marycatelli | Entries tagged with bittercon

I have read advice about world-building that suggests that you start with the creation myth.

I have advice, too, which is: Don't. Even if you do, for whatever reason, start with the world and not with the story. You're starting with an assumption, and one which will constrain you. Your society does not need to have a creation myth. And even if it does, it doesn't have to be important in the practice of the religion.
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bittercon.

A few more to test your muse out on.

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bittercon.

Settings can contrast each other as character foils do, One thing that can contrast is how settled they are. And the fun part is that each one can look settled and civilized in contrast to the next.

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bittercon

This is fun. So I'm going to offer a few more here, for people who didn't find the first ones inspiring -- or who did, and would like to do more.

So, hmm. . . .

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bittercon

How do you build an intricate fantasy world that holds up to intensive fan interrogation?

The first points I think of are -- what are the stories that let you have such a world? Since, after all, you can make it as intricate as you like without the fans ever getting wind of it.

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bittercon

Many people ask authors where they get their idea . This panel asks: "How do you develop your ideas into stories?" We will take an idea or two and work on how we would turn it into a story."

A reprise of a panel from last

bittercon for this one as well.
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"The world will never starve for lack of wonders, but for lack of wonder." G. K. Chesterton

Wonder -- for all the praise bestowed on it, it can be hard to find in SF or fantasy. Then, it is a brilliantly colored but sneaky, sure-footed beastie -- or is a birdie? That would explain how swiftly it can escape nets. And stories. And books, and authors.

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bittercon

What are the tools and research methods writers use to craft complex, believable worlds? What are the essential elements necessary to ground a fictional world in a sense of tangible reality?

The question of what are essential elements is both straightforward and simple.

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bittercon

Many people ask authors where they get their idea . This panel asks: "How do you develop your ideas into stories?" We will take an idea or two and work on how we would turn it into a story."

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Part of bittercon

Only loosely inspired by a program description from the con. . . .because I think it more interesting than the contrast with urban fantasy they used.

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bittercon .

From the program description:

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bittercon

From the program description:

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bittercon.

It is traditional in program guides to claim that the panel is about recommending overlooked or neglected works. I've never known a panel to stick to it. For one thing, we all think are very favorites are neglected. Even very popular works can be more popular.

So, tossing aside overlooked or neglected, some of my favorites:

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What are some of your favorites that you want to recommend?

Part of bittercon .

From the program description:
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bittercon

From the Readercon blurb:

Mark Twain instructed other writers that "the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable." This rule can be generalized: the more favorable to the characters an unexpected plot turn is, the better it needs to be set up (see the end of James Morrow's Only Begotten Daughter). But what about eucatastrophe, where the power of a happy ending comes from its unexpectedness? Is the eucatastrophe in fact a form of plausible miracle where the plausibility derives not from things the author has put in the text, but from beliefs the reader already had, perhaps without knowing it? Or is there another explanation?

I think this one gets the ten-foot pole, too. (poke, poke, poke)

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bittercon

The blurb goes like this: "Many portal quest fantasies function by exploiting anxieties surrounding the location of home: either home is to be found beyond the portal, where the nerd/outcast finds their true tribe, or home is to be returned to, enriched by the fantasy land left behind in its favor. However, given that our world is increasingly mobile and rootless, why do we seem to produce so few sympathetic narratives of adventurers who never find home—for whom home is less a destination than a journey?"

And I pull out my ten-foot pole to poke it.

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bittercon

What exactly is happening in this story?

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bittercon

There's nothing quite like death in a story to set the tone.

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bittercon

Accept no substitutes!

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Updated: Screening against tangents

World-building can be an interesting thing.

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marycatelli

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Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

being chiefly about the written word

Entries tagged with bittercon

World-building religion and gods

Drill Down Into Story Ideas III

city and town and country and wilds

Drill Down Into Story Ideas II

Intricate Worlds

Drill Down Into Story Ideas

sensawunda

Essential Worldbuilding

Drill Down Into Story Ideas

Urbane Fantasy

Green Tree, Blue Tree, Who Gives a Frack? Is it Real Worldbuilding or Simply Changing the Names?

Consistent Magic Systems in Fantasy

looking over webcomics

Creating Gods

Plausible Miracles and Eucatastrophe

There's No Homelike Place

The (Re)turn of the Screw

the grim reaper in fiction

ripping off history for fun and profit

a range of worlds

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June 2025

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