Originally posted on May 10, 2011.
Hi, folks!
Once upon a time, we met with one James Tallett, the creator of The Four Part Land. He has been kind enough to join us once again, this time discussing his world creation process. Please sit back and enjoy the ride!
Greetings, James!
It is nice to have you back again for another interview. It was hard picking just one subject to interview you on last time, so I am so pleased that we can get back together for another writing romp. You have put a great deal of thought into building your world. Today, we are going to explore just what you went through to build your setting for your Four Part Land novels. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to talk a little on how you built your world and why it turned out as it did.
Do you remember the first moment that your world was conceived? Does anything stand out to you as being the major source of inspiration for your setting?
Scotland and Wales, at the very beginning. The map was something I drew freehand, and that just popped out of my head, but the names of all the towns and villages on the map are actually altered versions of villages and towns from the Gaelic parts of Great Britain. I’ve had family in Wales for a great many years, so I know some parts of it fairly well, and the terrain and the language from there and from various other parts of the British Isles (Cornwall, Cumbria) became fairly well integrated into The Four Part Land, although much of the terrain is of my own devising. There’s no giant desert that sweeps across central Britain, for one.
Several years into your project, do you feel that your world building efforts are complete? Why or Why not?
Not really. Partly this is because I know the setting is larger than the novels cover. There’s four continents, and the novels only cover two – Bedwar Barthu Dirio, which I usually refer to as The Four Part Land, and Læccan. These are the south-east and north-east continents, and I’ve done very little with the south-west and north-west ones, aside from jot down a few ideas.
In addition to that, I’ve not fleshed out some of the areas just in Bedwar Barthu Dirio, because the main story never passed that way. This is primarily the area around Bethra, which hasn’t featured yet in any story. Likewise all of Bohortha Eilan, aside from the capital. Here’s the map, for those curious as to which areas I’m referring to.
Let us skip back in time a little. You have started building your world. Do you remember what elements of your world were the very first things you developed?
The terrain and the location of the kingdoms was the absolute first thing to be created. After that, I think the magic system and then various implements followed on. Buildings, armies, weapons, and animals for the various geographical locations all were written in fairly close proximity to one another, and once I’d finished up those, I more or less started writing the actual story. Since then, I just flesh out areas as I need them, rather than building all the detail in beforehand. Why did you start with these things?
Because they were the cool parts. Magic and combat are things I really enjoy writing about, and I find that when I come to those sections in the book, the story flows out from my fingers a lot faster than it does when I’m doing dialogue or description. But also because I believe that magic plays an integral role in the culture of the setting, and it’s really hard to design a culture that’s going to be magic using without knowing how magic works.
As an example, imagine saying that humans had computers, but you didn’t know at what stage they had computers. Was it the great beasts of the early 1950s, or the computer in your pocket smartphones of today? Our interaction and world-view on computers is completely different, but its still a “computer”. The same problem applies with magic, and what it can do to a culture.
What was the hardest part of developing these facets of your world?
Realizing that during the writing of the novels, I’d actually ignored a decent amount of the background material I’d written beforehand. Which meant I then had to go back and redo a large pile of background material so that it matched up with the novels. That was a little annoying, and led to a bit of delay in getting the commissioned map finished.
Trade and resources were also a bit of a problem, because I’d (at first) created a world that was almost entirely devoid of wood. Given a fantasy world with large sailing fleets and wooden cities, this caused a few moments of banging my head against a wall once I realized it, and I had to go back and add in forests on the map, as well alter a few pieces of culture as well. What was the easiest part of developing these facets of your world?
I find creating magic fairly easy, and I love to do it. If I’m not careful, I can design magic systems until the cows come home. I also found the geography very easy. I just started drawing the map then filling in the blank spots and I never really thought about what it would be like until I was done and the map was mostly full. Now, as mentioned above, this did end up causing a few problems later, but I’d left enough blank space I could tweak things.
When someone asks you about world building, what is the first thing that comes to mind? For example, do you think of kingdoms, regions, mountains, rivers, culture, or politics?
Geography → Kingdoms → Magic, pretty much in that order. I always start with the shape of the world and of the environments on it, because I feel they define everything else about how the world operates. It’s impossible to have a thalassocracy when most of the terrain is desert and mountains, but they work very well in geography that looks like the Mediterranean. During what phase of the world building process did you start writing your novels?
I had the terrain complete, as well as the kingdoms and magic, and I’d done a fair amount on the culture as well, including a decent amount of backstory and history. I’ve subsequently written about the events four hundred years in the past of the novels that play such an important role in the current day politics.
I don’t feel I could have started writing without most of that complete. Otherwise I wouldn’t know where I was going when I plotted out the novel. Having the history in place gave me a lot of the spark for the culture of Bhreac Veryan, and how it would play out on the larger stage of Bedwar Barthu Dirio. It’s been pretty important, as they play a central role in all six of the novels, and in many of the short stories as well. Many people get so involved with the world building process that they never start writing their story. How did you prevent yourself from falling into this trap?I always knew that I wanted to get to writing the story, and after a while, I got bored of doing the little details of culture and wanted to create the story. I also don’t like to flesh things out too far, because while a nice skin of background builds the framework for a story and spawns ideas, too much means that as an author I’d constantly be researching my own setting to see how each place looks and so on. I’d much rather have the freedom to write what feels natural to the story when I arrive in a location, guided by a few lines of what the general shape is like.
When you were world building, how much did the existence of your characters alter your perceptions of the World you were creating? Did your characters grow alongside your world?
The characters never really altered the world, they just existed within it. They came only when I started writing, and weren’t around at all for the world-building process. Although one of them rather surprised me when he sent the MC to a different continent. Which was a bit of a problem for me because I hadn’t designed that continent, so I had no idea where he was actually going, how he would get there, or what the place would look like when he had arrived. It meant I’d just written myself to a point where I had a fair bit more world-building to do before I could continue writing.
Were there any significant changes that you made to your world after you finished the initial creation process?
Completely designing a second continent for it. Originally, all the world was going to take place in Bedwar Barthu Dirio, and although I knew that outside of that were was more land, I never really gave much thought to what was there, because the barriers between each were designed to be all but impenetrable. Well, it turns out a particularly determined MC can get through almost any barrier, and so I had a fair amount more work to do. However, in the end I’m glad I did it, because it gave me a lot of ideas for the setting as a whole, and also expanded upon some of the background of the world in a way that I hadn’t thought of before.
Did you draw maps of your world before you hired someone to create the professional version? Do you feel that sketching maps helps to cement the structure of your world?
I sketched out three or four version of the map before eventually getting the professional version done. I wouldn’t have tried to build the world without them, and these days the first thing I do when making a new world is grab a pad and paper and start drawing shapes in. That’s what I did when I created Læccan and Splintered Lands, and I’m sure it’s what I’ll do when I finally build Arhosa and all those other ideas I have floating around in my head.
How long did the general world building process take you?
A couple of months, probably. That was my first time through though, and these days I could probably create a decent world in a week, give or take a little bit of effort. It’s certainly something you get better at the more you do, because you know what you need for the setting, and what order works best for you to create it. If you could give one piece of advice to new writers on world building, what would it be?
Don’t get bogged down in the details. Some details are important, but too many is a burden, and is taking away from the time you could be spending writing. And you’ll always want to add in details while writing, and cool ideals very often come in the middle of the story. Leave room for them to breathe and exist.
Of course I must have my strange question in an interview. It just wouldn’t be right without it. But, we’ll stay on subject this time. If you could live anywhere on your created world, where would you live and why?
Tri-Hauwcerton. It’s in the northern mountains, so it has some beautiful slopes to hike across in the summer, a river to kayak down, and I’m sure I could talk them into building a ski lift or two for me. And if it wasn’t there, it would be outside of Tregonethra, where there’s some stunning coves and sailing and swimming. Course, it would be a bit warm for me in the summer (it’s close to tropical there).