SPEAKER_01 0:00

I had no idea at that point. Sparkle. I bought them to thought your blood. You know that whole thing, right? Welcome to the World Kiln Podcast, where we discuss everything world building. I'm Clayton Corsions, a world builder of 30 plus years from multiple DD settings, including home to the eight-year-long campaign I'm currently DMing, to my 25-year-long passion project book series.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

I'm Tim Harris, author of the A-Learn Saga and Passionate World Building Consumer Designer. On this podcast, we share our ideas, our breakthroughs, and the lessons we've learned in our experiences as world builders.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

In this episode, we'll be discussing general world building, focusing on the question: what is one of the biggest lessons you've learned about world building? Let's get in the build. So I'm going to direct this one to you first because I because especially because of your book having just come out, and I know that you're having to deal with a bunch of stuff on dealing with book one, two, and three. I think you should go first with this.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Okay. Well, uh, I think the biggest lesson is that you don't need to build everything all at once before you start. Um doing that is overwhelming for one.

unknown 1:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Two, sometimes you get lost in the in the in all the details you've created as you're trying to write the story or create this thing that sometimes you have to change it in between things as it is anyway. So you start like, I don't know how many times I I created the Aylorin saga, and what I wanted it to be wasn't exactly how it ended up. So, like, I love magic systems, just how they all work. That's what the crystals were supposed to be. They were supposed to be magical sources that they could use when you know someone had one, they could use Bollorean as like a kind of a druid would use magic. It's made for life and growth and and renewal and things like that. So you'd have this crystal that was more of a nature-based crystal that could use magic that way. You know, the way that I had them set up originally for all of these crystals were based for that base. Well, it it more worked out that they were more of a natural occurring crystal that created an energy source that manipulated the world, it created things in the world that helped grow. So, you know, like your Valorian would help maybe manifest plants and things like that faster. Like it would help with growth and help decay things. So not having everything built all at once helps a lot with trying to make sure that um making sure that when you are building, that you're not building too much and then not having and then having to kind of rework a lot of the stuff that you're already doing. Um so that's kind of my biggest take is not needing to complete absolutely everything. Um is hard. It it is hard because you do want to have a lot of it, but and also that that really does take a lot of mind power to remember and have so many notes of like, okay, I'm trying to write this story, let me go back through this because I know I wrote something about this whole history on this person, but I also don't need all that for this book. Like, I don't need the history of like say how a lich became a lich.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

You know, like this doesn't have anything to do with the story that I'm telling. So, do you need it? It's cool to have it, but you know, starting out with what you do need, also knowing how my story is gonna go and how it's gonna end. Did I have once I was done with book one, did I have book two? I knew what I wanted to do with book two, but did I have it all written out and ready to go and all the different things that would happen and how that world how the continent that it they're gonna be going to is put together and how it interacted with things? I had no idea at that point. I I knew I knew a good portion of like how I wanted it to go, and I know where each book is going to be, and yes, it's actually gonna be growing throughout the world. So as you're going through this whole series, you're going to different continents, you're going to different places that you wouldn't have gone to before. So each one's gonna tell you about something different. Um, so it's nice not having everything already done.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah, yeah, because you don't have to keep track of it all.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

And it doesn't, it I don't feel like I have to constantly go back and forth on like, okay, what was it I needed to put in here? I had this already set up, this is the history that I had, and then trying to work that into your story instead of building your story on top of what you and building your story with it. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, absolutely. Um I think another thing would be like if once you establish a rule, I think breaking it should have a reason or consequence behind that. So if there's something that you created in the world, if there's not a reason behind while why you need it, you better have a good reason why you don't want it. Kind of like when we were talking about um the arbitrary versus Oh, the meaningful versus arbitrary?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you already had something meaningful, if you're gonna break a rule in there that's that actually means something behind there, make sure it means something because people are gonna notice that and be like, well, why is this a why didn't you keep this? Um this was a big thing here, why isn't it anymore?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

So you've got a discussion on detail.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Right. So you should have a good reason behind while why that's no longer a pertinent thing. You know, maybe it's just the story, maybe it is important, but it's not important to the story. You just need to let people know why that's not as important here as it was, you know, in your world in general, right? Um so what about you? What do you think is the biggest lesson that you've learned?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Uh so the biggest lesson that I learned it's kind of a punch in the gut. Um and it's something that unfortunately there are a lot of people who understand it, but there's also a great number of people who don't understand this. I don't know. I know I'm gonna catch hike for this. Your idea is not original. It's been done before. But with that, you can learn from it. So there's an old adage, there's nothing new under the sun. Right? Um your story concept and not just you, just people in general, right? Whatever it is that you're developing, whatever it is that you're creating, that's you're trying to tell the story. At its base, the concept's already been done at some point. Right. Um Star Wars A New Hope is um based off of the hero's journey, which is which is a structure for epic tales. Right. So a lot of a lot of a lot of um stories, a lot of movies, they follow that that particular arc um which are bullet points and you hit certain points, and as as the story progresses, as the protagonist progresses, there's certain things that they encounter at certain times. The base concept for pretty much everything has already been done.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

What about uh if you created a story that started that way, but the villains actually ended up winning?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Well, there's pl there's plenty of there's plenty of stories where the villains win. Um but that being said, your take on it is yours, and your take on that concept is original. As long as you're not plagiarizing. Um now, with all that, I've got some other bullet points written out about how to take just kind of uh if you're starting out with a story, you're starting out with something new, or you're wanting to develop something new, then there's some things to take into consideration. One, create a new take or an angle. Alright, so take a take a tried and true concept. So let's say um take vampires, okay, for example. Um you have three movies come to mind. The first is Anne Rice. So like Interview with a vampire, uh, the vampire Lestat. Okay. That's her take on vampires. Everybody knows what vampires are, they've been around for a long time. You have the movie Nasseratu, right? Um, which is I believe where the whole tale of vampires came from. Now, Dracula is Vlad the Impaler. I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the concept of vampires. Immortal drinking blood, all that jazz. Um the next movie is the Blade series. Right? Um they follow a lot of the same tropes in terms of you know, garlic, silver, decapitatum, drink blood, they can't go out in sunlight. Same thing. Same concept, different taste.

unknown 10:31

Right?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Following different a different story. Now, the third one is Twilight. Sparkle. Okay. That's taking that's a new take on vampires. Because one, they're out in daylight. I mean, just because it's overcast doesn't eliminate the fact that there's UV rays, but they're still out in daylight. Now they can't hit direct sunlight or they sparkle.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Have you actually seen there's another take. Have you ever seen the show Van Helsing? No. So the show Van Helsing is. Are you talking about the anime? No. This is a series. It's like got like five seasons, I think is what they did before they stopped. Well, the whole take on that one is that Van Helsing is actually a female, Vanessa Helsing. Vanessa Helsing's blood is actually the exact opposite of a vampire's. So when they bite her, they become human. If you want to stay updated on new episodes or world building info, go to our website, theworldkin.com, and sign up for our email notifications. As a thank you, we'll send you a special gift to help in your next world building project. Now, back to the forge. Not only that, wow, that's that's definitely different, but because they mixed, so in this case, they mixed one of the elder um one of the elder vampires' blood with a Van Helsing, and the Van Helsing became um it became like a mixed blood, and then they it made Vanessa Helsing, and then of course her sister and all this other stuff, made her have a different reaction to the blood. So now her blood can actually is a cure, right? Well, in the long run of this whole story, the actual story, because in the very end of it, they meet Dracula. Dracula is the female. Dracula is not a guy, Dracula is a female, and the way that they did it, it was just it was a really good sense of like they even got to the point where these vampires had a mutation in them that they became stronger, and light wouldn't kill them. They could go out and any time of day or night, and they would be able to be, they wouldn't burn. So there became, and then of course, anybody who got changed back from a vampire by Vanessa had tainted blood, so no vampire would like drink it, wouldn't do a thing. But it ended up being where um where that blood, he couldn't be they couldn't be turned back into a vampire either.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Oh, so it was kind of like an inoculation to becoming a vampire. Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

So again, there's another. So they've uh again to just kind of go back with your stories here, people can literally take a story about vampires and rework it to make it their own.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Well, and then and that's so like the the next point that I that I have is altering a common detail, right? So like um the thing about Dracula being a woman. Everybody knows Dracula, guy, Count Dracula, you know, they think Bella Lagosi, um the look, you're glad you know that whole thing, right? Um sorry, I just I also just thought of Hotel Transylvania. Adam's in there. I don't say blah, blah, blah. Um, there's another take. But that's what I'm saying. You could you can take a comment just like I don't want to be I don't want people to be discouraged by the fact because again, this was this was a hard thing for me to realize and for me to understand that it's not a bad thing. Your concept has been done, right? The the the story of good versus evil or the the the murder mystery, like concepts and genres, like as a general rule, those have everything's been done. But your take is what makes it different. You know, alter a common common detail. Everybody knows Dracula's a guy. Everybody knows Dracula's a man. Not in this show, it's a woman, right? Van Helsing is a man in the story, in in Bram Stoker's Dracula, right? Not in this, it's a woman, right? Um, so that's that's taking a common detail and turning it. That gives intrigue, that gives interest, right? You're like, huh, all right, that's a little different. It was a great concept. I loved it. As much as I do not like Twilight at all, it was an interesting twist, right? It was an interesting take on a common detail, the sun thing, which everybody has endlessly made fun of Stephanie Meyer and Twilight for. Glitter vamps, right? Um, that was altering a common detail. They can't be out in the sun. Well, maybe it's not that they can't be out in the sun, maybe it's just the sun does something to them that would immediately give them away. Aside from them just turning to ash, like most other vampire stories will tell you. This was, oh, they sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight. Humans don't do that. Okay, well, I mean, ultimately, ultimately, the Twilight series is just a twisted love triangle.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

You know what? She did have a good twist on the werewolf thing. That was and the reason that they came into being, that was a that was a good twist for you know altering a common detail. One thing I did like that she did do that made it very unique from most vampires is that there were certain vampires that had abilities that technically were partly human abilities. You had a human ability, but it never became you you didn't it didn't manifest as something strong until she did like um like uh what was it? Edward's ability. He could not read um, was telepathy? Yes, he couldn't read her mind. Yeah. And but the problem is is when she became a vampire, she could shield, which was her ability, like she could do that prior to.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Um, you know, like so they had the ability as a human, technically, not that they could use it per se, but and I think that's the thing, is it was it was an innate ability in humans that they didn't know they had or the ability to utilize, but once they were given vampiric blood, whatever her methodology was, her reasoning behind it, once they were bitten and were turned, now they had access to that ability, right? Like um, the other one is um the uh the cousin, the the cousin who could generate electric fields. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right when Bella's learning how to control her field. She kept using zapping Edward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Um right, so so like and the one that could handle elemental, like could deal with the elements. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That one was powerful, you know? Um well look at look at um uh uh Jane.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Look at Jane's ability where she could inflict pain just by saying it and like looking at the person, um, or her brother, who could create these like ghostly it was like a fog that made them all it was kind of the same thing, it would kind of like nullify them or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

But yeah, it was like this fog that they noticed, and then she could shield, and then the fog would go up and above the shield and all that stuff. Or uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Ashley Green's character.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

The psychic abilities, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Uh well, no, she had precognition.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

That's what it was. Um she could see the future, though. Like all these possibles, not necessarily she can manipulate it enough.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

And again, it's I'm a bashing up Stephanie Meyer. Let me let me be very clear. I'm not bashing up Stephanie Meyer the Twilight series. I've got the it was a great, it was a great thing, world building things, like considering that's what we're about is world building. Like, I will always give credit where credit is due. I don't have to personally like something to be able to give it credit for its ability to do something. And one of the things Stephanie Meyer did was she had really good world building, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Um I really loved the the world building when they actually talked about, I think it was in the third third book or but it was where they talked with the Indian tribes and gave the whole background of why they ended up getting the spirit of their wolf brothers, and they ended up merging with them to become these wolves that would kill vampires. And it was the whole background behind how that ended up happening and how one of the girls, the chief's wife or whatever, ended up getting killed by a vampire, and the chief, they could move, they could go between spirit and non-spirit, and then they ended up using their spirit, he someone else took over his his body, the chief's body. And he ended up or no either way, it was like maybe it was the wife's body. But someone's they could they could take over and they were taking over the body, and they ended up she ended up killing herself because she needed to kill herself for that other spirit to not be in her body, kind of thing. And then that's what ended up being able to be transferred into the wolf's body, and then they could become part wolf, and they merged with each other. And then they got this, you know, wolf they could turn into werewolves technically, that would help fight off the vampires. So but it would only manifest if they were around.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Well then like the next point that I have is like adding a new element. Right. That that which uh we've been talking about ha having each vampire have their own unique gift. Right. Because she she took a lot a lot of these other things. Um she took a basic common idea of vampires and she altered a common detail. She added new and a new she added a new element. Um another thing I have is it can add a bizarre twist, right? Um so again, the the whole sparkle and sunlight thing is a bizarre twist. It's not just altering a common.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

idea but it's also a bizarre twist it's something nobody was expecting until it happened and you're like huh okay well I wasn't expecting that to happen good or bad it's still a bizarre twist right right um so like one of the the the other points that I have is you know blending a new or different element from another source so adding something else from adding something from inspiration from something else um there are trying to think but there there are loads of examples of that like you can you can easily combine ideas so okay I'll I'll give you one that I can think of the top of my head um it fits in the altering a common detail um creating a new take altering a common detail um there was a movie that came out with uh Aaron Eckert called I Frankenstein do you remember that movie okay so the whole premise of that movie was that spoilers if anybody's never seen it it's an old movie um he's Frankenstein looking for his master as opposed to the cut the common trope right of um Frankenstein creating the monster Victor Frankenstein which is the doctor not the is the doctor not the monster it's Frankenstein's monster it's not Frankenstein um but Aaron Eckert is Frankenstein's monster trying to find his creator his creator um you know that that's that that's a that's a different take um altering a common detail um each of those like blending different elements um I'm trying to think of a good one oh actually I got one for you space balls yeah Star Wars into space balls that I mean that's essentially what it is it it's right but it wasn't just it wasn't just Star Wars like there were other like space operas right like it's it's kind of similar to doing like a scary movie right versus like when you originally started with Scream but it also had like a bunch other movies that they were just making fun of right and and so that that's actually an excellent point because there were there were other movies like that there's like not another teen movie there's the scary movie series there's um there's a whole slew of those parody movies that take a genre and just completely make fun of it but if you watch those movies you're like oh they took that from this movie they took that from this movie um kind of like weird alyankovich and the songs he has so bizarre that he has and they're funny like right they're hilarious but he took them from different songs you know for I mean forrest gump um fat his song Fat yeah is one of my favorite songs uh uh uh homage paradise mm-hmm gangster's paradise yeah so he he's he's a great example of taking inspiration from somewhere else and adding it to something else so gangster's paradise which if you really start to think about the juxtaposition of gangster's paradise the song and Coolio singing about being this gangster and this hard guy on on the streets and things like that to an Amish man who lives as simply as possible um like there there's such a contrast to that and all of that was was all figured out and and intentionally done by Weirdo Yankovic.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

So those are those are fantastic examples of uh taking inspiration from somewhere else and adding it to create your own thing right um but again my the biggest lesson that I had to learn and it was not a fun one because coming to the realization that I had all these great ideas I have all these you know this cool story and everything it's already been done like as a general rule it's already been done the story is not new my take on it is new my ability to alter common knowledge about the concept is new but the concept is not new does that make sense? Yeah all right well we want to thank you for listening to this episode of the WorldKelm Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Please tell us your thoughts on your biggest lesson that you learn about world building in the comment section. We love to hear the different methods ideas and techniques you use to build your worlds if you like what you heard consider subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening to get notified of new episode drops.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

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SPEAKER_00 27:38

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