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“A variety of events”?
🏰 Fantasy Writer
✨ Magic System Creator
🎭 Character RPer
📚 Appreciator of BooksWelcome Kathryn! I’m Acancello, also known as Allison! I’m homeschooled and I love guinea pigs, dogs, traveling, acting, trying weird food (whats the craziest you have tried?), writing, reading, talking and a lot more 😁! I write Dystopian and post-apocalyptic books. I’m so glad you could come to Kingdom Pen! OK, now I’ll ask you some hopefully not already asked questions 😉
What’s your favorite book series?
Do you like to do any sports? If not, do you have any other activities you like to do?
How often do you like to write?
What is your favorite character you have written?
Hope you love KP!!
"Would you kindly...?"
Hello! Welcome to KP!
I’m the Arcane Axiom, I love math, searching for divine fundamental truth, and exploring that in my writing. I read/write sci-fi/fantasy and am currently working on a universe with my sister called the Septrum.
Questions!
Do you lean towards hard or soft worldbuilding? (Hard meaning concrete rules for the reader to follow, vs soft meaning more open possibilities where anything goes.)
What is a favorite worldbuilding or character concept you’ve seen in writing?
What is a favorite worldbuilding or character concept you’ve come up with yourself?
You mentioned that you enjoy language and culture. Are you into conlanging? If so, what are some of the languages have you made?
Your world from what I picked up sounds interesting. If there isn’t a magic system, what is this world like, and is there any fantastical elements? What’s some of your favorite cultures you’ve developed in it?
And last, but not least:
How likely do you think intuitively that any two people within the US might have the same exact amount of strands of hair on their heads?
He is perfect in Justice, yet He is perfect in Mercy, even when we fail Him. For this, He is good.
For the most part I label fiction in time categories, but non-fiction I consider biographical, a work like, say Mere Christianity, and stuff that isn’t made up. Idk if that makes sense.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ magic systems…
A hard vs. soft magic system relates to how well defined the rules are. I’ll try to give some examples.
If you’ve read the Lord of the Rings, that would be a soft magic system. We don’t understand how it works really.
A hard magic system is one that the readers understand well. I can’t think of a good example that you’ve probably read, but hopefully you get the idea.
I like to have hard magic systems. I don’t know too much about yours, but from the sound of it, I would guess that yours is a fairly hard system.
🏰 Fantasy Writer
✨ Magic System Creator
🎭 Character RPer
📚 Appreciator of BooksHello, Janessa! That sounds awesome! I have a sister who loves to dabble with photography, and once-upon-a-time I had an idea for a novel set in the Victorian era. (I was inspired by the word ‘Pendragon’ that I found while reading a book by C.S. Lewis.)
That’s neat! I’ve had several family members that were pastors, and both of my parents grew up in a family that was heavily involved in missions. What’s a country you’d like to visit, or a place you want to go?
@highscribe
*laughs* oh so we have a siblinghood here.. hey that’s great. None of my siblings are avid writers, but we sure do make life interesting for each other. (and yes I have skipped on school books too…. most of them were Little House on the Prairie books that were in danger of putting me to sleep.)
Hi!!
Oh dear.. weirdest food… well, my (honorary) uncle brought some kind of a drink from a Zambia missions trip he went on and the closest thing I can get to discribing the drink is… fermented apple juice, banana juice, and motoho, which is a fermented sorghum drink that’s popular here. It was pretty weird.
My favorite book series are the Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, The Space Trilogy, the Wingfeather Saga, and the Green Ember Series. Those are my top 5.
I’m not into sports, but I love hiking, playing the piano, map-making, collecting rocks (I have many), raiding antique stores (but walking out empty ’cause Mom’s watching), and exploring.
Over the past six months I’ve swung between writing daily, and about every 2 days. Sometimes I plan on writing, but then life happens.
Ooof. Well, let me put it this way. Riven is a hoot to write because his thought process is so ridiculous, Archer is somewhat of a pain because we’re not on good terms, Kye is my darling child who’s usually high on sugar, Davien sometimes makes me want to cry, and Darius… needs to grow up. Neo is crazy and doesn’t use his brain. Nicole is really interesting to write about, and her sidekick Devrin is like the morbid pessimist who needs a life. These are my top favorite characters to write. All in all, I have quite the circus.
Hmm, so my worldbuilding is pretty solid, and very real for me, because I literally have places based off of real things. For example, I have an underground trade city in the Nevari Desert that is directly based off of Derinkuyu, Cappadocia. I have a whole tribe that has ties to the Basotho, geographically, and culturally, and I have a city whose name looks extremely similar to Pretoria, or protea. *shrugs* Like… I know where my character needs to go, and what to expect geographically, but sometimes there are still surprises. I remember one time where I did research on a schooner and similar ship types because my MC was on a ship.
Hmm… I don’t know if I could say I have an exact favorite, but when someone has done something unexpected with their worldbuilding, or created something extremely well, I really enjoy it. For example, I read a book called Phantastes, and within that story the MC goes to a huge library and starts reading stories and poetry, and some of those stories are in the book. It doesn’t just say, “Anodos read for a whole day” but you get sucked into that second world with the reader.
I have way too much fun building culture and place from culture and place…. geography and culture matters to me a lot, and so it becomes a priority as something I need to do well. I’ve read too many fantasy and fiction stories that were not deeply rooted in their worlds or places, and that’s something that I’m determined to not do with my stories.
Over a year ago I started developing the Anithian alphabet from another story that’s long since been abandoned. I do make up words, names, and places, but other than that I haven’t pursued building an entire language.
It’s definitely not medieval, but it isn’t anything like a modern, 1st world society. It’s a blend of 3rd world, older cultures, especially African and Middle Eastern, and my imagination. There are not things such as telephones, modern technology, or guns. Probably my favorite culture or tribe I’ve developed is the Nevari because they are crafted from literally what’s around me. When I see some of those characters, I see the people from my village and mountain.
*eyebrows raise* I have never been asked such a question, but I do know that it’s possible- if both people are bald. That’s about as much as I know.
Alright, thanks. Yeah this one world I’ve been crafting with my friend is definitely more geared towards the hard magic system side.
I would love to tour Europe sometime! I’ve seen a little bit of England when I went with my parents to visit some missionaries in Wales a couple years back, but my ancestors are from Switzerland so it would be fun to go there. And I took French so I’d love to go to France, too.
"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley
Hmm, so my worldbuilding is pretty solid, and very real for me, because I literally have places based off of real things. For example, I have an underground trade city in the Nevari Desert that is directly based off of Derinkuyu, Cappadocia. I have a whole tribe that has ties to the Basotho, geographically, and culturally, and I have a city whose name looks extremely similar to Pretoria, or protea. *shrugs* Like… I know where my character needs to go, and what to expect geographically, but sometimes there are still surprises. I remember one time where I did research on a schooner and similar ship types because my MC was on a ship.
Cool! Yeah, studying the things of our world can greatly enhance the things in the worlds we make. This is what we are always doing, as we all in one way or another write what we know, but to embrace that fact can be very beneficial to our writing’s believability. Personally, my world is very out there worldbuilding wise, the fundamental nature of reality functions differently here, creating a completely different form of physics, however, while I don’t go for realism, I do go for believability, and I do that with grounding everything in the concrete of human experience, like what your doing.
Hmm… I don’t know if I could say I have an exact favorite, but when someone has done something unexpected with their worldbuilding, or created something extremely well, I really enjoy it. For example, I read a book called Phantastes, and within that story the MC goes to a huge library and starts reading stories and poetry, and some of those stories are in the book. It doesn’t just say, “Anodos read for a whole day” but you get sucked into that second world with the reader.
Those kind of stories are awesome! I haven’t read Phantastes, but I’ve heard of it. That kind of meta story telling can always be fun, where the reader is taken into the story of a reader taken into a story. Reminds me of the movie Inception, where people can dive into a dream, and then go deeper into a dream within the dream, and so on. It also reminds me of the idea of breaking the fifth wall, like the Never Ending Story, where just like Phantastes, your taken into the story of a reader taken into a story, but in that story, both the 4th and 5th wall are broken, where it is mentioned in the story that someone is observing that story, and that others are observing his story. It makes an implied reference to us very briefly, and the implication of that implication is a question of might there be some that observe our story?
I have way too much fun building culture and place from culture and place…. geography and culture matters to me a lot, and so it becomes a priority as something I need to do well. I’ve read too many fantasy and fiction stories that were not deeply rooted in their worlds or places, and that’s something that I’m determined to not do with my stories.
Yeah, the physical setting is important. As you point out, too many might have a cool and unique setting, but it acts as nothing more than a backdrop that doesn’t have any influence on the story, and the story would be the same if you used any other backdrop. A good author lets the setting deeply bleed into the character and plot. A favorite author of mine is Brandon Sanderson, and I think he’s particularly good at this. I hope to do the same with my worlds. The setting is completely alien to our own, and unavoidably present in the story, but that doesn’t mean it’s quite yet properly blended with the plot and character arcs.
Over a year ago I started developing the Anithian alphabet from another story that’s long since been abandoned. I do make up words, names, and places, but other than that I haven’t pursued building an entire language.
Anithian sounds cool, by alphabet do you mean you created the different letters? Would you be willing to share them? Usually it is enough as far as language goes, you never need to develop an entire lexicon. Conlanging for me is a favorite hobby, and it is fun to add to my world, but definitely not necessary, though I think there is aspects that can enhance a story with deeper understanding of linguistics, but that’s really true for every aspect of human experience, understanding something enough leads to more creative ways of exploring that idea. One language I developed is called S”halek, spoken by the Shal’le, and I came up it by learning about Taa, an African language. Taa is the most informationally dense naturalistic language in the world, and it lead me to a thought of creating not just a dense language, but a compound language, where there’s basically two independent lines of speech spoken in one line. Essentially one language encoded into another. This lead me to create the Shal’le, a fantastical race of people that are able to process such a language by having two independent lines of thought, while still being one individual. That lead me to create a whole story and culture just from the original idea that came from Taa. It’s cool when simple aspects of things we learn about can help us create entire worlds, from what I’m picking up, you seem to really get that the most in respect to specifically culture and setting, which is awesome!
It’s definitely not medieval, but it isn’t anything like a modern, 1st world society. It’s a blend of 3rd world, older cultures, especially African and Middle Eastern, and my imagination. There are not things such as telephones, modern technology, or guns. Probably my favorite culture or tribe I’ve developed is the Nevari because they are crafted from literally what’s around me. When I see some of those characters, I see the people from my village and mountain.
Interesting, so are there no fantastical elements at all then? Is this just an alternate earthlike world then? If so, then that’s really cool, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that before, because most who want to create a different world, usually want to explore different ways the world could work, if your going to make it the same as earth, why not just do it on earth and write a contemporary or historical fiction, and maybe make up your own tribe or city, so it becomes a rare form of fiction.
I find it odd that you point out that it isn’t Medieval, but African and Middle Eastern instead. This is cool and I’m all for it, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with whether or not it’s fantastical. There is a trend of Medieval European being a main setting for fantasy, but it’s a rather old one that has died down significantly, especially with the age of self publication. What I’m asking is if there are places, powers, creatures there that we don’t see on earth, perhaps along the lines of traditional elves and fairies, but it could be anything, even something simple like extra large frogs with skin that is a cure all. There’s a huge array of mythology in Middle Eastern and African culture, so there is a whole lot of the fantastical to explore there if your interested in doing that. I’m not saying you should do this, I’m just clarifying on what I mean by fantastical. If it really is an alternate earth and nothing else, that’s still something really unique, and worth exploring, I just haven’t seen it done before, so I’m trying to make sure that’s what you mean.
*eyebrows raise* I have never been asked such a question, but I do know that it’s possible- if both people are bald. That’s about as much as I know.
Well done! You got the trivial case, but there is a very strong intuitive solution to the non trivial cases, still care to give it a go, or should I explain?
Thanks for your answers!
He is perfect in Justice, yet He is perfect in Mercy, even when we fail Him. For this, He is good.
Sorry it took awhile to get to this. I just haven’t had much time the past few days to sit down and just reply.
You asked if there are any fantastical elements in this world, and that is something that I’ve been debating about a lot lately. In the very original story, there was one tribal nation that had control over dragons, but I’ve found that having dragons is not necessary for the story. I’ve found that including dragons could actually ‘weaken’ my story. I have a powerful worldbuilding and cultural setting. I don’t need dragons. By adding dragons, I
1. make it easier for characters to escape from certain situations/make some things too easy
2. fall into the extremely common pit of majority because many fantasy stories have dragons
3. show that my worldbuilding was not strong enough to make up alternate solutions or show that I was too lazy to find my own unique solutions
4. dragons could actually cause a fallback in the unique development of that tribe because I’m not thinking outside the box
I do plan on crafting myths, folklore, and other such cultural traditions further down the road, and some of that may involve belief in sea dragons or stories of monsters, though there is no absolute proof. That can all be justified, because we also have these myths and stories in our own world. I haven’t 100% decided to completely take dragons out of the equation, but I am definitely leaning more in that direction than before. Maybe I can even have some people tell tales of lizards that breathed fire or something.
I know my story is very unique and goes against modern trends because I’m building from tools that are very uncommon. As you mentioned, it’s not something you ever see done. That also means I don’t have competition, and it’s harder to fall into normal cliches. It forces me to think, and that is something I am all for when it comes to storytelling. I do not intend to give my readers trash or something that is cheaply made, even though it may take several years and several unique means to get it perfected and out there. I don’t see this as a short term project, and I’m trying to prepare myself for the long haul.
No worries, we all have lives, I knew you would get around to it eventually.
Those are excellent points. Things like dragons specifically might drag on the story’s ability to distinguish from other stories (pun almost unintended🤦♂️). Dragons are a unique case I think though, they can be unoriginal, but they have a timeless nature, unlike other tropes. The point of fantasy however is to think outside the box, challenge the norm with things like dragons. Something different in the context to dragon-like creatures I would point out is the ChasmFiends from Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. Roshar is a world where storms so powerful that they can make boulders fly wash over the landscape in a slow but consistent heartbeat, always coming from the origin in the east. The world itself is shaped from these storms, and it forms an almost upscaled high and low tide environment. The flora and fauna take on many of the classic tide pool roles. What is one of the most dominate species in tide pools that are tough and hearty, and could hold off something like the highstorms of Roshar? Crabs! Says Sanderson. The majority of fauna here take on very crablike forms, with thick shell carapaces and the like. So then we get to the Chasm Fiends, the Apex predator of the Shattered Plains. Essentially take a classical western dragon, remove the wings and fire-breath, give it a crablike carapace, give it giant front limbs, and hundreds of tinier and tinier legs that run along it’s side. This is the dragon of this world, though it may look a little different, it meshes into the world in a way that makes sense, and a really out of the box way. The Sandworms from Frank Herbert’s Dune were also originally a take on dragons, though they are fundamentally different in every way other than being a big monster. Fantasy isn’t a realm of set impossibilities, it is all impossibilities that could ever be explored in new and fresh creative ways never seen before, as well as the old well treaded paths.
There are always more creative solutions to things, and when there’s things like dragons that might make things too easy, a great rule of thumb is to put a limit on a fantasy element, at least if your hard worldbuilding. What if the characters get stuck somewhere dragons can’t reach. What if the dragons themselves function by some rules of what is and isn’t ok to do. What if dragons require far too much food and water to bring on trips. What if Dragons need too much time to bath in water or mud, so they have to be nearby mud pools and rivers constantly. What if there are cultural/political influences that call for traditions of how a dragon can and can’t be used. “What if” is a great starter question here. You can actually give a whole lot more depth to the development of this tribe by building it around the peoples relationship with the dragons in believable ways. Yes, this is well treaded ground, but that doesn’t throw freshness out the window. There are endless possibilities with this alone, but there are also endless possibilities with the creatures other than dragons you can make.
Now, I’m not trying to convince you that you should try to add dragons or anything else fantastical to your world, no, no I am not. I just want it to be clear that it is a huge fallacy to assume that fantasy makes lazy writers, and is unoriginal. It inspires creativity and can explore many concepts and themes far better then any contemporary fiction can. This doesn’t mean that there are a lot of Tolkien clones writing the same unoriginal story over and over again, but that doesn’t mean that fantasy as a whole is a box. Fantasy in its purist form is beyond all boxes of thinking.
When it comes to removing both fantasy and historical/contemporary fiction, replacing it with just an alternate earth in order to avoid cliches, I would differ. You might avoid fantasy cliches, but you can still fall into historical/contemporary cliches, even though it isn’t earth. This is because it is earthlike in every way, other than the fact that it isn’t earth from what I understand. Your using tools from fantasy, like creating new cultures and settings, as well as realism from existing cultures and settings. Those aren’t new tools, those are tools in a different configuration of existing tools, though you might be using other tools as well. This isn’t an attack by the way, I would argue that you want more potential cliche pitfalls in your genre, otherwise it would be too easy. From what I can tell so far, your still developing something different and unique, and that’s awesome, and I encourage you to continue it. Your probably going to make something amazing, so I’m excited to see where that may take you, just know that there are other ways to be different and good quality as well.
He is perfect in Justice, yet He is perfect in Mercy, even when we fail Him. For this, He is good.
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