CREATION....

I am writing my first story involving a world I really don't know or understand...YET. I write about people, they are what intrigue and interest me, the setting has usually been the here and now. Sometimes I have gone back in time but usually to a time or place I remember. Or I can remember someone talking about. Verbal social history is a great way to understand the past.

Creating a dystopian world(which literally means a community or society that is undesirable or frightening) is very new to me. It leads to a lot of questions.

I mean I get to build it, create it from scratch...and the first decision is how different or close to NOW is it going to be?


I have an idea of my characters...but everything else is mostly in the ether. Everything from what they eat to the transport they use, where they live, what education (if any) do they have...even down to what they wear.

Will it be like The Handmaid's Tale, specified outfits denoting who they are...or would it be like The Hunger Games...which is very similar. Or perhaps like The Walking Dead.... which is frankly the now (so jeans and t-shirts) with very little access to washing machines and cleanliness...and throw in a few million zombies.


Do they live in ruins or have they progressed? It it like the "Perfect Home"....with appropriately perfect families? Which, as we all know, is purely fiction.


Do they build with brick or wood...or is there new technology? Perhaps they live in caves...or tree houses...or.....

It's amazing how the world can vary with just a few words. And of course it has a domino effect. If they do this then that has to happen etc.


Like any society there must be rules, and those are evolving as I think / work on the story. But everything else, all that we take for granted, is still up for debate.

Do they read for pleasure or is it now a crime?  Does marriage exist? Is racism, sexism, ageism still prevalent or has this world soothed it all...hence the new rules creating friction?

It's quite exciting to try and figure it all out. And the more I think about it, or so I'm finding, the less I'm writing. In fact, apart from my 'brainstorming session' which George the cat still likes to attack, and which I'm adding thoughts or phrases to....I have done little actual writing. It's all up here (points to her head).


Although I think it is time to put most of it down.
As I write the story.
I know that during this I will hit a snag, a problem that I have yet to solve. This could halt me while I debate whether they use cutlery or fingers...or I could simply write the scene and leave a huge XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Which I have done on previous works.

It's usually when a name or place or something I haven't really thought about strikes, yet I want to keep with the flow of the scene.

I find it helps. I'm so easily distracted as it is, anything that will keep me focused and writing is good.


Time I think for more writing and less thinking.

And perhaps less playing with Lego...but come on....Lego!

Vicki 

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