I have a couple of full time peers who will be setting up a learning community based class this Fall which will feature as part of the workload, the task of creating a fictional world. Ever so often one of the peers will talk with me about the task, which prompted me to give some thought to how I do it for my stories.
In the past, I have fiddled with bibles that contained information about the world I had constructed. Eventually I lost track of them, lost interest in them, stopped using them. Over the weekend I tried to do some work on a bible for Velaysia and it wasn't long before I stopped and deleted the file.
Why? Shouldn't I have a wikipedia like article which breaks down every detail of the world that Kyle Hackshaw or Delauchen Severis lives in? All I'd have to do is go look and see if something is possible or not, then do it.
The worlds, be it the nation-state of Velaysia, or Circeville, Missouri, are both well established in my head. I have a pretty good idea of what is there, what isn't, how it is set up, and what the rules are. However, I think I like the flexibility of working without a bible. Part of the writing process, for me at least, is discovering the characters and their reaction to their world.
In other words, I prefer to explore the world as I create it.
I think another reason why story bibles do not work for me is that during my early writing years I tried to use books like the Starfleet Technical Manual to come up with story ideas. At the end of the day, the manual contained neat toys, tools and items but it didn't contain characters dealing with problems, which is what any given piece of literature is about. Even if it is an ambigious, experimental piece of literature, there is usually a problem and one that is not always resolved.
That said, if one is going to build a planet, I think the only piece of advice I can give is one I first read from Charles Stross. Basically his gripe is that planets in science fiction feature one homegenous group. Think of the planet of the United States as opposed to the planet Earth for an example. Or planet Japan for another. Planets are awfully big in any case, just consider that we have more than 180 nation-states on our planet alone.
Otherwise, I think it is best to build them as you go. This is what I did for both of my stories. This is how I build my characters. And it is the method which seems to work best for me.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
8 hours ago