World-Building and the Shared Worlds Workshop
World-building, in my opinion, runs the gamut from the M. John Harrison metafictional approach all the way to, say, Ringworld and the most concrete and immutable approaches. In addition to the materials I’m bringing and some classic essays and articles on the subject, as well as a recommended list of fantasy and SF, I thought I’d offer the opportunity for you out there in the blogosphere to contribute to the Shared Worlds curriculum. Whether writer, reader, or “other,” feel free to include links to your favorite posts on the subject, self-generated or otherwise. You might just wind up influencing a whole new generation of creators.
Also, I should note that Tobias Buckell and Ekaterina Sedia have both accepted an invitation to come in for a couple of days each and do a reading and workshop/presentation during Shared Worlds.
Jeff
June 11, 2008 at 11:37 am
I heard about that and anyone who is young enough to go is lucky. How many people get to work on something like that in a workshop setting? Yeah!
I’d recommend the Writer’s Digest group of books. There is one on Aliens and Alien Societies (I think that is the correct title) and one called World Building, both edited by Ben Bova. There is one on Space Travel too, but I don’t know if that would be very useful. If memory serves me correctly they just re-released World Building. It was out of print for a long while.
And those kids are certainly getting a treat. Not only do they have you as an instructor, but they’ll have Tobias Buckell and Ekaterina Sedia for a few days! Man!
June 11, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I’m a fan of this incredibly long post.
skim down to the distinction between ‘dreamwork’ and ‘subcreation’
I vaguely recall that the author of that post wrote a more detailed scholarly-type treatment of the subject, but I can’t find it
June 11, 2008 at 10:53 pm
I think the guest post that Cat Valente wrote here a few months ago about “Citybuilding” would be a good one to add to the consideration list. I’ve commented on the issue, but I think my cynical, rather harsh appraisal of a term that I view as being little more than setting-on-steroids wouldn’t be all that helpful for prospective young writers :P