A. Trevena - 30 Days of Worldbuilding: An Authors Step-by-Step Guide to Building Fictional Worlds

30 DAYS OF

WORLDBUILDING

AN AUTHOR'S STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

TO BUILDING FICTIONAL WORLDS

A TREVENA

Copyright 2019 Angeline Trevena

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be copied or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise, without express written consent of the publisher or author.

Cover art by P&V Digital

AUTHOR GUIDES SERIES

DAYS OF WORLDBUILDING

An Authors Step-by-Step Guide to Building Fictional Worlds

H OW TO DESTROY THE WORLD

An Authors Guide to Writing Dystopia and Post-Apocalypse

F ROM SANCTITY TO SORCERY

An Authors Guide to Building Belief Structures and Magic Systems

HOW TO CREATE HISTORY

A n A uthors G uide to C reating H istory , M yths , and M onsters

angelinetrevena.co.uk/worldbuilding

INTRODUCTION

I am one of those authors who have been writing, pretty much, since they were old enough to hold a pen. I have a folder of old stories, typed up on an old typewriter, that I dont even remember having written.

I was rarely seen without a book in my hand, and spent every spare hour I had, buried deep in fantastical worlds. I was lucky in that my parents encouraged it. They never told me that I was wasting my time, or to keep my head out of the clouds. They even let me read at the dinner table, eating one-handed.

I was also lucky to have access to a local library, and quickly worked my way through the fantasy catalogue in their childrens section. I swept my way through all of the Choose Your Own Adventure books; not only following the adventures of kidspassing into a fantasy world to fight dragons, mounted on their bicycle steedsbut I got to control the stories. I could re-read them over and over, choosing different paths each time, creating a multitude of adventures for myself.

My love of speculative fiction had started young. It was my dads job to read the bedtime stories each night, all of us huddled together to listen. He often picked books from his own collection which, almost exclusively, consisted of classic sci-fi novels. And so, as a child, my bedtime stories were written by the likes of H.G. Wells and John Wyndham. Looking back, I suspect that The War of the Worlds and The Day of the Triffids were probably inappropriate choices for children about to go to sleep, but it must have caught my imagination. I will forever thank my dad for introducing me to such tales.

At the age of 16 I finally picked up the Chronicles of Narnia books, reading all seven of them in just five days. It was then that my Narnia obsession began, and it has never waned.

Before starting at university, I worked in an antique auction house. Every wardrobe that came through the saleroom, I would check in the back of it for Narnia. It reached the point that the staff would come and inform me each time they took receipt of one!

When they announced the latest film adaptations, I scoured the internet daily for news. I saw each of them on their day of release, going to the cinema alone for an uninterrupted experience. A pure absorption of them. I can still name the four actors who portrayed the Pevensie children, their names branded into my memory. Yes, the woman who cant even remember her own phone number!

One of my most treasured possessions is an old wardrobe. I bought it from a second-hand furniture shop for just 20. It has moved house with us several times, and has practically fallen apart, with my husband tasked with fixing it back together. Carved into its door is a beautiful rendering of a ship, in full sail, riding the sea. And the serpentine hinges on it are like sea monsters. It is beautiful, and largely useless. It isnt deep enough to hold a standard coat hanger on its rail, and the mirror on the back of the door is so mottled and degraded it hardly reflects anything at all. In fact, it has rarely ever been used as an actual wardrobe, and currently holds my increasingly out of control to-be-read pile.

But, because it looks like it may have once stood in the captains quarters on board the Dawntreader, I will never part with it.

And, over the years, I have collected other bits and pieces that remind me of Narnia. Including film props, and a good collection of behind-the-scenes and the-making-of books. My obsession is complete, and incurable. All that is left is to find a way to Narnia myself. Im still looking, and I wont give up.

Despite this, I did stray from my love of fantasy. At university I studied Drama and Creative Writing, and wandered away from magic and fantastical worlds. I cant say why, it just happened. Perhaps I felt pressure to finally grow up. Perhaps my university course pushed me towards literary fiction. Perhaps I simply needed a break from it for a while. I dont know.

After university, as I began to navigate the confusing and cynical world of adulthood, I barely read anything at all. For a long time, I hardly managed a handful of books a year. During this time, I read my first ever Stephen King book. It was, interestingly enough, On Writing that I picked up first, and I finished it in just a few days. And so, I was brought back to literature with a renewed desire to read, as well as to write.

Although Ive been writing since I was very young, it was never my ambition to make a career from it. I wanted to act. I wanted to be on stage. My whole childhood was filled with drama lessons, singing lessons, lessons in several different forms of dance. I was always performing; music concerts, amateur dramatics, school plays. If there was a spotlight, I was in it.

While I was at university, studying Drama, I discovered that I wasnt enjoying it as much as Id expected to. I had a long heart-to-heart with myself, finally accepting that the ambition Id had all of my life, my singular goal, simply wasnt what I wanted anymore. And it was difficult to let go of. This vision had shaped my entire life, my entire personality, and I had nothing to replace it with.

But, I couldnt pretend to myself anymore. And, as I continued with my degree, I came to the conclusion that I didnt want to be onstage, blinking into the spotlight, speaking someone elses words. What I wanted was to sit in the back of a darkened auditorium, watching other people perform my words. I wanted to write.

Even with this revelation, I still didnt imagine myself making writing into any kind of a career. The first Kindle wouldnt come on the market for another six years. The publishing landscape was a very different one to what it is today. Becoming a published author was a pipe-dream. One that seemed to rely far more on luck than any kind of talent. A who-you-know rather than a what-you-know industry. And for a young woman barely into her twenties, and still reeling from losing the footing of the one constant shed had in her life, it all seemed like an impossibility.

As part of my Creative Writing class, our tutor asked us to write a personal introduction to an imaginary book about ourselves. Much like this introduction youre reading right now. The difference being, in that imagined introduction, I wrote I cant imagine writing ever being anything more than a hobby for me. When I wrote that, I wouldnt have believed Id ever be writing one for real.

When our assignments were returned, my tutor had highlighted that sentence, responding with the note That would be a shame. That single comment began a shift in mindset which, over the following years, led me to this moment right now. And this book, through all those that have come before it.