by Randy Ellefson
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GENRE: Non-fiction
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BLURB:
Creating a
unique, immersive setting one place at a time.
CREATING PLACES (THE ART OF WORLD BUILDING, #2) is a detailed how-to guide on inventing the heart of every imaginary world - places. It includes chapters on inventing planets, moons, continents, mountains, forests, deserts, bodies of water, sovereign powers, settlements, and interesting locales. Extensive, culled research on each is provided to inform your world building decisions and understand the impact on craft, story, and audience. You’ll also learn how and when to create history and maps. Experts and beginners alike will benefit from the free templates that make building worlds easier, quicker, and more fun.
Learn the difference between types of monarchies, democracies, dictatorships and more for realistic variety and believable conflict. Understand how latitude, prevailing winds, and mountains affect climate, rainfall, and what types of forests and deserts will exist in each location. Consistently calculate how long it takes to travel by horse, wagon, sailing vessels, or even dragon over different terrain types and conditions.
CREATING PLACES is the second volume in THE ART OF WORLD BUILDING, the only multi-volume series of its kind. Three times the length, depth, and breadth of other guides, the series can help fantasy and science fiction creators determine how much to build and why, how to use world building in your work, and whether the effort to create places will reap rewards for you and your audience.
CREATING PLACES (THE ART OF WORLD BUILDING, #2) is a detailed how-to guide on inventing the heart of every imaginary world - places. It includes chapters on inventing planets, moons, continents, mountains, forests, deserts, bodies of water, sovereign powers, settlements, and interesting locales. Extensive, culled research on each is provided to inform your world building decisions and understand the impact on craft, story, and audience. You’ll also learn how and when to create history and maps. Experts and beginners alike will benefit from the free templates that make building worlds easier, quicker, and more fun.
Learn the difference between types of monarchies, democracies, dictatorships and more for realistic variety and believable conflict. Understand how latitude, prevailing winds, and mountains affect climate, rainfall, and what types of forests and deserts will exist in each location. Consistently calculate how long it takes to travel by horse, wagon, sailing vessels, or even dragon over different terrain types and conditions.
CREATING PLACES is the second volume in THE ART OF WORLD BUILDING, the only multi-volume series of its kind. Three times the length, depth, and breadth of other guides, the series can help fantasy and science fiction creators determine how much to build and why, how to use world building in your work, and whether the effort to create places will reap rewards for you and your audience.
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EXCERPT
All
flying animals that are depicted as being ridable are imaginary. The likelihood
is that none of them would get off the ground with a rider, but there’s no fun
in that. We must take being realistic with a bigger grain of salt than normal.
This can suggest doing whatever we want, and we certainly can, but there are
often useful details and considerations that arise from trying to being
realistic anyway. And these serve to make our work more believable.
While
flying can generally be assumed to be done in a straight line, factors change
this. Mountains can be tall enough that they must be circumnavigated. Real
birds struggle to get over the Himalayas, for example, because the air is
thinner. Larger creatures like a dragon would suffer even more from this.
Dragons are often depicted as all powerful, but this is one way to make them
less formidable and realistic at once. The difficulty of climbing over tall
mountains is one reason, along with rain shadows, for characterizing any land
features we’ve created; in this case, we’ll decide which mountains ranges are
this tall (hint from chapter 4: the tallest peaks are in the interior of a
continent, not on its coast).
Hostile
territories can also change flight patterns, whether that hostility is other
animals or sentient beings like humans. Even dragons are preyed upon by other
dragons. A lone dragon might fear to fly through an area full of other dragons,
especially if the latter are territorial or of another kind hostile to its own
kind. If the dragon is unafraid, his rider might be more cautious.
NOTE: The book series has a new
podcast where even more details are discussed. This podcast is free to listen!
Follow along here
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Randy Ellefson has written
fantasy fiction since his teens and is an avid world builder, having spent
three decades creating Llurien, which has its own website. He has a Bachelor’s
of Music in classical guitar but has always been more of a rocker, having
released several albums and earned endorsements from music companies. He’s a
professional software developer and runs a consulting firm in the Washington
D.C. suburbs. He loves spending time with his son and daughter when not
writing, making music, or playing golf.
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GIVEAWAY
Click here to enter for a chance to win an ultimate world builder's giveaway
The tour dates can be found here
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting the tour! Here's a list of what's in the giveaway:
ReplyDeleteMap making software by ProFantasy ($125 value):
Campaign Cartographer 3 (CC3 and CC3+)
City Designer 3 (CD3)
Dungeon Designer 3 (DD3)
World Building online course by David Farland – $29 value
A Golden Chest of World Building ebooks! ($40 value):
The Art of World Building series, by Randy Ellefson
Storyworld First, by Jill Williamson
Way With Worlds Book 1, by Steve Savage
The Art of Language Invention, by David Peterson, inventor of Dothraki (Games of Thrones).
Bonus: all contestants get The Ever Fiend (Talon Stormbringer) ebook by Randy Ellefson