What do you folks advise for keeping track of characters, back story, history, gods/goddesses, legends and geography when in "world building" mode? I have a fantasy MS running around 110k words at the moment, not quite finished with the first draft so I'm expecting 125k to 150k as the final wordcount before revision time. I introduce backstory here and there, mainly where it offers insight to the plot and "how we got here". The more content that gets added, the greater the potential of introducing contradictions that will confuse the reader.
So do you create a world "bible" that lists all the major places, people and things? I read before JMS wrote Babylon5, he plotted out the history of the galaxy both forward and backwards, before drilling down into the timeline he wanted his series to cover. Once he drilled into the timeline, he created the major "Story arc" that spanned the time line, then introduced a series of sub-arcs within the main one. He went back to his bible and referenced history as needed. Sounds like a good technique but a great deal of work. How do you organize something like this? I could probably write a little application to hold that kind of information. Right now when referencing something, I need to find the page I first mention the subject to make sure I'm remaining consistent and this wastes a great deal of time!
Sometimes even clothing is an issue. When my character Tobiath wakes up, he certainly better come home with the same articles of clothing he left with, otherwise people might start talking!
Mike
So do you create a world "bible" that lists all the major places, people and things? I read before JMS wrote Babylon5, he plotted out the history of the galaxy both forward and backwards, before drilling down into the timeline he wanted his series to cover. Once he drilled into the timeline, he created the major "Story arc" that spanned the time line, then introduced a series of sub-arcs within the main one. He went back to his bible and referenced history as needed. Sounds like a good technique but a great deal of work. How do you organize something like this? I could probably write a little application to hold that kind of information. Right now when referencing something, I need to find the page I first mention the subject to make sure I'm remaining consistent and this wastes a great deal of time!
Sometimes even clothing is an issue. When my character Tobiath wakes up, he certainly better come home with the same articles of clothing he left with, otherwise people might start talking!
Mike
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