forum What questions do you really wish people would ask about your world?

Started November 09, 2017 by @andrew health_and_safety flash_onAdmin

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Feel free to answer them here, too. And if you see someone else's question that sparks some inspiration, feel free to answer it for your world also!

I always wish that people would ask about what foods people eat. I usually put thought into the biology of the world, and I always try to include a few meals that the races/creatures eat.

@Asrya What's your main character's favorite meal? :)

About character's family. I often put lots of effort in creating a character's family, like designing their appearance, personality, and all that even if they are only ever just referenced too.

Oh, wow, I would say lore, mainly of how the setting of my story came to be, but that'd take quite a few long posts, so to be a little less longwinded, I'd probably say…about the religion and culture of the location. I have plenty more set in the same world, but I won't focus much on them till I work out everything in this location.

"What does the character use to eat breakfast?" I feel like posing that even as a question can get people to break out of or consciously affirm tropes. Nothing wrong with tropes: just when it comes to describing very ordinary life details, you should be ready. Maybe Serena grabs a hot pocket before she runs to school. Maybe Alénuin scoops up his porridge with flatbread. Maybe Xalnej drinks her nutrient shake before shaking some caramelised ants out of a carton. Maybe Lord Thornton has his staff prepare a full breakfast and enjoys the feel of a good runny egg under fork and knife. All good answers.
"Name and describe one piece of popular media or storytelling your character enjoyed recently." Even people within stories have their own stories! Thinking about what a civilisation produces as legendary or pop art really fleshes out a world. It can even be a nice place to cram cte shout-outs, like someone having just read "The Witch Who Lived" or watched "that wartime drama about a nightclub in a neutral country" or studied "The Blue Chamber, an old classic from the Empire with a field of study ascribed to only its words, known colloquially as Blue-ology."

@Asrya What's your main character's favorite meal? :)

Depends on the story, but one of the characters I had in a world I built had the favourite food/meal of a type of honey that was created by these GIANT bee/wasps. The workers were essentially colour coded, and only harvested necter from specific coloured flowers, so the honey came out in different colours, and each colour had a different flavour to it. So her favourite food was the rainbow honey she'd harvest from those hives.

Technical questions!!! I've got a magic system in place and I want people to nitpick frankly. I try to myself but really I just want someone to poke holes in my magic system so I have them properly aligned.

I wish people would ask more about the history of my world. I have it figured out almost as much as the actual plot.

I just think it would be nice for someone to ask for more backstory. I can't fit it all into the book, obviously, but I have it figured out. Y'know?

oh my friend actually did ask how the fairies procreate (because it's implied throughout the series that the celestial fairies have mothers but no fathers) and uh i still haven't figured that out yet. they're different from normal fairies so…magic 😄

@AllyM I can totally relate! I can pretty much write a textbook about my world's history. Do you ever get to the point where building history gets in the way of actually progressing with the story?

@lexi Try me! I'm a stickler for how magic systems work (pretty much all thanks to video games lol)

@"Meandering Mutt" Yeah, actually. I'm trying to fit in some history into my actual story, but I'm having trouble with not putting too much. One of my characters needs to hear a very important (to the plot and the character herself) story about the history of the world. The problem is, for her to understand (along with the reader), it's a pretty long explanation. I need to finish it up and move on, but it's proving hard to do.

I wish people would ask about my characters' backstories. I have everything planned out, from their birth to death, and I obviously can't fit everything into the book, so I usually wait for people to ask me. But they never do.

I really wish people would ask about my characters’ relationships with each other. There is one specific minor character that I adore, and he has a really intriguing hatred for the main. Also, the other main and one of the supporting characters argue a bunch, but it’s really because they’re friends! It’s just that, I know what every character thinks of every other character, and I want other people to know, too!

Probably about the politics? I spend a terrible amount of time getting all of the gears oiled, especially how complicated it gets in wartime, even if it becomes entirely irrelevant to know within the story. I also wish they asked about the art. I'm an art history/history nerd, so I like to think of the progression and circulation of styles in painting, sculptures, furniture, music, etc.