Thursday, September 06, 2007

World Building – part deaux

Molly, speed reader that she is, already blogged about one of the best elements of the JR Ward book. Ward sets a tone, and keeps is really consistent throughout the entire book. It her world, and at no point does JR Ward deviate from it. It’s really effective and great to read. She doesn’t wimp out on her heroes. The book starts dark, violent and fast paced and ends that way.

World building is something every writer has to do. Ok, that’s a duh statement. But for a long time, I thought it was something only fantasy and paranormal writers had to do. Come up with new worlds, or new concepts, and while those writers have to explain their worlds more, every writer out there has to create their world.

We do it through tone, the details in how the characters see their surroundings, but also how they think of the people and things around them.
One of the movies that does this really well is the Departed. I know it’s set in Boston, and the city is well represented. The world in this movie is the two separate existences of the police, and the mob. The world the two main characters live in is tense, completely on the edge, where one bad lie could have really serious consequences. Everyone immersed in these worlds seem to exist on the edge, with hair trigger tempers and one foot in the grave.

Joss Whedon is someone who world builds brilliantly. Check out Serenity to fully understand how he can create a world that is completely unique, through dialogue, a ship that’s almost a character in its own right and again, tone.

Really great world building will pull me into a story, and keep me there long after the plot’s fallen to pieces and the characters have become cardboard. But usually the great world builders don’t fall prey to these problems.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Joss is a master at world building. The Buffy series is an excellent example of how he can blend the familiar and the bizarre. I loved Firefly for that reason too.

And for Adam Baldwin!

Anonymous said...

Love Adam Baldwin... a man named Jane is one of the best episodes..

I just hands down love the Firefly series, and the Serenity movie.
And Buffy, and Angel.
What is Joss Whedon doing these days?

I feel like I should be stalking him..

Molly O'Keefe said...

You probably should be - I agree with you SInead - if you build the world well you've got a lot of things figured out.

I just started the OUtlander Series- apparently the last person to do that, too. And man, what a world. She goes a bit overboard with some historical tidbits, but it just pulls you in more - And I think she's seriously got the character creating plot thing down - which for such a book is hard. Loving it.

Amy Ruttan said...

Oh Sinead I love JR Ward. She ... oh I love her.

Hey it was good to meet you finally Saturday!!!

Anonymous said...

Hey Amy,

Great to meet you as well. I hope someday soon to be more of a regular at the meetings and get to know people more.

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