World Building

[bcholmes]

The course description for my Monday night “Writing For Comics, Part 2″ class reads thusly:

A master class on practical writing. Students will learn the standard applications of tropes and genres, the rules of pacing and scene work, the secrets of world building, character bibles, supporting casts, sub-plots, comedy writing, ongoing series and much more.

So. “Standard applications of tropes and genres.” That could be a very freighted thing. Last class we were freighting World Building.

As I said, before, Ty’s approach to teaching writing is very much about, “here is the template; fill it in, and you’ll have a sturdy foundation for your story.” His approach to world building for stories is no different. We spent the first third of the class working on the Successful World Building Formula. He wrote nine points on the board, and said, essentially, “make interesting decisions around these nine points that really speak to the story you want to tell, and you’ll have a compelling world.” Points number four and five were the ones that I thought were interesting.

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Mirrored from Under the Beret.