Thursday, April 7, 2011

Flesh on the bones

Ideas continue to come to me about the next Hemlock story. I am very anxious to get back to writing, but part of me is a bit hesitant because the flow of ideas that are fleshing out and refining the story has been fairly continuous.

I also have some side projects that are competing for my time: map making and compiling a glossary of names and places. Both of these will be nice resources for readers to have--especially for those coming into the second story who may have forgotten some of the details from the first.

In fact, I'm trying to resist going "nuts" with maps. I'm going to have this cool mapping software, so maybe I should make maps for everything! Wahoo! I'll have to make sure I don't go overboard. But maps are pretty neat.

Part of creating this second Hemlock story has been exploring areas of the first story that were only peripheral. One example of this is religion. At one point in Hemlock and the Wizard Tower I mention a church, but I don't elaborate on it at all. What is the role of religion in the City? You'll find out in the next story.

That's another challenge though: how to weave in all of these additional details without making it into a history book. Hemlock and the Wizard Tower was praised and criticised for being detailed. I want to flesh out the world, but I need to do it in a way that truly engages the reader.

2 comments:

  1. Really enjoying watching the process unfold. As a former computer geek, I'd love to know how the software works out for you. :)

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  2. Thanks, Jeffrey. Your blog is really amazing, so the fact that you are enjoying my humble effort is gratifying to me. I'll be sure to blog about the software I'm going to be using for the maps (Campaign Cartographer).

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