This week I moved on from character descriptions and turned my attentions to providing a more comprehensive set of descriptions for the world and environment that ‘Aitus Moralis’ will occupy. This was actually much more rewarding than the character descriptions exercise. Originally I was dreading it, because the worlds I imagine in my head are overtly complex and I don’t think I have the skill to bring them to life, but really because I don’t want them to suck.

Like before these descriptions are each giving a single sheet of paper that I start scribbling on, letting my imagination run wild. One of the things that I noticed however was in doing these descriptions this also went back and informed my story as well. I guess I was expecting my draft to expand and change during the next stage of the project, what i didn’t expect was my description for a building to have a direct impact on the sequence of events, moving a particular scene from the middle of the book to the end (to create greater impact).

Which has got me thinking about the route taken for the story. It’s not presented in a linear fashion, by any stretch of the imagination. Is that a good thing? Will it confuse my readers? Will both of them care (hey mum)? I also worry about whether or not readers will connect with the characters. I’m a great believer in letting your character’s actions dictate what they are and who they are, as opposed to them telling you these facts. Letting you build your own view of the character. I’ve been watching movies more intently to understand what makes a great character.

The one thing that I’ve not done yet is begun my research and information gathering for these worlds. This is basically the next three months worth of work. I’m going to be drawing character sheets and building the worlds, both on paper and virtually.

One of the tools I’m keen to use for this project is SketchUp, which I’ve used several times during the design of most of my projects. It’s an excellent tool, which has really grown over the years housing an impressive library of completed and available models.

Next week I’ll be showing the first character designs so far and hopefully the start of the second draft (more on that next week as well).