Okay, so technically, Montalier is not a world.
It’s a country within a world. But creating worlds sounds so much better than making up countries, so I’m running with it. I created Montalier for my novella TWELVE DAYS OF FAERY, the first in my SHARDS OF A BROKEN SWORD trilogy. Besides being the home of one of my favourite characters, Montalier is one of my favourite settings. I don’t think it’s because Montalier is any more developed than my other worlds: rather, I think it’s because TWELVE DAYS OF FAERY was a first on so many levels for me.
- The first novella I ever wrote
- The first longer form fiction I wrote from a male POV (previously, I’ve only written short stories from male POV)
- The beginning of my first complete trilogy (as of now, when THE FIRST CHILL OF AUTUMN is due to be published May 31st)
- The first book for which I made up pie proverbs
When you build a world you have to think about so many things.
Is this the coolest map you’ve ever seen, or what? (And in case you’re wondering, Wyndsor is north-east of Montalier, out of sight along the coast. Avernse also doesn’t appear on this map, but that’s because it was a VERY TINY piece of paper)
Political system. Monetary system. History. Religious system (if any). Etymology of names. Proverbs and historical references. Is it a country or an actual world? A monarchy or a democracy–or perhaps both? What sort of military does your country have? How does it interact with the militia of the surrounding countries? Is this a coastal country, or landlocked? Do you have dragons? (Always have dragons). If you’re travelling from country to country, where exactly are your countries in relation to each other? Do you have a map? (Always have a map. With compass. Trust me, you’ll need it.)
There are many other things to ask and formulate, but one of the things I most enjoy making up is pop culture. Well, not exactly pop culture, but you know what I mean. The catch-phrases people use. The in-jokes. The references to ancient (and not-so-ancient) history. The things you forget you say until someone from another country hears you and wonders what you mean.
With Montalier, it was pies.
Tiny pies. Huge Pies. Pies in between. Pie proverbs. Pie references. Pies everywhere! I love pie, so it was a hugely enjoyable (albeit hunger-inducing) part of my world-building. In fact, when I revisited Montalier for THE FIRST CHILL OF AUTUMN, at least one beta reader asked if there would be more pie proverbs. (Spoilers: no. Sadly, there were no words to spare, as TFCOA already weighs in at a smidge over 50k, which is slightly long for a novella).
As a reader, I have three worlds that I’ve found to be extraordinarily well-written.
The first of those is the world Steven Brust has created for Vlad Taltos, his assassin-on-the-run who manages to escape death and disaster by the skin of his teeth nearly every book, while his side-kick Loiosh is making sarcastic comments in his ear. The world-building there is something really special. It grows over the course of many, many books, but each book is so well-contained and explained that I have very happily read them ALL out of order without feeling more than pleased each time I find something cool that slots into my knowledge base for the next book.
Second: Kate Stradling’s Kingdom of Lenore in KINGDOM OF RUSES and TOURNAMENT OF RUSES. And guys, I know I’ve raved about this book and this author before, but the world-building here is just so deftly done: there is not a single unnecessary word, and the world is richly imagined and filled out.
My third favourite is the world Patricia Wrede created for THE RAVEN RING. It is rich in sayings, understandings, customs, and magic; and it’s done in an understated and completely immersive way. THE RAVEN RING is another book I’ve already raved about, so just go and read it already. (Incidentally, Patricia Wrede’s blog is probably one of the best blogs a writer can read for world-building–and lots of other–advice, too.)
Well… surely the best fictional world ever created has to be Middle Earth. It’s unrivalled in terms of the depth of its history, literature, linguistics, and more. Many authors have invented a few words of an imaginary language, but Tolkein actually invented entire languages, complete with grammar and extensive vocabulary.
It’s rather amusing the way Tolkein writes about Middle-Earth history or literature – he sounds for all the world like a scholar researching historical sources in the real world, weighing up the evidence for various theories, and you could easily forget that he actually invented the whole thing.
Oh, and it has dragons.
Middle Earth is certainly the most comprehensively created world. Probably ever. It’s amazing: I love how Tolkein not only creates his own languages and writes his own poems, but writes poems IN those created languages! I mean, TALENT!
When I was a kid I started to create my own language, but since my grasp of grammar was (and still is, to some extent) quite dreadful, it was more of a code/word-substitute type thing. I still use a Tolkienesque cipher that I made up as a kid, though. The characters are almost pure Tolkien, and the cipher has its own way of indicating double letters, capital letters, and punctuation. I use it when I’m out and about in a place where people can and do read over my shoulder. I don’t like that, so I use the cipher and they can’t tell what I’m writing 😀
1. Holy cow. Thank you for the incredibly high praise.
2. Now I kinda sorta feel like a fraud. I did very minimalist world-building for Lenore. I assumed the reader would come to the book with preset defaults in place, so I defined only the necessary things and left the rest taken for granted. *edges slowly and apologetically out of the room*
3. Your pie references in Twelve Days of Faery were hilarious. It’s details like this that make a world real to me, more so than monetary systems or maps. Though I agree, the maps are always nice to have. And, speaking of pies, if you want to create a cool map, try rolling out a ball of pie crust to a thin layer and then trace its ragged edges. (From a photograph works best; otherwise the paper gets greasy. Yes, I know from experience. #crazyauthortips 😀 )
I *love* having my understanding taken for granted! It makes it so that no one over-explains stuff to me: I hate that! Also, it makes me feel clever 😀 With RUSES, I felt that things were mostly implied and edged in broad strokes, while the whole of the character actions/reactions filled out the details. That’s one of my favourite types of world-building, and for me, works every time 🙂
Oh, now I’ll have to try that trick with pie crust! I used to look at water spills on concrete and take my maps from that, but now I kinda want to make a pie map…
Water spills on concrete! I love that idea!
With the pie crust, you get these gorgeous intricate borderlines (especially if the crust is just a *touch* dry). That’s always my worst part if I try to draw a map without any visual guides. I just end up squiggling the pencil around like my hand is having a seizure. 😀