How do writers world build their fantasy novels? Is there a technique to help visualize details? There are several strategies for writers from sketching to outlining to stream of consciousness journaling but two that I’ve found effective are the creation myth and a prophecy.
When I started writing Artania some years ago one question I asked was, “How could an art-populated land begin?” It made sense to me that it would have begun with the beginning of the first art. So I researched ancient archeological findings and used this to envision early humans making cave drawings. From there it was easy to visualize the cause and effect relationships for these art pieces to birth an entire planet. The next logical step was to wonder what might endanger Artania and how soothsayers would give their people hope. This lead to writing The Prophecy in poem.
Reading The Prophecy Using Voiceover
The Prophecy has helped to guide my writing multiple times over the years. I’ve used it in both the books and here in videos. So if you’re trying to world build and are frustrated, why not try creating your own.
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
With a final glance over his shoulder, Sludge stepped onto the shack’s dilapidated porch and knocked on the twisted door. When no Crone appeared, he tried the knob. “Locked. Of course.”
Expecting this, he pulled out the key he’d made. A year or two back, when the Crone was in the kitchen making worm tea, he’d grabbed the key on the wall and pressed it into a block of clay in his pocket. Later he’d taken it to an Artanian blacksmith he knew he could trust who forged a new one.
“Crone?” he called inserting the key in the lock.
No answer. She was probably meeting with the Mud Princess. She often did to scheme and plot. Sludge allowed himself a moment to imagine a dance with that alluring creature, torchlight illuminating their wreathing bodies as his minions looked on in envy.
Yes, the Shadow Swine will long tell tales of his glorious dance. He stared at the door. His lips curled up and serrated teeth glinted in the firelight.
A splash behind him made him turn. He glanced back at Swallow Hole Swamp where larvae hatched. Even before he’d bowed before Lord Sickhert on the banks of the River of Lies, he’d practiced dream draining on his fellow nymphs here.
Magnificent memories.
A dark worm crested the swamp, its segmented back rolling in and out of mossy waters.
“Swim, nymph, swim. Find darkness below,” Sludge whispered before stepping over the threshold. “Are you here, old witch?”
Her shack was as quiet as a death.
“Now to find out what you’re up to,” he said. Once inside, he turned right. He knew exactly which room he wanted. While each held a single boiling pot, some forged like serpents or krakens, with others as round as witch’s cauldrons, the one he wanted was misshapen and warped.
This kettle held answers.
The view inside looked almost the same as it had weeks earlier when he’d stood there with the Crone. A three-legged cauldron with a long ladle inside still rested atop a fire pit, flames licking the bent and twisted iron.
Here he’d seen his face floating in mist. The Deliverer’s father, who had gloriously drowned in mud months before young Bartholomew was born. Oh, he’d reveled in bringing Hygenette nightmares after that. Ensuring that she would forever turn from art.
Those dream invasions had gained him recognition and put him in Lord Sickhert’s favor. But now with Crone suspecting the truth, just a few choice words could strip all of that away.
If he wasn’t careful.
“Are you investigating me, Crone?” Sludge said stepping closer to the kettle.
The boiling surface was misty at first. No images. Not even the slightest hint of a human or Artanian. But as Captain Sludge looked deeper, a faint outline began to appear.
He leaned in closer. A sandy beach emerged. Melting clocks. Cliffs. Near these some hazy forms took shape. Two of the animated figures gesticulated wildly while a third with red hair paced nearby.
“New humans in Surrealia? How can that be?” Sludge gasped and stumbled back.
He mused for a moment. What was going on? Only the Chosen Ones should be able to enter portals. That’s how it had always been. Had Thinker done this? If so, it made no sense. Artania’s leader was known for safeguarding humans. Only calling upon Alex, Bartholomew, and Gwen when necessary.
Maybe Crone had shown Lord Sickhert their new powers and now could open larger portals. Sludge straightened two of his hair spikes, thinking. But no, she often ranted and raved about him being too strong. She would never share knowledge with their lord that would give him more power.
But she might take some for herself and leave Sludge behind.
Whatever the reason, he had not slogged through the marshes of Swallow Hole Swamp to waste this opportunity. When he first set out, he’d hoped to find answers to what the Crone was up to. But never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that vulnerable humans would now be in Artania.
He nodded. This turn of events just might work in his favor.
He rubbed his hands together. “I think I’ll craft a bit of amnesia to send your way.”
Taking a deep breath, Sludge blew a long stream of black mist over the simmering liquid. The dark smoke entered each gurgling bubble before rising on the steam. Sludge smiled and blew more.
The hazy image of four teens on a beach rose higher over the kettle as the outline of a brain took shape in the boiling waters. A moment later it ascended, and Jose and Zach’s faces materialized in the air. Licking his lips lasciviously, Sludge blew harder, and all images sharpened.
“Blankness, oblivion, memory loss,” Sludge chanted between panting blows. A cloud filled the brain outline. It darkened and drifted toward the teens’ faces.
Jose and Zach’s mouths opened in gaping confusion.
“What do you think you’re doing?” an ancient voice cried from the doorway.
Sludge didn’t turn. “Capitalizing on an opportunity.”
“I didn’t give you permission.”
“Yet here I am.” He blew again. “Watch.”
The image of the teens enlarged and then Jose and Zach’s eyes clouded to milky white. An instant later there was a loud pop, and everything disappeared.
Sludge ran a claw-tipped hand over where the image had been.
The Crone slapped him on the back. “Well perhaps you are not quite the pupae I took you for.” She began to cackle.
Sludge joined in and their screeching voices filled the shack and floated over Swallow Hole Swamp.
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
The above poem follows the theme of my new novel: Artania V. What is memory? Why is it important? Here fifteen year old Bartholomew realizes that his mother has always lied about who his deceased Father was.
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
I see only darkness through my colored contact lenses
As pop bands play, “My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.”
I tap my foot, sans rhythm, to the minstrel mime blaring silent recordings on a blank tape.
Voices clamor for the sky.
Tears fall on the shadows of shoulders.
While I orate and conversate.
And emit passionate cliches and sublime euphemisms.
But only the mute hear me,
And they can’t respond.
Photos by David Stroup
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
Tuesday I was honored to be interviewed by radio talk show host, filmmaker, and screenwriter, Dave Congalton on his Hometown Radio program about my new novel, Finding Joy. It was fun chatting with him about writing, growing one’s craft, and the inspiration for my latest work.
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and the middle grade Forest Secrets Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net
I am thrilled to announce that I’ve been selected to be a judge in the New Voice Short Film Festival! And I’m the only woman chosen as a judge. What an honor!
This film festival is designed to showcase the work specifically for non-professional, non-union related filmmakers. If you are a filmmaker, writer, director, and/or producer at least 18 years of age and living in the Southern California area, you are welcome to submit your film project here:
The author of The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky from the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, as well as the middle-grade Forest Secrets. Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net
The world is changing. The war is over, and they say civil rights have been won although if you look around my school you wouldn’t know it. In high school there’s an invisible line dividing kids into whites, Mexicans, and blacks. Oh, sure we cross over and party with each other, but we all know that there’s this glass wall between us.
We all live in separate worlds. And it pisses me off.
Ever since Charles Manson made hippie a symbol of evil, kids have stopped hitting the streets to march for peace. Now we teens steal behind trees in parks or shut ourselves into the back of Chevy Vans where we pass joints around and listen to Pink Floyd take us to the dark side of the moon.
On that side no one cares when gang fights break out. Over there it doesn’t matter if we are denying people of color their rights. We breathe in Colombian smoke and the guitar’s riffs fill our ears as we listen to Pink Floyd’s quiet desperation guiding us ever further from the light.
On the dark side of the moon we are so high we don’t notice the rest of the world. Our vision is blurred and all we see are the twinkling stars in space.
The above is an excerpt from a novel I’m working on.
The author of The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky from the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, as well as the middle-grade Forest Secrets. Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net
When the words are stilted, like a stubbed toe limp or a stunted tree seeking sky on a windswept cliff, quotes help me summon the muse.
Piers Anthony said: “Keep writing, because not only does practice improve skill, it gives you more chances to score on the market.”
William Shakespeare: “O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.”
Ray Bradbury’s advice is this. “To feed your Muse, then, you should always have been hungry about life since you were a child. If not, it is a little late to start.”
“Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.” -Neil Gaiman
What do you do when the muse is silent? Comment and let me know!
The author of The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky from the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, as well as the middle-grade Forest Secrets. Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net
Imagine a movie with no music. No eerie piano and toning gong. No suspenseful drum kits and horns. No echoing synthesizer making you look over your shoulder for an approaching alien. It wouldn’t be the same, would it?
Composer Mike Hall is very much aware of the the mood music can create. He has made it his life’s work to design, produce, engineer, and master the parts of films that you and I take for granted. Growing up in the small town of Tipton, Iowa and later moving to LeClaire, home of the History Channel’s show American Picker, his earliest influences came from the rock records his parents would play. Even though this was Buffalo Bill Cody’s birthplace, his parents didn’t stick to listening to Bluegrass and Country. Instead, his house on twenty acres was filled with the eclectic sounds of Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley, and The Beatles.
Music filled his mind as he explored the towering bluffs, raced along the Mississippi River walks, and climbed ever higher in the deciduous forests. From his perch high in the silver maple or cottonwood tree he often watched deer graze, raccoons and squirrels scurry in and out of gooseberry and wild grape bushes, or wild turkeys peck for grubs on the leaf-carpeted forest floor.
Sometimes, he’d be lucky enough to catch a bald eagle flying overhead. While the beating of its wings echoed rhythms in his ears, he would tap on his faded jeans and dream of song.
As he grew, music became ever-more important as he trekked to the local record store searching for albums and tapes that might inspire. That’s when he began to notice film scores and listen with a more discerning ear. Then in high school he joined his first rock band with some friends. He may have known, “just enough to get by,” but his lack of of experience didn’t stop Mike.
Self-taught, he continued practicing, honing his craft until he was thrilled to begin performing as a guitar player and singer in the old school death metal band, rock band Angelkill. For the next few years Mike toured and played in a variety of bands of the same genre such as Mortuary Oat and Helmsplitter, which the Spirit of Rock Ezine called “..extreme metal that takes you on a roller coaster..” Spirit of Metal Article
During this time Mike was contacted by a German filmmaker who asked to use one of his songs in the end credits of his film. As he sat watching a film with his music playing, it got him to thinking; What inspires me the most? He considered this for a while, but the answer soon became clear. Composing. Creating musical scores for film.
Now Mike can often be found in his home studio working the keys and dials as he composes. While he has done several jobs for hire, Mike says, “The work that has the most meaning and thrill for me is the music I do that has no project tied to it…there are no pressures…no expectations…just me and the the music.”
Eventually most of these compositions find their way to a record, video game, or film but even if they don’t, it’s fine with Mike. He loves that time of no pressure. That moment he is creating for the sheer joy of making music.
That passion and joy have paid off as Hall’s movie credit’s continue to grow.When the Night Comes, Pretty Little Things, and Evil Deeds, Full Circle are just a handful of the films he has scored to date.
Today Mike is sharing his passion with young musicians around the country mentoring and guiding them as they set out on their own musical journeys. He says, “I was I was really kind of isolated growing up with no one encouraging me to do music. That’s why I think it’s so important to be a mentor to others and offer encouragement when and where ever you can. It can make a difference.”
A teacher, Laurie Woodward is the author of several novels including Forest Secrets, and the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles. She also cowrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy and was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes her novels on the Central Coast of California.
When the words are stilted, like a stubbed toe limp or a stunted tree seeking sky on a windswept cliff, quotes can summon the muse.
Piers Anthony said: “Keep writing, because not only does practice improve skill, it gives you more chances to score on the market.”
William Shakespeare: “O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.”
Ray Bradbury’s advice is this. “To feed your Muse, then, you should always have been hungry about life since you were a child. If not, it is a little late to start.”
“Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.” -Neil Gaiman
And multiple authors say the same thing.”If you want to write sit down and do it!”
So what are you waiting for? Put your butt in the chair and write!
The author of The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky from the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, as well as the middle-grade Forest Secrets. Laurie Woodward co-wrote Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at artania.net
Laurie Woodward 