Although Tony and I knew we wanted to limit the world to either fantasy or sci-fi, we still had to decide which one, as well as which sub-genre. High fantasy or low fantasy? Dark fantasy? Star Trek or Star Wars? Dune? Firefly?
After a bit of research and Tony’s offer to use a future universe he had already worked out as part of a movie script he’d written, we settled on sci-fi. The initial foundation of the universe had been worked out, and I had a personal interest in sci-fi (I had just finished Richard Morgan’s “Altered Carbon” and “Market Forces” and found that both had thoroughly, deliciously eaten my head).
Tony’s interstellar universe had three main areas: a stable, advanced confederation of systems; a more back-water, unexplored area with little central control; and a highly advanced, somewhat xenophobic technological area that was more of an unknown/blackbox. I liked the idea that users could gravitate to the area of the universe that appealed to them, but we could still keep it all under the same branded universe.
Tony and I set about trying to write some of the initial content to prime the pump as well as flesh out more of the universe’s foundation. We didn’t get far.
Neither of us, despite our liking of sci-fi, found it easy or enjoyable to begin writing content. I had the worst case of writer’s block and was reminded (again) why I hadn’t written anything since my undergraduate days. Furthermore, we had a hard time scoping the universe in a way that could be laid out logically to the creative community without becoming so overwhelming that people would be lost. If it was this hard for me to get our arms around it, how would we easily convey it to the creative community?
We debated changing genres, did some more research, and ultimately decided to switch to a fantasy genre. I’m still embarrassed to admit that writing science fiction was too hard for me at that point in my life. To come close to the better writers would require more research, time, and thinking than I possibly had. Holding down a full-time job and being part of a growing family left little time to accomplish our goal. Plus, neither Tony nor I found that we were enjoying what should have been a fantastically fun task.
Even though my fantasy reading had been essentially non-existent for almost twenty years, I found myself eagerly tackling the challenge of laying out a new world and drafting some flash fiction content. The world creation happened fairly quickly and was a joy. The flash fiction proved a nice way to flex long-ignored writing muscles. The simple act of switching genres unlocked a lot of creative ideas we had, and the fun flooded back into the project.
As we crafted the world, we made the conscious decision to not include elves, dwarves, or orcs. While there would be plenty of magic and monsters, we wanted the inhabitants of the world to be predominantly human in nature. The use of non-human creatures/races can easily become a crutch when writing, and we both thought that we could still have a world big enough for the creative community to explore and populate. Our belief was – and still is – that the writing would be better if it focused on “human” characters and good story telling. We also knew this approach would likely alienate some of the fantasy fans, but we opted to sacrifice mass appeal to what we thought was a stronger, more unique world. We’ve received some criticism about this decision, and time will tell if we’re wrong…
Up next: Part 6 – Free Means Free