Creation

[Madman Starryteller]

This thread is about the creation of fictional settings, stuff, and worlds.

I love to create. Whenever I come up with some fictional item or thing, I feel satisfied.

Sometimes I think of random people in my world and what they may see and experience. I give them names and follow them either for a day or for a sped-up lifetime. It's how I sometimes come up with stories.

How do you create? What do you create? Do you like the process? Let's play gods and talk creation!

I believe that to create is to be aligned with the universe's foremost purpose.

 

[Louanne Learning]

How do you create?

It all happens in my mind, often with a little push from something I have read.

What do you create? Do you like the process?

I seem to put most of my focus on characters. (I wish I was stronger in plot construction.) The process can be pain-staking, but it’s all worth it once you have completed the story. Enormous satisfaction.

I believe that to create is to be aligned with the universe's foremost purpose.

I agree. There is a whole philosophy behind this. There are our basic needs – like food, sex and love – and then to go beyond to the discover in us makes us feel entirely more complete. It’s like realizing your full humanity. To create, I think, is the mind’s highest calling.

 

[JT Woody]

this is why i like writing fantasy versus real world stuff.
it gives me a chance to be god of my own universe. I was never allowed to play Sims growing up because it was "too adult" (says parents). but when I became old enough to play it, i really didnt have an interest because i was doing the whole Sims thing with my writing. Creating characters, putting them in worlds of my own creation, with my own rules (sorta)

 

[Louanne Learning]

I have to say, I really like the premise of this thread and I hope many members share their ideas and insights about the wonderful process of creation.

 

[Dogberry's Watch]

How do you create?

Randomly. Sometimes I'll be inspired by the way a person walks through my department at work, sometimes it's the way sunlight hits the trees, it can be just about anything that sparks an "I should write this down." I get titles first, for a lot of the shorter stories I write, and I get characters for the longer pieces.

What do you create?

Poetry, short stories, and novels/series, for the most part.

Do you like the process?

Most certainly. I am an old school writer where I handwrite first (I've said so in many other places on the forum, so it's not a surprise or new to hear), but I do it because it feels correct. Typing words out is mindless to me. I type really fast and the words don't come out properly. It's a jumble of thought and letters rather than the construction of words and phrases I feel when I write by hand. I can get the form of a letter and see how it exists at the end of my pen (or pencil).

 

[Madman Starryteller]

General question to all. Have you ever created a system, entity, or object you're really satisfied with?

One thing from my universe that really clicked together was how dragon blood could be processed into substances that prolong life and can heal wounds. But dragon blood can only be extracted from living dragons. This has created large farming estates where they tap the blood from them. Quite gruesome, like modern day pig farms. Dragons in my universe are born feral but grow sapient with age.

How about you?

 

[JT Woody]

I really like making up deities and pantheons.

In one of my WIPs the deities are/were regional animals (like, for example, the god of the sea was a huge Sword Fish, and the god of the forest is fox, and god of the Tundra is a massive Moose, etc) the imbued humanity with magic. but bad humans did bad things with the magic, so the gods took magic away. a group of humans who wanted their magic back hunted the gods for sport and took their magic by force, becoming sorcerers. The remaining gods went into hiding.
The strongest kingdoms are kingdoms that protect the gods, and in return, the gods give them a bit of their magic (another example: the god of the mountain, a Wolf, gives his followers the ability to shift into wolves. the god of the desert, a giant Eagle, allows his followers to fly upon its back into battle).

Even though the gods are background info that builds the world my characters live in... it is still my favorite part of creation. All societies and worlds are built upon beliefs.

 

[Naomasa298]

Creation is directly tied to story concept or inspiration for me. I create worlds to serve a story, not the other way around. I do *have* a story-independent world, but that was created when I was about 15 for D&D, and I still use it because it's convenient and complete.

Nowadays, if I like a setting I create, I might reuse it, particularly if I am reusing the same characters (but I also write other stories set in them with different characters). I don't make up stuff for it beyond what I need for the story, but later stories may require different devices which adds to the lore of world. But lore has never been a major motivation for me.

 

[Dogberry's Watch]

General question to all. Have you ever created a system, entity, or object you're really satisfied with?

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I've created a language to go along with the sister universe in my main series WIP. Sometimes I find myself mumbling in the language, and I definitely use the swears. There's something immensely satisfying in saying the words that people who don't exist say, and the amount of delight I get from uncovering sentence structures and how the language rules work makes me feel so cool. And like a giant nerd, haha.

Also, the goddess Rissa. She's foul and I love her.

 

[Louanne Learning]

In his 1878 book, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits Nietzsche reminded us about two things – the human mind creates creativity – and creativity is hard work:

Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration… shining down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre or bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects… All great artists and thinkers are great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering.”

 

[Madman Starryteller]

@Louanne Learning
Creativity is very hard work. Like said, one has to not only make something relatively new, one has to also refine it to something that others may enjoy and understand. If that is your goal.

It's taken me more than ten years to build and refine the world most of my stories are set in, and that's with me thinking about that world every day. And... I'm still not done.

 

[Night Herald]

How do you create? What do you create? Do you like the process? Let's play gods and talk creation!

How: I create spontaneously. I think that's the best single word I can put on it. I don't typically get inspired by anything I see or hear out in the world, at least not at the time of seeing or hearing; but it might plant an idea that shows up later. Most creative projects start when I'm letting my mind wander, actively daydreaming, or sleep-dreaming. The process of refining these ideas and elaborating on them involves more directed effort, of course.

What: Mainly novels and short stories, with the occasional poem. I sometimes draw what I write about or write about what I draw.

Do I like the process? Yeah, I love it! There's something infinitely precious (and, dare I say, sacred? Why, I think I do dare!) about finding a moment of inspiration—a flash of imagery, an inner voice, a feeling, a concept, whatever it is—and choosing to bring it with you, to labor over it and nourish it, to unwrap it and see that, verily, there's a whole world contained within. Amazing.

I enjoy the initial rush where everything outside the central inspiration is rough and nebulous, when the story is still unformed and anything could happen, where ideas just pour forth. I enjoy the middle stage where things start to become more concrete, but are still quite generic, lacking identity and specificity. What I love is the phase where deeper refinement happens, when the thing is oozing character, when it has accrued real depth and personality and you're intimately familiar with it all. I love connecting new ideas to old ones, tightening up the tapestry, retconning previous drafts to make it so that this character or that concept were always part of it.
I don't love only the finished product, but every iteration of it that manifests along the way: the shy, plain first draft; the unsure-of-itself second draft; the haughty fifth draft that ended up mostly scrapped...

I love the feeling of knowing it's all yours, that you're the only one privileged to see all this stuff and the only one allowed to tamper with it; I also love the part that comes later, when you share it with others.

I believe that to create is to be aligned with the universe's foremost purpose.

True that, in my view. I think it's a great route to higher, more expansive consciousness; a Gods-eye view, if you will. When you hold entire worlds within yourself, watch them unfold through growth and change, and love them even though they may contain darkness and villainy and suffering, it creates a certain resonance with something greater than yourself—the small self, that is.