Post by Injin on Jan 29, 2017 22:22:48 GMT -5
I've currently got two distinct ideas in the works for my worldbuilding project, and I'd like some feedback from people - both people who are into worldbuilding for its own sake and people who primarily care about stories, and then might be interested in worldbuilding if the stories hook them enough.
Project 1: Writing some proper stories in my setting. I'm beginning to plan short stories as opposed to trying to crank out a proper novel. The thing about a novel is that I'm going to have a great deal of difficulty settling on an idea for one if it means showing off only one part of the setting and not other parts of it. So there are two alternatives: writing short stories set in different places, or plan an entire series of novels. The latter is beyond what I have the time for, and frankly seems like a project reserved for an older, stabler version of me who is, ideally, a better writer. So I'm going to start writing short stories instead. Maybe I'll only end up writing a few, maybe I'll be writing them for years. Time will tell. But it's time to start telling some stories in this setting, even if that means they're not huge and ambitious.
Now, I know most of you don't know very much about my setting, but nearly all of you know -something- about it. Is there anything that I've mentioned that you find interesting that you'd like to see or hear more about? The number one motivator I could have is knowing that I'm writing a story that somebody would actually give a shit about reading. So if anyone has anything for me, that'd be great. Otherwise: what kinds of stories interest you most? Would you rather read the tales of random little people and their daily lives (e.g. the latest apprentice mage at the academy, learning the ropes and out of his depth) or would you rather they be on a more epic scale (e.g. the fall of a dynasty and the betrayal of the queen by her brother)? Do you think it would be better if the stories were connected in some way? I'm thinking they should all take place at the same time - the 'present day' of the setting - but maybe they don't have to be.
Project 2: A wesbite that functions kind of like this: www.imperial-library.info/
I really enjoy the way that The Elder Scrolls handles most of its lore - telling it to you in these little canonical snippets written by actual in-lore characters, not told to you from some objective, external vantage point. The website would open with two primers: 1) An introduction to the setting, the website, and how it works, and 2) Maybe 2000 words of an introduction to the Library itself - a real, tangible location within the game which the website would be feigning as.
Then you would have the ability to choose which 'section' of the library you wanted to go to. The sections would have little bits of flavor text to them, and then you'd be able to choose a book to look at. The books themselves would only be maybe 500 to 2000 words, depending on the book, just an excerpt from the text like you'd find in a TES book, but more "excerpty" and a little bit less of the 'attempting to summarize the whole book in 200 words'. At the bottom of the page, there'd be something like, "Librarian Recommendations:" so that if you happened to enjoy a particular text and wanted to know more, there'd be a link to two or three other, related texts that might be of interest to you.
The question is: is this actually a more interesting way to navigate the lore than a wiki? Would you actually prefer reading the lore in a format like that, all in-canon writing, or would you rather an extensive wikipedia kind of thing? I think the Library idea is quite good in that it will leave lots of room for mystery and expansion, it will make the setting feel more real and tangible, it'll make the reader more immersed, and it'll make me start doing a lot more proper prose as opposed to "just worldbuilding". But I can totally see someone saying, 'Yeah, if I wanna learn all about the setting, I'd rather just a conventional wikipedia.' I'm debating whether I'd like to include hyperlinks within the text of the prose, which could be used to link one to relevant books - that kind of breaks the immersion, maybe? But it definitely makes for much more of a compromise between it and a conventional wikipedia.
If I went with what I normally search for in game, I would definitely go for something like Project 2. However, I also know the benefits to writing something long-term for Project 1. What I think would help you flesh it out more is Project 1 and I would recommend that you pursue that to a point and potential switch over to Project 2 once you have a better footing for your setting that allows you to write said stories. Hell, you could do a thing that every few stories in Project 1, you write a few related entries in Project 2 style.
So Project 1 is your best bet to build upon. Project 2 might be best to tack on additional hidden detail.
