I think this is my fourth year! What fun.
The World: Superheroes Assorted. The one that goes with the world where this article goes. I might intersperse a few other worlds if I'm really stumped, but I want to focus on developing this world because I have plans and I need to know it better. The first prompt theme, Power, should be perfect for exploring the history and background of the powerhouses of this near-Earth world.
The Goal: 32+ prompts. I basically have a month of vacation coming up, so I'm absolutely shooting for Diamond. I also really want to get this world developed so it basically counts as work, right? I'd love to get all forty prompts done, but we'll see if any of them don't quite work for me.
My Pledge
In fancy document form no less.
Theme Prep
Power: Honestly, when I first heard the word, I thought straight up electric power, but the article on the blog made it make more sense. In context of my world, I have characters, and allusions to various superhero and villain organizations and histories, and almost no development to it. The biggest organizations have articles, but there's almost nothing to give the world depth and nuance. I'm hoping to work with political power a lot for this one, and I look forward to the ideas that can spring from the prompts.
In this world, the first recorded superpowers were from around the 1800s, and there were probably people who had powers before that. Superpowers have been a part of this world for a long time, and they would have power structures to reflect that. I'm not so interested in exploring mistrust of "the other" as much as putting it together in a place where it's expected to be normal. My own main question is: how would the political power have balanced between people with powers and those without, especially considering how insignificant some of those powers can be?
Extra Credit
Watched the video about how to set up Relationships in World Anvil, and the refresher article for Diplomacy Webs. I don't use either one to the full extent, more simply connecting people and groups rather than going into detail about how they feel about each other. Something worth exploring in Summer Camp?
This particular world is not an old one, but to satisfy homework point #5 I looked at it for my world Thaiterra. And then I actually wrote some of it for this one. (Whoops. I thought I'd made more notes but I guess not.) So now it's about 50% complete which is just fine for a start, and got me to think about core themes in the world.
Frontier: Since this is an Earth-plus-things kind of world, it's more difficult to find geographic frontiers, so I'll be focusing on scientific and personal frontiers for this one, I think. With a few possible alien references in there since they do have those as well. So far, this theme is the most likely one for me to branch off and work on one of my other worlds.
Extra Credit
First, maps. I'm not good at making them, but it's something I should practice because it's invaluable to have visual representations of spaces to figure out scene blocking. While I don't really need larger geographical spaces since it's basically just Earth, I'll keep my eyes out for smaller spaces like buildings where I could try to map it out.
Also, as per usual, I do not remember to organize my articles as I write them, so I use the homework as reminders to reorganize and re-categorize whatever world I'm focusing on. So now everything is tucked away neatly. Mostly. I never get the categories quite right.
Relic: I'm looking forward to the historical focus of this one. For this particular world, I set it that superpowers first appeared publicly in the 1800s, so there's lots of prequel-type things to explore and set up in the world. (Also I'm not saying that's when they first existed, just when they first appeared, so there's clues there as well.) This should give me a chance to explore those early pioneers, and also some of my main character
Ruby Gray's ancestors.
There's also the alien aspect. There's a few of those cultures out there, and if they crashed before then they'll have left relics, so that should be fun to work out. This category will likely have the most pure world building for me, things that relate less to my planned books and more to world flavor.
Extra Credit
Maps, not so much. But timelines? Yes! I do have one timeline for this world so far and I will endeavor to add to it as I add in events. It's all dated from Ruby's life, because it's mainly a tool to figure out how old she is when certain things happen. Not too many items on it yet, since I'm not sure about the placement of some events, but Summer Camp could be a good time to figure it out.
As per images, I have no plans with them. I like them in articles, I understand the need, but I find them difficult to work with and find and I would rather focus on the writing part of it and save fussing with formatting for the future. Possibly when I can pay someone to do it for me, to set up a bonus feature for a fun book series.
Communication: I'm hoping a lot of the prompts from this segment will follow on nicely from the last one. Communication across the ages sounds interesting. Not just how the characters talk to each other now (although that is absolutely something I could expand on easily), but how ideas have been communicated from the past. I'm playing around with a time-travel plot and I think this might help.
I also love working with languages, so I'm guessing this will come into play for this character as well. Is there some kind of shorthand that my villains use to converse secretly? Do the aliens have a particular dialect they use just for ease of galactic use? This whole category sounds like my kind of thing, which will be very nice for the final push at the end of the month.
Extra Credit
The dictionary function is a lot of fun to work with on the language template, and I'm excited to see what kind of language we might be prompted to build. It'll be tricky, with my world being basically Earth, so I'll probably focus more on constructing an alien language or building a code dictionary if the prompt allows.
Whiteboards are something that I've used in the past but it turned out kind of glitchy. Important to note that this was not too long after it was first implemented so I'm sure it's a lot better now. I'll use this as my reminder to make use of it, although we'll have to see what the prompts are like. Based on what we know, I find it more likely that I'll use it for the Power prompts, to work on the webs of connections, or to figure out where my Frontiers might be between particular things.
Looking at the articles I've already created for this world, most of them are characters. It was entertaining going back and seeing all the different people who live here, and also wincing every time it turns out I forgot to link them together properly. Whoops. I really need to do some cleanup. Honestly, most of the details in this world are still being formed and mainly still in my head, so it's more a matter of putting it into the articles. Hopefully a lot of the prompts fit what I've got churning around already!
Finally...
I also requested a Dimi Mission from the Twitch stream.
(alas, I had DnD during the stream so I couldn't get it just yet but this is the space to include that when I get it)
Good luck! Happy Summer Camp!
Thanks! You too!