>The problem is that really good world creation takes decades. When >you
>start, your understanding of your own world is much more limited >than it
>is
>when you're older (if you grow, that is). As a consequence, your >ability
>to build believable otherworlds is limited. Worlds you started back >in
>college don't seem worth salvaging when you're in your 30's. The >most
>that
>you can hope for is that there will be a consistent theme.
I half agree with you.
Really good world creation (let's say Glorantha, Dune or MiddleEarth) takes
decades. Decades for what? I started creating a world, called Auromania,
about 15 years ago. I was fifteen by then and I created something which I
laugh at today.
But some ideas are part of me and I could re-create Auromania today in a
better, deeper, more consistent and more marketing oriented (e.g. sellable)
way today. Without changing the fundamental, good basic intuitive, creative
ideas which I had at 15. Creativity is not depending on age; consistency and
marketing and richness of folklore are, but you can imagine a wonderful
world at 10 years old, one which other kids of 10 would say "wow, you are a
god". Of course, men of 30 would laugh at that same world, but they could
discern some good ideas.
Moreover you need not to create a whole new world from nowhere. It's most hard and even impossible (IMOHO): if Tolkien took his inspiration from Milton, writing the Silmarillion, and F.Herbert from Arab traditions in writing the saga of Dune, and mr Stafford in Tolkien+Herbert+Lovecraft+... If they did so, I can take inspiration from their works, I must in the end.
Creation, in human terms, is not an act of will as God does: it's an act of mixing-up, re-forming schemes in a new pattern, following intuitions which come from miriad sources, so many and so sparse that they are random and often unrecognizable even to the author himself.
In the end, have you ever created anything, mr Crim? That's not a bad question. It's a sincere one. How deep is your experience (not knowledge) of the matter?
Ciao
Gianfranco Geroldi, Cremona, Italy
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