World-Building

More from the Unicorn Writers’ Conference… 

Since my genre is geared more towards Fantasy, I decided to attend workshop given by Fantasy author Elaine Cunningham titled: Beyond Elves and Dragons: Fantasy and Sci Fi.

One thing that she said that really stuck out for me was:

Know the rules of your 

world and stick to them!

She told us that we are the authors of our story and we can create any type of world that we want. We can also create any type of rules for our world and make them flow effortlessly through our story.

However, once we create the certain set of rules that govern our made-up world, we need to follow them throughout the entire story. We cannot create a rule and then break it haphazardly because it would confuse and annoy our readers.

For example, if vampires are not allowed to go out in the sun because they might combust, explode, disintegrate, develop burn spots on their skin, etc., do not have them suddenly walk outside and have nothing happen to them. Your rule was already set and you would need a very good explanation as to why you need to break your rule.

I have read several books where the authors have established their world quite clearly in the beginning of the book and then broke one or more rules later on in the same book and/or subsequent books, leaving me to wonder if the author and editor actually read and kept track of the original rules.

Readers will notice these slips and occurrences. They can lead to negative reviews and unfavorable critiques so authors really need to pay attention to what they write.

Have you ever broken a rule in your book on accident or on purpose? Why? How did it work out? How did your readers respond?

Until next time ~