Category: Saturday Setup

Saturday Setup – Magic: Systems

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Last Saturday Setup, we talked about establishing rules for magic and how important that was. This week, we’re going to discuss different systems for magic. This is equally important, though it is a much different discussion than the previous post on magic was. This time, we’re looking at the actual system the rules will function in, which will help you to further categorize your magic use in any given world as well as what rules to associate with it. So, let’s dive right in!

System One: Rational

Now, for this, different people have different definitions, but the general consensus is that a rational system of magic is one where there is an underlying rationale and framework for the magic. Sometimes these systems are also referred to as hard magic systems. The rules are more than just formalities necessary to make it work. In a system like this, they are the lifeblood and the indicator of a much larger structure at work.

Most of the time, a rational system is set up so that’s it’s easy to extrapolate from there. You’ve got your systems where things can occur seemingly at random or where things may not always go according to plan. Those aren’t rational systems. A rational system is something that hints at structures that might go back to something like physics (Avatar: The Last Airbender) or some other specific set of rules that won’t be bent (almost any superhero fantasy). Brandon Sanderson uses a rational magic system in Mistborn. The abilities are utilized by ingesting various metals, which then lead to different magical abilities or superpowers. While the individual themselves must have an inherent ability to use that metal in order to get results, the system is logical and rational because each metal can only do the things assigned to it, and no individual who isn’t Mistborn or specifically attuned to that metal will be able to use it to achieve those assigned things. There’s no mystery or question in it, no vagueness that leaves the reader wondering how this works. It is what it is, and it’s made very clear up front what it is.

Let’s break down an example from my work, Pathway of the Moon. Pathway of the Moon has a mix of hard and soft magic systems (We’ll look at the soft side in a moment). On the hard side of things, there is the system that allows for a few things to happen. First, an individual will either be Inherent (possess an ability) or UnInherent (no ability). From there, a clear set of rules governs the power distribution. With the exception of a few special cases, people control one part of one sphere or element. They can either have a specific ability in the mental or physical areas, or they can control some small part of an element (water, fire, earth, and air). No one gets more than one ability, though some may be more practiced in their area and therefore stronger than another or may contain stronger ability in the first place.

Take Amadeira, for instance. She’s one of two female leads in the epic, and her ability has to do with water. (Elemental Inherent). However, she can’t control everything related to water. Instead, she is able to manipulate existing water sources. Not create them. Just manipulate what exists. Someone else might be able to create water, of course, but then they would not be able to shape it to their will. Under this same idea, someone might be able to create ice from existing water or manipulate ice as it already exists. Still another might have the ability to create ice from thin air. This is a rational system though. There are rules, and with one or two exceptions (the special ones who can use dark or light for their ability), everyone follows them. Even the exceptions follow a set of rules and have an explanation for their existence.

Note that there can still be some mystery to a rational system in that not all rules may be explained. However, the key is that there will be subtle clues and hints toward those rules not revealed so that when something we didn’t realize could occur happens, we aren’t questioning how it’s possible. It just makes sense to us. A true rational, hard magic system will lay out all the rules for the reader because it’s necessary. So there is a slight difference in the terms rational and hard even though people often use them interchangeably.

System Two: Irrational

So with this system, it shouldn’t be assumed that there’s no logic or system at all. There usually is something, but this is more the Lord of the Rings style magic where nothing is exactly clear or predictable. We may wonder how Gandalf can appear at all the right times, but we accept that he can, not because we have reasons within the text but simply because he is Gandalf and that’s what Gandalf does. It’s mysterious and definitely goes unexplained, but it’s still accepted because, hey, that’s just the way it works around Tolkien’s world.

Systems like these are usually less focused on the rules. An individual may memorize an incantation to turn someone into a toad, but in a soft and irrational magic system, they can’t turn around and extrapolate out for a way to turn that person back from toad to human.

Worth noting is the fact that systems like this may often include plants or animals that contain some inherent magic of their own. People who use magic aren’t included in this as you can’t create a potion out of them and get something magical. But, just like with the spells, the system relies on memorization of the different potions and incantations because there’s no logic to it that can be discerned by reader or character. Trial and error is the key to the game.

These systems may also include old magic and artifacts. While both of these could show up in a rational system if the rules are clear and unwavering, they most often seem to show up in systems that are irrational or that utilize soft magic simply because these allow some level of uncertainty and mystery to the magic’s workings.

Let’s go back to Pathway of the Moon to talk about the aspects of the system that are soft irrational magics. While, arguably, Pathway of the Moon uses rules even for this second system of magic, it isn’t like the first one I explained. This one is much more vague and unclear. This system is for the UnInherents (those who can’t naturally use magic), and it is much more of a memorization, spells-based system. Certain types of plants and spells can harness the energy of the planet or, in the case of darker forms of magic, even the life force of people to generate various magical effects. While the system is supposedly only for UnInherents, Inherents may use it too if they go dark and are looking for the power. But the system doesn’t have rules that allocate who can achieve what amount of power or even if one spell can lead to another. Included in this are various artifacts both in the Aurelai Universe (the location where Pathway of the Moon and my published work, Bane of Ashkarith, take place) and in other universes. Most of my worlds contain this kind of duality in the system, which leads to the next point.

System Three: Dual or Hybrid Systems

Many fantasy novels these days are using a hybrid or dual system that blends or uses both of the magic systems described above. Pathway of the Moon falls under this. My book’s universe uses more of a dual system as there are, quite literally, two different magic systems at work: one rational and based more on magic with genetics and the other irrational with no clear system or basis in any set of rules that would allow extrapolation. However, this is a less common thing to see. Ordinarily, you will see systems that are a mixture of qualities from the previous two systems. This is why you can end up with a soft rational system or a hard irrational system. While the soft rational or hard rational systems may make sense to us, I’ll make a few quick notes about a hard irrational system. With a hard irrational system, you’re going to take the set of rules that are always explained and combine it with things that are impossible. 

As stupid as the example is, think about My Little Pony (if you have younger sisters or daughters who liked this show, I’m sorry. I was subjected to watching it once or twice with my baby sister, and that was bad enough. Those of you who end up watching it over and over… That’s like your own personal hell, in my opinion…). In the movies and shows, the rules and limitations are always explained. But the reasons for it make absolutely no sense in that there’s no way they could possibly occur. Ever. They’re either impossible or just straight up unexplained. Therefore, it makes a great example for what I was saying about a system that falls between being hard rational and soft irrational. It becomes a hybrid best described as hard irrational, as weird as it may seem.

Conclusion

Hopefully, all of this makes sense and helps everyone creating a magic system to create one that fits their story needs and personal preferences. There’s a ton of leeway with the hybrid systems because it combines elements from the rational and irrational systems. There’s also the option to create a world with dual systems, as I did with Alcardia from Bane of Ashkarith and Pathway of the Moon. (Interestingly enough, when I created dual systems, you see more of the soft irrational system come out in areas of Bane of Ashkarith than you do in Pathway of the Moon, which focuses far more heavily on the rules and extrapolating from them.) Really, you aren’t locked in, though you do want to create what best allows you to implement and tell your story. 

Have other tips or details on these systems? Have a question about implementing them or further inquiries about them? Feel free to leave it in the comments below! I’d be happy to talk about it a bit more in depth!

Saturday Setup: Magic – Establishing Rules

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

This week’s discussion is about magic. What good would any discussion of fantasy do if you didn’t go over magic? Since most sub-genres of fantasy include magic to one degree or another, this is an important thing to cover. We’ll begin our discussion with a talk about establishing rules, and next week, we’ll go over different systems of magic.

Why Bother with Rules?

The first obvious reason for this is to avoid chaos. If a spell does one thing today and another tomorrow, you might have material for a hilarious comedy, but nothing would ever work out according to plan. Your characters could never really learn magic because nothing is ever the same on any given day. 

But there’s a larger reason. While it might be amusing to have a magic system that has no rules and where anything could happen at any time, readers expect stability. They expect writers to lay down the rules. Of course, you won’t just say right up front what those rules are, but gradually, as they see more and more use of magic in your story, they will figure out what is and is not possible. 

This, of course, means that you need to know the rules.

Establishing Rules

Now that we’ve covered the reason you need rules, let’s talk about establishing them. It pays to go through a little bit of planning before you start writing. Now, you don’t have to go crazy with it before you start writing. If you really love worldbuilding, then feel free to go through an extensive, in-depth process to create your magic system prior to writing, but if you’re the sort who isn’t keen on spending months or even weeks on this, don’t stress. You don’t have to. Don’t believe the lie that you need to put countless hours into this or any other aspect of world-buillding prior to writing. It simply isn’t the case.

However, you should take some time to think through the basic rules. How does the magic work? Is it a spell-based system? Do people inherently have an ability? Is it a combination of both? For example, on Alcardia where the Pathways series takes place, the system allows for both. Some people are born with magic inherently. These people can use on of a few areas of magic and only a very specific portion of it. Ie: a water mage might be able to manipulate water or he might be able to create it, not both. But there are also those who can’t use magic inherently at all, and these individuals use spells to remain competitive with those who can use magic. So you’re not locked into one way of doing things, but you do need to have a system, and you need to know what can and can’t happen in that system.

For example, if we take Alcardia’s system, I would need to have a very good reason for why someone would have an ability that isn’t related to earth, water, air, fire, mental, or physical magic. (As an aside, I do in fact have those who can wield darkness and light, so I had to have an explanation for it.) If I had a character who could do more than one thing with his element (such as create and manipulate water), I would have to have a really good explanation for it because that isn’t how the system works.

This will help to prevent you from going insane trying to remember all the things you’ve already done and trying to figure out where to go next in an unpredictable system. It gives you clear boundaries, and if you go outside of them, it forces you to have a good reason. As in, a very, very good reason because neither your story nor your reader can accept random breaks in the system rules just to accommodate what you think would be cool. That kind of addition is best saved for other magic systems based around that exception or for fiction pieces you wrote for your enjoyment with no intention of letting them see the light of day.

Consequences

Another point here, when you’re establishing rules, is to avoid creating a system with no give and take. Nothing is free. If your hero could use magic to solve every problem with no fear of consequences, then why wouldn’t he? And when he does, you lose your story or risk making it entirely unbelievable. So, every action should have some sort of consequence to it. That could be that if they try to go beyond a certain amount of energy, they tap into their life force and may die. Or maybe it’s that if they use it, it could take something away from them, something that they’ll never be able to choice for themselves. This could be anything from losing memories to losing something or someone they care about very deeply. But there has to be some consequence or risk that keeps the individuals in the story (at least, the good guys) from using magic to surmount every obstacle with ease.

An Important Note

Please notice that I haven’t told you how you should build your rules or what rules you can and can’t have. This is fantasy. As long as the system remains true to itself, you can do just about anything. The point I want to get across here is that if you’re using magic in your fantasy novel, you absolutely must have established rules to govern it. 

Conclusion

Magic is often an integral part of fantasy, so making sure that you have a system that works and has clear structure is an important part of planning and world-building for any fantasy novel that includes it. Take some time to think about how you might be able to limit and structure your world’s ability to use magic. Make sure you write it down though because you don’t want to lose it or forget what you set out for the system, particularly if the book is the beginning of a series or an entire saga of books that requires the use that system.

Saturday Setups: Resources

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Resources are an important part of worldbuilding. Most cities are built near commonly needed resources like large bodies of water or places with rich fields for farming. Civilization doesn’t get far if there isn’t enough resource-rich land to support a growing metropolis. This has held true in history, and it still holds true in fantasy or any other type of world-building. So, let’s take a look at some of the resources your civilization might build up around.

Water

This one is a bit of an obvious one, but most cities don’t build where there isn’t an accessible water source. This might be a river, a major oasis, or a place with rich places to build wells. But a city must have water to survive, so no city will grow up to be a major metropolis without water to support its people.

Precious Metals

This one isn’t as obvious, but cities may build up around places where mining for precious metals and ore can be done. This gives them a good trading resource, and it also gives them the ability to make their own currency. As a result, this is a resource that civilizations founding new cities may look for. Even if they started out as just a settlement in an area with a vein of precious metal ore, the presence of that resource often results in growth later on. 

Precious Stones

Similarly, precious stones can be another reason a place becomes home to a city. People are willing to pay a great deal to gain precious stones for any purpose from jewelry to currency for big ticket items. They can be used to trade, and in fantasy worlds, they may even be able to hold some sort of special magical ability. As this is the case, depending on what uses the world as a whole has for this resource, cities can grow up around it quite easily.

Salt

This one is another less-than-intuitive option, but some cities can grow up around salt flats because salt is a commodity and also essential for preserving food in societies with no way of refrigerating. And if you have a world where witchcraft is a thing, then maybe salt is a special ingredient for them too. It all depends. The possibilities open to you with this resource are endless, and the more uses this resource has, the more likely it is someone will want to build a city near a location with salt flats.

Wood

Another important resource is wood. Building in an area that has lots of forest offers the opportunity to build structures that might be impossible to build without it. It also allows for carving and craftsmanship that couldn’t be accomplished with other materials. It allows for the creation of paper as well, if the people living there are advanced enough to know the process for creating it with trees. Regardless, at any stage, building a city in or near a forest can provide the city with valuable resources they might not be able to access otherwise.

Wild Game

If your civilization is a hunting community, this one is especially important. The presence of various types of animals provides them with both food and furs and pelts to trade. As can be seen in American history, the fur trade can be quite lucrative, so even if your civilization isn’t mainly hunter-gatherer-based, it may still grow around the fur trading capacities the location offers.

Farmable Land

This is a big one for civilizations that are settling down and trying to stay in one place. Often, the need for land that’s arid and good for crops leads to destruction of the forests in those areas so that farmers can plant their crops. This also offers a huge area of trade because farmable land allows people to grow so many different things. If that city or small kingdom owns most of the farmable land, they may become quite wealthy by trading their crops for other things neighboring cities and kingdoms have that they can’t produce for themselves. The other good thing about farmable land, of course, is that it provides a way to keep various herd animals, which can go a long way toward sustaining the civilization.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the many resources available, of course. However, they’re some of the common ones that cities and kingdoms may grow up around, so they’re worth mentioning. Have one you’d like to add? Feel free to leave it in the comments below!  

Saturday Setups: Government

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Next up in our discussion on world building is government. Governmental systems impact daily life in so many ways it would be impossible to cover everything, but here I’ll go over some of the major considerations and how different choices will impact your story. Depending on your choice, the differences in how life goes for your characters in your novel and how life could’ve been for them will be great.

Types of Governmental Systems

Before we talk about how governmental systems impact daily life, let’s discuss what kinds of systems are available to you. There are quite a few options, and each has different features, though in some cases, certain structures may share some features.

Monarchy

This one is one of the most common systems for fantasy. With a monarchy, there is only one ruler, though sometimes that ruler may have a spouse who shares that power with them. Either way, the ultimate power is vested in one individual. This individual writes the law, and in many cases, this ruler is the law. Which it is depends on the motto of the person in power. Some monarchies may have some kind of parliament, but how much power they hold is up to the monarch.

Oligarchy

This one is less commonly known or seen in fantasy, but it still bears note. In an oligarchy, multiple people are in charge. This could be a parliamentary system with no monarch or a ruler who is mostly a figurehead. It could also simply be a group of men and women who have all of the power. Perhaps the high-ranking nobility are running the show or members of the military are in charge sharing the power amongst themselves.  Either way, an oligarchy centers the power on a couple of very powerful individuals who stay in power by running everything.

Democracy

A democracy is much different from the previous two systems. With this system, it is the people as a whole who decide. Majority rules, and the interests of society are determined by the popular opinion. This system rarely works well on any large scale because once a lot of people are introduced to the system, voting becomes next to impossible if everyone is to have a say on every decision. Nonetheless, it is a system of government that can be employed in smaller communities.

Constitutional Republic

This system, which is the one the States employ, combines the popular opinion with some sort of structure. It does so by having the people elect officials to represent them. The particulars, of course, on how to make the representation work, when to have elections, and how to ensure everyone has a voice through that representation all depends on the people building the system from the beginning. This system allows the idea of democracy to function on a large scale because the people still have the power, but they aren’t required to vote on everything pertaining to the governance of their society. This, of course, is a good thing when you consider how many decisions have to be made for an entire nation.

Dictatorship

This one is one of the better known structures since we’ve seen plenty of examples. In this governmental structure, one individual is in charge and keeps power by controlling the people through military and state power. While in some cases a dictator may be benevolent, this is usually not the case. Dictators are often overthrown in favor of a democracy or some other form of government as a result of their cruelty and selfishness.

Governmental Structure’s Impact on Society

While there are other governmental structures, I listed the major ones above for your reference. Now that we’ve gone through them, let’s look at how this will impact daily life for your societies under the rulership of these various systems and their authorities.

Monarchy

In a monarchy, life can vary greatly depending on the king or queen in charge. Some may do what is best for the country and love their people dearly while others may rule with selfishness and a heavy hand. How this plays out is also determined by who is on the advisory board or council and who is in their senate/parliament, if they have one. Depending on how much power is given to the parliament or senate in the monarchy, they may have the ability to check the monarch if they see poor decisions being made, but in most cases, the monarch will set the tone for everyone as he is the sole party responsible for the laws. As a writer, your job is to determine what sort of monarch your monarchy has at the point of your story as well as how much power they have. Once this has been decided, you can work from there to determine what life will be like for your people underneath this form of government.

Oligarchy

Again, how life works out for your character depends largely upon who is in charge. This system does offer a bit more in the way of checks and balances because multiple people have to agree with one another. The problem is that most oligarchies are going to be constructed of like-minded individuals, and they aren’t chosen by the people. This leaves the people in a situation where their lives can be made easier or harder based upon who is in power from year to year. Historically, both monarchies and oligarchies have led to a mix of prosperity and extreme poverty. 

Keep in mind that when one or a few people are in charge, this can lead to religious and class persecution depending on how strongly the ruler(s) holds to one opinion or another. (An example of this in history, for instance, would be the Pilgrims leaving England due to intense religious persecution and violation of conscience as England’s king demanded they go to a state church that didn’t fit with Scripture. This, of course, is only one of many examples in our history.) This may leave you with an interesting avenue for conflict as a result of dissonance between the government and a certain set of people who believe differently or are in a hated class of people.

Democracy

Unless your government is only legislating for a very small group of people, democracy is going to make life very difficult for at least some group of people. Essentially, democracy always leads to mob rule. Whoever has the loudest voice and the most backing gets their way, leaving the minorities left out and often facing extreme hardship as a result of what the majority decided without them. Be careful in using this system because, unless you want a society where mob rule is the order of the day, this system may leave your character in one of the groups who is on the fringe and facing extreme difficulties. This could, again, provide an interesting backdrop for a story, but it’s important for you to understand how hard this could make things for your characters.

Constitutional Republic

This system of government is, historically, more likely to raise the living conditions of everyone in the country. While not everyone will get what they want all of the time, it offers a real chance for the public to be involved in their government with a voice that can be heard. Because of this, on the whole, the citizens of countries with this kind of governmental system feel more empowered to get involved and may be more informed on what is going on within legislative bodies. It also results in, typically, a much higher standard of living and higher prosperity within a country. If you want a highly stable form of government that will give your character a background in an affluent part of your world, this is a very good governmental model to consider. (Monarchies can also, in some cases, sustain the kind of wealth needed for this background, but usually only the nobility and royalty had access to that kind of power or wealth.)

Dictatorship

This one almost guarantees that your society will have a low level of affluence, difficulties in even the most basic parts of life, and a poverty level that is astounding. While this isn’t always the case, the pattern in history has been that dictatorships are unstable, lead to rebellions, and result in a great deal of suffering for the people underneath the dictator. This is an important thing to keep in mind about this form of government. If you want a character who has lived in the worst of conditions or been the one to perpetrate those living conditions on others, this is a great form of government to fit those needs.

Conclusion

Obviously, this is just an overview of government and how it affects day-to-day life and living conditions. Do you have other ways that these systems of government can affect life? If so, feel free to share in the comments! Because government is such a big part of how we live our lives, it’s an essential part of planning your world. The more thought you can give to how your world’s governments will work and impact your story, the better this portion of your story will be.

That’s it for this week, everyone! Have a great weekend!

Saturday Setup: Building Societies – Rank and Gender Factors

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Last week, we discussed how language factors into your society. Now we’re going to talk about how rank and gender can play a role. There are many different ways societies deal with these two things. Just look around at the cultures around the world, and you’ll see that. So let’s take a look at some options you have.

Rank-based Societies

Rank based societies can be set up in a lot of different ways. It could be that the society is similar to Asian societies where elders and family authority figures are to be highly respected and obeyed (as a general rule of thumb). Or, perhaps, it is more a caste system like India has. The options vary and can result in a multitude of arrangements.

Once this is decided, of course, it affects all kinds of things about relationships with people. Since we talked about it last week, languages can be affected by rank. Some languages, like Japanese, use honorifics or have more formal versions of the same word to indicate great respect for those high above you in rank. This also can be done in a variety of ways, such as using prefixes or suffixes on names or using polite tenses. These are just a few options.

In the end, rank-based societies will focus entirely on whatever hierarchy has been set into place, and their rules will tend to center on it too. Many things end up being affected, so you have to consider how rank might affect your society if you choose this option.

Gender-Based Societies

On this one, it isn’t so much rank as it is which gender one is that determines honor, privilege, and part in society. This might manifest in a manner both patriarchal or matriarchal. Or, perhaps there is no organized patriarch or matriarch structure, but perhaps instead women and men have gender-specific roles and don’t step out of them.

This really doesn’t even have to be applied solely to those societies where one of the sexes is suppressed or mistreated, though it certainly could be the case. It may also apply to societies where men and women are equal but simply have different roles to play and things that their counterpart is able to do that they cannot, not because they aren’t capable but because it simply isn’t their place or concern. In this way, gender can be a basis for the society without degrading one gender or another.

Mixed Societies

Some societies may work off a system that mixes gender and rank. These societies may place the two genders into a class of jobs or roles they can play based on gender, give the genders rankings in relation to each other (ie: men outranking women or vice versa), and rank each gender against others of their own gender within the class of jobs and roles they’re filling (ie: one man outranks another within the government or a woman outranks another woman in a midwife practice.

Conclusion

Rank and gender typically do play some role in society. Even in a society that doesn’t focus on gender, rank does usually come into play because some sort of authority structure must be set up, and that necessitates having some people who have higher rank or authority than others. Taking the time to consider this aspect of your growing society will help to round everything out and give you a concrete idea of how the people in your story will interact with others around them.

Arguably, this is one of the most important things to figure out for your society because it affects your characters directly in how they will relate to people of the opposite sex, superiors, colleagues, and subordinates.

Have another way rank or gender can affect a society in world-building? Feel free to share it in the comments! If you have a question, feel free to leave that in the comments too. I hope this helps you and offers a sound place to start in determining these aspects of your society and culture.

Saturday Setups: Building Societies – Language Factors

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

One factor in world-building that can take up a significant amount of time is language. Language has a huge impact on culture and society. It’s how we communicate with each other, after all. The amount of time you spend on this obviously depends. Some writers build entire languages to use in their series while others opt to simply invent names that have a feeling of cohesiveness. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, this post will help you get started.

Naming Schemes

One of the important things about language is that, often, names have some similar cadence to them. Languages that are a melting pot of lots of other languages, like English, may not mirror this, but it can be seen in languages like Japanese or Chinese.



Introduction

One factor in world-building that can take up a significant amount of time is language. Language has a huge impact on culture and society. It’s how we communicate with each other, after all. The amount of time you spend on this obviously depends. Some writers build entire languages to use in their series while others opt to simply invent names that have a feeling of cohesiveness. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, this post will help you get started.

Naming Schemes

One of the important things about language is that, often, names have some similar cadence to them. Languages that are a melting pot of lots of other languages, like English, may not mirror this, but it can be seen in languages like Japanese or Chinese.

You can use a variety of techniques to give names similar sounds. I’ll discuss three below.

Method #1

Use a set letter combination as a suffix on each name.

This method involves choosing a consistent suffix for a name. Depending on how complex you want it to be, you can use a different suffix for male and female names. Or, if you want to simplify it, you can use the same suffix for names regardless of gender.

Method #2

Use a set letter combination as a prefix on each name.

This one is a little less of a common method, but it can work if you choose it. It may be an easier method for creating a differentiation between male and female names.

Method #3

Use common sounds.

To give names a sense of cohesiveness, you can choose a few combinations of sounds, whether consonants or vowels, and use those combinations regularly in names from the same culture. For example, I like to use dh (pronounced th or as a hard d sound, depending on the dialect), bh (a vee sound), and Si (Shee) in a lot of my names, particularly ones using Wyrdhan, a language commonly spoken on Alcardia.

You can do a similar thing with your names for people or even places. I’ve used mine in names for people such as Dhiabhan, Rhubhian, and Alabhor or for place names such as Dhubarin (old name used for Dubarin in Banach’s day).

Method #4

Use a blend of them all.

This one is more complicated, but you can use a combination of them all. For example, you might use different prefixes to indicate the gender of the names, a suffix to indicate common languages, and a combination of different sounds to further add to the feeling of cohesiveness.

These are the main methods for naming, but there is also the choice to just name randomly. That isn’t discussed here because you can easily figure that one out, and the goal of this article is to help you to understand how you can use language to provide a sense of culture and differences in society. Naming randomly doesn’t have quite the same impact in those areas, so I haven’t covered it.

Building Languages

There’s a lot I could go over in this specific area. Building a language isn’t the easiest process, and it certainly requires a lot of thought. I’ll go over a few of the basic things to consider, but my recommendation is that, if you’d like to try your hand at building a language, you use Holly Lisle’s Build a Language ebook. I use it and her process is thorough, well-explained, and provides you with templates to use. I’ll provide the links and info for that at the end of this section.

Starting with the Basics

Usually, when building a language, I like to start by determining what sounds and sound combinations will be available. To make your life easier, I recommend deleting some of the sounds available to us from your language. For Wyrdhan, when I was working on creating it, I chose not to make Z an available letter. (Obviously, other languages might use it, or perhaps a dialect could introduce it, but the base language doesn’t have it.) I also added the consonant blends dh, dr, st, sh, sv, hs, bh, bv, wy, and kept ng.

You get the idea. Basically, figure out what sounds you want to add and what you want to get rid of before you do anything else. After you’ve done that, then you can move on.

After I do that, I like to figure out what I have for prefixes and suffixes. In my case, I chose to use suffixes for both my nouns and my verbs to indicate what the words do or the era they came from. This is, perhaps, more complex than I needed to make it, but I kind of pulled language-structure ideas from a variety of languages, including Japanese, English, Italian, and Dutch.

Which leads me to my next topic with the basics. You can use structures from languages we speak here on Earth to create your fantasy race’s language. It may make your life a bit easier in some cases to see how other languages handle things like nouns, verbs, sentence structure, tense, suffixes, and more. Modeling on real life helps us in so many other aspects of fiction, so why not here?

At this point, with the suffixes and prefixes nailed down, you have more than enough to start naming things with a semblance of organization and cohesiveness. You don’t need anything more than your sounds list, prefixes and suffixes, and a general idea of whatever other naming rules you may wish to have. However, this concept can be taken much further to include various cases, sentence parts, tenses, and conjugations of cases. How complex you make it is up to you.

Holly Lisle’s Build a Language Clinic

Holly Lisle has a variety of writing clinics available on Amazon as ebooks. I own several, and one of the ones I own is all about building a language. If you visit her site as well, you can provide them with proof of purchase on the ebook and gain access to the templates you need to go with it. This is the best way to go about it since the actual course can be pricey. I believe the course provides a little extra help for those who feel they can’t do it with just the instructions in the ebook, but I felt it wasn’t worth it.

The ebook lays things out as clearly as it can, though I can’t promise it’ll be entirely easy to understand since it can get down into the nitty gritty aspects of languages and building one. If you’re only interested in creating some nice names that feel like they could belong to the same language, use what I’ve provided here. You won’t find much else that’s new or helpful from her clinic. But if you want to really go the whole way and create your own language, pick up a copy of the ebook here. The website for claiming the templates is here, and I believe she explains how to claim the templates in the ebook. If not, you just go to the help desk and create a support ticket, then provide them with the information they request for it.

Conclusion

I know this a ton of information to process. Building a language can feel overwhelming. I know because that’s exactly how it felt to me. But really, it’s also a very rewarding challenge to take on. I enjoyed it once I took a breath, decided that everything didn’t have to be perfect, and just chose to love the process of creating something.

Now, I’m a bit of a language-learning nut case. My parents had me do two years of Latin in 5th and 6th grade, and I’ve been hooked on language-learning ever since. I speak none of them fluently or even well, but I spent about a year studying Spanish and Portuguese, a semester each on Italian and German, and am now studying Japanese. I’m even doing a little Romanian in preparation for my missions trip to Romania at the beginning of September.

So I’ve learned the language structures for quite a few different languages, and it helps tremendously. But that isn’t necessary to succeed at creating your own language. Google is an awesome way to find out more about languages and their structures if you want inspiration.

Above all, do what you feel is needed for your book. Anything more than that should be just for fun and pure enjoyment. It shouldn’t be something you stress about. It’s your language, so there really isn’t a right or wrong about it.

As usual, feel free to ask questions in the comments or leave your own tips and tricks if you like to build languages for your books. I’d love to see what others do in this area.

Saturday Setups: Building Societies – Culture-Unique Factors

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Last time, we discussed how location impacts the societies you’re building for your world. This week, on Saturday Setup, we’re going to talk about how culture-unique factors can also affect your world and its societies. Culture has a very obvious impact on society, one that most of us probably understand more readily than we do the idea of location playing a role. So, let’s dive in. This one won’t be as long since we probably all have some basic level of understanding of the subject.

Culture’s Role in Developing Society

Each society has different rules and structures. We all intuitively know that the things we’re able to say or do in the US, say, versus the things we can do and say in Japan without being rude vary a great deal. Why is this? Well, it’s largely due to culture. How we were raised and what our culture says is acceptable, whether right or wrong, has a lot to do with what we do and don’t do.

It can affect a lot of things about a society, such as how people dress, what they eat, and what they can or can’t say. It even can result in changes in how different genders or age groups relate to each other. Some cultures in real life have a society where younger children and women don’t get much say or aren’t to question a man’s authority in public (sometimes even in private). Other cultures are much more open and allow for behavior in women and children that would be seen as horrifying and rebellious in a stricter culture. So what your society’s culture is and what it has been built around greatly affects what will and will not pass in your society.

Culture’s Role in the Legal System

Depending on how diverse your sub-cultures are within a culture and depending on the governmental structure, your legal system could be affected by the culture. Think about the US, for example. Here, we have things like southern culture or inner city culture, and we just know the difference when we see a person from one of those sub-cultures. There’s a difference in beliefs, in appearance (sometimes), and in behavior. What one sub-culture finds acceptable may not be okay in the other. This comes out in how those two sub-cultures vote, deal with legal matters, and make judgment calls on law. If those people are in positions of power, they may have even more ability to sway things in favor of their sub-culture than a normal person would. Again, this depends on the governmental system, which we’ll talk about later on. But for now, understand that what you set up for culture and sub-culture within your society matters. It will affect your government and legal system to some extent, and it pays off to consider this if the government or legal system will factor into your story in any important way.

Culture’s Role in the Home

This is the last one we’ll discuss because it should have a bearing no matter what story you’re telling. Everyone has some sort of family or upbringing, and culture definitely plays heavily on this one. Your culture will make all the difference on how your parents dealt with issues of disobedience, training you, and teaching you right from wrong, among other things. The same goes for a fictional world. Who your characters are as children, parents, and just as adults in their society will be shaped largely by how they grew up, and their culture affects this.

Take some time to consider what your society’s beliefs are. How do those beliefs impact what they think about raising children? About marriage? About the home in general? Your fictional society will also have a set of beliefs that dictates these things. People may go outside of them, follow them, or bend them, but they’re there within the culture. There is some sort of norm that people look to when judging whether or not a family is normal or abnormal. That’s just how humans work. We categorize things, and we constantly want to see if those we’re around and we ourselves fit the mold. This isn’t any different. So consider your world’s culture carefully on this matter. It’s going to change a lot about each society you create.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you can see that culture affects much about daily life for societies. It’s important and shouldn’t be ignored. Many things in world-building can be skimped on or ignored entirely if they’re not needed for the story. But if you want a world that feels authentic, don’t ignore this aspect. It gives each society featured in your story its own, unique flavor, and that’s absolutely vital to creating a believable world where the reader’s suspension of belief isn’t destroyed.

As usual, if you have other ways that you’ve used culture in world-building, feel free to share it in the comments below! I’d love to hear about it. Have a question? Leave those in the comments below too. If you have a suggestion for a future topic you’d like to hear about, I’d love to hear that too. You can send it to me at arielpaiement@gmail.com. If it’s something I can cover, you may see it sometime in the future on the blog!

Saturday Setup: Building Societies – Location Factors

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

We’re finished with the mapping section of the world-building discussion, so now we’re going to look at building societies and the factors that go into that! The mapping you did in the previous sections will come into play here, so if you haven’t read those articles yet, you’ll want to do so and come back to this.

This week’s discussion centers on the location factors that shape a society. We touched on this briefly in the global mapping sector, but now we’re going to take a closer look because location plays a big role in what kind of society is built there.

Location’s Role in Societal Structure

Yes, location can play a role in the structure of your society or culture. If the place your cultural group is located forces them to be hunters and gatherers, then the society may develop as a male-dominant society because, usually, the men tend to be the ones hunting and providing for the women and children.

If the infrastructure of the location has allowed the society to develop into more of a farming and trading setup, things might be more even because women (unless government or family structure dictates otherwise) are capable of doing various jobs or working alongside the men. They aren’t as reliant upon their guy to provide. It doesn’t mean that they won’t. It just means that things will probably be more even with the two parties acting as partners instead of one dictating everything.

Lots of other things can affect the way your societal structure develops here, but location and what is available to shape the people’s way of life will have some influence on this as well.

Location’s Role in Dress and Daily Life

The way location plays a role in these is probably more obvious. If your environment is a steamy jungle, you’re not going to dress like an Eskimo. The reverse is also true. No one in an arctic environment is going to go out wearing a loincloth or cotton shift. It just doesn’t end well. So where the society is located will dictate how they dress.

It also dictates daily life. As I mentioned above, some societies might be set-up for hunting and gathering while others may be focused on trade and agriculture. These two ways of life are very different and result in very different average days for the people living those lives. Knowing what type of location you have and what impact it makes on lifestyle is extremely important because it’s going to determine a lot about a character coming out of that culture.

Location’s Role in Shaping Characters

This one very directly relates to your story. The skill sets of your characters will depend to a large degree upon where they live. If they’ve never lived anywhere with snow or ice, they’re probably not going to know how to ski or how one might go about tracking in the snow. On the flip side, someone who never lived in a jungle environment wouldn’t know how to gather food, figure out what plants were edible or poisonous, or find clean water.

Not only that, since location shapes the culture they grow up with, the things they’re taught and what they feel is appropriate or inappropriate will vary accordingly.

Characters from temperate or cold zones might look as a character who dresses in nearly see-through cotton dresses as being either crazy or scandalous because they would never wear anything like that, even inside out of the cold. The character from the warmer climates would look at the character from a cold zone and think the same thing about some of their traditions and manners.

This is something that’s important to consider as you’re building the society. Make note of places where cultures will differ and might clash. By taking these notes now as you build the necessary cultures or societies, you’ll lessen your work later when you build characters from those places. You’ll already know what basic things they should think are right and wrong, strange or normal, and crazy or sane just based on the culture they’re from.

Location’s Effect on Infrastructure

This is another place where location has a big impact. Living in a zone prone to tornadoes will necessitate infrastructure that is much different from a society that deals with sandstorms.

The main thing to think about here is what the location’s climate is like and what kind of weather might be endured. From there, determine what kinds of features the buildings and structures of the society might have developed to deal with this.

Places that endure terrible storms might end up building houses that are squat and low with slanted rooftops to help with wind-resistance. But a place that deals with constant flooding might build their houses up on stilts to keep the lower levels from being flooded every time it rains.

These are just a few ways that infrastructure might be adapted for location. Take time to figure out what your societies’ infrastructures need to look like for their locations.

Conclusion

As you can see, location impacts a great deal about the society you end up building there. Considering these factors will help you to avoid inconsistency or lack of believability later on in your story.

Do you have other thoughts on how location can affect the societies built there? If so, feel free to share those in the comments!

Saturday Setup: Local Mapping – City Layouts

Ariel Paiement

We’re finally to the local mapping! I know this is all a lot of groundwork and information, but I promise it does help to think about these things. But there’s only one more post on mapping before we turn our attention to other aspects of world-building and setting up the story elements.

So, let’s dive right in!

This post won’t be as long, but I’ll go over locations for cities and some ways they might be arranged.

Location

Cities are usually located near a large river or port of some sort. This makes sense if you think about it because cities are hubs of commerce, and this means they need a way to transport goods. Doing so via water makes this much easier than it is for land-locked places, especially if the infrastructure of your world is more medieval or hasn’t developed tech like trains or planes.

More importantly still, cities need a water supply. They have a lot of people who need that water too, so they have to have a large source nearby. And it can’t be saltwater, so having water from a large river, mountain streams, or unpolluted ground water means the difference between survival and extinction.

Other places cities might be located are in places along established trade routes, mineral-deposit rich land, places with lots of natural resources, or mines for precious stones and commodities. Water might be the most important resource a city’s founders look for, but they’re looking for the ways they’ll make money in the future too.

A final point to consider is defendability. Particularly for cities where warfare was or still is a major threat to their livelihoods, locating on the high ground or in a place that’s difficult to attack is a must. This includes building on top of high hills, building with two rivers or large bodies of water surrounding one or more sides of the city, and building in places where mountain ranges provide a solid defense against invasion.

Layout

Besides location, the city’s layout is also important. The way a city is organized determines a lot about the city. If you have it built with narrow streets and alleys, you may have people crowded in on top of each other, meaning more people can live there, but no one will be getting carts through those streets. But if you build it with larger spaces between houses and shops, you’ll have fewer people living in the city in exchange for more room to maneuver.

Beyond that, cities usually have some sort of divide between rich and poor. Every city, particular in a fantasy setting where it’s more medieval in nature, has its slums or poor districts and its rich districts. And when they’re all packed in on top of each other, the divide is that much clearer.

Then you have the castle, assuming the city is the capital or houses a major noble. Depending on the political structure, nobility might not live in a castle, but if it’s some sort of fief or a smaller city structure, perhaps they do. The castle would be the city-dwellers’ last line of defense if invaders broke through the outer and inner walls. So it would be located at a central point in many cases so that fleeing there would be equally convenient for everyone.

Besides building structure, you also have to consider how the city gets its water and the areas that might be weak points. These provide ways to get into the city during an attack, and if you plan on having the city under siege or assaulted, knowing these points will be important. You don’t have to know every hole in the wall and missing brick, but at least consider where the weakest points of defense are if you’re laying the city out. Things shouldn’t be easy for either side in a siege, right?

Conclusion

As promised, this is a short post. There isn’t as much to think about when mapping out a city as there is when mapping out a whole world. But the details here are just as vital because they’re going to alter and impact life just as much for characters living there.

So give it some careful thought if you know you’re going to have characters spending any significant amount of time there. It may be important to know these details later on. Solidifying them now gives you a headstart when you have to use the details later in the book.

What other things do you think about if you’re building cities for your world? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Saturday Setup: Global Mapping – Climate

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

This week marks the last post about global mapping. We’re going to take a look at climate and how that affects your map. This’ll be a shorter discussion because you’ve already done the majority of the work. At this point, you’re just going to spend a little time thinking about the climate involved in each area in your story and how that will affect your writing. Climate affects a lot of those little details that readers like to see so they can be immersed in the story. So let’s take a look at how.

Climate and Culture

You might be sitting at your computer or looking at your phone wondering what I’m talking about. You might be asking, Ariel, how on earth can climate affect culture? Isn’t it just a nice way to throw some obstacles in my hero’s path?

No. It’s not. Climate actually does affect quite a bit about how a culture develops. For instance, if your hero lives in a culture where the climate is tropical and the terrain tangled jungle, this is going to affect what they eat, what they wear, how they build their houses, and much more about how they live their lives. This culture is less likely to be agricultural because you can’t farm in a jungle without significant clearing of the land. Instead, they might be hunters and gatherers.

Let’s take a look at one more example. Say the climate is an arid, desert-like environment with one or two oases for water and a delta running through it. Well, now the situation is much different. These people will likely migrate to the river to plant crops and raise cattle because there’s no way they can sustain life in the desert conditions otherwise. They’re going to wear light-weight but concealing clothing when out in the desert sand because they have to protect themselves from the sun. But at the river or an oasis, they might wear little to nothing because the heat is stifling and it’s too muggy for comfort. Their food isn’t going to be the same as the jungle tribe’s either. They’re going to raise it themselves or grow it in the rich soil at the delta or floodplains created by the river.

Hopefully, if you weren’t convinced before that climate could affect culture, you are now. So, take some time to think over what types of climates your cultures will live in and think through all the ways that climate could shape their culture and way of life. The ways are many and varied, so have fun with it! Make it logical, but be creative.

Conclusion

I promised this would be a short post, and so it is. Really, climate is going to be determined mainly by what land features you chose to place where. The two go hand-in-hand. You can’t have snowy regions where you placed a steaming jungle or a jungle where you placed glaciers. So, the important thing you need to worry about with climate is how it affects the inhabitants of that biome, both human and otherwise. It has the biggest affect on the cultures of the lives there, and that’s what your focus should be on since you’re going to be writing about those people who have to deal with it every day, or for some chunk of time, at least.

Have any tips for what to consider when it comes to climate’s affect on culture? Drop it in the comments below! If you have any questions about the topic, feel free to leave that in the comments too!