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world building

U=(N/T)M*G: Debris

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Earth surrounded by debris.

The announcement of the mission extension for the ISS gives me mixed feelings. I mean, I love the Station. Wrote about it here a few times. Hell, wrote a whole trilogy on board the “little” thing. I’m such a nerd about it that I’ve got the Haynes manual. It’s a thing I plow through regularly. I’m pretty concerned about it though. Not the drama over Russia’s will they, won’t they attitude in regards to continuing with the Station’s mission. I always knew they’d keep on with the ISS. I’m talking about all the little bits and bobs of debris up … Read more

FOR WRITERS: Creating History in Sci Fi

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world building - deposit photos

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Scott: When writing future sci fi, part of the world building involves filling in the past. If it’s set in our own universe, readers want to know how we got from here to there. But even alternate-universe sci fi has a history. How do you deal with it? Do you have a detailed timeline with events and notes about the evolution of your world, and if so, how much of it makes it onto the page? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants and just throw in random references … Read more

FOR READERS: What Draws You In?

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gateway - pixabay

FOR READERS Today’s reader topic comes from QSFer Olivia Wylie: What kind of details draw you into a world? What grounds you in a new environment that the author is creating? Examples please! Writers: This is a reader chat – you are welcome to join it, but please do not reference your own works directly. Thanks! Join the chat: FB: http://bit.ly/1MvPABV MeWe: http://bit.ly/2mjg8lf

FOR READERS: Too Much World?

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world building - pixabay

FOR READERS Today’s reader topic comes from QSFer Christopher Koehler: What do you look for in word-building? Do you want everything detailed down to the last blade of grass, or do you want writers to get to the story already? We tackled the flip side of this topic – when writers dawdle with world building – last week. Now we wanna hear what readers have to say! Writers: This is a reader chat – you are welcome to join it, but please do not reference your own works directly. Thanks! Join the chat

What is the Dryden Experiment?

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The Dryden Author and Artists Group

Hey all, I’m Joel Stottlemire, the Chief Editor of the Dryden Experiment. We are multi-media publishing company that uses a Creative Commons licensing structure. Scott asked me to write a post explaining what Creative Commons is and how we use it. Creative Commons is a book unto itself. It came out of the software community. A lot of programming is repetitive and code gets modified and copied all the time. This creates a kind of weird place in terms of rights. Whoever wrote the code in the first place legally owns it but it doesn’t make sense for every coder … Read more

Building a Magical (Gay) World

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QSF member Edmond Manning has graciously allowed us to cross-post this one, which originally appeared on RJ Scott’s blog: I have always loved fairy tales. I love stories sculpted out of ancient prophecy and malicious curses, magic healing tears and quests to recapture jewel-encrusted chalices. The problem is that I always wanted to believe in these stories but I had a hard time letting go of reality and explanations. What powers the spells? How does a 900 lb. unicorn fly through the sky on such delicate, prissy wings? How exactly do you make the jewel-encrusted chalice so that it doesn’t … Read more