Decisions, Decisions

[washingtonwriter1968]

Just wanting to know what everyone thinks.
I have found a online class for 30 days on world building. On one hand, taking the class would help me build a very solid other world for my CWIP. On the other hand, if I stop to do this I may get so wrapped up in the class that I stop most of my work on CWIP.

So here are my questions..... should I set aside the CWIP and work on the 30 days of Worldbuilding class and then pick up the CWIP at the end?
Will it really make that much of a difference in my story? Has anyone taken this class? If so, what did you think about it?
Anyway, just wanted to know what you all thought.

[dios4vida]

I've never done classes like that, mostly for the same concerns you mentioned. (That and school & I don't tend to get along very well.) My extremely limited and uneducated opinion would be that if you feel like you need the help, and that you can't continue writing/working/mulling/thinking without it, then by all means go for it. But we do need to be careful about balancing learning with actual writing. All the classes in the world can't help if you don't work on your WIP.

If I were in your situation, I'd see if there was anything of a lesser extent than I could do to help with worldbuilding, like running through Margo's checklists or other blog advice that would help. Sometimes just writing, even when you know it's drivel, helps to solidify ideas and work through any problems. I'd try those things first, while you continue to write, before going for hardcore, time-consuming things like classes. But that's just me.

[Sanderling]

You might find this site helpful, Washington - it's a step-by-step reference to guide you through building all the facets of your new world that will help to make it believable and functional. It's pretty thorough.

http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-wor ... questions/

Also try Googling "worldbuilding" and see what comes up. Lots of good pointers out there on the web and in blogs.

[polymath]

Consider listing the pros and cons of an online world building course in more detail.

Frankly, I've had mixed results with nonacademic online and in-person courses, some academic ones too. A photography course where the instructor made everything about his fixation with baseball. Maddening how he changed the names of processes, materials, equipment, methods, and supplies to suit his whim. Stop bath, for example, became short stop. After the ninth malapropism in a minute I asked if that was how it was going to be. "What, you don't like baseball? Are you a communist or something?" I dropped that course without waiting around for another word.

Okay. So is the online world-building course the right fit? Online coursework requires self-discipline to get the most out of it. Is the instruction tailored to the genre of the participants? Does the course overlap into crossover genres' world building exercises? What is the outcome? Like is there a certificate of completion? Grades? Some metric of exemplary, successful, or satisfactory completion? Does the course have a determined end point or will it keep insisting there's another section to take for completion? For that matter, is it safe and secure, privacy, personal identity, virus, and spam-wise?

Does the site allow sampling in order to gauge the caliber of instruction? Lots of fly-by-night operations out there, not quite scams, but close enough if they appeal to vanity with little or no substance behind them. Is it a survey, beginner, intermediate, or advanced course?

dios4vida and Sanderling are right that there's a lot of world building discussion going on across the Web. Some of it is malarky, some of it is obtuse, some introductory, some noteworthy, some spanking sharp and deep, some just posing as sharp and deep. A course of study is a good idea. Some kind of direction to minimize digressions onto junk pathways and guide maximum insights. You get to do that. It's a lot of fun planning the trip, and commanding, piloting, steering your own starship that you would miss out on if you went the online course route.

[Watcher55]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of writing classes so I can't say one or another whether a class is a good idea, but I will say I once took English and History the same semester so I'd only have to write one research paper. If you do take a course there's no reason you can't apply the exercises to your WIP.

[Ishta]

I think Watcher makes a good point. I think questions of whether the class is a good one and whether you will get what you need out of it are good questions to ask, but as far as whether you should take a class or not for fear of interrupting your work on your WiP, why do they have to be mutually exclusive? I'd take whatever assignments I had to do and make them pieces of my WiP, if it were me.

[bcomet]

Many good points.

In my own experience, I have developed an ongoing practice of adding "bits" of learning as I continue to write.
This method, over years, has been much less expensive time and money wise than going back to school and it has added a LOT of knowledge and understanding for me. And I have liked keeping my stories moving forward.

The "bits," for me, may consist of following down more info on a need-to-learn-more area, reading through forums like this most excellent one, where you can actually ask other writers to think together and read and share experiences and knowledge, some more academic and others more experiential, both good to take in, or referring to various writing books. Sometimes, it's a practical concern (and I LOVE Donald Maass for his writing workbook) and other times, its been to take my understanding of an area deeper and into more sophisticated turf (that is hard to even get in all-at-once doses). And like another forum contributor pointed out this week in another thread, there is a real value in listening to your story inside of you and trusting your instincts with it.

Learning for me is ongoing and a discipline that I both enjoy and that supports the writing. Large learning distractions may be fun and useful too, and can be great to indulge in, but they don't always move the story forward.

[MattLarkin]

I'm dubious of a class on worldbuilding. While a class on writing may or may not improve your overall work, surely if worldbuilding is a weakness you can find free support and help online.

[washingtonwriter1968]

OK, here is my decision.
I think I am going to work on my new writing craft book and continue writing the book. The world building class will have to wait for now.
What I have done is opened a discussion in a physics forum and I am bouncing around the theories there to help- me describe what This place is going to be like. The first thing to come out of it is the place is.... What I am discussing isn't a dimension at all but an Alternate Universe. So I have retyped my manuscript to say alternate Universe and not Dimension.

But more help has actually come from the Writing the Breakout Novel By Maas than anything else. Wow major rewrite in order!

[bcomet]

Hey Washington, isn't Donald Maass' book the BEST!

A long time ago, I was reading a sci fi and in it I came upon my last name attached to a energy collector in space. I have a very unusual last name, so I followed it down. Seems I had a relative who was a super intellect in space physics. I actually got to write back and forth with him about this. It was a total surprise to him when a few sci fi writers began to use his inventions and theories in fiction and he was invited to big sci fi writers' conventions to speak soon after!!

There are lots of forums that connect the possible with the imagined. Happy research!

[dios4vida]

Good luck with Maass, washingtonwriter. I know that I learned so much about all sorts of things when I read that book. It was worth its weight in gold for me, and better than a class in my opinion.