Worldbuilding
by ilonaandrews on Oct.06, 2009, under Ann Aguirre and Ilona Andrews
To dance from Ann’s topic on Steampunk: I get a lot of worldbuilding questions. Some of them are a little bit trippy. I once got an email explaining to me that the author of the email was writing an urban fantasy and could I please point out to him which elements of my worldbuilding I considered as mine. The answer is I consider everything I write mine, odd duck that I am.
But back to worldbuilding, sometimes people want to know how to create a world that is fantastic but doesn’t stretch the reader’s capacity for suspending belief. In reality, you can stretch the reader’s capacity for disbelief to colossal proportions. You can build a most fantastic world, if you take care to make it logical and follow its own rules. See Terry Pratchett 
I typically come up with the world first, and let the characters grow from it; but you can do it the other way around as well. Start with a new character and build the world around him or her, as long as everything you do has a reason. Every thing you stick into your world will affect your characters. If the character lives in the desert, the water will be precious. If he lives on an archipelago, he probably can swim. But making a kick-ass swimmer hero in the middle of Dune-like planet presents a bit of the problem. Where is he going to go to dazzle us with his swimming mojo?
Sometimes people throw a bunch of cool elements into the setting, but the elements make no sense together. Like adding steampunk or vampires or whatever is hot at the moment into a storyline clearly not designed to accommodate them. I once saw an aspiring writer on one of the writing-related boards state that she was writing an urban fantasy and she was loading it with sex because that’s what sells.
First of all, assuming that sex is necessary to sell is a mistake. I’m up to three books in my first series and nobody had sex yet. Doesn’t seem to be hurting me. Second of all, a UF with a lot of sex is likely (but not necessarily) to edge into the territory of paranormal romance: different agents, different publishers, different book buyers. PRN is not UF and vice versa. The new series, which you see on the sidebar, basically sits exactly on the line between uf and PRN and everyone from agent to the reviewers had kittens trying to figure out how to classify the thing. And third and most important, if you don’t like writing sex and you’re just sticking it in there so the book will “sell”, chances are you’re writing bad sex and there is nothing more cringe-worthy than a bad sex scene.
If you put it into your draft, make sure the story can’t survive without it. 
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On The Edge by Ilona Andrews « Janicu’s Book Blog
October 8th, 2009 on 12:02 am[...] a fan of Andrews’ detailed world building, because it’s so well thought out. Like they’ve said, “You can build a most fantastic world, if you take care to make it logical and follow its [...]
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October 6th, 2009 on 4:24 pm
Agreed. Nothing worse than bad sex or…..er sex done badly. Either way, you don’t have that problem
October 6th, 2009 on 4:47 pm
What brk_nlssn said!
October 6th, 2009 on 6:02 pm
Ilona is so right. She does a great job of creating character driven UF in a rich and fascinating context. Her world building is first right and is a great home for fans of Jim Butcher, Kim Harrison and those who have finally left Laurel K. Hamilton after one orgy too many.
Her new series is indeed closed to PRN, but is still terrific.
October 6th, 2009 on 6:03 pm
Umm…first RATE (cringe)
October 6th, 2009 on 7:16 pm
I agree about sex being the main seperation of UF and PRM. And it is not needed to carry an awesome story. I enjoy reading both genres. HOWEVER with that being said…PLEASE don’t tell me your going to leave us in suspense for much longer! Jeez after the OMG ending in Magic Strikes I don’t know how much more I can take, I need some Kate/Curran action asap! …I do believe (if I recall correctly) Patricia Briggs finally gave in on book 4 of the Mercy Thompson series!!! Fingers crossed you followed the same pattern. lol =)
October 6th, 2009 on 7:58 pm
You’ve certainly had some white hot sexual tension in the first three books. As you’re keenly aware, often that is more effective than actual sex scenes. However, I agree with Nikki — here’s hoping Kate and Curran find some time to consummate their desires. Whether their relationship survives that consummation is another thing entirely.
October 8th, 2009 on 9:30 am
One little tip that might help in world building and credibility is to match the behavioural style of each character to someone you know. You can then ask yourself the question, ‘How would that person react to or behave in the situation I have created?’ It also helps to prevent character behaviour drift as the story unfolds.
I used this technique in my recently published book, Randolph’s Challenge Book One - The Pendulum Swings. A small added benefit is my friends have all had to buy a copy to see if they can identify themselves - which, of course, they can’t because I’ve only borrowed their behavioural styles not their physical attributes or other aspects of their personality.
As for the sex thing. My main character has several failed attempts to satisfy his sexual inclinations. Doing this uses the ’sex thing’ without having to actually deal with it in a full and comprehensive way.
Chris Warren
Author and Freelance Writer
Randolph’s Challenge Book One - The Pendulum Swings