World building and character profile tips

[Professor 0110]

Hi everyone,

I am currently well underway with the first volume of my epic fantasy series having written about 40k words. Along the way, I am of course continuing to outline the story in depth, as well as work on character profiles, history, geography, and cultures/societies.

However, I was curious as to how some of you go about world building and creating "3D characters". Some tips in this department would be very much appreciated.

For example, I've got my maps, but how do you guys and gals go about creating fleshed out cultures and characters?

 

[Aes]

Everyone's going to have a slightly different answer, because everyone does this in their own way. (and there really is no right or wrong way to do it, provided it works for you) For me, the characters just sorta...happen.

For awhile, I'd get a scenario in my mind that typically involves a character or two, then later, get another totally unrelated scenario with new characters in it. Since this isn't very useful by itself, I built myself a world, and now, I just kinda bend and twist these characters and scenarios until they fit into the world. With enough related scenarios and characters, I start to get a feel for what a given culture could be like, so I think on it some more, and eventually, the details just kinda present themselves.

 

[Culhwch]

As Aes says, there's going to be a lot of different ways that people do this. I'm in the same boat, where the characters and situation comes first, then I build a world around them, then the world dictates certain other characters. Then, generally, they'll grow with the writing. I'm not much of one for detailed backstories, at least not before I write.

As far as cultures go, take a look at the geography of your map, and have a think about how that geography is going to impact the people who live there, and how that is going to affect their culture as it develops. Look at real-world geography and the cultures it has historically produced. Use that as a jumping off point, and build from there. Make it your own.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

For the cultures, I just let them evolve (like real cultures but a million times faster). It's basically an organic, subconscious process -- out of which ideas are likely to spring unexpectedly, already equipped with all sorts of flourishes and ramifications -- although I feed my subconscious with plenty of material, by reading voraciously about history, and cultures, and customs, and mythologies (particularly those that might have a bearing on what I am writing), and miscellaneous other things that may or may not apply but will probably be good to know at some later date, so that I am always learning more and more about how these things work and how things fit together, and how one thing usually leads to some particular other. The more of these things I absorb, the more I assimilate them into my thought patterns, the more likely the details of my imaginary cultures are to fall into place without much (conscious) nudging on my part.

With characters, I tend to let them unfold, too. They do a lot of things offstage and have a lot of conversations that never make it into the book, which seems to be their way to telling me who they really are, so that when I write the scenes that actually go into the book I just know how they'll react in any given situation. And then I have to let them do that, whether it suits my previous plans or not, otherwise they just clam up and stop telling me about themselves, and the story grinds to a halt.

 

[chrispenycate]

There are nine and ninety ways
Of constructing tribal lays
And every single one of them is right.

I love constructing universes. Occasionally, when I don't need one I'll construct one for somebody else. And about eighty percent of it is "Ah, for that to happen, {something} must be true. Or {other something}; but that would involve…" Very much like developing a scientific hypothesis into a theory.

Characters are more problematic. You'd think, wouldn't you, that someone you'd created would feel, if not gratitude, at least a certain respect. It has to be better than never having existed at all. But no – I'm never going to be a best selling author, they'll never get the showcase they think they deserve, so get off track, leave the story line and go parenthetically off exploring independently; it's not as if I regularly got them flayed, or overrun by a lava flow (perhaps I should treat one or two like that, to encourage the remainder. But, by the time I know a character well enough that he, she or it develops independence, I've already got an emotional link – this sounds a bit crazy, doesn't it?) Characters, not just protagonists but right down to bar wenches, see me as an easy touch. It wouldn't even do me any good going to a different agency; the problem is in myself, not in my stars.

Cultures just seem to gel when you know a couple of people who originate there, and the physical (and preferably social) reasons for their coming into existence.