I’ve been hard at work on Creating Places (The Art of World Building, Volume II) for the past two months, authoring completed chapters on drawing maps, travel on land, creating planets and creating continents. This includes a very cool template for estimating travel times on land through various terrain and modes of travel. I totally geeked out while creating it but you will love this, whether you know how to use Microsoft Excel or not. The templates will be free downloads.
Some sections were previously written, but overall, I’m currently up to 25,000 words, meaning at least halfway done. I should be finished by year’s end, and in fact, I hope to have volume III, Cultures and Beyond, done by then. Publication will definitely be in 2016.
Some of what I’ve previously blogged about these pales in comparison to the book’s content. The research has been interesting and I’ve condensed what I’ve learned, with a focus on what world builders need to concentrate on.
One of the more interesting factors is called a rain shadow. This means that moisture carrying air comes off an ocean, hits land and a mountain range, and all the rain is dumped on the windward side of the mountains, leaving nothing for the other side, which is in a “rain shadow.” No rain falls there and the usual result is desert-like conditions, which can spread for a thousand miles. The middle third of the United States is a rain shadow caused by the Rocky Mountains. I had no idea.
This brings up one of the fun aspects of world building – to create a believable world, you have to research, which could be tedious, but sometimes you find out interesting things about the world you live on – and which affects the worlds you build, provided you’re aware. That’s part of my goal with The Art of World Building. I think you’ll find it interesting whether you build worlds or not.