Hatrack River Writers Workshop: A couple of questions

This is topic A couple of questions in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by scm288 on :

All right, I have a couple of questions regarding sci-fi and fantasy fiction.

1. Here's a chicken-and-egg question: Which comes first, the story for your world or the world for your story?

2. Are there any Science Fiction novels that have any sort of drawn out maps, or geographical importance to them? Mostly all I see when I look at Sci-Fi are ships in space and meeting with aliens and stuff like that; I guess individual planets aren't that important when you make a novel on a galactic scale.

Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :

It probably differs from novel to novel on which came first. For me personally, the world comes first usually, then characters, then eventually plot.

I heard Robert Silverburg say he came up with the world in Lord Valentine's Castle first, and used his character to explore it.

There are lots of science fiction books with maps. One that comes to mind immediately is the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. Geography plays a large role in the plots. Also, OSC used maps for his Homecoming Series, which is mostly set on a different planet. I know there are gobs more, but those are just off the top of my head.

Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :

Dune makes use of a map. I've seen some books with cross-over between fantasy and sci-fi that had maps. I'm thinking of McCaffery's Dragonriders of Pern and MZB's Darkover series (although I'm not sure that Darkover had maps, come to think of it.)

I have detailed the world for my fantasy novel, including a map with political boundaries and a version of a topographical map. For me, the idea came first of a single character and a single situation. Then I began hashing out the mythology of the world (knowing that a major background thread was going to be the clash between religious views and social castes). I continued to develop the character(s) at the same time I continued to develop the world. What ended up happening is that I sketched the basics in, and once the character entered that part of the world, I got down to business and began fleshing out the details.

Posted by ChrisOwens (Member # 1955) on :

For me, the story presents the world, but usually it started on Earth in some fashion or another.

Didn't the first Rama book have a detailed map?

[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited January 05, 2006).]

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

Since when did every Science Fiction story even have a spaceship?

The absence of maps in SCI-FI is usually attributed to the fact that they take place in a world so similar to our own that maps are unneccesary.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

Sometimes it's the story; sometimes it's an image; sometimes it's a world. For me.

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

The first story you write will create the world around it.

The world will then provide you with many more stories.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

There are many sci-fi novels that include star maps, many that include space station layouts, a few that include planetary or stellar system maps, and others that include spaceship diagrams.

Posted by apeiron (Member # 2565) on :

Most of the time for me, the world comes first. The characters are usually close behind, because they are a sort of feature of that world. Sometimes it's hard to tell which popped into existance first. A good character can tell you alot about their world just from their attributes.

Plot, now that's the devil. I can get characters into sticky situations usually, but once I figure out how to get them out, I loose interest. Actually finishing a story is the hardest part.

Posted by HuntGod (Member # 2259) on :

Generally I start with an interesting idea (to me anyway) of how a world is and then develop characters etc. to exist within the environment I've imagined.

This is also coincidentally the reason I find it so hard at times to finish out a story, since generally I will come up with ideas that either conflict with the environment or the character motivation and fail to resolve the issue, which causes me to abandon it :-(