. I’m also working on some things for a world I’m creating (for the purpose of publishing and using it as the basis for a series of adventures for some role playing games), and that’s taking up some time. And then there’s the books I bought at Borders (2 fiction (Jane Slayer (sp?) and…. another one that I can’t remember the title of off-hand – it’s something new to me), 3 non-fiction (1 about the Incas, “The Ultimate Guide to US Army Survival Skills, Tactics and Techniques” and the Howdunnit book on Forensics). And then the new Jim Butcher book, Ghost Story, showed up on my doorstep today. Lots of reading to do.

The kids are supposed to be going to spend the week my my in-law’s, so hopefully I’ll be able to do a lot more writing.

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ROW 80 Check-In for July 27 originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on July 27, 2011.

I think that for the next week I’m going to be reducing my word count goal to 250 words. That might be more easily managed.

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ROW80 Checking for the end of Week 2 originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on July 17, 2011.

And a note to myself, the current total word count as of this morning for The Morgan Affair is 56,608.Similar Posts:

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ROW80 Check-in originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on July 10, 2011.

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ROW80 Check-In for July 6th originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on July 6, 2011.

The 500 words a day should get me to the point where the first draft of The Morgan Affair is completed, or pretty close to it. I don’t know if I’m going to give myself little rewards along the way, but if I do, I’ll be sure to let you know.

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ROW80: My Goals originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on July 4, 2011.

I did want to mention that as of July 4th, I will be participating in Around of Words in 80 Days. I recommend you check it out and consider participating. It looks like fun, and gets you to write (or whatever) without the horrible pressures that come with NaNoWriMo.Similar Posts:

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A Break in the Silence originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on June 24, 2011.

Things have been just crazy, and I got out of my routine for writing on the blog and other projects. I should be back on track shortly. I’ll continue the A to Z Worldbuilding Challenge and get that done this month, as well as work on a thing for self-publication through Hart-Felt Productions.

And, of course, work on The Morgan Affair. I think I’ve got my current stumbling block licked, but we’ll see.Similar Posts:

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Did You Miss Me? originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on June 1, 2011.

Ari’s playing softball for the second year, and she loves it. This is her very first at bat on Opening Day 2011.Similar Posts:

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Not A Worldbuilding Post – My Kids originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on May 11, 2011.

As for advice: write. That’s thing one. Write stuff that sucks. It always sucks when you start. Keep sucking, then fix it. That’s the whole job…

I love that statement. It’s so true. Nothing you ever write is perfect the first time the words hit the page. Similar Posts:

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Writing Advice from K. A. Applegate originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on April 29, 2011.

Astronomy

What is the moon in your world? Is it a dead piece of rock that circles their world? If it is, do they know that? Does your world have more than one moon? If so, you’d better make sure you know what effects it will have on the physical world.

Culture

Every culture comes up with explanations for things they don’t understand. That includes, of course, what’s up in the night sky. Where do your people think the moon came from? In the Gates of Amduat, the moon is a pearl from Basret’s necklace and the stars are diamonds scattered in the sky to give the people light in the darkness.

What do your people think when they look up at the moon? Do they see a face (the Old Man in the Moon), or something else, like a rabbit?

How about the effect of the moon on people? Is it believed to cause insanity, or do “the crazies come out on the full moon”? Why do they believe this? If your world has werewolves (or other shapeshifting beings), is their ability to change their shape tied to the moon, or is that just superstition?Similar Posts:

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L is for Loony originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on April 28, 2011.

I’m going to finish reading the book, then see what I need to do to rework what I’ve written so far. I’ve got too much invested just to scrap it all and start over. It likely means I’ll have to add in about 5k words near the front of the book, but then the rest – if I follow what Brooks suggests – should all fall into place.

Boy am I glad I’ve got index cards.

So, coming up shortly will be the next installment of the A to Z Challenge – the letter L.
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Falling Down originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on April 28, 2011.

Today’s entry for the A to Z Challenge for Worldbuilding is K is for Karats. Here’s an excerpt from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

a measure of the fineness (i.e., purity) of gold. It is spelled carat outside the United States but should not be confused with the unit used to measure the weight of gems, also called carat. A gold karat is 124 part, or 4.1667 percent, of the whole, and the purity of a gold alloy is expressed as the number of these parts of gold it contains. Thus, an object that contains 16 parts gold and 8 parts alloying metal is 16-karat gold, and pure gold is 24-karat gold.

And that’s what we’re talking about today: gems, gold, and other things that your fictional cultures consider valuable.

The first thing that comes to mind when we think of treasure is gold, jewels, and lots of lots of money. But that’s not the only thing people can consider valuable. Let’s take a look at the Aztecs (who are the culture I used as a starting point for one of the cultures in Kolrath).

The Aztecs produced gold ornaments, salt, and garments made of fine cloth. These were traded to the people of the lowlands for what the Aztecs valued: jaguar skins, tropical-bird feathers, rubber, cotton, chocolate, and cacao beans. Cacao beans were also used as currency, and there’s evidence of counterfeit beans – and that’s a really big sign of how valuable the Aztecs considered them.

Treasure doesn’t need to be something material either. The aliens in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull valued knowledge – that was their treasure.

So, what do your people consider valuable? Rare shells from the sea? The seeds of an exotic plant? A mineral or metal mined from the ground? But even as you decide what they value, you need to figure out why. Is it for the item’s beauty? Do they use it in their religious rituals? Is it extremely rare and/or difficult to get?Similar Posts:

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K is for Karats originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on April 26, 2011.

When doing your worldbuilding, you need to think about laws, crime and punishment, if only because of the conflict it can inspire in your story. What are the laws and what’s the consequence of breaking them are the two obvious questions, but you should also think about why a law exists. For example, why might a religious law forbid the consumption of a particular animal. Perhaps there is something about the animal that caused illness, so it was banned for safety reasons. Maybe the animal is considered sacred, so eating it would be an affront to the gods.

If someone breaks a law, then they will face the consequences of caught. The most common kind of punishment – or perhaps the best well know – is from the Code of Hammurabi: “An eye for an eye.” You do something wrong, you must pay in proportion to what you did. Steal a cow? You either give it back, pay for a new one or replace it with one of yours (note that the Code listed maximum penalties, not the only ones to be paid).

If the laws of your culture require penalties along the lines of locking up criminals for lengths of time, you need to figure out how that’s taken care of. Are people shipped somewhere for their sentence, then allowed to come back if they have the money to pay for passage? Are criminals locked up in equally lousy lice and rat-infested cells, or are the nobility – and those with the money to pay the bribes – give special treatment?

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J is for Jail originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on April 21, 2011.

How does your fictional culture view children? Are they considered to be tiny adults and treated as such? Are they hidden away in nurseries and schoolrooms until they’re ready to be presented to Society, trotted out only at specific times or when their parents want them? Seen, but not heard? Are children considered to be treasures and doted on by everyone? Are they considered to be vermin? (That last one was thanks to my son. Where on earth do 11-year-olds get ideas like that?”

And what about races that look like children to one race, even when they’re not. For example, a halfling could very well look like a human child. How about people who suffer from dwarfism? Are they treated as adults when they reach their age of majority, or are they treated like children because of their size regardless of their age?

Image Attribution:

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I is for Innocence originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on April 20, 2011.

So why do people tend to congregate and then settle down into villages, towns and cities? It’s all about resources. People go to where they find things they need and then stick around. A fishing village in a sheltered bay. A city at the mouth of a river. A village at a crossroads in fertile farmland.

When you’re deciding where your settlements are going to be, you need to figure out why they’re there. There has to be a believable reason. Is it a mining town? No real usable resources around but the city is there? Are the resources almost used up, or perhaps it’s a holy site.Similar Posts:

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H is for Hamlet originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on April 19, 2011.

If you’re going to have monsters in your world, you need to decide a couple of things. Are they real or not? If they do, do they live up to what we (or the normal people of your world) think we know about them, or are they different? Are they good or evil, or do they simply suffer from bad press?

Where do they come from? Have they always been part of the world, or do they come from somewhere else? In the book The Native Star by M. K. Hobson, the idea of a credomancer is introduced. That’s a mage whose power (or lack thereof) derives almost completely form the belief of people in magic and their personal abilities. If people believe the credomancer can fly, then guess what, he can! I use the same concept for Bastet in The Morgan Affair – the gods abilities, appearance and powers are influenced by their followers.

If you’ve decided monsters are real, is it common knowledge, an open secret, or a real secret? Do they keep to themselves and avoid revealing their existence to the common man? I think the latter is more likely to the case in urban fantasy or paranormal romance and similar genres.

Something else to think about if you’ve decided if monsters are real is how common are they? Are some more common than others? If so, why? Were they hunted to near extinction? Do they normally live elsewhere, or do they require huge territories to live in and are unwilling to share them with others of their kind?Similar Posts:

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G is for Goblins originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on April 18, 2011.

A good way to get ideas on what your people might eat is to take a look at people on Earth that live in areas that closely resemble the inhabitants of your world. For the nomads of the Gates of Amduat, I did research on the Bedouin.

Once you’ve decided what they eat (both plant and animal), you need to figure out how they grow it. Do they have small family farms, or super-mega-corporate farms or horticultural facilities. You’ll also need to get an idea of how much land is needed to feed the population. The website Medieval Demographics Made Easy has some useful information on it.

You’ll also need to figure out how the food gets to the people who consume it. Obviously there won’t be much in the way of farms inside a city, so the food will have to be brought in from outside. The level of transportation technology is important too, as it will determine how far food can be shipped before it starts to rot or otherwise go bad.Similar Posts:

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F is for Farms originally appeared on LisaHartjes.com on April 16, 2011.