Well, this is exciting news that we discovered last week: author Richard C. White’s nonfiction reference book for writers, Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination, is now being used as a textbook in the Interactive Media Design (i.e., game design) program at Becker College in Worchester, Massachusetts!
In Terra Incognito, Rich takes you through the step-by-step process of constructing a world for your characters, from societies and governments to currency and religion. Included is an interview with New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance) that discusses his methods of world building, as well as his creative experiences during his time as a designer for gaming company TSR, the original home of Dungeons & Dragons.
What you’ll find in the pages of Terra Incognito is information that’s vital for just about any writer, especially when it comes to world building, and Rich shows you how to do it:
- Avoiding the pitfalls of naming characters, regions, and countries
- Applying the technique of “outside in” to develop and then refine ideas for your world
- Creating a world your readers can relate to, regardless of its technological levels
- Identify how to create backstories and conflict by observing how your world comes together
- Adding details to make your story richer without overwhelming your readers
- Identifying useful resources for research
From its first publication, the book has been a hit with not just fantasy writers, but role-playing gamers as well. When it debuted in October 2015 at the e-book distributor DriveThru Fiction and its sister sites DriveThru RPG and RPGNow, it immediately shot to the #1 position on all three as their top-selling title, and then remained for weeks as DriveThru Fiction’s #1 Hottest Nonfiction Book and#1 Hottest How-To for Writers! If you’re a writer or gamer, you might just want to check it out. You don’t even need to be a Becker College student to enjoy it!
Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is available in print and digital formats, so visit its product page for ordering information.
Bonus! Because Rich’s interview with Hickman was so lengthy, and touched upon some topics that didn’t pertain to the world-building focus of Terra Incognito, I made the editorial decision to cut those parts from the final version of the book. However, if you want to discover what else Rich and Hickman discussed—including their shared experiences in the licensed-publishing writers market—then head over to Richard C. White’s blog and read all about it!
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