World Building and the creation of Lore are interesting aspects of writing fantasy/ science fiction worlds. They are a favourite part of the creative process of mine - bar writing dialogue.
In the world or galaxy I'm building, which I call Off-World, I enjoy writing about characters, their situations, and how they manage to get by in dystopian/ borderline post-apocalyptic worlds, with this overarching science fiction setting. The series is a Space Opera and is filled with humor, drama, and weirdness. In some cases, the worlds in the this series mirror earth, although, with aliens and space travel.
I suppose this is kind of a review of what I've been doing/ an origin story about where it came from.
How It Came About
The moment I watched Star Wars: The Last Jedi I was annoyed. I remember thinking to myself,
I could Write Something Better than that.
It was annoying to have something that I love so much be essentially destroyed and bastardised by the Hollywood machine, and the group think jaguarnaut that is modern day media. They don't care about creating, they just want to take what's there and ruin it. Everything they take is dumbed down and we're all meant to lap it up and give them our money and a round of applaus. Fuck that, and fuck Hollywood.
Fuck Hollywood, by like, The Anti-Heros.
Because what was Star Wars? Anyone who knows even a little bit about the man himself, knows that George Lucas disliked that film industry and was a bit of a rebel in the way he went about it. He took Fox's money, made an amazing film and instead of taking a paycheque, he held onto the sequal rights, and franchise rights, then went onto fund everything else and a mini industry of his own. The team behind it revolutionised the film, sound and VFX as we know it and invented a lot of the techniques that gave us all we have now. Why? Because he hired outsiders who were passionate. Now what do we have? Gobshites who haven't an original thought between them.
Anyway, mini rant over.
I went onto Celtx - which is a scriptwriting program I've been using since studying Tv and Film Production - and started writing a script, not that I was going to do anything with it, I think it was just a way of me venting my annoyance with creativity.
It was essentially my own sequel trilogy of Star Wars. I was about 50 pages in, and to be honest, I think it was pretty good. I had the whole trilogy plotted out as I was writing it - Maybe one day I'll write about it here - But, anyway, I continued to write and think about it, then said to myself,
You know what. Why don't I just create my own science fiction story/ world? With blackjack and hookers.
That's how it started, and from there, I created my own science fiction world.
The story was totally Free Form and it followed a smuggler (Who isn't a smuggler, essentially he's a delivery driver with a large crew who he's struggling to support based on his low-paying jobs.) Through him and those on the ship we are introduced to more of these harsh worlds and characters.
Since he's a smuggler, I got to explore different planets and people. I've always loved dystopian/ post-apocalyptic fiction, so decided the setting would be post-intergalactic war, where some planets of Free Space are getting back to normal and others are declining, and in the meantime, The Confederation is in the background mustering their forces and most people are just doing what they can to get by. As well as this, there is Uncharted Space, where nobody can traverse using Jump Lanes, based on anomalies that interfere with navigation computers. As well as Civil unrest amongst the remains of Free Space, due to some planets being better off than others.
It's not intended to be the hero beats the big bad, it's just a character driven story of survival.
The First Book I Wrote
I liked the idea of creating this world as I went, and I thought it was cool to be thrown into the deep end, getting acquainted with the place as the story unfolds.
Also, it wasn't a novel, instead, it was a TV show written as a script. I completed the first episode, continued to write and I ended up with the first season. But, the problem was, nobody would think of buying something like that, so I had to go back then and re-write the entire thing as a Novel.
Then, once that was finished, I thought.
You know, the idea of being thrown into the deep end seemed cool, but I don't like it anymore. What this needs is a book leading up to this one.
It was such a chore however when re-formatting the entire thing that by the time I got finished I couldn't bare the thought of going back to it and moved on to other things, leaving it in the "Drawer" for a while.
Then I joined Hive, and I started the first novel here, but I hit a bit of a wall so I've been meaning to go back and edit all I have for it so I can get myself out of the corner. I do know how it ends though because I know where the "second" book begins.
Off-World: Trip To Trisk
I wrote another novel which I completed in January and started editing it. This had the intention of being a novella I could publish just to test the waters, essentially, I wanted to learn with a short stand-alone book, so if I made any mistakes it's no big deal... Well, it would be a big deal, but not as bad as starting off a potential series on the wrong foot.
Currently, I am nine chapters into the edit of this book, and I have about eleven or twelve chapters to go.
The book is a prequel - but standalone - to the other two and follows a squad of Confederation soldiers at the start of the invasion of Free Space, during the story we see the destruction of Trisk, which is kind of a big deal in the series and more than anything its a chance to see the world through the "Baddies" eyes.
Short Stories
After completing that book, I didn't want to jump into another one before getting it published, so I decided to focus on Short Stories, which I had never really written before.
I actually really enjoyed the stand-alone stories, because they gave me a chance to write from many different perspectives and concentrate on getting practice in writing in different voices.
More than this, it allowed me to jump around the Timeline of the series, exploring multiple planets, factions, and people on both sides of the law, while also world-building like crazy.
After completing a bunch of these stories, I had a thought.
Why not edit and release the best of the bunch as an Anthology collection?
That's the intention with these ones, but I don't want to release the Anthology before releasing Trip To Trisk.
That's Kind of It
I have a bunch of different ideas for novels, or short stories written down, but I haven't gotten around to a few of them because they're pretty big undertakings, which I just can't throw myself into them before clearing the backlog.
Something I think I need is an editor, I wish I could just pass my work over to someone I trust and let them crack on with it. I love creating, but when it comes to the editing slog I get bogged down. I'm getting through Trip To Trisk, but I think a professional editor would have it done in no time. If anyone reads this and thinks they'd be up for the task, I'll give you 30% of the royalties of the book for proofreading/ editing it lol, joking, not joking.
Notes, Notes, Notes.
I have a huge amount of notes on each of the worlds, factions, and races; ranging from history to the current day. Traditions, religions, beliefs, and relationships.
Thanks to the world-building communities prompts, which have really helped to think about some things that I wouldn't have thought about, without their prompts.
One of the main things I love about world-building is that when you lay the foundation of what certain factions think of each other and why, it can usually lead to stories, or ideas for stories, whether they be short stories or fully-fledged novels.
Dark Sci-fi
I like dark stories, and that's what I try to inject into my writing. I think when it comes to sci-fi, the dark underworld kind of stuff can be so interesting.
Gangs, drugs, criminals and horrible people and places are usually pretty interesting, and populating worlds with that kind of stuff makes it grim, and adds an element of fear when writing good people who are stuck living in places filled with scum.
I don't like writing good or bad characters though, because I find it better to put people in situations where they don't have a whole lot of choice.