Takeover Tuesday! World Building WIth Stacy Overby, Author of Tattoos...

Hello all and welcome once again to a Takeover Tuesday here on the Ol' Mountain Caller. Now with the great scent of pine for your additional enjoyment. Hehe. Today, our guest is Stacy Overby author of the Sci-Fi thriller Tattoos, coming to your hot little hands on December 15th. We've had Stacy here before, and I'm pleased to have her back(Guess I didn't annoy her enough to run her off last time. Heh) Let's check out the back cover blurb...

One hushed cry in the middle of the night, and Eli Thorson's life unravels. A highly trained Black Ops specialist, he is used to danger, but Eli's path forces him to confront the illusions he’s been taught his whole life -- ones that make him question all the good he thought he was doing.
Unable to work for a command that defiles the oaths he swore, he works to untangle the web of lies and deceit he finds woven throughout his worlds. The tattooed marks of his profession run more than skin deep. As a Specialist it is his duty to protect the people, the laws, and all the United Earth Government stands for, even if it means taking down the entire Black Ops division to do it.

Sounds pretty damn cool to me, gentle readers. Anyway, Stacy very kindly agreed to stop by the main offices of Mountain Caller Media, broadcasting to you from an undisclosed location, to give to you guys some tips for building worlds of your very own! So without futher guilding the lily, take it away, Stacy!

I had an interesting time with the world building aspects of my novel, Tattoos. Some things were great, others were a bit more challenging. Here’s are five things I wish someone would have told me when I created the Black Ops world.

1.      I don’t have to use a Judeo-Christian base to the world.

What does that mean? Hint, it’s not what you think. The most prominent piece of this actually comes from a rather entertaining aspect to the Black Ops world—the cursing. See, in the first draft, I used the curses I’m used to hearing. You know, standard American swear words. How many other military-esque novels and movies use standard American English curse words? But I had a dear friend and beta reader offer me a great piece of advice. Standard American English curse words are based in a Judeo-Christian worldview. Hell is derived from this religious structure, as is Christ, when used as a curse. That, my friends, is how much of the cursing in Tattoos is in Greek instead. There is some Standard American cursing because we are talking about multiple cultures and worlds, so it is conceivable these curses also survived, but they weren’t the only ones.

2.      Speaking of language, think about languages.

Even though the dialogue in Tattoos is in English, I did put some thought into the languages being spoken. There is a standard or universal language, which is essentially the English the characters use. But, through implication, and directly in later books, other languages show up. This is really about making sure readers are aware English is not the only language being used in a world where there are multiple planets and cultures. I would argue you don’t have to go so far as to invent new languages, like J.R.R. Tolkien did, but at least write as if those languages exist.

3.      Create new creatures.

This is something that should go without saying. After all, this is one of the things I love the most about writing in the speculative fiction genres. We get to create whatever we want, and it doesn’t have to be even close to real. But that being said, we do need to pay attention to ensure there is consistency and logic to what we create. That’s what makes these fantastical realms believable. If you create a massive creature, but then argue it’s as light as a feather, you’d better have a good explanation for it that carries through other parts of your world as well, or readers won’t be propelled into the story. Same thing goes for building creatures that are completely invincible. Everything has weaknesses, so make sure your creatures do to.

4.      Don’t get lost in the technology.

While Tattoos has some awesome technology in it, you’ll notice I did not make this a big part of the book. There are several reasons for this, but one of which is that it’s so easy to get lost creating all this cool technology that can do so many things. Think of the scene in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where Trillian is showing Arthur around the Heart of Gold spaceship. She’s so excited by all the different technological gadgets that didn’t exist on Earth. While they’re cool, they are not what’s going to keep readers hooked into the book and they are not generally going to be the pieces that propel the story forward. So, even if you’re writing a hard science fiction piece, the technology still needs to be balanced with things like characterization, plot, and settings.

5.      Write it all down as you invent it.

This is probably the biggest thing I wish someone would have taught me before I got as far as I did with the Black Ops world. I found myself in the unfortunate position of having to constantly go back through the book looking for references to planets, to different pieces of technology, and even the curse words I mentioned earlier. This is even more important if you’re going to write more than one book, which I am in the Black Ops universe. Taking good notes about all the world building will save you a lot of time with making sure things are consistent within the book and across books.

            Bonus Tip: Science Fiction world building is a lot of work.

Yep, it is. Even though it’s a cool way to world build because you don’t have to worry as much about making sure specific details to real life places are accurate, it’s got its own challenges. See, because you can literally make it all up, there’s a type of paralysis that happens with it. A feeling of being overwhelmed by choices can happen. This means you have basically two approaches you can use. There’s the careful planner who will spend quite a bit of time detailing out all the aspects I mentioned and more before ever starting the story. Then there’s people like me. We just start writing and pray to whatever higher power that we don’t make too much of a mess with it. While the first method may produce elaborately detailed worlds and may resolve some of the consistency issues, the second can help generate a much more organic feel to the story. It also can help authors get to the story faster, though it does mean doing some research on the fly. Just make sure you don’t go into the story thinking science fiction world building is easy simply because you can make it all up. It’s perhaps some of the most challenging world building for that very fact.

So, there you have it. Five things I wish I would have been told while creating the Black Ops universe. I even threw in a bonus tip for you. Science fiction world building is great fun, but also challenging. I hope what I offered here helps and, as always, let me know how it goes!

Awesome. Thanks, Stacy! *MAKES NOTES* So once again that's Tattoos by the Splediferous Stacy Overby, available for preorder now, releasing on Dec. 15th published by our good friends over at Our Write Side Ink.

You can get your hot little hands on a copy from Amazon Kindle HERE, from Smashwords HERE, and from Draft 2 Digital HERE.

Want to follow Stacy on the various Social Medias and let her know what a Hoopy Frood she is? Sure you do. You can do that...

                Website: www.thisisnothitchhikersguide.com

                On Facebook at: www.facebook.com/thisinothitchhikersguide

                On Twitter at: www.twitter.com/dontpanic2011

                On Google+ at: https://plus.google.com/+StacyOverby

                On Instagram at: www.instagram.com/mamawisper78

                and on Pinterest at: www.pinterest.com/dontpanic2011

That's going to do it for now. Hope you guys enjoyed this Takeover Tuesday. We'll see you next time here on the Mountain Caller when I find something else to ramble about. Hehe.

Carry On Smartly, My Friends.