Not content with being the author of perhaps the best fantasy trilogy to come out of Australia, the multiple award winning and nominated The Creature Court Trilogy (stay posted for a review coming soon), Tansy Rayner Roberts is a scarily prolific blogger who writes with amazing depth and perception on a vast array of topics such as feminism, Agatha Christie, comics and, of course, Doctor Who (for our ongoing series of posts on New Who click here). She is also one of the voices of Galactic Suburbia, a podcast that has changed the way I read and write spec fic forever. It is wonderful to welcome her here to share some tips on world building, and I am sure you will get as much out of it as I have.

Eyries, Theatres and Worldbuilding as Plot

I first wrote on the ‘worldbuilding as plot’ theme back when I saw the final Harry Potter movie, and was blown away all over again by how clever that Rowling dame is. Wait, is she ACTUALLY a dame yet? Never mind, I’ll wait.

At the time, I was thinking very much about my Nancy Napoleon novel, the one I’ve been wrangling with for the last year, which is probably not going to be called “Fury” now because someone else took that title (SIGH). The idea of worldbuilding as plot gave me a stronger sense of what I was trying to do with the novel, and helped me get over the finish line when I had lost confidence (as regularly happens to writers but sadly not predictably so it can hit you at any time). Continue reading →