With many fantasy books and sourcebooks, there is some sort of timeline in the front of the book. Generally, it's there to give the reader an idea of where the story is taking place in the "world's" timeline. For me, a timeline was important so I knew I was getting everyone to the right place at the right time, plus I could talk about distant events and make sure I was consistently keeping the times the same.
When writing a sourcebook you can expand on this short, (or not so short), timeline and maybe give a little life to the dates in the book. In roleplaying books they sometimes give a short timeline, then pick out some important dates that shape the world you are roleplaying in. For roleplayers, this important so they can feel as if their character truly lives in this world they are in. For readers, this allows them to see some more depth to the world they have come to enjoy.
For me, I am going to have a chapter on history, but not make it dry. That is a tall task, I'm sure. So I'm breaking down my chapter as follows:
1) A short timeline. Here I will hit all the major points in history in a bullet point list. I will start with the creation of Martapa and finish up with the current date of the High King's Sword.
2) I will take each bullet point and explain them a bit. At one point there is the comment that the dragons disappear from the world. Here I would explain the reasons and speculations by historians. The speculations is what will make it not just dry history. It's fun to see ideas of why they think the dragons disappear instead of a "just the facts, ma'am" kinda of article.
This doesn't seem like a lot, but once you get going this could be reams of paper. Make sure to hit the most important points in history and if these things didn't come up in the book or you plan on filling them out more in a later book, be vague, it's okay. If done properly, it will bring your readers back for more!
Happy writing!
No comments:
Post a Comment