thegoldenseries

[thegoldenseries]

How I Make Fantasy Geography

There are few things more irritating than reading a book where it feels like the author has no idea where anything is. You don't know which city is east from where, the river you thought flowed south actually flows west, and everything's a mess. Worse, maybe you're writing along and suddenly realize you don't know if the sun is in your adventurer's eyes, because you don't know which way they're walking. Fear not! This guide will make fantasy geography easy.

The best place to start is always with what you want. Think about the important locations of your story and the terrain around them. We'll make up a few just to go through the post with. Let's say Beachtown is a coastal city, Holy Ruins are in a forest, Mountainburg is in the mountains, and Fieldville is in the plains.

Start thinking about the worldbuilding details you have in mind for each. For example, say Beachtown is always warm and sunny. It will probably be close to your world's equator. If the Holy Ruins are very cold all the time, they will be further away from it. In most western fantasy, the north is associated with cold and the south with warmth, so inversing these or even flipping it to east and west could be a great way to add some extra fantasy flavor to your worldbuilding!

Ask yourself how your cities get the resources they need. Historically, cities were built near bodies of water to provide irrigation for crops and hydration for animals and people. You might consider following the same example for Fieldville and place it near a natural spring (which is why so many cities are named Springfield) and have it be supported by surrounding farms. Maybe Beachtown has a way to purify saltwater for drinking, and fish is a large part of the local diet. Mountainburg might be near a mountain spring, and food may rely on hearty livestock or trade caravans.

Consider pulling from real-life geography as well. The US Midwest is home to huge swathes of plains, so you might look into that as an example for Fieldville. Fantasy affords you some options for creativity, but there's nothing wrong with pulling from real life, too!

Finally, lay things out in basic positions. You don't have to be super detailed, we're not making a map here! But having a general direction of where things are located will help your writing and add to your worldbuilding.

#writing advice #writing help #writing is hard #how to write #how to worldbuild #writers #writers on tumblr #writeblr

[thegoldenseries]

How I Deal With Burnout

Sometimes, it's not just writer's block, it's something even more sinister. The dreaded burnout. If you've never experienced this, lucky you, but if you have, you know just how challenging it can really be. I've burned myself out a couple times before, so here are my tips for handling it.

The worst thing about burnout is that it doesn't have to come from writing too much. You can get burnt out from any part of your life, and it can still affect your ability to write. In fact, it probably affects everything you're doing. Unfortunately, sometimes people try to treat writer's block and burnout the same way, but the two are very different.

The thing to remember about burnout is that it comes from stress and overburdening yourself, not from just being uninspired. The last thing you want to do to treat burnout is to try to just push through it, because not only will that not fix the issue, it can make it worse. Burnout isn't your "check engine" light, it's your warning to "service now."

The most important thing to do to handle burnout is rest. You've been burning the candle at both ends, and now's the time to finally snuff that flame. I know that's not possible to do completely--you're always going to have responsibilities at work, school, etc.--but you can limit how much you're doing. Take some of the pressure off to produce and be creative. Limit your responsibilities, and try to reconnect to your creative spirit (I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's the best way I can put it).

I'm not saying to put yourself on a full victorian rest cure, you should still be doing things you enjoy! Just don't put pressure on yourself to do them every day. If writing feels good and fun one day, then definitely do it! But then don't feel like you have to do it the next day if you're not feeling it.

Just make sure you take enough time to recover, but not so much that you start neglecting your responsibilities. I would recommend giving yourself a week or two, then checking back in and seeing how you're feeling. Still exhausted, completely uncreative, and totally burnt out? Take some more time.

We can't always avoid burnout. There are going to be times we get busy and people ask too much of us, but what we can do is know our limits better for next time, and try to avoid getting burnt out again.

Best of luck.

#writing advice #burnout #writing is hard #writing woes #writers #writers on tumblr #writeblr #female writers

[thegoldenseries]

How I Fight Writer's Block

It happens to the best of us. One day, the words are flowing, you're completely in the creative zone, and writing has never felt so easy. The next, you're staring at a document with nothing to say. Uh-oh. Writer's block. But since we're coming up on NaNoWriMo fast (and the last thing you want is writer's block in November) I thought I'd share my tips for how I fight writer's block.

First, ask yourself what's changed since you were writing easily. Maybe something came up in your personal life, and you're feeling stressed, so the creative juices just aren't flowing. Maybe you haven't gotten enough sleep, got sick, or some other physical ailment. If you're not taking care of yourself, sometimes your mind protests by denying you creativity. That's fine. Take a step back, take care of yourself. Try taking the You Feel Like Shit quiz for a quick check-up of your health.

Once you've eliminated those possibilities, it's pretty evident this isn't gonna be a quick fix a nap will solve. Time to break this block.

Try changing up your writing environment. This could be as big a change as taking your writing outside or as small a change as opening a window or shutting the light off.

Try turning on some music, or turning it off if you usually use it. Don't choose stuff with lyrics, at least not lyrics in a language you understand. You can check YouTube for some great composers like BrunehVille, Adrian von Ziegler, and Peter Crowley. You might even want to try my playlist here. Alternatively, just some ambient sound might help.

Try changing the font you're writing in, or the color. Pick a font you like, even if it's an insane calligraphy font you'd never write in.

Take some time to daydream. Turn on some music and make up animatics or music videos. Explore your world in other mediums, like art or music. Create AUs, do a quiz as one of your characters, write a little snippet that's completely not canon.

Write down a sentence. It doesn't have to be a good sentence, it just has to be there. See if you can write another one. See if that leads you to more.

If you've tried everything, it's probably not writer's block, it's probably burnout, which is a totally different thing with a different cause. I'll talk more about this in the next post.

#writing tips #writing help #writing is hard #writers block #writing advice #writers #writers on tumblr #female writers #writeblr

[thegoldenseries]

you remember when I brought up me potentially writing various guides to medicine how medicines and surgical techniques would’ve been applied through time with @ronniebox nearly two years ago?

well. that’s a thing that’s happening, now. The Medieval/High Fantasy Battle Medicine resource sheet is already finished and I’m starting on common medieval remedies, poultices & medicines. 

God have mercy on the journal article on PCR that I’ve got due  by the end of November. Anyway, I’ve saved it as a PDF, so if it’d be of use to anyone just let me know and I’ll send you a copy!

#yoooo #this could actually be super helpful for some people! #save a couple hours of googling y'all

[thegoldenseries]

Take as long as you need on your project. Rewrite it, redo it, take it apart and start again, whatever you think you're story needs. It's perfectly normal to take a long time on a project, especially if you really care about it and want it to be the best it can be.

#thissss 1000x #i was so worried to restart GM from the beginning #bc i'd spent years on that first draft #and now it's been four years since i started this whole thing #but seriously you'll thank yourself #listen to what your story needs #and do that #there's no right or wrong way to write

[thegoldenseries]

Writing Update: 10/26

Wow, it's been forever since I did one of these. I'm actually feeling motivated again (very excited for NaNoWriMo, trying to get everything in line for that) so I've been writing more than usual! Plus, I'm finally done with my job interviews, have work lined up for January, so I'm celebrating just a bit, lol. Here's what I've done!

Finalized my pantheon. It wasn't easy, and definitely not my favorite thing to do, but I know enough to reasonably run the religious world from here on out

Loooots of exploring character relationships and bonding. I know where these idiots are going, I just have to get them there.

Actually sat down and wrote a solid 3,700 words, if you can believe it

Did some side development for my antagonists, the Blackened Spire in particular, since he's going to become v plot-relevant in book 2

Building plans, how I hate thee. But in all seriousness, laid out some mental maps for battlegrounds

Thought a lot about fight scenes

Did some reading!

So pretty productive overall! If you'd like a little snippet of Kaylin and Riaglin worrying about our favorite mage, it's under the cut with the taglist!

“Do you mind if I ask you a more serious question? Completely off-topic.”

Kaylin’s voice had softened, and he glanced over to see she’d tilted her head upward to stare at the stars.

He followed her gaze and replied, “Go ahead.”

“It’s about Ty.”

He raised an eyebrow, forgetting she couldn’t see his face. “What about her?”

“I’m worried about her. But I don’t have a good way to, well, broach the subject, so I was hoping you could help.”

“I can try. No promises, though.”

“That’s all I can ask. But haven’t you wondered how Ty learned to fight?”

He glanced over at her. “Not really, I suppose. Why?”

“It’s just a little odd, isn’t it? I mean, she doesn’t seem like the type of person who would know how to do that. She’s got a head full of parchment and ink, as a friend of mine might say. I can’t figure out why she would’ve learned combat.”

His brow furrowed up at the sky. It was odd, now that she mentioned it. He’d just never bothered to think about it before.

“I’ll see if I can’t ask her on the road tomorrow,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Taglist: @thewritingace @contes-de-rheio @crystallized-ink @hysteriwah @chazzawrites @hysteriwah

#golden mountain #wip update #wip #writers #writers on tumblr #writeblr #female writers #fantasy #lgbt fantasy

[thegoldenseries]

why your story matters: because you wrote it

#remember: only you can write your story #there may be similar stories #or stories that have the same message #but none of them are yours #because you didn't write them

[thegoldenseries]

How I Create Fantasy Worship

So, you've built your pantheon, you've got all your most important gods developed and the rest laid out. Now, you just have to introduce them to your world and characters. We've all seen the classic evil god with worshipers in hooded robes, the good god with followers in shining armor, etc. But how can we build this ourselves (without leaning on tropes too much)?

Of course, you do NOT need to do this for all your gods. Worship is probably only necessary for a couple deities in your pantheon, and adding more can drag down your plot with too many unnecessary details.

You should try to dispel as many preconceived notions of worship as possible. Being born in America, my default for prayer is clasped hands and a bowed head, but you should try not to let that affect you. New pantheons mean new gods, which means new methods of worship.

First, ask yourself how many "degrees" of worship you want. For example, Christianity commonly involves personal prayer, which can be done by yourself at any time, anywhere, but also involves going to church, which requires a very specific person, place, and usually a time. At the very least you will probably want something that is not terribly formal and can be done by yourself, like a prayer. Then, you can add more on top of that.

How many degrees of worship might be dependent on the type of pantheon you're using. To use Golden Mountain as an example, minor gods can usually be contacted by personal prayer, since they likely have very few followers, so they are more likely to hear what you have to say. Larger gods with more worshipers are going to get a lot of individual prayers, so it's unlikely your message will stand out there, but a larger gathering might get their attention.

The number of degrees of worship should also depend on your population's access to religion. Large, spread-out farming communities are probably less likely to have frequent group meetings, as travel is not the easiest, and you have to leave the farm. As such, group meetings might happen once a year, or not at all. For close-knight, small communities, you might get more frequent group worship.

I would recommend moving up in formality as you add degrees of worship. The first might be a more informal, personal event, like prayer. The second might be slightly more formal, like reading aloud from a holy book. The third might involve a migration to a holy site or a complex ritual, so on and so forth.

You should also ask yourself how impactful prayer really is. Are gods very close to humanity, and as such prayers are often heard and granted? Or are the gods not likely to interfere in the affairs of mortals, and granting prayers happens once in a blue moon?

Now that's all well and good, you say, but how, exactly are my worshipers supposed to pray?

The type of worship that your followers will perform is going to depend on the god they're worshiping. I recommend tying your deity to a specific element. Worship to a river god might include water whereas worship of a god of death might require blood sacrifice. To use Golden Mountain, Elras (god of traveling justice) is tied to the sun, so it's best to pray on sunny days, or with a fire nearby if the sun isn't out. This is because Yarissa, the goddess he works under, is the daughter of a sun goddess, so the whole branch of justice is tied to the sun in some way.

Now, you want to know what that worship looks like. For different characters, worship might look very different. Ask yourself why a character or group might devote themselves to this god, and how that might tie to the ways they worship. Ask yourself what your god likes and dislikes.

Explore the possibilities of holy books, words, sites, and symbols. Almost every religion has a symbol that they are easily recognized by, like the Jewish Star of David.

Let's do a quick example together using a different god from Golden Mountain, Rahalia. Rahalia is a fire goddess who likes spices, sugar, and alcohol. She is most often worshipped by blacksmiths. Her son is a god of songs.

Rahalia's symbol could be a stylized flame. She might be worshipped by burning spices or alcohol or throwing some sugar into the fires of a forge. She might have a song that is sung to praise her. To pray, one might write their wishes on a piece of paper, then burn it, or scratch their prayer on a log to be tossed on the fire.

Here are some common elements of worship to get you started. Pick and choose to your liking:

Songs

Prayers

Dances

Holy books/Sacred writing

Sermons

Holy symbols

Holy sites/grounds

Holy people (prophets, clerics, saints, anyone who might be described as "enlightened)

Meditation

Religious art

Candles

Houses of worship (like temples)

Shrines

Sacrifice

Cleansing

And more! If it exists or has existed in a religion (or if you just think it's cool), throw it in! Anything is fair game.

#wymakis worldbuilding #wymakis religions #worldbuilding #fantasy worldbuilding #fantasy #fantasy religions #how to worldbuild #fantasy writers #female writers #writers #writeblr #writers on tumblr

[thegoldenseries]

How I Make Fantasy Pantheons

As someone who doesn't have a whole lot of experience in the many worlds of religion, I've always struggled a bit with creating pantheons for use in fantasy. For Golden Mountain, though, I thought it was finally time to crack down and get it done. Here's how I did it.

First, I started by deciding the basics: how many gods? Monotheistic religions can be very simple to create, but might not work for all settings. My setting required a polytheistic religion to work. However, this won't be true for every setting; maybe a monotheistic or duotheistic religion is exactly what you need. Ask yourself what fits best with the world and lore you've already made.

Since I wanted a polytheistic religion, I then had to decide what kind of structure I was dealing with. Here, a model religion to base yourself off of is great. For example, a lot of polytheistic religions will take inspiration from the Greeks or the Egyptians. I knew I wanted a branching structure for my religion, so I referenced mine off of the Ancient Greek pantheon.

From there, I took a top-down approach. Who are the most powerful gods, and why? This should be deeply tied to your worldbuilding. Since my religious followers are primarily farmers, the most important gods are gods of water, earth, sun, and animals. They hold the most power in my pantheon. However, there are still other gods that wouldn't necessarily fall under these broad categories. Other gods might include gods of the arts, gods of emotions, like rage, or gods of war. This is where your reference pantheon can really come into play, telling your what people have chosen to worship in real life. You can pick and choose what applies best to your setting. For example, a desert population might not put much emphasis on a god of snow.

Remember: you probably don't have to flesh out every single god in your pantheon. Feel free to develop only the most relevant branches.

In Golden Mountain, Kaylin is a follower of Elras, a god of traveling justice. Elras is a minor god under Yarissa, the patron and mother of justice, and she is under Briccan, goddess of goodness. Since I need the justice branch, I've fleshed it out way more than I have my other lines.

You might find it helpful to create a sort of tree diagram if there is a lot of connection between your gods. Alternatively, a loosely related pantheon might look like a pyramid. For more variety in your religions, you might choose to make yours look more like a diamond, a square, etc.

This is just the pantheon part, though! We still have to get into religious worshipping, but we'll do that at a different time!

#wymakis worldbuilding #wymakis religions #worldbuilding #fantasy worldbuilding #fantasy religions #how to worldbuild #writers #writers on tumblr #writeblr #female writers

[thegoldenseries]

How I Made a Fantasy Language (Easy)

As we all know, I'm sort of a worldbuilding nut, so of course, I was going to make my own languages! The Dwarven language in Golden Mountain (Otazvan) is very simple to make and write in, so I thought I'd share how I did it.

First, you'll need the list of phonetic sounds for whatever language you're translating from. Otazvan's root language is English, but I have plans to make more complex languages that aren't English-based.

Next, you need to decide what you want your language to sound like. If you're not sure, come up with some names that might come from that language, see what's similar about them. For example, Otazvan is a pretty harsh-sounding language, whereas an elven language might sound smoother on the tongue. It depends on what you want.

Assign each phonetic sound to a new sound. I made a table with English sounds on one side and Otazvan sounds on the other. Since I wanted Otazvan to sound harsh, I added a lot of z, v and t sounds to break the words up. For example, the "ing" sound becomes "nak" and the "ar" sound becomes "ax".

Once you're done, you can translate from English to your new language by breaking down the phonetic pronunciation of your root language word and translating sound-by-sound to a new language. Like this:

Hello

=huh-eh-ll-o

=uk-eh-zuh-oi

=ukezoi

And you're done! Don't be afraid to spell things differently than they're pronounced, but I wouldn't recommend doing this too often, since the reader won't get to hear it spoken and will pronounce it as it is spelled. You can even add your own grammar rules, etc. to really make the language your own!

#wymakis worldbuilding #wymakis languages #worldbuilding #making languages #fantasy languages #writer #writers #writers on tumblr #female writers

[thegoldenseries]

Golden Mountain Incorrect Quotes

Gotten here

Kaylin: Are we really going to let Airathron keep Lifrai?

Ty: We kept Riaglin.

Ty: If you took a shot for every time you made a bad decision, how drunk would you be? Kaylin: Maybe a bit tipsy? Lifrai: Drunk. Riaglin: Wasted. Airathron: Dead.

Riaglin: Why isn’t the statue smirking at me? Lifrai: It isn’t smirking at anyone, they’re all just imagining it. Ty: Three of us saw it, Lifrai. How do you explain that? Lifrai: *points at Kaylin* Sleep deprivation. *points at Ty* Paranoia. *points at Airathron* Delusional personality disorder.

Kaylin, talking about Ty: Is this a friend of yours, Riaglin? Riaglin: Kind of? Not really. They're in my life and there's nothing I can do about it.

Kaylin: Riaglin isn't talking to me. Ty: Enjoy it while it lasts.

Ty: What’s your favorite color? Lifrai: Stop asking stupid questions. Ask me something logical and mature. Ty: How many moles of sodium bicarbonate are needed to neutralize 0.8ml of sulfuric acid at STP? Lifrai: My favorite color is pink.

Airathron: No, this is not a mess. You know what I consider a mess? Kaylin: Your life? Airathron: I- well yes, but-

Ty: This is a very powerful artifact. You’d be messing with some forces we don’t fully understand. Riaglin: That sounds like a dare to me. Ty: Oh my god.

#golden mountain #incorrect quotes #ty pherenice #riaglin garnithart #lifrai crysriver #airathron rial #kaylin smith #writeblr #writers on tumblr #female writers

[thegoldenseries]

Sorry for the Hiatus!

Hi everybody!

I'm so sorry about the hiatus, life got crazy and I ended up in a bit of a tailspin without any time to myself, really. But I'm back and hopefully will be more active in the future, especially with NaNo coming up! Idk if I'll hit the full goal, but it should be a good incentive to write more, and I'm really looking forward to it!

Thanks for your patience!

[thegoldenseries]

Last Line Tag

Thank you for tagging me @harps-for-days! Here is the latest line from Golden Mountain:

“If we aren’t hunting her, then what are we doing about the Tracker?” Ty asked, drawing their attention.

Kaylin could see that Ty was doing her best to be brave. Her posture was perfect, chin held as high as her stitches would allow. But she caught the nervous movement of her fingers picking at a loose thread in the wraps around her arms and saw the spark of fear in her eyes.

Poor Ty. It doesn't get any easier from here for her.

Tagging @chazzawrites, @ashen-crest, @surroundedbypearls, and @oblolongue, if any of you want to play!

#i'm so excited to see the end! #i have no doubt it will be really good #other people's wips #oblolongue #wip: alchemists

[thegoldenseries]

Last Line Tag

Thank you for tagging me @harps-for-days! Here is the latest line from Golden Mountain:

“If we aren’t hunting her, then what are we doing about the Tracker?” Ty asked, drawing their attention.

Kaylin could see that Ty was doing her best to be brave. Her posture was perfect, chin held as high as her stitches would allow. But she caught the nervous movement of her fingers picking at a loose thread in the wraps around her arms and saw the spark of fear in her eyes.

Poor Ty. It doesn't get any easier from here for her.

Tagging @chazzawrites, @ashen-crest, @surroundedbypearls, and @oblolongue, if any of you want to play!

#tag games #golden mountain

[thegoldenseries]

Tag game: OC before and after

Tagged by @thegoldenseries and @vellichor-virgo - thank you! The tag game uses this picrew to create your WIP’s MC at the beginning and end of the story :)

This is Osira at the beginning, and during a certain ~transformation~ phase in the story where she temporarily becomes a priestess for ✨reasons✨, as she wont’ve changed in appearance much between beginning and end besides being worse for wear.

Tagging @writing-is-a-martial-art, @hiddenhistoria and anyone else who wants to if you haven’t done it already :)

#oh she's so pretty! #i already know she would be one of my favorites lol #thank you for sharing! #chazzawrites

[thegoldenseries]

You reblogged the post about random asks and I saw it, so what are your OCs favorite colors? And why if they have a reason?

Hello! Thank you so much, I always welcome random asks!

Kaylin's favorite color is yellow; it reminds her of sunflowers and honey and her favorite time of year. It's also a color she associates heavily with her god, Elras.

Airathron's favorite color is orange. One of their fondest memories is splitting a tangerine with Morvira while they were on a hunt. Plus, it's a color that looks good on them.

Lifrai's favorite color is green. It's the color of life, of thriving things, and it reminds him of home.

Riaglin's favorite color is red, one of the most common colors of garnet. It's reminiscent of home, but more importantly it's his clan's color, so it's the connection to his family that makes it special.

Ty's favorite color is cream. It's the color of parchment, and it's a nice, neutral color. It also pairs nicely with her regular blue robes.

#squad's all here #ty pherenice #kaylin smith #airathron rial #lifrai crysriver #riaglin garnithart #golden mountain #wip #poore-choice-of-words

[thegoldenseries]

Reblog this if you're a writeblr and you wouldnt mind:

Random asks about your wips

Being tagged in tag games by people you don't know yet

Strangers complimenting your work

Fellow writeblrs striking up conversations

Interaction with new writeblrs in general

I see so many folks afraid to jump in to the community, so hopefully this post will lay out like a welcome mat for new folks to come say hi :)

#i absolutely LOVE these things! #i'm always open to meeting new people