Post #215 May 25 2020

“Building Imaginary Worlds”

Every writer of fiction builds imaginary worlds in his story.  For science fiction and fantasy writers, this is especially important, since the worlds they create are often unlike any experienced by humans before…that’s the whole point.  In this blog, I want to detail some important aspects of this creative job and use one of my own story series to illustrate.

Here are three aspects of imaginary world-building that writers should consider as they are developing their masterpiece:

1. Physical setting.  Sometimes, especially in sf, the actual physical setting is the story.  Think of Lord of the Rings.  Think of Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama or Larry Niven’s Ringworld stories.  The writer must ask himself where the story takes place.  Is the setting Earth as we know it?  Is it off-Earth, like another planet or another dimension?  Is it Hogwarts?  The writer must then consider how to portray simple physical details of this place…what is the temperature like, air pressure, etc.  Does the story take place on land, on or under the water?  How about gravity? 

Several years ago, I wrote the first novel in my series The Farpool Stories.  This story (The Farpool) largely took place on an oceanic world called Seome.  I said this about that world:

Seome is a planet somewhat smaller than Earth, 98% covered in water.  There are approximately 30 islands that comprise the total land mass of the planet.  Most of them are only a few kilometers wide but about ten exceed 50 square kilometers in size.  Most of the islands are clustered near the equator, or branch out in chains or arcs from the cluster, often following the submerged ocean ridges that trisect the waters.

    Seome is one of four planets, two large gas giants and two smaller terrestrial rock-core worlds, orbiting the star-sun Sigma Albeth B.  The other planets are uninhabited.

            Neither small planet has any natural satellite but both gas giants have literally scores of satellites in orbit about them.

            Seome is about 11,500 kilometers in diameter and its gravity is slightly less than Earth’s.  Of particular note is the planet’s perpetual cloud cover, permanent except for one location: the summit peak of the island of Ordeld in the northeastern sea, at certain times of the year.

            Seome has two seasons: high storm and low storm, roughly corresponding to periods of greater and lesser storm activity.  The planet rotates nearly twice as fast as Earth, so the “day” is only half as long.  However, the low light level doesn’t really reflect the speed of rotation.  It is uniformly low.

            The planet has a magnetic field and an iron core.  Earthquakes are common, often creating tsunamis that dwarf anything seen on Earth.

            The period of solar revolution is about 18 Earth months, 50%  longer.  In other words, one Earth year is 2/3 per Seome year.  A Seome year is called a mah and it corresponds to one complete north-south-north migration cycle of the planktonic mah’jeet organisms.

 

1. Time Period.  Will your imaginary world exist today, or what I call the timeless present?  Is it set in the past?  Or the future?  Is time travel involved?  The Farpool actually involves all of these characteristics.  If the story is set in the past, you have to decide how closely you will follow actual history.  How accurately will you detail this past?  What will you change?  Many years ago, I wrote a story called Final Victory.  It’s an alternate history novel, set in WWII. 

Here’s what I wrote in the book description:

In August 1945, the U.S. used two atomic bombs against Japan. But a third bomb was also built. What if a special ops team from Japan and the Soviet Union had managed to steal the third bomb? Japanese leaders wanted to end the war, but not on America’s terms. To get better terms, a plan is developed to seize the third bomb and threaten San Francisco with it. The story of the Imperial Japanese plan for Final Victory ranges from Tokyo to Tinian Island, Moscow to Alaska, from Los Alamos to a stolen B-29 winging its way toward the City by the Bay. Only Army counter-intelligence agent Colonel Wade Brogan can stop the plan.

Other than changing history enough to accommodate my premise, as stated above, I tried to be scrupulously accurate and faithful to the historical record.  In some ways, this is more challenging than creating a world from scratch.  I have great respect for sf authors like Harry Turtledove who do this so well.

1. The People.  Will your characters be humans or human-like?  If not, how different will they be?  In The Farpool, most of my characters are intelligent marine people, i.e. talking fish.  I had to develop a whole new biology, history, culture and politics for this society and how it would react when real humans were encountered.   I even developed the rudiments of a language suitable for ocean-dwelling characters who mainly used sound, smell and taste to find their way around…a truly alien people compared to humans.

I wrote this about the physiology of the Seomish people:

Although the Seomish resemble dolphins and porpoises externally, they are not mammals.  They are fish, true marine creatures.  They average about 3 meters in length and possess two forearms that have evolved from pectoral fins into prehensile limbs approximately ½ to ¾ meter in length, with five fingers and one opposing thumb at the end of each arm.

     The Seomish breathe through gills, extracting oxygen from the water that is strained through gill slits on either side of the head, which is really only an extension of the main body trunk.  The body is streamlined for speed (up to 20 km/hr for healthy males at maturity) which is generated by lateral undulations of the caudal, or tail fin.  The peduncle is the muscle that moves this fin.

     The Seomish have two dorsal fins, one over the midsection and one just forward of the peduncle.  Along with a pair of anal fins (beneath the second dorsal), a small pair of vestigial pectoral fins attached to the forearms (above the wrist) provides anti-roll stability.  The arms and the tail give maneuvering and braking power and the arms are tucked against the sides of speed.

     The Seomish have evolved an internal gas bladder, dorsally located, to help them maintain buoyancy.  The presence of this organ limits the depth and vertical range of their natural movement but technological developments can overcome these obstacles.

     The Seomish have relatively poor eyesight, good vision not being essential in the often dark, murky waters of Seome.  They have no tear ducts or eyelids.

     The Seomish senses of smell and hearing are keen, however.  A great deal of the standard Seomish language is concerned with scent information and is unconveyable by sight or sound.  There is an olfactory vocabulary of chemical odors that are often captured and stored in scentbulbs, called ot’lum, in the spoken vernacular.

The Seomish can smell the difference not only in body odors but in various kinds of water, according to its salt, dirt, or nutrient content.  They have words for all these.  Because olfactory impressions tend to disperse slowly, the Seomish do not separate the past from the present as readily as humans.  Instead, they view the past as living in the present, as a shadow or ghost or alternate spirit of the present.

The Seomish sense of hearing is acute and far-ranging.  Just below the mouth, at the rear of the throat and forward of the gill cavity, is a small bag-like organ, called a soundsac, or shkelt.  It is an echo-location system that emits low-frequency waves that can carry for upwards of thirty to fifty kilometers, depending on the location of the deep-level sound channel (the ootkeeor, or “discovering water”).  Much of the Seomish language consists of grunts, whistles and clicks, all sounds that travel well in water.

The Seomish also possess a pressure-sensitive lateral line organ.  The organ functions as a true sixth sense and is sensitive to low-frequency vibrations.  It is used for short-range guidance, collision avoidance and for determining the present state of the ambient water as well as local currents.

Seomish are heterosexual and reproduce by copulation, the female bearing live young after a gestation period of about one and a half mah.

Seomish males usually live to an average age of 150 mah (see Seomish time-keeping) and females somewhat longer, 160 mah.

The Seomish have silvery-gray skin, smooth, non-scaly at maturity.  They are born pinkish-white and aging gradually darkens the skin.

Average weight for a mature Seomish male is 230 kilograms.  Females weigh somewhat less.

 

Perhaps more detail than needed but it helped me to stay consistent and believable throughout The Farpool Stories.  In fact, I developed enough detail on the world of Seome and its denizens that I collected it into an appendix and included it at the end of most of the novels in this series.   Frank Herbert, author of Dune, did one of the most detailed appendices I’ve ever seen in an sf novel. 

 

When building your imaginary world, pay attention to these aspects.  Develop as much detail as you need to be believable and consistent in the story.  You’ll find this preliminary work can be hugely rewarding in itself.   Even better, doing the hard work of building an imaginary world can often suggest even more story possibilities than you originally thought up.  As a matter of fact, I’m planning on returning to The Farpool Stories and the world of Seome in the near future, for at least three more novels. 

 

In observance of Memorial Day, The Word Shed will take a one-week hiatus.  The next post to The Word Shed comes on June 8, 2020.  Have a great holiday.

 

See you then.

 

Phil B.