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Nov. 23rd, 2009 12:11 amToday was the last day of my worldbuilding class, and I now understand why my mind inhabits the past instead of analysing it (remember, a few weeks ago I was mourning the temporary loss of historian-Gillian and her historiographical capacity?)*. I was explaining to my students, you see, about the need to play with their learning and to take it on board.
I'm a bit besotted right now with the need to create an environment that feels real. My students were a bit addicted to writing every fact I gave them. I was trying to get them to do exercises that would help them with techniques and they were telling me "This is useful. Let me just write it down."
Now, I can hardly deny that I utter great words of wisdom. Even when I say stupid things, I shall claim they're great words of wisdom, largely to see how far astray I can lead everyone. That wasn't the point, though. The point was that, without grand stratagems** for transforming knowledge to understanding, any worlds we built in class would be hollow and will read hollow on the page should they be used in a novel. There are good novels written using hollow worlds, but there are much better ones written with worlds that are alive to the reader.
There are so many ways of turning theoretical world building into an understanding that's good for writing. My mind inhabiting the past and investing in key figures is one. Laying out a table with plot trigger points and a character's possessions is another. Maps and timelines, character life histories, role playing games, or even mentally walking down the streets of a created town are others.
The exercise we used in class was taking the basic design of a building (a house last week, a castle this week). Last week I had them add the people dynamic to it: we discussed how different parts of the house were used. This week we looked at the time dynamic: we discussed how the functions of a particular castle changed over time in response to changing circumstances.
And that was what I did with my afternoon. I discovered why my mind has been so very odd these last two months. I also did my best to make the minds of others just as odd.
*The punctuation in that sentence is so evil I decided to make it worse with a footnote. Besides, footnotes are fun. The world needs more footnotes. This world, not the world of my novels. I know one person who will never forgive me if I add footnotes to novels again.
**Grand stratagems are obviously big piles of semiprecious stones in many layers. I need more grand stratagems in my life. The world needs footnotes and I need pretty rocks.
I'm a bit besotted right now with the need to create an environment that feels real. My students were a bit addicted to writing every fact I gave them. I was trying to get them to do exercises that would help them with techniques and they were telling me "This is useful. Let me just write it down."
Now, I can hardly deny that I utter great words of wisdom. Even when I say stupid things, I shall claim they're great words of wisdom, largely to see how far astray I can lead everyone. That wasn't the point, though. The point was that, without grand stratagems** for transforming knowledge to understanding, any worlds we built in class would be hollow and will read hollow on the page should they be used in a novel. There are good novels written using hollow worlds, but there are much better ones written with worlds that are alive to the reader.
There are so many ways of turning theoretical world building into an understanding that's good for writing. My mind inhabiting the past and investing in key figures is one. Laying out a table with plot trigger points and a character's possessions is another. Maps and timelines, character life histories, role playing games, or even mentally walking down the streets of a created town are others.
The exercise we used in class was taking the basic design of a building (a house last week, a castle this week). Last week I had them add the people dynamic to it: we discussed how different parts of the house were used. This week we looked at the time dynamic: we discussed how the functions of a particular castle changed over time in response to changing circumstances.
And that was what I did with my afternoon. I discovered why my mind has been so very odd these last two months. I also did my best to make the minds of others just as odd.
*The punctuation in that sentence is so evil I decided to make it worse with a footnote. Besides, footnotes are fun. The world needs more footnotes. This world, not the world of my novels. I know one person who will never forgive me if I add footnotes to novels again.
**Grand stratagems are obviously big piles of semiprecious stones in many layers. I need more grand stratagems in my life. The world needs footnotes and I need pretty rocks.