Sunday, September 27, 2009

More on what should I write about

It occurred to me that homework (I know Uggh) could be incorporated into your stories. I've already mentioned using history and mythology stories as plot basis.

Health and Diet classes can be fillers. Fantasy stories usually include a hunter in the traveling group, but what if the group came down with scurvy because they didn't have fruits. Could the weakness that the antagonist have be lead poisoning from all the pewter dishes he likes to eat from?

If you take psychology, is there something on group dynamics that will help you decide how members of the group squabble, then ultimately resolve their differences? After all, you should have a lot of alpha personalities. They'll all want to be the leader.

Does your sociology book have something on how societies are put together? Your group has to have something to save and reason to fear the change they are trying to stop.

Less obvious is algebra.
Population shifts, is the birthrate declining in your society? Are people disappearing?

How fast can you climb a mountain. How do you choose the best path up? If you are moving a whole village to a safe place, it will be a different path than a band of hardy explorers.

In a village, how big or deep would a cave used for food storage have to be to supply a whole population?
Do they have farms? How big would they have to be in order to supply the entire area for a year.

In the antagonists camp: He surely has a large, permanent place. It would have to have large roads to trasport supplies, plus (usually) not the brightest of followers, and yet it is kept secret. How is this accomplished?

Walking, horseback or bicycle speeds. These will help you set the timelines for your novel. How long will your journey be?

Can you plot points on a graph? You'll need all this information to make a realistic map.

All this math is algebra 101. Now you know why authors include a map. Writing is a job, it's real work, my friends. (It will also give you cool questions to ask your math teacher, which is almost as good as knowing the answer, if she calls on you.)

1 comment:

  1. This only shows that you don't have to have a degree in creative writing. If you read about the authors in a lot of science fiction the authors are scientists or have a strong interest in science.

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