(no subject)
Jan. 5th, 2014 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'm trying to come up with a short cut-- any sort of short cut-- for the world building I need to do for the next chapter of Rheotaxis. I need to sketch in several cultures, I think. I can layer the dominant culture over the top of them, but that's a veneer. Plus, I know very little about the dominant culture. I don't want to take real world cultures and try to copy them for these cultures. That really doesn't work very well and isn't very respectful (plus, even were I inclined to be so lazy, I don't know enough about most real world cultures).
I have four planets. Each of them should have multiple cultures. There may be some common characteristics to all the cultures from a given world-- they're all pretty globalized and have been for generations-- but there should be differences, too.
I'm thinking to cheat a little and take basic planetary characteristics, things like range of climate and natural resources and such, from a game book. We've got a couple of different games that have supplements dealing with a multitude of planets. The Babylon 5 supplement for the Non-aligned Worlds comes to mind, and I know we've got a ton of GURPS Traveler books. There must be something usable in there.
I'm wanting to make this as simple for myself as possible. I don't anticipate all of this stuff having a large impact on the story. It's just background for a chapter or three. I don't think that anything I make up is going to limit me later on, and I don't expect to have to expand on my sketchy world building later on. Of course, if I'm wrong, if I ever write a sequel to Rheotaxis, I'll be in deep trouble.
Anybody have any world building advice?
I have four planets. Each of them should have multiple cultures. There may be some common characteristics to all the cultures from a given world-- they're all pretty globalized and have been for generations-- but there should be differences, too.
I'm thinking to cheat a little and take basic planetary characteristics, things like range of climate and natural resources and such, from a game book. We've got a couple of different games that have supplements dealing with a multitude of planets. The Babylon 5 supplement for the Non-aligned Worlds comes to mind, and I know we've got a ton of GURPS Traveler books. There must be something usable in there.
I'm wanting to make this as simple for myself as possible. I don't anticipate all of this stuff having a large impact on the story. It's just background for a chapter or three. I don't think that anything I make up is going to limit me later on, and I don't expect to have to expand on my sketchy world building later on. Of course, if I'm wrong, if I ever write a sequel to Rheotaxis, I'll be in deep trouble.
Anybody have any world building advice?
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 09:10 am (UTC)......and you know I'm always cheering you on to work on Rheotaxis *\0/* (--- lame cheerleader
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 05:38 pm (UTC)