Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Paracosmogenesis

Ah, Wednesdays, days of staff meetings and Burning Zeppelin posts that are either painfully delayed, painfully rushed, or painfully short.

Today, please allow me to direct your attention to the livejournal of Sherwood Smith, fantasy author extraordinaire. The Abigail is a big fan of Smith, and it was she who first introduced me to her work with Wren to the Rescue and the rest of the Wren series, followed by Crown Duel and Court Duel, all of which are brilliant. Smith is a young adult fantasy author who has built an impressive niche for herself. All hail Sherwood Smith, long may she write!

In any case, today, please allow me to bring this post to your attention. Here, Smith posts a questionnaire on the topic of paracosms - imaginary world - and the process of juvenile paracosmogenesis (speaking of made up words). I recommend Smith's livejournal as a great "electronic salon" for the discussion of all topics writerly and fantastic. If you have a livejournal, you can even comment! I do so there as frequently as I can under the name electricpaladin (the same moniker by which I tweet).

As a writer of fantasy, I am definitely a paracosmologist. I was a paracosmologist from an early age, and I plant invent imaginary worlds forever. Even divorced from the desire to actually do anything with them, I find the process fun.

Anyway, I'm going to do three more things with this post. First of all, I'm going to link to my previous post of world-building because it seems relevant and I can't think of a clever way to do it. Secondly, I'm going to reproduce the survey Smith reproduced on her blog, so you can all fill it out and let me know about your secret inner lives... or barring that, at least contemplate the answers, which I found interesting. And then, at last, I'm going to ask you a few questions.

Happy Wednesday, all, and keep on paracosming (via a process of paracosmosis? Oh, shut up...).

* * *

  1. At what age did you first construct your paracosm?
  2. Do you remember what aspects of paracosm you began with—story, history, environment, character, etc?
  3. Were you moved to represent your paracosm outside the privacy of your head? If so, by what means?
  4. Did you share your paracosm with anyone?
  5. Have you met other paracosmologists?
  6. How much faith did you put, if any, in the reality of your paracosm?
  7. Did you outgrow your paracosm or does it still play a significant part in your inner life?
  8. If you've left your paracosm behind, when? What were the circumstances?
  9. Have you been influenced by other paracosms/paracosmologies?
  10. Did your paracosm evolve over time?
  11. Do you think any factors in your biography contributed to your tendency towards paracosm?
  12. If you would, write a paragraph or two sketching in the broadest outlines of your paracosm for a lay reader. (What are its customs and myths? What does the material space look like? Who or what populates your paracosm? How is your paracosm most different from (or most similar to) the world we know? etc.)

* * *

  • Fill out the questionnaire? Pretty please? I'd really like to read your answers.
  • That's about it for questions. See you all tomorrow.

1 comment:

Ben said...

1. At what age did you first construct your paracosm? My memory is not that exact. I think I must have been about 14. I started creating elaborate stories before my first real paracosm.

2. Do you remember what aspects of paracosm you began with—story, history, environment, character, etc? It started with a map. I drew my first map on a regular letter size paper, then obtained a large piece of drafting vellum from my older brother and enlarged it using colored pens.

3. Were you moved to represent your paracosm outside the privacy of your head? If so, by what means? See the previous answer. I also began writing an atlas and inventing characters.

4. Did you share your paracosm with anyone? Yes, my two older brothers and a cousin all created maps of our paracosms and combined them so each one was a continent on a single planet. One of my brothers drew a representation of them divided into hemispheres like you see in an atlas of the Earth.

5. Have you met other paracosmologists? Yes indeedy.

6. How much faith did you put, if any, in the reality of your paracosm? It was always make believe.

7. Did you outgrow your paracosm or does it still play a significant part in your inner life? No.

8. If you've left your paracosm behind, when? What were the circumstances? Back in high school, I began trying to write a novel based in my paracosm, but have long since left it behind. Too many derivative ideas.

9. Have you been influenced by other paracosms/paracosmologies? I was hugely influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert Jordan.

10. Did your paracosm evolve over time? Mainly in becoming more detailed.

11. Do you think any factors in your biography contributed to your tendency towards paracosm? I was always very introverted and imaginative. It was probably inevitable already, and then I read Tolkien. Nuff said.

12. If you would, write a paragraph or two sketching in the broadest outlines of your paracosm for a lay reader. (What are its customs and myths? What does the material space look like? Who or what populates your paracosm? How is your paracosm most different from (or most similar to) the world we know? etc.)

Norrenna was an entire continent filled with at least nine different nations/cultures that I can remember, most of them based on standard Tolkienesque types but with magic similar to that in the Wheel of Time. That pretty much sums it up. The map was pretty unique, though.