I am still working on the first draft of my novel project.
New title is Behind the Sovereign’s Mask.
Anyway, I am working on the first draft of BSM and the story believe it or not does have some serious worldbuilding and won’t always take place behind the palace walls.
There will be moments when Anjan has to leave the palace grounds and handle problems that still involve Sovereign’s Court. There’s magic and gods who will lean on Anjan to fix problems that they can’t be bothered to deal with and have other things to worry about. Advanced technology coexist with the magic that is caused by the air that people breathe and grants people the magical powers.
My little gripe is because this is the first draft and I just need to write and breeze through it. I am scared because I want to mention and even show that the characters have magical powers, the worldbuilding is complex, there’s are futuristic tech, and fictional races. I need to show these things along with flow of the story.
Should I read some helpful books to get a feel on how to show and tell what is happening magically, worldbuilding-wise, and etc?
I know it is the first draft, but I don’t want to miss things even in this draft.
Also, this is my fault because my mind has been all over the freakin’ world, up and down the vortex of absolute nonsense, and distractions, but I haven’t done some serious worldbuilding for this story and more.
Reading other similar books to your project is always a good idea for inspiration, but for a first draft, it’s not necessary. It’s really up to you if you want to do it or not. Just focus on getting the story down for now, anything extra can wait for later drafts.
Don’t feel bad. I set aside three hours for writing today, but I spent all that time changing the color of a horse from obsidian to sable. Yes, I know both words mean black. No, I don’t know why I couldn’t just let the damn horse be obsidian. I plan to spend the rest of the night removing and replacing a comma in the third paragraph of the same chapter. No, I don’t know why that bothers me, either. Writing is so hard sometimes. (-᷅_-᷄๑)
Okay, so you were writing the story when you suddenly realized a character needed to use magic to achieve a goal, so you had them do a magic trick, right? And then you realized they were doing it in an empty white room. So now you need to describe that room so the reader knows it’s not really white and it actually looks like this. Just remember to take out your worldbuilding bible and record things like that so it stays consistent throughout the book. You’ve still got all those empty journals, right? You could use them for this. ( ˆ◡ˆ)۶ ٩(˘◡˘ )
Xelyn_Craft is right that it’s always useful to read helpful books but not always necessary. There are YouTube videos too if you’d rather, but it’ll likely all come to you what your world needs as you write the story and develop the characters. ٩(˘◡˘)۶
Okay, writing 101: The first draft is meant to be shit. It’s meant to be incomplete, it’s meant to not have all the worldbuilding, it’s meant to not have all the plot. The first draft is essentially a word vomit. All you’re doing is getting all of what’s in your head down on the page. Once you’ve done that, then worry about filling in the plot holes, magic systems and world building and putting everything in order
I have a moment where Geldrid and Hal-en are surrounded by Woodland Trolls. Hal-en (being quite unfamiliar with such creatures) suggests that they can barter with them, but Geldrid thinks not. Yet before he can deal out his magic, a strange light appears and casts a spell of destruction upon the Trolls, but it was not Geldrid (No spoilers here as to whom it was).
Hal-en seems to think at this point that Geldrid does indeed have powers of magic, but decides to leave it, and not ask.
Further on in their travels they are surrounded by the Men of Acoss, and it is there that he unleashes a little of his power to stay a flurry of arrows.
I suppose you could have a character sitting idle, clicking his/her fingers which ignites a small flame for the amusement of their own. A little show and tell moment that suggests a more powerful source.
Hey, if you ever just need to explain the world to someone without worrying about showing or telling, DM me and I could help you think it out so that you know your world a little more. Then when it comes time to edit your first draft, you’ll know what you need to add or edit out hopefully.
Sometimes it helps to tell it to someone instead of having it all stuck in your head
Many people for things like NaNo (where we are cramming out words, not quality) will do a ton of inserts for what they want.
Example:
Ben walked around with his [research a tool that will float effortlessly around the head for shields] showing. Most people felt that insecurity does that, but he did it because it was only a fair warning that he would fight back if attacked.
