Worldbuilding: Laws, Rights and the Wheels of Justice

Yesterday, I was summoned for jury duty.  This meant I arrived as required, along with twenty-three other people, sat around for a bit, and then had a clerk, a judge and a prosecuting attorney all tell us what a good and important service we were providing.  After a series of asking-the-whole group vague questions from the prosecutor, the jury of six was selected from the twenty-four, and the rest of us went on our way.

All this, mind you, for a speeding ticket.

Which made the whole exercise a fascinating bit of theatre of the absurd. 

Because while you have the right to a trial-by-jury even for a speeding ticket, it's a right that most people would never exercise, because-- it's a speeding ticket.  Forcing it to go to trial-by-jury is probably a massive waste of time and resources.

And yet, we do it.  We go through the whole dance for small matters to demonstrate why it's so important for larger ones. 

To bring that around to worldbuilding-- how the laws and rights your cultures enact, as well as how they are enforced and enshrined, says a lot about how that culture operates.  For example, when someone is accused of a crime, is it the burden of the state to prove their guilt, or the burden of the accused to prove their innocence?   And what will guilt or innocence mean?  In the world of Maradaine, the Kieran Empire is a true plutocracy, to the point where all crimes are punished with a fine.  If someone cannot afford their fine, they are sentenced to a slave work camp to earn it off.  So the rich can afford to do whatever they want, for all intents.

Druthal, and the city of Maradaine, has a system of more complex laws and enshrined rights.  Their justice system is very much based on the presumption of innocence and keeping law enforcement in check.  This comes as a reaction to the period in their history shortly before a total overhaul and reformation of the government, where agents of law enforcement had nearly unlimited power to arrest and incarcerate at whim.  So the "modern" Druthal defined its laws under the premise that preventing those abuses is the paramount concern for continued freedom of the populace.  Even their equivalent of the Right to Bear Arms is predicated on the notion that a person has the right to defend themselves if being arrested unjustly.

I did all this because, in part, I wanted something different from the top-down of the standard fantasy situation where the king has unchecked power, and being king makes one the absolute authority.  I also did it because I wanted A Murder of Mages to be a story in which the constabulary are bound by rules of what they can and cannot do.  Without their authority in check, the characters could take whatever action they saw fit, without limitation. That wouldn't be an interesting story.

ArmadilloCon Writers Workshop 2014

 ArmadilloCon is now three months away, so I figured it was high time to turn up the signal on this year's workshop.  If you are a genre writer looking to get to the next level in your writing, this is a wonderful workshop.  Check it out.

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Writers' Workshop

Sign up for the ArmadilloCon 34 Writers' Workshop and receive invaluable feedback on your unpublished Sci-fi, Fantasy or Horror story from two SF/F professionals (writers and/or editors), plus critiques from your fellow attendees.
The $70 fee includes lunch on Friday, group sessions, and panels or presentations throughout the day about the craft and profession of writing as well as printing costs. You also recieve admission to all three days of the convention. You can purchase your entry to the workshop on the membership page.

Instructors

Ian McDonald, Ted Chiang, Nicky Drayden, Jacob Weisman, Mario Acevedo, Stina Leicht, Marshall Ryan Maresca and Skyler White. More to be added in the future.
Deadline for Manuscript Submissions will be June 15, 2014.

About the Workshop

The ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop has become a major event for aspiring SF/F writers. It meets before the convention on Friday morning at 9am and runs until about 4:30pm. Workshop curriculum is designed for beginning and intermediate students. Workshop participants are given the opportunity to have their work critiqued by major professional editors and/or writers. The workshop will cover craft, markets, the dos and don'ts of preparing your work for professional publication, and more. Discussions range from the basics of style to plot, theme, character, and setting. Within the breakout session, students receive an in-depth critique of their work from both instructors and peers. At the workshp, students receive a personal, in-depth critique of their work from instructors and peers, utilizing the Milford style. This roundtable style critique session is invaluable for learning what works, what doesn't, and how to edit your work.

For further information, check out the webpage.

Worldbuilding: Culture and Rituals of Class Difference

A few months ago I witnessed something that is an uncommon occurrence in the States.  I was waiting in our favorite local Thai restaurant for our take-out order to be ready, when a young woman walked in the door.  This woman wasn't particularly remarkable: dressed in jeans and T-shirt, she looked like a fairly typical Asian-American college student.

But upon seeing her, the woman behind the counter bowed to her.  Almost immediately, one of the waiters did the same.  They stayed bowed until she acknowledged: a polite, even friendly wave that let them know, yes, they could get back to what they were doing.  Then she went on to join friends at a table. 

Now, being a writer, I immediately began to speculate on what I just witnessed.  It could have been as mundane as a sign of respect for the boss's daughter, or as elaborate as her being a minor member of the Thai royal family.  I had no clue.

But what was clear was that this was an overt display of class distinction, where two people showed reverence for a member of the higher class, and that person showed acknowledgment of that reverence.  Both sides followed the rules of what was expected of them upon meeting.

We don't see that in the States much, partly because our class distinctions are fuzzy, fluid and ill-defined.   As such, there are no hard-and-fast rules of protocol.  But that's a quirk of our culture.  Many cultures do have class distinctions where the lines are very strictly defined, as are the rules for interaction between classes.

So, how do your characters show that, especially in a way that shows that both sides of the table have rules and expectations.  Or, how do your characters subvert the expectations? 

Worldbuilding: The Broad Strokes and the Fine Details

I've made little secret of the fact that I'm a worldbuilding completist, though even I have a limit of what "completist"would actually mean.   For example, in my Banshee setting, that meant having a strong sense of what was going on within 30ly of Earth, a solid framework of 100ly from Earth, and a rough sense of 150ly from Earth. 

In the world of Thorn of Dentonhill, I at least don't have to deal with the infinite vastness of space.  One planet is a simple enough limitation, at least in terms of continents and oceans.  Draw out a world map, and you've defined the scope, and then place the cultures in them.

On this level, I've worked out the general concepts behind each nation and culture, and on a map level, the breakdown of districts/provinces and cities.  However, for a lot of the areas that aren't Druthal, that's the limit of what I've done.

For example, while the history of Druthal is a 25,000 word document*, over in the eastern areas of Xonaca or the Tyzanian continent, I have just a bullet-point outline of the history.  Can I delve into greater details there?  If I need it.  Right now, at the very least, I don't need that at all, and at a certain point that degree of worldbuilding is more distraction that purposeful. 

After all the stories I'm writing, at least right now, take place in Druthal, specifically in the city of Maradaine.  Now, I've built Maradaine as a cosmopolitan city, a place where people from all over the nation, as well as the world as a whole, might end up.  So it was important to have a sense of the whole country, and how the finer details could affect the city.  This was especially true in the case of Way of the Shield, which deals with Maradaine as a capitol city.  With Parliament members from Acora, Monim or Linjar, I need a strong sense of what being from those places mean.

But even knowing all that, the thing I really needed to know was the city of Maradaine itself.  Just as you wouldn't try to write a book about New York City without having a sense of what you were really saying when you mention Soho or the Upper West Side, I needed to know the city itself, and understand what it would mean to live in Aventil or Dentonhill or Seleth or High River.  Every neighborhood has its own sense, and to a degree, its own minute history.  I wouldn't work out other major Druth cities like Fencal, Yoleanne or Lacanja with the same level of detail, because, again, I don't need that at this point in time.  Maybe I will never need it.  So, again, even for a worldbuilding completist, it would be more a waste of time a distraction from the writing itself.

Now, of course, what I really needed to do-- what all stories need from the worldbuilding-- is how it works on a personal level.  Some of this is micro-managing the geography, which is a level I personally felt I needed to do.  I have to admit, I've got a certain pet peeve in fantasy books where cities-- sprawling metropolises-- are little more than towns with no street names, and districts that are more on-the-nose descriptions than actual names. Honestly, when I see that sort of thing, it highlights that the writer simply didn't do their worldbuilding work, which makes me feel like the work as a whole is going to be sloppy.  As I said, there are plenty of details that don't need to be done, but the ones closest to the story itself should feel full, vibrant and detailed.  That way, the story you write in it feels like it's in a living place, rather than a vague template of a generic setting. 

Because, after all, who would be interested in reading about that?


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*- For my own sense of verisimilitude.  In no way will the reading of Thorn or Murder of Mages make you feel like there will be a quiz at the end.

Perils of the Writer: Knowing When to Deviate from the Outline

So, earlier this week, the long running series How I Met Your Mother had its final episode.  And, despite some excellent moments in there, its ending left me cold, and I was far from the only one to think so.  It was, quite frankly, not the appropriate ending for the nine years they had built up.   

SPOILERS: Specifically, in the time frame where older Ted is telling his kids the story, the mother is already dead, and he's more or less telling them the whole story to put the idea in their head that maybe he should start dating again.  More specifically, that he should date his on-again, off-again flame from before meeting their mother, who the kids know as Aunt Robin.  The kids approve, and the last shot is Old Ted showing up at Old Robin's apartment, carrying a blue French horn in a direct callback to the very first episode.

But here's the thing: this was the ending the writers had intended from early on.  They had shot the scenes where the kids actively suggest and approve of Ted getting together with Robin way back in the beginning of the show, since they didn't know how long they would go, and the actors playing the kids were growing up.  So, they had had this footage for eight years, and had always intended this as the ending.

And you know what?  If they had used it as an ending then, at the end one of the first couple seasons?  It probably would have worked.

But at this point, it wasn't right.  The show had spent much time demonstrating how toxic Ted's affections for Robin were, how definitively their relationship didn't work, how much he needed to make a point of letting her go.  They had developed, rather well, the romance and marriage of Robin and Barney.  And biggest of all, they had Cristin Milioti join the cast in the last season as the titular mother.  Milioti managed to pull of the high-wire balance act of making Tracy-- the mother's name, revealed in the penultimate moments of the show-- into a real and vivacious person that the audience cared about.  All these things which made that ending, that old footage, completely inappropriate for the story they had built up.

I've gotten rather long-winded here. 

As anyone who's been reading this blog for a while will attest, I'm an outliner.  I'm big into making the Big Plan as part of the writing process.

But even with that: you need to embrace when the story has, through the organic process of writing it, shifted in a different direction.  Sometimes the worst choice you can make is to stick doggedly to an endgame plan that no longer fits your story. 

The big question is, how do you know if this is how you're doing?  For me, the biggest sign is when I'm working and feel myself at odds with where I'm going and where I "need" things to be.  This was part of my problem when writing Way of the Shield-- finding ways to fit what I had planned for the end sequence when that just was not working.

"Kill your darlings", I was told in film school, and that still applies-- including throwing away the ending you've been sitting on for eight years when your story demands it be something else.

That Was 40: A Pretty Good Trip Around the Sun

So, today is my 41st birthday.  And in the end, 40 was a pretty good year.  A quick recap:

• "Jump the Black" was published in Rayguns Over Texas. 
• With the sale of "Jump the Black", I'm eligible for the Campbell.  And, you know, nominations for that end today.  In case you were curious. 
• I finished the long-suffering Way of the Shield, a book that just tasked me for the longest time before I figured out how to crack it.  
• I attended my first WorldCon.  
• I finally started properly writing Banshee, having now put in 70,000 words in it.  The idea of Banshee had been bouncing around in my head for YEARS, so getting real traction on it was quite a victory.
• I SOLD TWO BOOKS TO DAW: Thorn of Dentonhill and A Murder of Mages.  Yeah, this was definitely the highlight of the year.  
• Got underway on Thorn II so there is minimal turnaround between those two books coming out and the next ones.  And now I'm halfway done.

So, clearly, a milestone year.

It's definitely the year in which I've transitioned from how I feel about writing, from being someone who took writing seriously, devoting much of my energy and time to it, to being a professional writer.

It's been a good year for me, and I'm looking forward to the next one.  More writing, ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop, and Thorn and Murder coming out.  And who knows what else.  

Worldbuilding: Integrating the Top Down and the Bottom Up

I'll fully admit, the worldbuilding work I've done for the Banshee space-opera verse has was done in a strange way.  Namely, I did a combination of top-down and bottom-up building. 

To define these terms: top-down building is when you make first big decisions about the different cultures, borders and interactions, and then build the map to meet those needs.  Bottom-up building is when you create the map first, and then figure out cultures, borders and interactions based on what the map demands.

Neither approach is right or wrong, good or bad.  They're just different ways to go about it.  In fact, I advocate the hybrid approach.

In this case, the "top down" involved the decisions about some of the alien cultures closest to Earth.  I knew one thing I wanted was a large Alliance in close proximity to Earth, who had taken a preservationist/non-interference attitude to the planetbound cultures in their spheres of influence.  I knew I wanted an aggressively expansionist culture (the Paxin) and an imperialist culture (the Surani), and a recent interstellar addition who would give the humans a good fight (the Krek'nik). 

Also, in general, I wanted our interstellar region to be filled with intelligent life that was all, more or less, in the same place-- i.e. everyone had gotten into space or could potentially get into space within a few centuries of each other (or in the case of the three "old" powers in the region, a few millennia)-- which, in cosmic terms is the blink of an eye and highly improbably, unless you incorporate a serious don't-poke-this-too-hard conceit.  Which I did. 

But, in terms of "bottom up", I knew I wanted the stellar geography to be sensible.  Real stars where they really are. Now, this meant I probably did a bit of homeworld-fudging-- I'm given to understand that Procyon is probably too young a star to have a planet with advanced life on it, for example-- but that fulfilled at least a sense of verisimilitude.

But the other "bottom up" aspect I had to ask myself was-- what else was out there?  I had the raw data on stars within 150 light-years of Earth, and from that, crafted some randomization for each star:  Are there planets?  Where are the planets?  Do any have life?  Is that life intelligent?  How technologically advanced is that intelligent life?  Have they achieved FTL travel, and if so, when?  From all that, I could build up exact details of the 147 starfaring cultures, and how their potential interaction might be.

This bottom-up method gave me the opportunity come up with ideas that I might never have had without star-map based data fueling it.  Seven alien cultures in relative proximity to each other form a loose coalition.  One advanced culture with no one in proximity builds a sizable empire before encountering any pushback.  Another with a powerful aggressive species nearby builds their culture on defending themselves. 

From this, I found more interesting discoveries.  I devised a little equation based on expansion (how many colonies or outposts a culture had) and their tech level, and were able to calculate who the true "First Level" powers in the region were.  And from that, I've been putting together how the Astronomical Geopolitics (Astropolitics?) really work. 

I'd like to think doing that work-- while anal and time-consuming-- has created something a little more organic than just a top-down alone process would have.