Writing [Tutorial] Tricks to Tight 'Sneaky' DESCRIPTION

[OokamiKasumi]

I'm lovable, I know. Who can resist my fluffy face! I call that a sin!

Hehe... Thank you for the info! I shall look into it since it is where I lack in my stories the most. Though I write more character-focused stories than epic worlds! *I want to build epic worlds one day.*

You are indeed lovable.

When I started writing sci-fi, I was told to start small and keep the story's focus tight on the POV character. Take simple, common things I saw and used daily and expand them into what they might be like in the future.

A motorcycle became a jet scooter, and morning traffic lifted into flight traffic with proximity alarms. The laptop became a computer implant on the back of the neck that also provided identity and allowed phone calls, or rather communication links. The school my main character went to was an institute that trained spaceflight careers. The local carport became a spaceport for parked spaceships. A bus became an air shuttle between cities, and to the local space station. The space station was modeled on an international airport.

Next thing I know, I'm writing a language for an alien race I invented.

Seriously, start with small common things then expand as your character explores their world. It's easier than you think!

Also--! Keep detailed notes! This way if you end up writing a whole series, you won't forget what you used in the first book.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been a while since I was totally immersed in a fantasy novel, most likely because I haven't read much other than web novels lately. They tend to skip most descriptions with the conveniently famous environments and characters. There were, however, two novels that excelled in descriptions. I still vividly remember till now. I can't recall the names, but both were dungeon-core novels.

If you remember them let me know so I can read them!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[greyblob]

If you remember them let me know so I can read them!

I found one of them. However, there are only 4 chapters available for free, the novel got published some time ago. And unfortunately those 4 are not enough, but here it is anyway:

Dungeon Heart | Royal Road

The death of an old dwarf, the reincarnation of an old soul into a dungeon. He was expecting a peacefull, lonely death, and now he is a dungeon. Well, it could be worse, after all, dwarves are at home underground. Now he has to re-discover how to survive in this new life. He and his creations...

www.royalroad.com

 

[OokamiKasumi]

I found one of them. However, there are only 4 chapters available for free, the novel got published some time ago. And unfortunately those 4 are not enough, but here it is anyway:

Dungeon Heart | Royal Road

The death of an old dwarf, the reincarnation of an old soul into a dungeon. He was expecting a peacefull, lonely death, and now he is a dungeon. Well, it could be worse, after all, dwarves are at home underground. Now he has to re-discover how to survive in this new life. He and his creations...

www.royalroad.com

Thanks! I'll take a look.
-- I've never been afraid to spend money on a good book.

~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Jemini]

For my POV character, she's a twin. So, I just had her notice the characteristics of her sister.

Aside from that is the clothing. I describe each article of clothing as it's acquired. Kind of easy considering the setting of the story is so backwards in the bronze-age era that clothing is extremely limited.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

For my POV character, she's a twin. So, I just had her notice the characteristics of her sister.

Aside from that is the clothing. I describe each article of clothing as it's acquired. Kind of easy considering the setting of the story is so backwards in the bronze-age era that clothing is extremely limited.

Oh... That's clever!

 

[udin-san]

You have to Seduce the reader into getting excited

Noted.

 

[Jemini]

I'm lovable, I know. Who can resist my fluffy face! I call that a sin!

Hehe... Thank you for the info! I shall look into it since it is where I lack in my stories the most. Though I write more character-focused stories than epic worlds! *I want to build epic worlds one day.*

The trick to this one is every bit as simple as it is frustrating. Write a 2nd draft to your story. As in, scrap the entire thing and start over again from the beginning.

By the time you have gotten part way into your story the first time around, that will have given you enough information to have a far more firm handle on what kind of aspects you want for your world.

This is exactly how it happened with me. When I made my 1st draft, I had a rough idea of my world as earth-like except with magic and a fantasy setting. There were dragons and fairies and a gigantic forest and all sorts of stuff. Then, I started chucking in more babylonian mythology to the picture. Then, I made my second draft.

Second draft, with all that babylonian mythols, I built my world on the corpse of Tiamat who had fallen onto the back of Bahamut (in his original Hindu incarnation as a gigantic fish, sometimes depicted as a turtule instead) and made Tiamat's 11 children the creator gods of the world who created all the creatures that would live in it.

Also, it's flat now. Also also, Kingu (Tiamat's oldest son) is the one who gave Bahamut his name in honor of his mother. (Thus an explanation for the similar sound to their names, which is also what inspired TSR to associate Tiamat and Bahamut in the 1st place.)

So, yeah. A second draft can do a lot for you.

 

[KoyukiMegumi]

The trick to this one is every bit as simple as it is frustrating. Write a 2nd draft to your story. As in, scrap the entire thing and start over again from the beginning.

By the time you have gotten part way into your story the first time around, that will have given you enough information to have a far more firm handle on what kind of aspects you want for your world.

This is exactly how it happened with me. When I made my 1st draft, I had a rough idea of my world as earth-like except with magic and a fantasy setting. There were dragons and fairies and a gigantic forest and all sorts of stuff. Then, I started chucking in more babylonian mythology to the picture. Then, I made my second draft.

Second draft, with all that babylonian mythols, I built my world on the corpse of Tiamat who had fallen onto the back of Bahamut (in his original Hindu incarnation as a gigantic fish, sometimes depicted as a turtule instead) and made Tiamat's 11 children the creator gods of the world who created all the creatures that would live in it.

Also, it's flat now. Also also, Kingu (Tiamat's oldest son) is the one who gave Bahamut his name in honor of his mother. (Thus an explanation for the similar sound to their names, which is also what inspired TSR to associate Tiamat and Bahamut in the 1st place.)

So, yeah. A second draft can do a lot for you.

Thank you for the advice! I'll try that for my second try at a story! I think I will leave my first story trilogy as a character-focused story, then go to my second with all the things I have learned.

Though I think the main issue in my first book is that the MC is a very sheltered girl and since I write in Limited POV, you only know what the MC knows, so everything else is a mystery. And just as the world is about to open up to her, the book ends and goes onto act 2 or book 2. This is a new MC who is also very naïve, but unlike the first MC, she is interested in the world but not politics.

I kinda did this on purpose to expand on the world more within the second book, but I got feedback saying they wanted to know more about the world in the first book. So... I did not know how to do that with a sheltered MC, as in the first book. Though I plan to expand on the world in 2 and 3 books.

Yeah, I'd rather do that over forcing my character, who doesn't care about her appearance, to suddenly care about her appearance. All I can give her from her POV is a few lines. More than that would be out of character.

I usually wait until a mirror scene to describe my character. If not, other characters describe her.

You are indeed lovable.

When I started writing sci-fi, I was told to start small and keep the story's focus tight on the POV character. Take simple, common things I saw and used daily and expand them into what they might be like in the future.

A motorcycle became a jet scooter, and morning traffic lifted into flight traffic with proximity alarms. The laptop became a computer implant on the back of the neck that also provided identity and allowed phone calls, or rather communication links. The school my main character went to was an institute that trained spaceflight careers. The local carport became a spaceport for parked spaceships. A bus became an air shuttle between cities, and to the local space station. The space station was modeled on an international airport.

Next thing I know, I'm writing a language for an alien race I invented.

Seriously, start with small common things then expand as your character explores their world. It's easier than you think!

Also--! Keep detailed notes! This way if you end up writing a whole series, you won't forget what you used in the first book.

Heheh... I have a good habit of using a physical book to keep notes of details on my stories.

I think it might be easy, but the MC I picked for my first book is just so sheltered that the book basically takes part in one place out of the world they live in. And it is mostly in a room. She is a limited prisoner in an organization and cares very little about the outside world. But maybe I can apply what I have learned to other stories.

And I do plan to build more into the world with books 2 and 3. They are different MCs within the same world. Maybe that will help me expand. I think I am doing a better job in book 2.~

Though for my other story I have planned, I surely will do better! Practice makes perfect after all.

 

[Jemini]

Thank you for the advice! I'll try that for my second try at a story! I think I will leave my first story trilogy as a character-focused story, then go to my second with all the things I have learned.

Though I think the main issue in my first book is that the MC is a very sheltered girl and since I write in Limited POV, you only know what the MC knows, so everything else is a mystery. And just as the world is about to open up to her, the book ends and goes onto act 2 or book 2. This is a new MC who is also very naïve, but unlike the first MC, she is interested in the world but not politics.

I kinda did this on purpose to expand on the world more within the second book, but I got feedback saying they wanted to know more about the world in the first book. So... I did not know how to do that with a sheltered MC, as in the first book. Though I plan to expand on the world in 2 and 3 books.

I think you might have misunderstood. I'm not talking about a second story, I'm talking about a second draft of the same story. As in, go back and tell the EXACT same story premise with, err... most or all of the same characters (up to you whether to keep or ditch each character) and just tell it very differently based on the things you learned the first time through.

The example in my writing is "Second Life as the Sister of a Goddess" and "Key to the Void." Those two tell the exact same story with the exact same starting premise and the first few chapters really are mostly the same. I just focus a lot more on different things the second time around, the first major conflict in the story turns out to be VERY different, and the second book in the story goes in a COMPLETELY different direction from Sister of a Goddess. And, overall, the story is a lot better for it.

(And, yes, the name is one of many things that I changed about it in the hard reboot.)

All the times that Marvel and DC repeatedly reboot the stories of their main-line heroes is another example of what's going on here. They keep re-telling the same basic idea, but make a lot of changes with subsequent passes through the story. They've even done this so many times that they wound up creating a multiverse in order to justify all of it and try to claim that ALL of the previous incarnations are cannon. I didn't do any such thing. For me, "Sister of a Goddess" is completely yesterday's news now. This new story was built on it's corpse. Very much like my world in the second version of the story is built on the corpse of Tiamat.

(Actually, it's only just now that I realized the strong symbolism there.)

 

[KoyukiMegumi]

I think you might have misunderstood. I'm not talking about a second story, I'm talking about a second draft of the same story. As in, go back and tell the EXACT same story premise with, err... most or all of the same characters (up to you whether to keep or ditch each character) and just tell it very differently based on the things you learned the first time through.

The example in my writing is "Second Life as the Sister of a Goddess" and "Key to the Void." Those two tell the exact same story with the exact same starting premise and the first few chapters really are mostly the same. I just focus a lot more on different things the second time around, the first major conflict in the story turns out to be VERY different, and the second book in the story goes in a COMPLETELY different direction from Sister of a Goddess. And, overall, the story is a lot better for it.

(And, yes, the name is one of many things that I changed about it in the hard reboot.)

All the times that Marvel and DC repeatedly reboot the stories of their main-line heroes is another example of what's going on here. They keep re-telling the same basic idea, but make a lot of changes with subsequent passes through the story. They've even done this so many times that they wound up creating a multiverse in order to justify all of it and try to claim that ALL of the previous incarnations are cannon. I didn't do any such thing. For me, "Sister of a Goddess" is completely yesterday's news now. This new story was built on it's corpse. Very much like my world in the second version of the story is built on the corpse of Tiamat.

(Actually, it's only just now that I realized the strong symbolism there.)

Oh, I see! You mean a reboot! Like the legend of Zelda. Same storyish, different atmosphere? Heheh, I see what you mean! Hmm... But that eventually becomes its own story, no? It is like building on the old foundation until you bring out a new world within the old one. Isn't that kind of like a spin-off with upgrades or something like that?

It is like moving what works and building on top of it. Or a multiverse thing like marvel, but without the cannon part. Heheh... I have been watching What If... with hubby and honestly some of those stories would make wonderful stories if they were cannon. But I guess everything is cannon in Marvel/DC.

 

[Jemini]

Oh, I see! You mean a reboot! Like the legend of Zelda. Same storyish, different atmosphere? Heheh, I see what you mean! Hmm... But that eventually becomes its own story, no? It is like building on the old foundation until you bring out a new world within the old one. Isn't that kind of like a spin-off with upgrades or something like that?

It is like moving what works and building on top of it. Or a multiverse thing like marvel, but without the cannon part. Heheh... I have been watching What If... with hubby and honestly some of those stories would make wonderful stories if they were cannon. But I guess everything is cannon in Marvel/DC.

Yes, exactly.

Second drafts are really just a good idea anyway. Our webnovel format is really something pretty new. Before this, people would be re-writing their stuff over and over and over again before finally finding an iteration of the story that was good enough to become a published work.

Now days, we just pump out a slightly edited and cleaned-up for grammar version of our first draft. A second draft means you really are scrapping the entire thing and re-writing it from the very beginning. Here with webnovels, where we will have already published our first draft, we wind up having to call it a "re-boot" in order to have our readers understand what we are up to. But, what it really is would be more appropriately called a second draft of the story. While you are at it, if you found something in your first version that needed to be changed, you can go right on ahead and do that.

The reason why this is my tip for building an epic world, and why you HAVE TO do it as a second draft of an already existing story in order to make this work, is because you have already gotten a pretty good feel for the world you are putting your characters in. It's just that, maybe, on your first time through you didn't put quite enough effort into thinking about it and considering how you wanted it all to form out. A second draft is the way you expand on those ideas. And, while you are expanding on them, you will find a lot more ideas stemming off of them. As you flesh out those ideas, you will suddenly find that you are building an entire world around your characters, and it can even be quite the epic world at that.

 

[KoyukiMegumi]

Yes, exactly.

Second drafts are really just a good idea anyway. Our webnovel format is really something pretty new. Before this, people would be re-writing their stuff over and over and over again before finally finding an iteration of the story that was good enough to become a published work.

Now days, we just pump out a slightly edited and cleaned-up for grammar version of our first draft. A second draft means you really are scrapping the entire thing and re-writing it from the very beginning. Here with webnovels, where we will have already published our first draft, we wind up having to call it a "re-boot" in order to have our readers understand what we are up to. But, what it really is would be more appropriately called a second draft of the story. While you are at it, if you found something in your first version that needed to be changed, you can go right on ahead and do that.

The reason why this is my tip for building an epic world, and why you HAVE TO do it as a second draft of an already existing story in order to make this work, is because you have already gotten a pretty good feel for the world you are putting your characters in. It's just that, maybe, on your first time through you didn't put quite enough effort into thinking about it and considering how you wanted it all to form out. A second draft is the way you expand on those ideas. And, while you are expanding on them, you will find a lot more ideas stemming off of them. As you flesh out those ideas, you will suddenly find that you are building an entire world around your characters, and it can even be quite the epic world at that.

I see! Thank you for your advice! I think you are right. Most first drafts of stories lack something. Either characters or world, so for this to work, we need to redo the story. Hm... I might do this at a later date. Just revamp the whole Gate series to see how it goes!

 

[OokamiKasumi]

The trick to this one is every bit as simple as it is frustrating. Write a 2nd draft to your story. As in, scrap the entire thing and start over again from the beginning.

By the time you have gotten part way into your story the first time around, that will have given you enough information to have a far more firm handle on what kind of aspects you want for your world.

This is exactly how it happened with me. When I made my 1st draft, I had a rough idea of my world as earth-like except with magic and a fantasy setting. There were dragons and fairies and a gigantic forest and all sorts of stuff. Then, I started chucking in more babylonian mythology to the picture. Then, I made my second draft.

Second draft, with all that babylonian mythols, I built my world on the corpse of Tiamat who had fallen onto the back of Bahamut (in his original Hindu incarnation as a gigantic fish, sometimes depicted as a turtule instead) and made Tiamat's 11 children the creator gods of the world who created all the creatures that would live in it.

Also, it's flat now. Also also, Kingu (Tiamat's oldest son) is the one who gave Bahamut his name in honor of his mother. (Thus an explanation for the similar sound to their names, which is also what inspired TSR to associate Tiamat and Bahamut in the 1st place.)

So, yeah. A second draft can do a lot for you.

What an absolutely brilliant way to build a creation mythos! ️