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a foolish pianist posted:I think the districts and politics of the city were important to some of the actions - the union activities, the ethnic enclaves, etc. all related to something important happening. That holds for most of the neighborhoods but not the giant skeleton.
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Dec 13, 2021 03:22
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Kchama posted:The idea that you're an inherently evil monster for having a bad writing philosophy is still outright wrong, and he was outright saying that. He’s sort of right in that the belief it’s possible to fully comprehend the logic of the world has led to a lot of monstrous things, basically what I mean is read SEEING LIKE A STATE.
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Dec 13, 2021 03:39
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Is acclaimed fanfiction "Fallout Equestria" a LitRPG? Every chapter ends with a new character perk gained by the MC.
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Dec 13, 2021 03:53
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Doom Mathematic posted:How does a writer even come up with a place which feels like a real place where everything lines up according to its own logic unless they do a ton of behind the scenes worldbuilding? yeah. they should do research and world building, but it needs to not be on the page. they need to make structure and not 10 billion words.
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Dec 13, 2021 03:56
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i guess generally speaking it's just another way of saying that I want to be shown and not told.
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Dec 13, 2021 04:00
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i love being told tbh. lay that exposition on me. dont even have a plot, just sell me an encyclopedia for your made up universe
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Dec 13, 2021 04:15
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Doom Mathematic posted:How does a writer even come up with a place which feels like a real place where everything lines up according to its own logic unless they do a ton of behind the scenes worldbuilding? Typically, you write. To be less snarky, you sketch ideas and maybe a few sketched out concepts and themes, and then let your writing and the readers imagination give them flesh. If you are writing a 30 page lore book, you've lost.
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Dec 13, 2021 04:22
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Aardvark! posted:I'd just like to apologize to myself, Graydon Saunders, because I gave up on Commonweal about halfway through book 3. Curious to hear your thoughts on that, I ended up quite disappointed with it despite the fun premise.
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Dec 13, 2021 04:34
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Famethrowa posted:Typically, you write. For some books, big disagree. Love to read setting books for tabletop rpgs and stuff. Imagining a place is really cool.
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Dec 13, 2021 04:37
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Doom Mathematic posted:How does a writer even come up with a place which feels like a real place where everything lines up according to its own logic unless they do a ton of behind the scenes worldbuilding? Maybe it's because I haven't read much fantasy, but in my experience the answer is that it more or less runs along the same lines of logic as the real world (usually just 500-1000 years in the past).
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Dec 13, 2021 05:31
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You just say that a wizard did it.
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Dec 13, 2021 05:35
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No well told world should ever make sense. Almost nothing in the real world does, because it’s too complicated for us to deduce the logic behind it without either a ton of study or inherited cultural knowledge. The names of US states make sense to us because we’re familiar with them and their etymology, but from the perspective of “Fantasy Worldbuilding” they’re nonsense. What theme unites them? Why is Alaska not even connected to the others? What do the names say about the kind of people who live there? Shouldn’t the inhabitants of these States know the origins of the names and take pride in them? Why don’t the state boundaries follow natural barriers? Why are some states split arbitrarily into a north and south version, but others aren’t? These are basic worldbuilding errors.
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Dec 13, 2021 05:45
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“The most politically important position in the royal court is the guy who wipes the king’s rear end” would get you laughed off Reddit.
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Dec 13, 2021 05:46
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Doom Mathematic posted:How does a writer even come up with a place which feels like a real place where everything lines up according to its own logic unless they do a ton of behind the scenes worldbuilding? I think it's fairly normal to just start writing your adventure and gradually think up and flesh out new places and cultures as it becomes necessary for your characters to encounter them imo this is fine (there aren't that many people who can really pull off the Tolkien thing where the legendarium comes first) but it does produce a lot of what r/worldbuilding would identify as worldbuilding crimes, because you're not thinking everything through before you introduce it
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Dec 13, 2021 05:50
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one of my coworkers wants to write a book (not in my wheelhouse since it would be a progression fantasy) but has spent two years writing notes and ideas for the setting i keep hollering at him to just start writing scenes and see what happens, but alas
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Dec 13, 2021 05:55
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I just had a compliment on the detail and depth of my worldbuilding which felt really odd to me because all I do is basically stick pins in a backstory wall and occasionally drape string between them, hopefully so the connections and backstory and deep lore pops out at you on a re-read. Like a puzzle the reader has to engage with. I've also been told my worldbuilding needs more infodumps and a more concrete "magic system." In conclusion, worldbuilding is a land of contrasts.
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Dec 13, 2021 05:59
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PupsOfWar posted:one of my coworkers wants to write a book (not in my wheelhouse since it would be a progression fantasy) but has spent two years writing notes and ideas for the setting It’s probably the case that some people would be better off writing/reading fantasy Wikipedia rather than a regular book.
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Dec 13, 2021 06:03
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mods are asleep, lets worldbuild E: i apologize that the labeling isn't in Exocet.
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Dec 13, 2021 06:22
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since tabletop RPGs are back from the dead as a big hobby, there are by this point probably way more people who have experience with worldbuilding from the perspective of running a campaign for their pals rather than writing a book in RPGs, notoriously the best worldbuilding practice is "idk, maybe sketch out some broad ideas but for the most part make it up as you go along", since you don't have full control over the direction of the narrative. Hypothetically you could start out the game with 15 pages of notes on caisson locks and trading tolls in a border province of a decaying empire that you want your adventure to take place in, but the odds are good that, three sessions in, your players will antagonize the wrong trickster god and get teleported to the moon, leaving you to go "wait, gently caress, I don't have any notes on the moon, I only have notes on this riverine trading network, which i can't simply adapt to the moon because i previously established the moon has no rivers in an offhand dialog" it is probably not a good idea to approach a novel with quite that degree of ad lib, since you do have control over the direction of the narrative and should be approaching it with some forethought, but you don't want to be the "I have 800 pages of meticulously crafted notes, which I'll use for something someday!' author either in summary my coworker should try being a DM PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 06:26
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I hope the brave men and women of The Sentinel Reach keep the bad worldbuilders out of Bookworld.
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Dec 13, 2021 06:31
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Copernic posted:mods are asleep, lets worldbuild it's interesting that some of the placenames are in descriptive english and others in conlang is this a colonized land where some of the names are remnant loanwords from the original culture Milkfred E. Moore posted:I hope the brave men and women of The Sentinel Reach keep the bad worldbuilders out of Bookworld. it seems to me that Bookworld are positioned as the sinister antagonists here that area is grey and is on the other side of a scary dark line - looks menacing to me!
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Dec 13, 2021 06:32
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FPyat posted:All this talk of the implications of LitRPGs reminds me of the infamous post made by the author of Viriconium and Light. Neat. Wonder how he feels about inventing a conlang as a political act 
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Dec 13, 2021 06:32
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Cicero posted:It’s probably the case that some people would be better off writing/reading fantasy Wikipedia rather than a regular book. I mean, there's crossover to an extent. A new Halo game is out and I left the franchise ten years ago but apparently it's good again, and so at work the other day (wouldn't have done this in my own time tbh) I had like 20 tabs open on Halopedia skim-reading about their insanely complex and detailed worldbuilding that was all reverse-engineered to fit a silly first person shooter from 2001. But I would never actually read a Halo novel. (Although - and if anyone knows it'll be here - wasn't one of the Halo novels written by someone who actually went on to be an acclaimed sci-fi writer? edit: I checked and it was Tobias S. Buckell and Greg Bear)
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Dec 13, 2021 06:37
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man whatever happened to tobias s buckell anyway did briefly becoming a halo tie-in writer forever stymie his career??
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Dec 13, 2021 06:39
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I only ever read a few of his short stories, but looking at Wikipedia he released a novel this year which, very weirdly, is only in audiobook? https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Citadel-Tobias-S-Buckell/dp/1713646226
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Dec 13, 2021 06:58
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StrixNebulosa posted:For some books, big disagree. Love to read setting books for tabletop rpgs and stuff. Imagining a place is really cool. I will literally do this all day, settings, character guides, monster manuals, bestiaries, fake naturalist journals, starship guides, technical manuals, inject them into my veins! Yes I read real naturalist journals and guides to animals/plants/rocks/dinosaurs/invertebrates. Tracking down guides to protists was one of the first things that sent me to the adult sections of the libraries when I was like 7.
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Dec 13, 2021 07:47
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Same. I used to read the encyclopedia when I was a kid. I think as humans there's usually a certain desire to learn about the world, and for many of us our dumb meat brains don't distinguish between the real one and fake ones in terms of motivation.
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Dec 13, 2021 07:53
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General Battuta posted:He’s sort of right in that the belief it’s possible to fully comprehend the logic of the world has led to a lot of monstrous things, basically what I mean is read SEEING LIKE A STATE. Maybe, but all he comes off like instead is that he wants to declare everyone who doesn't write in a way he likes to be literal war criminals.
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Dec 13, 2021 08:03
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And the name of the shadow master behind those war criminals? You guessed it. Graydon Saunders.
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Dec 13, 2021 08:31
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:And the name of the shadow master behind those war criminals? You guessed it. Graydon Saunders. Tell me more. Also, are you ever going to return to Let's Reading the Expanse? Like, I don't like those books, but I enjoyed your thoughts on them and what you liked and didn't liked very much.
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Dec 13, 2021 08:54
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What were the hot new sff books this year? The most recently released book I've read was Piranesi, which I loved, but I've otherwise spent the year reading older books. e. I did actually listen to and really enjoy the black tongue thief. Currently reading between two fires atm Bullet Proof fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 10:27
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Ccs posted:Speaking of Discworld I’ve started “Wee Free Men”. For some reason I skipped the Tiffany Aching books, probably because they were classified as YA, but it’s Pratchetts signature style just with a younger protagonist. Pterry used to say that you could easily identify his children's novels because they were darker. Once you're done with Tiffany and can see again, check out Nation and Dodger.
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Dec 13, 2021 10:30
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Kchama posted:Tell me more. I was thinking about it as I
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Dec 13, 2021 11:32
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Jedit posted:Pterry used to say that you could easily identify his children's novels because they were darker. Once you're done with Tiffany and can see again, check out Nation and Dodger. I never really understood why Tiffany was YA. And Amazing Maurice is amongst his darker works. Bullet Proof posted:What were the hot new sff books this year? Just finished Piranesi. Amazing world building, great story and just 220 pages. I have read authors that wrote less of a story in 4x the pages.
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Dec 13, 2021 11:47
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:I was thinking about it as I No problem! I hope breaking it into chunks works better for you. Your Let's Read was very enjoyable, even from my perspective as a book-disliker, so you should be proud either way. I think I might go back and read the thread, too.
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Dec 13, 2021 11:59
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General Battuta posted:He’s sort of right in that the belief it’s possible to fully comprehend the logic of the world has led to a lot of monstrous things, basically what I mean is read SEEING LIKE A STATE. Everyone should read seeing like a state, but I still don’t see what he’s got against Tolkien.
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Dec 13, 2021 14:16
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Bullet Proof posted:What were the hot new sff books this year? Bone Ships trilogy comes to mind!
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Dec 13, 2021 14:24
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Beefeater1980 posted:Everyone should read seeing like a state, but I still don’t see what he’s got against Tolkien. Come on, you know exactly what. Tom Bombadill. The Silmarillion. If you don't see it I don't know what to tell you. Dude's done enough worldbuilding that it's clear that he's responsible for every genocide dating back to WW1.
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Dec 13, 2021 14:44
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Bullet Proof posted:What were the hot new sff books this year? StrixNebulosa posted:Bone Ships trilogy comes to mind! The above + Eriksons "The god is not willing" were the most enjoyable books for me this year. Abercrombies last book as well, when I think about it. Currently trying to get the motivation to get back to "The girl with all the gifts" but I am quite tired of the whole zombie apocalypse setting.
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Dec 13, 2021 15:40
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Nomnom Cookie posted:i love being told tbh. lay that exposition on me. dont even have a plot, just sell me an encyclopedia for your made up universe Oh god, does Christopher Tolkien have alts in here now? As for recent sci-fi, technically it was last year but The Old Drift is one of the best books I've read in ages. From this year, I really enjoyed Winter's Orbit and A Psalm For The Wild Built but most of this year's reading has been older books. Speaking of older books, I started reading Jack Glass by Adam Roberts and I'm surprised I haven't seen him come up in here before. I only knew him as the author of pointless spoof The Soddit, but Jack Glass is brilliant so far. I've already ordered Yellow Blue Tibia to read next.
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Dec 13, 2021 16:21
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