30 Days of world building – Day 3: Mood and Setting

Mood

I want it to be a little dark, it is supposed to take place in a country that’s been at war for years. Everyone should be touched by this, the older generation because they remember what it was like when it was peaceful, the younger generation who only know what war is like, there just isn’t much room for happy faeries flying around etc.

Setting

Most of the story would be set in a Middle Europe type place, cold winters, walm summers, rain etc. The made up world is very earth like in climate, countries to the north are cold, the further sounth the warmer.

30Days of World Building – Day 2: The Physical Planet

10 Plot devices related to weather:

1. Storm during travel by sea – near death experience bonding, shipwrecked, killing off a few characters, stopping ships sailing for a battle, hiding ship that is being followed by other ship.

2. Sudden snow storm/blizzard – holed up in a cave, opportunities for one on ones, secrets coming out, nursing someone back to health. Getting lost, getting ambushed, avoid ambush and slip away from enemies.

3. Heavy rain – creates a depressing mood where secrets are confessed, making a river bigger so it cannot be forded, flood an area, make some one ill form being soaked, create a cosy homey atmosphere.

4. Very hot – no food, no drink causes irritation dissent. also hallucinations

5. Draught – set’s off the hero’s journey, family needs money, food etc so he goes off to find it.

6. Fog – good for getting lost or hiding from the enemy

7. The changing seasons (not technically type of weather) – if a journey needs to be undertaken then changing seasons puts a time pressure on it, there might be places they cannot get pas in the winter for example or rivers impossible to cross during the spring floods.

8. Hot and humid – losing patience with the cause/journey, beig fed up with each other

9. Thunder storms – hero encounters a primitive people who worship the God of Thunder etc. they try to kill him but when it start thundering think he is their God instead.

10. Floods – make the hero’s party split up, lose a character in the flood waters and everyone thinks their dead only for them to turn up again later.

30 Days of world building – Day 1 – Climate and Variety

Different climates:

Tundra (Siberia) – frozen, uninhabitable
Arctic (Greenland) – lots of snow,very cold
Temperate(Mediterranean) – hot summers, rain and cold winters
Tropical – hot hot hot, rain period (rainforest)
Sub tropical (Sydney) – mild winters, HOT summers
Desert (Sahara) – lots of sand, HOT days, cool nights
Cold (scandinavia) – warm summers, freezing winters

A Plot, A Plot? Now I just have a genre

So it’s finally decided, I’m gonna do Fantasy, though with the plot I though up a few days ago. Haven’t gotten too far into the plot yet, but been researching in the Fantasy Forum on NaNoWriMo and found several world building tools.

I have now settled on one of them located at 30 Days of World Building by Stephanie Bryant written by Stephanie Bryant, which is 30 days of buliding exercises. Since I don’t actually have 30 days left until NaNo I’ll be doing a few day and posting them here.

Please remember that all the exercises are created and thought up by Stephanie Bryant, and I am just following her advise.

If you would like to have a look at her website the like is Magical World Builder’s Guide by Stephanie Bryant

I will also link to each individual exercise as I do them 🙂