Requesting Help w/ Worldbuilding

[M.G. Ridgeview]

This is more of a brainstorming topic, but hopefully the worldbuilding forum is close enough. It's been some time since I've written fantasy, and want to start a serious novel attempt. A lot of the time, I don't have a problem coming up with interesting (hopefully) ideas, but I'm struggling for some reason. Maybe because its been so long since I've written.

I have a spark of inspiration for a story, but I just can't seem to flesh it out, and am looking for help. The novel would take place in a unique pseudo-medieval world (I don't want to follow the western European Middle Age theme too closely for originality's sake). All I have so far is a battle hardened warrior, highly trained and educated, who goes to fight a war for several years. When he returns to his home country, he is shocked to discover everything has changed, and the credit he expects to receive for his actions overseas is lost.

He would have to make sense out of the new world and his place in it. He could have a dilemma as to whether or not he should change the culture or accept it. He also has to accept that his social status and accomplishments have been diminished by the new society, and that much of what he accomplished may have been futile in the end. It would be maybe an introspective/philosophical novel, but also with opportunities for action, being that I want to write a thoughtful action/adventure fantasy.

Don't know if you've read the works, but the closest approximation to what I'm thinking would be like a cross between Homer's Odyssey and the sci-fi novel The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. I want to explore themes like culture shock, diminished expectations, deferred dreams, questioning society, etc. Maybe that's deep for an action/adventure story, I don't know :confused2:

I know there may already be something missing here, which would be a direct opposition to the protagonist, but I have an idea for that. Maybe some powerful lord or politician behind the changes to the character's country, that the main character might choose to rebel against.

If anyone wants to help me round out what I've written so far, I'd really appreciate it. Also, any ideas you'd donate for an original world. I'm trying to think in terms of a new kind of environment, not forest, desert, arctic, etc., but something more exotic, like the ocean floor, but without the ocean. Sea plants for vegetation, coral reefs for mountains, etc.

 

[Gurkhal]

This is more of a brainstorming topic, but hopefully the worldbuilding forum is close enough. It's been some time since I've written fantasy, and want to start a serious novel attempt. A lot of the time, I don't have a problem coming up with interesting (hopefully) ideas, but I'm struggling for some reason. Maybe because its been so long since I've written.

I hate to start with this but are you sure that you want to attempt an entire novel? I would advice to aim for a novellette or novella, which might be more realistic to finish if you feel its long since you wrote fantasy. If you've writen plenty of other stuff just recently and its just the fantasy genre you've been away from you can ignore the above.

I have a spark of inspiration for a story, but I just can't seem to flesh it out, and am looking for help. The novel would take place in a unique pseudo-medieval world (I don't want to follow the western European Middle Age theme too closely for originality's sake). All I have so far is a battle hardened warrior, highly trained and educated, who goes to fight a war for several years. When he returns to his home country, he is shocked to discover everything has changed, and the credit he expects to receive for his actions overseas is lost.

How about a crusade? Don't need to be religious but could also be philosophically motivated or to spread something like democracy. Athens and Sparta were both, if I recall, known to go to war to install democratic or oligarchic systems in other polis across Greece. If you go with spreading democracy you might of course consider that you are likely to be considered writing something linked with the neocons and that is something that you might or might not want to add to your writing.

Also in what way would you say that the change has been? Has they reverted to something older or have they gone on to something new? Both of these would give some different feelings, situations and context for your story and hero. Just because the world is new to him don't mean it hasn't been seen under the sun before.

He would have to make sense out of the new world and his place in it. He could have a dilemma as to whether or not he should change the culture or accept it. He also has to accept that his social status and accomplishments have been diminished by the new society, and that much of what he accomplished may have been futile in the end. It would be maybe an introspective/philosophical novel, but also with opportunities for action, being that I want to write a thoughtful action/adventure fantasy.

Sounds cool. But how do you think that this will be made personal with characters involved instead of risking him just debating with impersonal concepts without much personification. Will he have old brothers-in-arms who have adopted or changed in the new society one way or another? Old enemies or rivals?

Don't know if you've read the works, but the closest approximation to what I'm thinking would be like a cross between Homer's Odyssey and the sci-fi novel The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. I want to explore themes like culture shock, diminished expectations, deferred dreams, questioning society, etc. Maybe that's deep for an action/adventure story, I don't know :confused2:

Sounds pretty much like a solid foundation you've got right there.

I know there may already be something missing here, which would be a direct opposition to the protagonist, but I have an idea for that. Maybe some powerful lord or politician behind the changes to the character's country, that the main character might choose to rebel against.

This could work, but it also depends on that your hero will stick with his old view and not change to the new society.

If anyone wants to help me round out what I've written so far, I'd really appreciate it. Also, any ideas you'd donate for an original world. I'm trying to think in terms of a new kind of environment, not forest, desert, arctic, etc., but something more exotic, like the ocean floor, but without the ocean. Sea plants for vegetation, coral reefs for mountains, etc.

The first thing I would ask is if aquatic enviroments and stuff interests you and you know something about it? Because rather than having to read through many books, which you'll have to do before you can start with getting down to the actual writing in order to present a reasonable ocean floor enviroment, you could get straight to the story by setting it in a, for you, relatively well-known and easily researched enviroment.

But if you feel its something that you want to do, go for it!

 

[M.G. Ridgeview]

Thanks for the reply. I don't know too much about aquatic environments, so I would have to do some research there. As for writing an entire novel, that's a good point. Maybe it would work on a smaller scale. The kind of change I envisioned was maybe something newer in nature. The character would leave a world that was imperialistic and wanted to expand its territory, so sent fighters to conquer distant lands. But the warlike sentiment fades at home, because the fighting is so far away.

Maybe the character returns to a more pacifistic world, and he is no longer needed for his services. Perhaps he joins up with other veterans who feel as counted out in the new ways as he does. And finds himself at odds with former friends that have found other callings. There is some historical precedent in an idea like this. The Samurai of feudal Japan experienced their class getting phased out, and were forced to find other professions. Some didn't take this so well, and there were at least a few Samurai revolts to try and hold onto the old caste system.

 

[acapes]

Hey MC, sounds like a great idea to me, powerful themes.

What about a city on a massive lake for a setting?

(Would the return of US soldiers after the Vietnam war be a handy research area too?)

 

[ThinkerX]

Sounds a bit like the 'Scouring of the Shire' in 'Lord of the Rings' to me.

Or maybe the MC slowly and painfully discovering he's outgrown his homeland.

Years spent in distant land, with radically different customs, maybe cities far larger than anything he's used to, different language, different foods.

Goes back to the homeland. It seems small, provincial, dirty. The customs he cherished as a youth seem ridiculous. Not only that, some opportunists took advantage of the reduced populace (assuming a *lot* of people left at the same time as the MC) to set up large scale racketeering. But some of his buddies from the old days are still there. They hang out. Maybe the MC tries to do something about the criminal element.

As to world building, what you need is

1) the MC's homeland. Three main approaches - tribal, blood over everything; 'free-holder', lots of small farms and mercantile operations, and quite a few towns, very few on the large side; and 'the estate model', in which a tiny aristocracy has most of the available real estate split among themselves, each claiming a large, almost self sufficient estate complete with serfs. The aristocracy in this last version would have a low opinion of large towns.

transitions of combinations of the three are certainly possible; maybe the tribal sorts invaded an 'estate model' type deal, and displaced groups from both sets started establishing cities. In this case, the racketeers would most likely be aristocrats unhappy at the rabble setting up on their own.

2) the Foreign lands, where the MC spent time 'on crusade' for want of a better term. I'd suggest putting an ocean or some such between the two, and setting the foreign lands in a different climate zone.

I'd also really strongly recommend keeping this work on the shorter side, 10,000 words or so.

 

[M.G. Ridgeview]

I did imagine the two countries would be separated by an ocean. A city on a lake is an interesting idea. Maybe I'll incorporate the story idea into a larger plot, since a couple have suggested it isn't novel length material.

 

[acapes]

I did imagine the two countries would be separated by an ocean. A city on a lake is an interesting idea. Maybe I'll incorporate the story idea into a larger plot, since a couple have suggested it isn't novel length material.

Sounds like it would work as an awesome character arc, the things he struggles with?

 

[chrispenycate]

I did imagine the two countries would be separated by an ocean. A city on a lake is an interesting idea. Maybe I'll incorporate the story idea into a larger plot, since a couple have suggested it isn't novel length material.

I don't think anyone has actually said there isn't enough idea there to generate a novel. As I read it, they're saying that perhaps coming out of hibernation with a novel was a bit over ambitious, better to start with something easier to finish.

But if the idea needs 100,000 words to build, what are you waiting for? Get writing

 

[M.G. Ridgeview]

One of the things I imagined the character struggling with, was receiving benefits or awards based on a title that he achieved, only to realize that the system that provided the privileges of his rank was dissolved.

I get what was meant now by starting small, after taking a break from writing. I thought about doing some fanfic, but I was trying to come up with something more original.

 

[acapes]

You could start with a couple of short stories set in the same world as your novel? Could be fun and a chance to explore your characters and setting too

 

[Bruce McKnight]

If you want to get all Shyamalan, maybe he goes across an ocean to conquer a civilization that is deemed different and wrong. They win the battle, conquer the civilization, and return home to find out that, while they were out conquering that civilization, the very same civilization was conquering his home nation.

Twilight Zone Fantasy.

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

I just want to know, how does he not hear that his country is changing? Surely if this land has the organisational skills and the logistics to conduct what seems to be a pretty large war for something like five to ten years in a distant land, then surely the man would hear that the land has completely changed.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but surely massive political reforms or invasion or something would spread like wildfire, especially if it took place in only a few years. Yeah, you could have the new government or whatever try and close the borders, but there'd be ships with reinforcements and supplies and stuff on going out to the army, and the sailors would talk...

 

[Gurkhal]

I just want to know, how does he not hear that his country is changing? Surely if this land has the organisational skills and the logistics to conduct what seems to be a pretty large war for something like five to ten years in a distant land, then surely the man would hear that the land has completely changed.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but surely massive political reforms or invasion or something would spread like wildfire, especially if it took place in only a few years. Yeah, you could have the new government or whatever try and close the borders, but there'd be ships with reinforcements and supplies and stuff on going out to the army, and the sailors would talk...

Not to mention that the new recruits reinforcing the army could well bring many news from the homeland.

 

[skip.knox]

I've toyed with the idea of using PTSD in a story. I've often wondered what the effects of extended campaigning might be on medieval or ancient warriors. The guys in the Anabasis, for example. Ten years marching through hostile territory. How do you go back to farming after that? Or the landesknechten. Or the mercenaries who fought in the Thirty Years War. That kind of sustained brutality has to change a fellow.

By extension, what about a mage who spent twenty years in some magicians' war? Would he see demons in every shadow?

All I have are vague ideas. I mention it just to say I think you are onto something. Excelsior!