Building a World

Hi there! So. I created a blog and now I'm staring at a blank 'new post' wondering what the hell to do with it. Presumably at some point I'll write book reviews, but right now I'm smack in the middle of a book, and who knows when I'll finish it and - when I do finish it - who knows when I'll be able to school my emotions into a coherent post.

So for now, I thought I'd compile a post of the sites I use most frequently when I write, which might be useful for you and, if not, I can at least use for my own future reference.


The first thing you gotta do with a story is create and name your characters. Normally I head off to Nameberry, where names can be made into themed lists,  or you can find the perfect name to fit with others by plugging them into the namehunter, or you can tailor a search by origin, length, syllables and letters. Whatalovelyname is also a handy site where you can filter names by their meaning. This Sofeminine site is great for surnames, which I always find hard to come up with.

Now that you've got your names covered, how about the setting? Normally, I'm a contemporary gal, which means that the setting is pretty much what you might expect. But occasionally I take trips to Sci-fi Land, or Fantasyville, and there the grass is considerably more complicated. Here is a generator of fantasy names - not just people's names, but countries, villages, fantasy races, even coat of arms if your characters are nobly inclined. And the best generator on that site? The map creator, of course! I could spend hours creating maps of fictional places. Hours that I really should spend writing.

Description: the stuff that brings it all together. Personally, I like my prose to be extra-flowy, with the kind of words that might occasionally send my readers in search of a thesaurus to interpret. When I'm stuck for a word, I head over to the phrontistery or this dictionary of rare and obscure words (which is 428 words long!) for inspiration.

Finally, the pièce de résistance: charahub. I have so many characters it's hard to keep track sometimes. Charahub lets you create a profile for fictional people - kinda like Facebook, except you're more interested in the status updates. Ideal for keeping track of birthdays, physical attributes, likes and dislikes. You can group profiles, to keep all characters from one WIP together, and you can add links between profiles to show the two characters' relationship.

Allow me now to say, though: don't get too bogged down in the details! We all know the dangers of 'quickly' googling a fact and following a rabbit-hole of hyperlinks. Things like names, locations, facts, can be changed and checked later. But the story can't wait. Get it down as soon as you can.