How do you populate your fictional worlds?

A lot will depend on genre, of course.  (One great reason for loving fantasy and sci-fi is the huge scope for creating your own peoples and civilisations).

However, one fundamental here is that there will be a major people/alien being group and minorities around it.  Of course there are a lot of stories to be had in showing how the major group treats the minorities and do they rebel against ill treatment etc?  But even where there are no direct clashes on the grounds of racism etc, what do your peoples need to survive and how do they get this?  Is there a have and have-not society going on?

You will need the suppliers and the supplied-to.  You will need the ruled and the rulers.  Different peoples will have specific needs so how does your world cater to those needs?  What are the belief systems?  Do the peoples share common values/faith etc or not? 

And, to add spice to the mix, there will always be those characters who defy their society's expectations of/for them.

So have fun creating your peoples!

Some issues relating to world building can include:-

1.  Not giving enough information for your reader to be able to picture the world in their own minds.  As with flash fiction, it is the telling detail that matters here.  Your story should ensure it has everything in it the reader will need to know.

2.  Not making the world attractive enough for the reader to care what happens to it.  The details you give them have to matter.  The readers need to see what is appealing about World X always doing this or that on their equivalent of a Tuesday, to name one example.  They also need to see why it matters.  In this case, would the world collapse if the tradition changed?

3.  Not having the right balance of character types.  You do need a decent villain.  You also need a hero/heroine with the right "can do it" attitude.  Yet if you just have the good guys, there is literally nothing for the good guys to fight. 

Comparing and contrasting what is on our world with what may or may not be on your fictional one is a great place to start when it comes to world building.  The “what if” card comes into play here and you can also use alternative versions of our history to create your own world.

 I didn’t watch The Man in the High Castle but I heard very good things about it.  People I know who did watch it were gripped by the drama showing an alternative world to ours where Germany won World War Two and Hitler was a very old man. I don’t want to say more than that - no spoilers here! - but you can see how you could create your own timeline based on the opposite of what happened for real and create a whole new world and set of stories.

Another good starting point would be to take character traits you admire or loathe and get your characters, in a setting or time of your choice, to have the exact opposite!  

For example, if you loved medieval life, what would the consequences be for, say, a knight who is a coward? (Okay, you could argue that knight would not live long and how did he get to be a knight in the first place with an attitude like that anyway?  I suspect there would be stories to be had answering that question!  Also, so much depends on perspective here.  The knight might not be a coward at all - it is how he is seen by others who might have their own agendas here.  So you can see there are story possibilities there as well).

So compare and contrast and have fun!

I’ve recently been the series editor for a series on art by Graham MacLean on Chandler’s Ford Today.  (The other two parts of this series will be going live on 14th and 21st June.  I’d highly recommend having a look - Graham is a superb artist).  Part 1 of this series talks about the purpose of art.  (We could have gone on at length about that rather than just write and edit one post about it!).  Part 2 will see Graham discussing the different media used in painting and he shares some fantastic examples of his own work in most of the forms discussed.  Part 3 will be his thoughts on his favourite artists.

So this led me to think about what purposes your characters (a) have, (b) consider worthy, (c) would not go a million miles near no matter how much you paid them, or (d) intend to carry out, no matter how or of who tries to get in their way.  How did they discover these purposes?  What is behind their attitude towards them?  Are societal/tribal pressures influencing them on how they should react/which purposes they should carry out or avoid?

A purpose will have a clearly stated aim so will automatically give your character something to either strive for or get away from, as the case may be.  It will be the conflicts caused by that striving or avoiding which give you your story.  The purpose has to be strong enough and definite.  So a purpose of, say, killing the dragon terrifying the village is fine.  A purpose of sitting down to think about what should be done about the dragon is not - far too wishy washy!

And talking of dragons, I’m glad to share a recently published flash fiction piece, Time for a Change, which has recently appeared on Cafelit.  Hope you enjoy.

In my Chandler's Ford Today post this week, I talk about online writing and whether it would, eventually, kill of print publishing.  It made me wonder what impact technological change would have on the fictional worlds we creat as writers. 

The one thing you can guarantee is nothing stands still forever so there would have to be developments of some sort, for good or ill. You can also guarantee changes would bring about different reactions in characters.  There are always some who welcome change and others who fear it (and may try to stop it by force).

So who are your inventors?  What changes have been welcome (possibly even cried out for!)?  What changes have been unwelcome?  What has been the impact of this on your characters and their setting?