Posts belonging to Category 'World building'
March 30, 2010 | Posted by Mark
I thought it would be interesting to give some more background on my recently published short story The Easy River to Success. The story was published recently by Planet Magazine and is available there for free viewing. Please go over and take a look. I would be interested to know what you think of the [...]
Categories: Easy River to Success, World building, Writing | 
Tags: Fantasy, Lord of Light, Online Writing, Planet Magazine, Roger Zelazny, Short story | 
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December 3, 2009 | Posted by Mark
Working on my current short story “Jake and the Knight Who Wasn’t There” I came across the issue of how one of my characters would learn about magic. The story is set in alternative version of the 14th century, so I can hardly have a Hogwarts or Unseen University equivalent. I suppose I could make [...]
Categories: World building, Writing | Tags: Hogwarts, Short Stories, Short story, Unseen University | View Comments
October 6, 2008 | Posted by Mark
This is a fascinating new piece of research about the formation of societies amongst our ancient hunter gatherer ancestors. The researchers conjecture that egalitarianism became dominant as more intelligent humans were able to form closer social bonds with others to prevent the dominance of society by stronger alpha-male leaders. Thus the social group was ruled [...]
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September 2, 2008 | Posted by Mark
What is magic? I think this is an important question for anyone writing fantasy. I guess at the simplest one could see it as an unexplained disturbance of the natural rules of the world? An illusion that breaks the laws of reality without any explanation of how it came to be. If it has rules [...]
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July 4, 2008 | Posted by Mark
New finds at Edfu in Egypt show how ancient Egyptian society used grain as a currency. They discovered a huge silo where grain was stored – in effect the bank for the city! I think this is a useful insight into how ancient civilisation works and a reminder for fantasy world builders that currency doesn’t [...]
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June 18, 2008 | Posted by Mark
A simple but rather wonderful theory – that as agriculture developed, farmers wore green bead amulets for luck. More green stuff around I guess in the fertile crescent. Implications for world building – simple and obvious associations sometimes the most realistic?
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June 12, 2008 | Posted by Mark
If you’re crazy enough to want to create languages for your fantasy fiction world then this is an inportant question. Where do your languages come from. Could there be a common ancestor for all your languages. If so there will be similarities between them. Many people will have heard of the phrase Indo-European languages, which [...]
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June 10, 2008 | Posted by Mark
This piece of research about ADHD genes in Kenyan nomads shows that certain genes that might be less suitable in a settled culture are actually beneficial in a nomadic setting. Apparently the behaviour associated with ADHD can lead to nomads being more effective in fighting off raiders and finding food and water. My current writing [...]
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May 26, 2008 | Posted by Mark
I found this story from The Economist interesting about a new research project into the biological basis of religion. As part of my world-building exercise this is quite a fascinating subject as I come to grips with the cultural background of my world’s peoples, which includes their religions. In fact I have decided that religious [...]
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