For good or ill, history is definitely in the making in the UK.  But what would it take for history to be in the making in your fictional world?  A change of government?  A take over of magical powers by an elite few?  The discovery of a new magical species?

Whatever the big change in your world, do the majority of the population welcome or fear it?  Where there is change, there is usually resistance to that change so how does that happen in your settings?

What are the triggers for the big changes to happen?  Where time travel is a possibility, does someone use that to try to fix the results of the big changes?  Does it work? What are the consequences?  How does the media on your world report the triggers/big changes etc or can they only write what they are told to write?

And when people(s) are agitated, how do they express that?  Riots?  How are things calmed down (if they are at all)?  What is the outcome of the historical changes?

Writing my own stories has given me a greater appreciation of what it takes to write a story.  And I can see how loving the natural world and inspiring scenery could inspire writers in their settings (even if sometimes the idea ends up being creating a world/landscape which is opposite to the one actually seen).

I've also found writing encourages me to see more when out and about locally, as well as being why I always take loads of photos when away (I think of them as possible settings to use later on in my stories!).  So what scenery inspires your stories and why?  Can your readers get a good mental picture of what your settings look like?  Would they want to live there or not?

Sometimes scenery can inspire in terms of what kind of characters would live in it.  How have your characters adapted to the physical geography they live in?  Are there parts of your world that are uninhabitable and were they always that way or has magic/pollution etc caused damage?

In what has been a very strange week in UK politics, the thought occurred to me to wonder, in terms of fiction, what would be strange for your created world?  What associations/alliances might it overthrow and why?  What would be the driving force(s) behind this?  What would the fallout be?

What things would your world never countenance, no matter what the provocation, and what led to your created setting/characters coming up with this?  Limits are not just about physical boundaries after all so what would your world set as its restrictions?  Has it set these up to protect itself (and has it had cause to worry about this?).

What situations would make your world reconsider its restrictions?  Does democracy exist on your world or, as in the case of the wonderful Havelock, Lord Vetinari of Discworld fame is the situation there "one man, one vote" and he is the one with the vote!

And how are politics organised on your world?  How do they affect the characters you write about?

Recovery time can be recovery from illness, adventures, holidays and so on but what matters from a story point of view is how your characters achieve their recovery?  (Equally if they don't recover why is this?  See Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings for the classic portrayal of how and why he can never be the same again after his adventures and the fallout from this).

How/if your characters recover from a situation (or resume normal life after any kind of break) should reveal more about them.  It will either confirm their main qualities or show how they've changed for better or worse in the course of your story.

How easy/difficult a character finds recovery should also show a great deal about them (and there should be good reasons in the story as to why the character finds this easy/difficult).  All of this will add considerable depth to your characters and it is they who "sell" the story, hopefully making it unforgettable for all the right reasons.

What are the education standards in your fictional setting and have they improved in any way since your world began?  (Of course you will not necessarily show when your world started but you will want to imply, at some point, how long it has existed and to indicate what is normal for that world.  An earlier post of mine discusses normality a bit more).

Do people live and learn?  Is anyone able to learn? Are there the equivalent of further and higher education courses available?  Magical worlds are known for their schools and universities (Hogwarts, Unseen University and so on) but can all benefit from these?   What happens to those who are excluded?

My fictional Fairy Kingdom has a library in each and every town and village and nobody would dream of closing libraries (this is how anybody in the UK can tell I definitely write fantasy!).  Reading is considered vital and all can do so (though naturally some are better at this than others).  All must know the classic fairytales well.  Reading outside the fairytale genre is encouraged.  Books are important.

Can people who messed up their education make amends for it later?  (I would hope so!  Could your story be about someone who did that?).

You need to decide what is normal for your world and characters at the outset.  You are laying the foundations for your fictional world and if you don’t know what is normal for it, your readers won’t have the first clue.

Of course that still gives you a lot of leeway.  Just what is normal for your world?  Is it normal by the standards of our universe?  If not, why not and how did your normality come to be accepted as such?  

On a horrible note, slavery was (and sadly can still be) considered normal, when it definitely should  not be.  While Wilberforce and the Quaker movement achieved a great deal, slavery sadly still exists.  It it just that certain countries no longer practice it, which is of course welcome.  So is there something like this happening in your setting?  A behaviour once considered normal no longer is?  Who got it abolished (or at least practised rarely) and are they seen as heroes?  (Wilberforce and co would not necessarily have been seen that way).

On a more positive note, has your world been set free from, say, slavery in itself and is now rejoicing in that freedom?  How have the peoples of that world developed over time?  Are standards of normal education higher or lower over the course of your world’s history?

Definitely story ideas to be found in there!

These could be slogans for a Magical Tourist Board encouraging visitors to come and stay at Magical World X.

1. You’ll never be the same again.
   
2. Get close up to our amphibians.  You may even join them.
3. Meet your nursery rhyme and fairy tale heroes/heroines.
4. Okay you will meet the villains as well but you can’t have everything.  Maybe you will be the ones to persuade them not to be villains any more.  (Unlikely but we don’t want to frighten you away completely).
5. You won’t want to go home.  You won’t be able to go home.
6. Yes, you can sleep in a magical castle but you will need to share it with the resident ogre.  He won’t move out because tourists are dropping by.  He will insist on staying.  And if you’re lucky he may share with you his unique menu.
7. Re 6 above, if you’re unlucky, you will be his unique menu but, hey, let’s not dwell on that.  Let’s be positive.  It will make you feel better.
8. It’s funny you should mention it but they have run out of pumpkins for magical transformations.  Here is your chance to see what our local fairy godmother is going to use instead.
9. Have your own glass slipper and marry your own Prince Charming.  Reasonable rates charged.  (What do you mean you’re a republican?).
10. Our apples are bigger, redder and shinier than any you’ll find on other worlds.  Take a bite!

I think the best piece of advice I’ve received on editing is to treat it as an entirely separate task from writing.  Get your story down first, then edit it.

I don’t understand writers who have to get a paragraph right before moving on to the next one.  I don’t know that a paragraph is right until after the entire story is written and I’m reading through the whole script for the first time.

I also think writing is more enjoyable if you just let yourself be creative first.  The hard graft of shaping what you created can come later, once you’ve been able to step back from what you’ve written and be able to analyse what works, what doesn’t and so on.

My first edit is a read through to make sure I’ve got the story down and haven’t missed anything.  I check for repetitions, typos and grammar as I do this.  My second edit is to edit the actual story.  Does it make sense?  Have I missed out any crucial information?  Does the structure work?  Is the structure strong enough?

Once I’ve corrected anything I need to do with structure, my third edit is to look at what I have written and ask can I do this in a better way?  The answer to that is inevitably yes and this is where my writing becomes tighter and more focused.

I then look at the story again.  Have I enjoyed the tale?  If I don’t, nobody else will!

And I leave time between edits (this is where working on more than one thing at a time is a plus as I always have something else to do while I’m giving myself time away from the original story.  You need gaps so when you return to the story you see it with a fresh eye).

I like editing.  I see it as getting my story into shape and without it I know that work has no chance of being published.  But I also see editing as something that shouldn’t be rushed.  And I also take comfort from the fact nobody sees all their errors on the first read through.  I always pick up something I’ve missed on the subsequent edits. 

All of us have aspects of our characters we dislike and tend to keep suppressed.  So how do your fictional characters do this and what are they trying to cover up? Do they succeed or is there one special person in their life who can see right through it?  

The Fairy Queen has a public face and a side to herself she only ever shows to those closest to her (Eileen, L’Evallier mainly as she knows she can trust these two and she was surprised to find this was still the case after Eileen’s defection.  Despite Eileen leaving, the fairy godmother has never betrayed or threatened her regal cousin).

Roherum has a public face, the avuncular jolly journalist though in fairness he doesn’t need to act much here.  So how does a character’s secret background get found out (if it does), what are the consequences of this being exposed?  Who is the whistleblower and what are they hoping to gain?

When Magic is Not The Answer

Even in magical worlds, magic won’t always be the answer to problems.  It is not unreasonable to expect that the use of magic will always have a price to pay.  In my fictional world, this price is the more magic you use, the more you will drain yourself of energy.

All magical beings in my world have to top up their energy supplies but all have got used to the idea of using machines and other methods to save their natural resources as much as possible.

So how do your magical characters top up their powers?  What powers are permanent? Which have to be renewed and how is that done?  Can your characters steal powers from one another and, if so, what are the consequences of this?

1. Why I can’t spot typos etc on screen and have to print work out to edit it properly.
   
2. Why there is never enough time for anyone to read all the books they want to read.
3. Why good ideas occur at awkward times (at night, while driving etc).
4. Why I run out of paper/toner in the middle of a print out, usually a big one!
   
5. Why there’s never enough time to write all I’d like to.
6. How celebrities ever get published when it is clear they have no talent (I think it devalues the whole process of creative writing).
7. Why it is harder to find an agent than a publisher.
8. How anyone guilty of the practice thought they would get away with sock puppetry,  The web will find you out.
9. How anyone guilty of the practice thought they could fake book reviews (especially their own which, naturally, are very good reviews).

So what would be on your list here?

What are your favourite fairy tales and why?  I’ve always had a soft spot for Cinderella given I’ve always liked the rags to riches story.  I also liked the idea of justice finally happening for her.  So often it doesn’t in life so it is good in the story world at least that the right thing happens to the deserving person sometimes.

I also like Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince, which has a good moral to it yet doesn’t preach.  You draw the conclusions yourself (which is always a sign of a well crafted story).

When I was in the mood for gruesome justice being doled out to those deserving it, The Three Little Pigs as originally written was the story for me.

The great thing about writing is you should read as well to help feed that writing.  And in what other activity would you scrutinize a character and understand how they “tick” before go on to write your own?

So write away, analyse the characters you love reading about and hopefully create yours knowing your love of reading is the answer.

There is no such thing as a perfect world (or at least not one we can visit in our lifetimes!).  And this applies to fictional worlds too.  What are the major problems your world faces?  What did it cause (for its own peoples and other worlds)?

What are the major sources of conflicts on your fictional world?  Are resources plentiful or scarce?  Who controls the resources?  Does everyone have enough to eat/drink and/or have good living conditions?

How does your fictional government handle conflicts as they arise?  What does it do to try to prevent crises?  Is there more they could do?  Who challenges the government for not doing enough? 

Are the conflicts between characters well portrayed?  (What justification do your people have for taking the attitude they do and why do they think the opposite side is wrong?).

Reality in a magical world comes in many forms though it is vastly different from reality found in our world.  Reality in a magical setting has to take into account what use of magic is normal and what is excessive.  There are common factors - politics will play a part in our world and your fictional one. The difference is in the fictional one is that magic can sway the politics and politicians. It can be another way of controlling others.

So think about how you show what reality is in your setting so readers pick up early the clues that indicate this event/character is not behaving normally.  What are they about to do? Are  they the villian or someone just, briefly, getting in the hero/heroine's way?

Can reality be shaped to suit the purposes of those ruling the world?  Is there a backlash against that?  Even in a magical world there are the rulers and the ruled so what is reality for each of these types?  Are the ruled rebelling against the reality imposed on them?

Amongst the many things to avoid when travelling in magical worlds, the five most important are:-

1. Being sent on a quest if you want a quiet life.  The obvious reason being that if you go on a quest, you can forget all thoughts of having any kind of quiet life and, if unfortunate, any life at all.
   
2. Golden rings with strange markings on them.  Nothing good comes out of these.  Best leave any such things where you find them.  They can be someone else's problem.
   
3. Dragons.  Well, have you ever come across a friendly one? 
   
4. Anything wraith like in dark robes, sometimes riding horses, sometimes not.  These are not friendly creatures.  That's all you need to know.  Best stay out of their way.  (It may be the coward's way out but in fairness it is the long-lived coward's way out).
   
5. Any magical creature with strange markings on them.  Some will be heroes, some will be cursed.  Do you really want to get in the way and find out, possibly too late, the one you thought was a hero was anything but and has just transformed their curse to you?
   

I think the first question to ask is there any such thing as a fair society?  No matter what the world, fictional or otherwise, there will always be someone who is seriously unhappy with that world and will argue it isn't fair at all.  The big question is whether they are justified to feel that way.  How do the majority of your characters feel about the world they are in?

So how is your fictional world set up?  Why has it been set up that way?  Does it treat all people decently (or at least try to do so and be seen to try to do so)?  When injustices happen, what is the result of these?  Are the injustices corrected or are they made worse by being allowed to stand?  Who fights injustices?  How did the injustices happen?  Could they have been stopped?

Over time has your fictional world improved the way it treats its residents?  Or does that world never change and those who try to seek change are punished for it?  I like to see characters develop but I also like to see the world in which they live develop too.  I think it would be difficult for any society to stay totally static (technology for example is bound to have an impact and would improvements in medicine really be ignored by a society that has decided it doesn't want to change?  Wouldn't it use what it likes and ignore what it doesn't?). 

Letters are a dying art form because of the advent of email etc but what is the chief method of correspondence in your fictional world?

In my Fairy Kingdom, the traditional letter holds sway and the Queen's Palace has its own mail room.  There is no sign of the magical world wanting to adopt Earth's more modern forms of communication (the Queen does not like computers, they are too scientific a development for her liking). 

But how do your characters communicate in your settings?  Is there an equivalent of our computer technology?  Is communication encouraged/participated in by the majority (there should be a direct link to your world's literacy rate here)?

Can correspondence be interfered with by the ruling powers?  How do they protect the correspondence they send and receive?

A good story/novel title is one that draws you into wanting to read the tale in question and intrigues you too.  It should give enough of a flavour of what the story is about without giving too much away.

I need to have a title to work to as I draft my stories though it is not unknown for me to then change the title when I really know what the story is about.  And sometimes the only time I know that is when that first draft is on paper. I've learned not to worry about this.  If it needs to be this way, so be it.  What matters is the first title gets me started.

Book titles by other authors that I really like include:-

Raising Steam (Terry Pratchett) - about the coming of the railway to the Discworld.  Tells you enough but still leaves you wanting to know more. 

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen).  Alliteration can be really effective in making a title memorable and for me this remains one of the best.  It has always made me want to find out who has the pride and who has the prejudice!  Job done there I think...

Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie).  As ever with Dame Agatha, the title is to the point, has the advantage in this case of giving you the setting, and makes you wonder how a murder could take place on what is always a crowded train.

The Great Sermon Handicap (P.G. Wodehouse).  I remain convinced this is the funniest prose ever written in English.  The title implies knowledge of golf, makes you wonder how there could be any kind of handicap on a sermon and how this could possibly work out.  Again job done. 

So good luck with finding the right titles for your stories.  The great thing is nobody needs to know about the rubbish ones you started out with!  I'm not sharing mine!

Away Days from Chandlers' Ford Station: York is part one of a mini series of day trips out from my local station though I hope the destinations will appeal widely.  I visited the National Railway Museum at York which combines my great loves of history, stories and trains.  I highly recommend it.

So what is important in the culture of the people/worlds you write about?  How is history treated?  Is it openly commemorated or is it hushed up?  Have previous histories/cultures of the worlds you write about been suppressed and, if so, who by? 

Is the culture on your worlds high brow, low brow or a mixture?  In my fictional Fairy Kingdom some machines are used to save on magical energy (the ideas are often pinched directly from Earth and other worlds the magical realm keeps an eye on).  What machines, past or present, exist in your world and do they contribute to the culture at all?  Britain would be a totally different place without its invention of the railway system.  So what does your world rely on here?

Does everyone appreciate the culture on the world you've set up?  (In mine, the lower magical species have their own culture and it has very little in common with those more powerful than them.  For pixies and imps, culture involves fighting and drinking.  The Queen, fairies, wizards etc all look down on this).

How is culture and history brought to the people?  Do broadcast media exist on your world and do they prepare programmes on this?

Hopefully there are some story ideas in there!

Another way of fleshing out your fictional world is to show some of its customs, which would include things like how your characters spend their high days and holidays.

How are holidays celebrated in your fictional world?  Are holidays linked to religious festivals, kept separate or is there a mixture of both?  How would most of your characters spend their time off?

My fictional Fairy Kingdom has its villages and towns all holding what we would see as fetes and each residency takes great pride in putting on the best show possible.  The Queen visits as many as possible.  There is immense rivalry between villages/towns as to how their fetes went after the actual events.  War hasn't broken out yet but there have been many, many harsh words.  And Roherum and the Fairy News Network report with great relish when villages are at loggerheads over this.  (It also generates comments for their points of view programmes and many of those points are expressed "vigorously".  That in turn does wonders for the viewing figures, something that hasn't escaped the attention of FNN).

What kind of landscapes form your fictional worlds and which of these are used as holiday resorts?  Which landscapes are avoided for this kind of thing and why?  Can all go on holiday or is this something only the better off do?  Equally if you have a bleak story, were holidays banned and if so by whom?  (Presumably the idea would be to keep people suppressed and to control travel).

Every writer has their own writing rules, the things that work for them.  Here are some of mine:-

1. Write the story (or blog post!) first, edit later.  See them as separate tasks.
2. Read widely and well to feed the brain.  I like a mix of fiction and non-fiction, humour and serious things.
   
3. Subscribe to a writing magazine to get market news, enter competitions and so on.
   
4. When entering a competition, if there's an option to get feedback, seriously consider choosing it.  I've received a lot of helpful advice and tips this way.
   
5. Refer to The Writers and Artists Yearbook for where to submit work, details of writing festivals/conferences and so on.
   
6. Go to writing festivals/conferences.  You make friends for one thing and learn a lot from the courses you do.  I'm going to the Swanwick Summer School for the first time this year and am looking forward to it already.  And I very much hope one thing to come from it will be more writing friends.
   
7. Develop writing friendships. The mutual support and understanding (especially when yet more rejections come in) can help you both.
   
8. Accept the fact you won't get something written perfectly (or as near to perfect as you can get) first go.  Redrafts are your friend!
   
9. Outline whether you write short stories or novels.  How much you put in an outline is of course up to you.  I've found working out my ideas first has helped me clarify my thoughts, has stopped me going off at a tangent and has sped up the actual writing of the story.
   
10. Enjoy your writing - if you don't, nobody else will!
    

All characters should have flaws.  Nobody likes a goody goody character for one thing.  And it would be hard to identify/sympathise with a perfect character.  But what is it you actually dislike about your characters?

The flaws, funnily enough, can help you like them more and certainly should make them more rounded characters.  But given with most people there is always something you can like and dislike, this should be true of your creations too.

With my rebellious fairy godmother, Eileen, I both like her outspokenness (her honesty makes her what she is) but I also dislike the way she can and does ride rough shod over those who don't really deserve that treatment.  Eileen cannot switch that outspokenness off (though she would be more likeable if she could do so).

In listing likes and dislikes of your characters, you are getting to the heart of why you are writing them that way.  And it can be a useful way of working out whether those likes/dislikes are justified based on how you have written your characters.  Also are your characters coming across on the page the way you meant them to do?

In having likes and dislikes your characters will be more real to you and I think that will show in your writing.

It's not a bad thing to remind yourself what it is you like about your characters and, as a result, why you're writing their stories at all.  It can help keep you on track and ensure you have written your characters well enough so that what appeals to you about them comes through and so appeals to your readers as well.

What you like most about your characters doesn't necessarily have to be obvious virtues.  One thing I like about my Eileen, my rebellious fairy godmother, is her blunt honesty though it lands her right in it and will continue to do so for as long as I write about her!

Much as I love Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, I always found Beth to be a little too much of a goody goody and much preferred the other sisters, especially Jo and Amy.  Jo appealed because of her wish to be a writer and her unerring ability to put her feet in it.  Amy was vain.  But I could see where both those girls came from and I guess that is the point.  (I also shared Jo's unerring ability to put said feet in it and still do!).

What I like to see in a character includes:-

1. A sense of humour.
2. A sense of fair play and honesty in a "good" character.
   
3. A villain who is not evil for the sake of it but has good reasons to be the way they are.  Again I need to see where they come from.  It's not important to agree with it!  I usually won't in fact.
   
4. The ability to develop, to recognise their own failings and to try to overcome them, even if they're not always successful at this.
   
5. The ability to recognise worth in others.  Even where villains treat others with contempt, I like to see them have some respect for other characters even if they suppress it.  For example my Chief Witch respects Eileen but it won't stop the former trying to kill the latter.
   

So what do you like to see in a character and how can you best show that?  Reading through your stories are your characters as likeable (where appropriate) as you thought they were?  Are they coming through on the page in the way you meant them to do so?

As well as interviewing your own characters to find out more about them (you write more convincingly as a result I find), there is the question of how interviews are carried out in your fictional world. 

In your settings what form of media exists?  How does communication happen both individually and to the world at large?  On the assumption there is some sort of broadcasting available, who are the journalists?  How do they carry out their interviews?  Are they respected or laughed at?

Roherum, my Fairy News Network goblin presenter, is avuncular and is both respected (he is a kind of icon) and laughed at (as his idea of an in depth question is to ask someone what was the deepest puddle they ever stood in!  This is not entirely irrelevant given he is in a magical world which knows the classic nursery rhymes, including the one about Doctor Foster, but it is not the most important question ever asked). 

Does your world have journalists risking imprisonment or worse for ferreting out the truth?  What happens to whistleblowers on your world to those who dare to criticize the ruling regime?  Eileen, my rebellious fairy godmother, was never afraid to criticize both Queen and Council but she was aware her royal status shielded her from many of the consequences of doing this.  Eileen saw this as one of the few advantages to being royal and made the most of it.  But what about those, perhaps in your stories, who don't have that advantage?  What are they risking, do they get away with it, do they successfully bring the government to heel or are they punished, forced to be fugitives and so on?

There must be some good stories in answering those questions!