Yet another old idea comes back...

[wallwalker]

First it was a very old idea about the aftermath of Ragnarok and the ghosts of gods (that's sort of stalled right now until I can play lots of catchup on my ScriptFrenzy project which I am probably doing wrong, anyway.)

Now, thanks to another community, I have another rather self-indulgent idea clamoring for attention that I haven't touched since college. I distinctly remember writing page after page of this in one of my old notebooks in one of those ridiculous marbled gel pens that I used to love so much - they were very neat looking, but not very practical. Tended to fade and become nearly unreadable almost at once.

But I digress.

The community is kinked, a kink-based big bang that just started up. It's a strange thing that I'm actually thinking about signing up for it, considering how bad I am at writing anything that could be called remotely explicit, but the community does say that works don't have to be sexually explicit, so I think I'm okay.

The concept is fairly simple, and that's why I'm not sure I can stretch it out that long. The whole concept is that a powerful sorceress and ruler of a large city is obsessed, sexually, with her most dangerous enemy, a man who was once handsome and boyish but who was warped by a dark power that he served into something monstrous. She's so obsessed with him that she summons a subservient monstrous being of her own and uses magic to shape his features as much as she can to match her enemy - she can't make him entirely human, though, so he is still recognizably a monster, just with his face and some of his human features. (I once requested a picture of this character, and someone took me up on it. I just wish I still had it, but I think it's not online anymore, and I lost my copy after some computer or another died. Pity; it was a very close likeness to what I had in mind.)

My original idea was to write this from the point of view of the monster - having to deal with this strange new form, along with being forced to rely entirely on this woman and her whims. Having to deal with the strange new appetites that she gave him as part of shaping him into this form so that he would want to be with her, to please her in any manner that she asks him for, with no real regard to his own welfare. That would be the basic idea at first, since he would eventually end up losing some of that conditioning over time - his mistress would be under stress because of the war, and the spells would start to wear off, and things would get a lot more complicated.

The problem with that is that it limits what I can actually do with the idea, since I see this creature as basically being trapped and held on a very short leash. I can't really talk about much outside of his experiences if I'm writing from his point of view, and it's hard to get ten thousand words out of a character whose world is so very small. I would basically have to write it from the point of view of the woman as well if I want to pull this off. This would give me a lot more options - instead of just the themes dealing with the monster himself, I could also deal with her own obsession with her enemy and the way that she can craft her own reality around her.

This would help with the word count, but still runs me smack into the same problem I had before. I haven't done any worldbuilding, so I don't know what to do. I suppose that I could try to do this on the fly, make notes as I go, see if I can come up with a cohesive world as I go, do lots of editing and re-editing before sending it to the artists and betas. I want to do this, I really do, which is the only reason I'm considering it, since it will not be easy.

The only other thing that irritates me about this situation is that this challenge is going on at the same time as hardmode, and I don't know if I can do both at once. But I want to. -_-'

Comments

[cypher]

...that sounds deliciously creepy! (and I find myself going "oh, the poor monster" based on the summary, which, er. my sympathies, let me show you them!)

*cheers for~*

[wallwalker]

(Ha, you commented before I could even finish editing the post. Speedy!)

Yes, I think that "poor monster" is a fairly appropriate response, considering the sort of people he's being used by. ^^;

So, um, have you ever had to deal with this issue, not having enough worldbuilding done? How do you deal with it? Because whenever I try to do worldbuilding I end up getting bogged down in it, but when I try to write without it I end up being lost because I don't have a frame of reference. There has to be a happy medium here. ^^;

[cypher]

I am terrible at having enough worldbuilding done when I start stuff!

But then, I am also pretty terrible at finishing big projects, too, so. *cough* I am not sure how good my strategies are.

In the best case, I find that I build outward from crucial details that are relevant to the story -- Character X is really invested in something, so I have to figure out where that thing fits in (the project I was doing this past NaNo worked like that; one of my characters was trans, and knowing that about him meant I had to figure out what kind of a social role there was for trans people in his culture, and that was how I found my way in to figuring out how their religion worked). I don't know; would that help at all?

[lassarina]

prrrrrrrrrr. I approve of this.

I would say for worldbuilding, get the big thematic element of your world--is it power? sexual freedom? is it a world of brute force or a world of intrigue?--and then see what happens as you write. (This is typically how I flesh out worlds that don't have a lot of building in them, anyway.)

[wallwalker]

Hmm. Definitely intrigue for this woman's domain. She hardly ever does anything directly. *plots*

I'm going to give it a shot. I just need to remember to actually sign up!

[gamera]

Thirding that this idea sounds really neat!

Perhaps worldbuild as you go by building what you need as you need it, i.e. whenever you feel lost it's time to sit down and expand your frame of reference before going on? (The main downside to this would be that you'd need to keep really good notes, and edit for consistency pretty viciously when everything's done.)

[wallwalker]

I do similar things these days, so that might work! (It's usually plot- and not worldbuilding-related; I hardly ever write anything all in one sitting these days, so sometimes I'll begin a section with a note saying something like, "Okay, instead of having dinner at the Inn which doesn't make as much sense in this universe, she offers to take him for a walk around the outskirts of the town. I'll go back and rewrite that scene later." And then I'll go on, and then go back and rewrite. I have to do things like that; otherwise I end up with lols-y things, like a character who has collapsed on the floor and never got back up spinning on his heels to get into some other character's face in the narrative.)

[stealth_noodle]

Ooh, I like this idea.

Re: worldbuilding, I'm a "plan the broad strokes, do the basic research, and just see what happens as you go" sort of person, since otherwise I get bogged down forever. If you're not averse to rewriting/editing and keeping careful notes, I think worldbuilding on the fly is totally feasible for this.

[wallwalker]

Perhaps I should get a notebook and hand-write notes as I go. *ponders*

[stealth_noodle]

Back when I used Windows, I used Roughdraft all the time; you can arrange it so that you have a notes pad in a side pane, which is really handy for making notes as you go without fussing with alt-tab and such. If you're on a Windows system, it might be worth trying.

[wallwalker]

Also, love the icon!