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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3154 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Untitled Novel Series - Exposition

Why should I care?

That is not a snarky attack on your world, but a piece of advice that a lot of sci fi/fantasy writers miss. Everybody knows Ringworld, nobody knows The Smoke Ring, despite both of them being Larry Niven. The Smoke Ring is a much more interesting storyworld, constructed with a great deal more care... but Ringworld has Louis Wu, Teela Brown and Speaker to Animals.

I think you have enough of your world that it's time to figure out who you're going to put into it and why your readers will care. Because in the end, it isn't an intricately constructed storyworld that hooks readers, it's your characters' interaction with an intricately constructed storyworld that does the trick.

Pos-apocalyptic Australia only gets you so far. You need a Road Warrior to tie it together. Otherwise it's just Steel Dawn.





War  ·  3154 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I made the world and I've been asking myself that question. The world took a hell of a lot of work to build and make sure all the wheels spin nicely, but honestly this far down the road I find myself questioning why I began in the first place. I think that was the point of me posting this really not to so much get stuff in order, but to start moving forward with construction of a meaningful cast of characters and answering the question, "Why should I care?". If I post about this project in the future, my goal will be to try to answer that question. Thanks for the feedback.

kleinbl00  ·  3154 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  

It's the most important question for everybody else. The most important question for you is "what do I want to explore?" and everything here is a great answer to that.

I've optioned two screenplays and have a novel at a boutique in NY. You have more layout than any project I've ever worked on, and I worked with an MIT astrophysicist to lay out a plausible architecture for Alpha Centauri A/B because I needed day/night cycles and moon behavior. The trick is to funnel the part you find interesting into a part the reader finds interesting. Plot a story that exposes these aspects of your world as viewed through the eyes of memorable characters.

The world is figured out. There will be changes but they'll be dependent on what you need, not what you want. Now the trick is to determine who you want to explore it with.