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ProWritingAid: Hello, Hello, everyone!

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ProWritingAid: My name is Joe. I'm from pro writing aid. Thanks for joining us today. If you can see and hear me, please. Could you drop your name and location in the chat? It would be great to to hear from you and to hear from where you're connecting from.

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ProWritingAid: Yeah, we have.

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Kerry Savage: I left.

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ProWritingAid: From London. Hello, Nicole! From Idaho, Dan from California, Hi, Dan.

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ProWritingAid: Australia, Laura Brad from Colorado, Chicago.

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ProWritingAid: Elliot from New York. Oh, wow! Got some Canadians in now. Hello! Hello!

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ProWritingAid: Another one from Idaho.

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ProWritingAid: Is that a Uk one? I see

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ProWritingAid: it is Cornwall.

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ProWritingAid: If you can't tell. By the way, guys, I'm also from the Uk. Don't hold it against me.

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ProWritingAid: Okay, we have Toronto

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ProWritingAid: in the Netherlands.

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ProWritingAid: Germany, Arizona.

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ProWritingAid: fantastic.

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Kerry Savage: Amazing!

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Kerry Savage: Oh.

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ProWritingAid: I'll just give this one more minute folks so everybody can join, and then I'll run through some quick housekeeping rules, and we'll we'll crack on.

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ProWritingAid: And we've got Vancouver.

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ProWritingAid: Dr. Roy from Austin, Texas, California.

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ProWritingAid: brilliant.

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ProWritingAid: Okay, right? So just before we get started, guys, we're gonna just go through a few housekeeping items.

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ProWritingAid: and then I'll be sure to kick off. So welcome to Science Fiction writers. Week 2024.

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ProWritingAid: So 1st of all, how to access your replays. So replays for Monday to Thursday. Sessions are available for everyone on the hub as soon as they're done being processed by Zoom. And this can take a little bit of time, so please don't worry. It will be added as soon as possible.

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ProWritingAid: Replays will be available on the pro writing a community page for all members to view by the 20th of September. And don't worry. I'll be dropping the links to things like the Hub and everything else throughout the session. So if you missed them this time around, please don't worry.

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ProWritingAid: So some details on our premium day. So Monday to Thursday, sessions are free for everybody to attend. Friday. Sessions are limited to premium and premium pro users. Free users can grade their accounts by Friday morning in order to gain access and premium and premium pro users will receive an email Friday morning with instructions for attending the live session and viewing the replays.

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ProWritingAid: So if you'd if you're interested in upgrading so that you can attend the premium day, we have an offer for attendees this week for 15% off yearly, providing a premium and premium pro subscriptions you can upgrade by Friday morning to receive access to the premium day

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ProWritingAid: again. I'll be dropping all this information in the chat folks, and it will be on the hub. So don't worry if you miss it this time around.

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ProWritingAid: If you'd like to keep talking science fiction we'd love to have you in our private online writing. Community joining is super easy. You simply visit the link to the Hub and the community and then log in with your pro writing aid account info, and then you can hop on over to the live event, chat to talk to other attendees.

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ProWritingAid: So some reminders for this session. Please use the QA. Box if you have any questions for our speaker, and if you'd like to chat with other viewers, please use the chat box links to your offers, and from our speaker will be available on the Science Fiction writers, week Hub, which you can see there, and I'll be sure to post it in the chat in a second.

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ProWritingAid: So thank you, and I will now intro our fantastic guest. So introducing Kerry Savage, a voracious reader of all kinds of fiction, sometimes memoir and nonfiction. Kerry is an author, accelerator, certified book coach, who works with novelists from planning stages through revision

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ProWritingAid: helping writers get their best book ready for the world. She is also a J. School grad and former project manager, as well as being hard at work on her 1st novel, which is a work of historical fiction based on the life of a real badass female pirate, which I will certainly be reading. She serves as a volunteer mentor for the women's fiction writers, association and sisters in crime.

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ProWritingAid: and she loves good wine, cheese, and trying to keep her succulents alive, which is something I deeply empathise with.

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ProWritingAid: so, without further ado, I will, I will hand over for what I'm sure will be a fantastic session over to you.

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Kerry Savage: Thank you, Joe. Let's see. Get

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Kerry Savage: that up. And

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Kerry Savage: can you see my screen?

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Kerry Savage: Yes.

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Kerry Savage: no.

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Kerry Savage: that's

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Kerry Savage: we can, indeed. Excellent. Thank you very much, all right. So I'm not going to be looking at the chat from now on, because my Adhd will send us down a terrible rabbit hole, and we don't want that. We want to get to all the good stuff that we're going to do today. So welcome. Thank you very much for joining me in this world building immersion workshop.

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Kerry Savage: As Joe mentioned, I'm Carrie. I'm a writer and author, accelerator, certified book coach. I've been an editor and a project manager for more than 20 years, which completely freaks me out.

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Kerry Savage: I'm also the co-founder of shadows and secrets, which is the writing retreat for mystery and thriller authors, and we have some paranormal and magic folks, too. We're going to be having our inaugural event in 2 weeks in Salem, Mass. Which is just couldn't be more appropriate, I think spooky, spooky books and spooky season in a spooky place.

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Kerry Savage: So more information on the at the on that, at the very end, if you're interested, we love all kinds of stories, paranormal magic, all that kind of good stuff.

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Kerry Savage: So, as Joe mentioned, my 1st novel was a work of historical fiction, and that was really my introduction to world building was building out that immersive world. I did a ton of research before I ever dove into the actual writing was the amount of research I did Overkill. Probably.

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Kerry Savage: Was there some procrastination involved, maybe, but I also wanted to be able to really see the world that I was creating, so that I could convey that vision to my reader right from the get go.

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Kerry Savage: And that research also made it easier for me to show my characters interacting with the world around them, which goes a long way towards immersing the reader in the world as well.

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Kerry Savage: So I'm actually now onto my second novel, which is just a little tiny baby right now, it's very much a baby novel in progress, and I am incorporating some paranormal elements into that book, and I'm having to figure out exactly what that looks like. So when I was thinking through how to put this presentation together certainly was bringing a lot of like. Well, what worked for me and what didn't, and what are the pitfalls that I want you to be able to avoid.

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Kerry Savage: So that's kind of the where this, the the genesis of this was from.

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Kerry Savage: So what we're going to talk about today, I have promised you an interactive workshop. And that is what we're going to do. We are going to get you started or continue on your down your path in creating an immersive world for your novel.

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Kerry Savage: And we are going to start by nailing down the very basic top line elements of your world. And then we're going to dig into the magic systems, or any superpowers that you have and the different aspects of those things that you need to define.

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Kerry Savage: We're going to craft the physical reality like what the world actually looks like. We're going to populate your world with all of the people that are going to be part of it. And then we're going to dig into the political and social structures of your novel universe. And throughout those last pieces in particular, we're going to define and describe aspects of their day to day lives, so that you can show that your show that to your readers, via your characters, thoughts, and actions.

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Kerry Savage: and just exactly how are we going to do that? You ask? Well, I have a series of slides with questions that cover all of the different aspects of each of these elements above. So I would say right now, if we could pause for a second or you pause. I'm just going to talk a little bit more, but while I am chatting on, please make sure that you have the following handy.

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Kerry Savage: you can have a file for your current work in progress, so like, if you work in scrivener or some other kind of writing software, have a blank file in your notes or your world building section of your file, or have a blank word document, handy or whatever sort of word processing tool that you use, or just a notebook and a pen. Because basically we're going to be doing some writing a lot of writing

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Kerry Savage: the other option. And I think Joe is going to throw this in. The chat is, I have a free workbook that I've created for you. It has all of the questions that we're going to look at in the upcoming slides that are contained in that workbook, and there's even more in there, too, if you want it. So you could download that if you want to and start working directly in that. So that is@carriesavage.com forward slash prowriting, aid

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Kerry Savage: hyphen, sci-fi hyphen week, and like I said, I believe Joe's going to throw that in the chat. So you can grab that now if you want to.

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Kerry Savage: And just also for folks who might be wondering if the slides are available. They're not. But that's because everything is in that workbook. And I put even more stuff in there. So I thought, that's actually the more valuable thing for you to have, and it's completely free. So please go ahead and download that there now or later, whenever whenever it works

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Kerry Savage: alright.

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Kerry Savage: So before we get into the guts of it. I just want to talk a little bit about why world building is important.

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Kerry Savage: Immersive worlds with logical rules and systems are important because they make the reader feel safe, and they make the reader feel like they're in good hands. They're going to trust you. If the world is immersive and it makes sense, and it follows rules and systems, even if those rules and systems are entirely of your own making.

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Kerry Savage: If something about your world feels off, a reader could very well get annoyed and just put the book down. And that's obviously the last thing that we want them to do.

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Kerry Savage: And world building is something that can often be overwhelming, especially when you're just starting out for a couple of different reasons. One is, if you're a planner like me, there's a temptation to go way down a rabbit hole right and define every single element that you might need to know somewhere, and telling yourself that you have to know everything before you can even get started

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Kerry Savage: as a reformed project manager and a general believer in preparation. As I said, I would rather do too much than not enough, but I also recognize and have seen in some of the writers that I've coached, that, believing that you have to have the answers to all of the questions nailed down before you get started can be a recipe for stagnation.

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Kerry Savage: You don't want to be sick of your world before you even start writing the good stuff. Aka, the actual book.

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Kerry Savage: On the other hand, there's a temptation to focus on the specific thing that sparked your idea in the 1st place, and just ignore the rest of it, and telling yourself that you'll figure it out when you get there, or when you need to. So I'm looking at you pancers. I do love you. But this is kind of how that that affects the pantsers who are also needing to do some world building.

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Kerry Savage: The problem with that approach is that you run the risk of hitting a wall somewhere between like 20 and 60,000 words, or you know even other places, but that's generally where I see it happen

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Kerry Savage: where you don't know where you want to go next, or you've set up a system, or there are some powers that your characters have, and all of a sudden they're contradicting what you need your story to do to unfold as you envision it.

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Kerry Savage: So we don't want that, either. We don't want you to get stuck, and we don't want you to have to go back and throw out a whole bunch of pages because it's no longer working the way you need it to.

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Kerry Savage: So as with most of life world building, especially as you're getting started. The truth is, somewhere in the middle, and moderation is key right? You don't have to know every single thing to get started, but I am a strong believer that if you take a few hours to make your world real, you will go a long way towards minimizing the rework you have to do, especially due to logic, fails as well as helping you build like surprise and delight via the details of your world from the start.

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Kerry Savage: So with all of that, said.

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Kerry Savage: let's get into it. What? So how this is going to work. I didn't actually spell it out entirely, and my last slide is

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Kerry Savage: we're going to start a series of slides that are going to cover these different aspects. I'm going to give you a little bit of time to write. I'll talk briefly about the questions, and then we'll pause, and I'll give you a few minutes, and then we'll come back, and we'll go through all of this whole series that I have. So I think there's 5 or 6 of them, and we should have a little bit of time for Q. And a at the end, too. But this is really just started. Intended to help you start. Get your brain firing on all of the things that you might want to consider as you're crafting your world.

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Kerry Savage: So I said, 1st up the basics, and this one's going to be short and sweet. I hope you probably know this? It's very high level stuff. So, but when when are we in time? Are we in the past? Are we in the present? Are we in the future.

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Kerry Savage: Where are we? Are we in this universe, on the even on this planet? Or is there an alternate universe? Another approach oftentimes is that we are in our world, the real world. But there's 1 small difference, you know, or we're in our world, that and we recognize it. But there's an alternate reality or an alternate history going on. So this is just a really top level grounding question here and then, finally, who

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Kerry Savage: are they? Are we all humans are there, aliens? Are there a mix of different species? Who are we talking about? And again, very, very high level? So I'm going to set my timer for 3 min

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Kerry Savage: and

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Kerry Savage: go ahead and and answer these questions.

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Kerry Savage: Okay.

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Kerry Savage: 1st set done.

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Kerry Savage: Patty raised your hand.

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Kerry Savage: Joe, can you check in on on Patty, and I'm happy to answer questions. Now, if it's

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Kerry Savage: I don't want anybody to get stuck.

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Kerry Savage: but

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Kerry Savage: I'll trust that with you, and I'm going to move on to the next one.

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Kerry Savage: Which is thinking about your magic. So special features. And I emphasize here, this is just a starting point. Likely there's going to be enough happening in this, that you know the next 5 min that I'm going to give you to write are not going to be enough time to to flesh out everything.

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Kerry Savage: But these are the kinds of things that I want you to start thinking about, right, like, what are those magical super magic. What is the magic, or what are the superpowers who has them? How did they get them? What are the rules for their use?

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Kerry Savage: Are the magic, and or the superpowers generally known and accepted? Or are they hidden from the general population?

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Kerry Savage: If they're generally accepted, what are the laws for their use? And I just want to call out the difference between that and the rules. So the rules is literally like physically. How does the magic or the superpower work in the world. What are the constraints that are put around it, you know, just by

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Kerry Savage: its use or not use versus the laws? Meaning? Is it acceptable for them to use their magic? Or is it something that's illegal? And if so, how does all of that play out?

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Kerry Savage: So there's just a few things? Oh, and then do people understand magic in that same vein of like? Do people know about it? Do they understand it? Is it accepted? Is it not accepted. How do people feel about it? Generally? Those kinds of things. So for this one in the next upcoming slides because they are a bit more robust. I'm gonna give you 5 min so you can start working on that. Now I will set the timer.

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Kerry Savage: and off we go have fun.

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Kerry Savage: So there's about 1 min left. Just so, you all know 1 min.

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Kerry Savage: Alright.

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Kerry Savage: let's so next up we have the physical world. So there's a lot going on on this slide in particular, I've broken it out very high level into 2 sort of buckets, one of which is geography. So thinking about what the place actually looks like.

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Kerry Savage: what the main geographical features are. So things like mountains, oceans, plains. And if you have a massive universe or massive world that you're creating? Certainly something to start pondering, depending on where you are in the process is, will you eventually want to include a map? Because I know that there are a lot of people do. There are great free resources out there to help you do that. And I know people also specialize in creating those kinds of things. You can find them freelance people who who do that kind of work, too. But

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Kerry Savage: just an aside to think about what is the environment like meaning? Again, like the flora and fauna. What do people see around them? What is their physical world?

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Kerry Savage: You know? What is the terrain like in a similar vein. What is the climate like? So, you know, is it hot? Is it cold? Are there seasons? And also like, what are the weather systems like, does it really rainy? Is it really sunny? What kind of storms are there all that kind of stuff that just builds the physical environment. And finally, what natural resources are available to people?

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Kerry Savage: If any.

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Kerry Savage: And then the other bucket that I've sort of slotted things into is, how do people is systems and resources sorry. So how do people move around in the world? What are their modes of transportation?

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Kerry Savage: How is food produced and distributed?

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Kerry Savage: What kinds of technology do people have access to? And what kinds of technology do they use? And what does shelter mean to people? Where do they live, and where do they work, and what are their buildings made of? So? In some cases this might be super easy for you to answer again, if if you're sort of setting it in this world. But there's just some slight thing that's off, then then you can think about this in a more focused way about your setting and really drawing

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Kerry Savage: out details of your specific setting that you want to make sure, get in and can set a mood that way.

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Kerry Savage: if you have a massive world with like multiple planets or multiple countries spread out, spread out across the world

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Kerry Savage: where I would recommend starting to tackle. This is, think about the commonalities among all of the entities, and answer these questions. Starting from there, and then work your way down to the specifics for each like group or place, or or however you want to think about it.

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Kerry Savage: That's a really helpful way to actually force yourself to focus a little bit and avoid getting overwhelmed by thinking like, well, I was writing about this, and now I'm jumping over here to talk about this. And oh, but that means like this is, you know, this is an aspect of their world over there. Think about it that way. Start common and then drill down.

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Kerry Savage: Alright. We're going to do another 5 min. I will give you another 1 min warning when we're close, and off we go

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Kerry Savage: 1 min, warning everybody

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Kerry Savage: all right. So

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Kerry Savage: next up are your people, your characters? Hooray!

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Kerry Savage: So some of you again may just have one sort of big group of people, and you might be drilling down on differences amongst them, just like we're used to on on this planet in this world. But for those of you 2 who have multiple groups of people that are all not human, or are some iteration thereof that you are specifically playing with?

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Kerry Savage: start answering these questions, based on all the things that they have in common, and then branch out and work on the specifics for each particular group. Once the commonalities are done, is how I would recommend tackling it as best you can.

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Kerry Savage: This can also be a really interesting way to draw out potentially some conflict and tension, some stakes that you haven't necessarily seen before. But the specific questions that I want you to think about are like, what is their history? And if you have multiple groups, how much of that history is shared. Is any of it shared? Or do they agree on some things and completely disagree on other things?

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Kerry Savage: I guess that would be more the interpretation of their history. You, as the author, as the god of the story, get to create that history, so you can then decide how much of it they share or don't share? What are their belief systems? And specifically, do they believe in some version of heaven and or hell? And how do they view death?

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Kerry Savage: Is there a dominant religion or belief system? And what happens to those who don't follow it? What are some common rites of passage, births, deaths. You know birthday celebrations. What other holidays are there, and how are they celebrated?

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Kerry Savage: And then how do people communicate? Is there more than one language? And if there is, is there a dominant language? And does everybody expected to speak that dominant language? Or are there multiple dialects that are all in use, so plenty of stuff to think about. Put another 5 min on the clock, and away we go.

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Kerry Savage: 1 min. Y'all

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Kerry Savage: all right. Moving on. We've got 2 to go.

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Kerry Savage: So our next up is politics and power.

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Kerry Savage: So this gets juicy again, starting to think about conflict and tension and stakes a lot more.

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Kerry Savage: So what are the power structures in the world? Is there one government? Is there more than one government? How do those governments? Interact? What are the nature of the governments? Are they democratic, autocratic, something else?

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Kerry Savage: How do they treat their citizens? Are your people content? Are they oppressed? Who are their enemies, and how do they know that? Are they just? Is all the information coming from the government? Or are there other sources of information?

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Kerry Savage: So a lot of juicy stuff to think about here. And also, just before I hit my timer, I just want to say, like, I am able to kind of keep an eye on the chat. You guys are amazing like there's so much good stuff happening in the chat.

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Kerry Savage: All these books sound so cool. So I'll touch on that a little bit more, I'm sure, but I just needed to say that while I was keeping an eye on it, so

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Kerry Savage: I'll stop talking. I'll let you work. Off we go.

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Kerry Savage: all right. We're at our 1 min warning.

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Kerry Savage: Okay? Last, but certainly not least, probably my favorite, just because it's fun. All this stuff is fun for me to think about. I mean, all of this stuff is good to think about, but social structures and culture.

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Kerry Savage: So what are the main qualities of the culture. What does work look like for people? We touched on this a little bit in terms of building structures. And and also

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Kerry Savage: there was another one back there that also touched on what people, how people work. Now I'm completely forgetting it. I'm sorry, but you start to see. I'm sure you've already noticed how some of this stuff overlaps with itself, right? Like you can start to think about one thing, and that naturally leads you to think about this other stuff. So all these questions are sort of intended to come at things in different ways. So

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Kerry Savage: that being said, getting back to these specifics? What does work look like? Where do they work? Who do they work for and hand in hand? And with that, of course, is what is the role of money? Who has it? Who doesn't? How do they earn it? How do they spend it?

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Kerry Savage: What does the class system look like in your world who's rich? Who's poor?

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Kerry Savage: What do they do for education? Is there a system of education? How do people learn things? And last, but not least, and I think you can have a lot of fun with this one if you choose, is, what do people do for fun?

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Kerry Savage: so

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Kerry Savage: yeah, go crazy. Make up a little fun fun things that they do

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Kerry Savage: and all right, I'm setting my timer. Off we go, and then we'll be back to wrap up and do some Q. And a

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Kerry Savage: 1 min. Everybody

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Kerry Savage: all right. So just a quick wrap up. 1st of all, let's all laugh at the fact that I forgot to name my slide. So that's why there's a Tk in there for those of you who don't know publishing shorthand. You often throw a Tk.

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Kerry Savage: For something, you know, to come, and that makes it easy to search for those things. Clearly I did not search and find all my tks before

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Kerry Savage: I put this up. But anyway, basically, the point remains the same. Remember

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Kerry Savage: for everything that you do, including everything with world building. You want to serve the story right?

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Kerry Savage: That is the most important rule. Cool details that thrill and excite. You are awesome, but just beware! There can also be too much of a good thing, so be sure to avoid avoid info dumps

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Kerry Savage: and showing off all of the cool stuff that you have just come up with. Make sure you're telling us for a reason, and make sure that it's enriching your manuscript, and not just like here's all the cool stuff my brain came up with, and I've seen from keeping an eye on the chat you guys have come up with so much cool stuff. So that is really amazing to see and very inspiring.

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Kerry Savage: So Q. And a time. I'm going to just throw up my special offer. There's all my contact information here. Please feel free to reach out. Grab your workbook. I also have a special coaching offer for you all. If you want some coaching eyes on your workbook, I'm happy to do that. And yeah, Joe, take it away.

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ProWritingAid: Hey?

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ProWritingAid: I just want to say as well. That was that was great. It's been fantastic, you know, learning as well as reading reading everybody's contributions. They've all been wonderful. So thanks so much to everyone guys. Okay. So we've got a few questions in the QA. So the 1st one from Laura

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ProWritingAid: is, have you ever come across a sci-fi fantasy that has autobiographical memoirs weaved into it.

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Kerry Savage: Oh, my gosh, no, that's a really no, I haven't. I

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Kerry Savage: don't know how you would do it, although, interestingly enough, what that brings to mind is literally just. This morning I finished a book called Beauty Land, which the premise was that the main character was an alien who was born of a human of human parents.

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Kerry Savage: And throughout the book she's experiencing life on Earth and reporting back to her alien family via fax machine. It was a wonderful book really well written. I highly recommend it, although I don't have the author's name in front of me, so I apologize for that.

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Kerry Savage: But no, I have not seen that combination. I think it would be fascinating to see how you would structure and and and and do that. Honestly, you've kind of just made me go.

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ProWritingAid: That's real.

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Kerry Savage: Really cool. I just. I've never seen anything like that.

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ProWritingAid: Great, and then next one from

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ProWritingAid: Manson is which one do you think is the most important in storytelling the world, building first, st or the characters first.st

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Kerry Savage: Oh, such a good question!

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Kerry Savage: How do I answer this? Probably, you know, on a different day I might give you a different answer, because part of what I do. When I do a planning with my clients, I will make them do both right. We do both world building and character stuff. Because I as a planner and as someone who wrote a book without a plan and had to completely go off the rails and then learned why planning was important even for

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Kerry Savage: Pantsr types, and I don't mean to disparage pantsers. We love you. We really do. But I think it's important to know some of both of these things, because that is how you're getting into your character arcs. You're understanding what the what the changes are, what the stakes are, and all of that like. The more you can dig into and understand those fundamentals of your novel.

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Kerry Savage: The better off you are. I mean, drafting especially is a process of discovery. So things are going to change. They're always going to change. You can plan everything in the world. And that's why I don't recommend like.

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Kerry Savage: completely going overboard, because you will change it, and that's fine. In fact, it's a good thing the learning and the discovery. But I think to set out and get the cleanest 1st draft you can to know something about both of these things, just the fundamentals. And that's what I was trying to tease out with this. And then there's, you know, if you look into for character work, I think people like Lisa Kron. Her books really get at the core of character building. And if so, if you can answer some of those fundamental questions.

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Kerry Savage: that's what I would recommend you do before you even start.

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Kerry Savage: So I know I kind of punted on that a little bit, but it's like asking to choose a favorite child right.

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ProWritingAid: Okay, great.

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ProWritingAid: Patrick has a question which they say is off topic question for Kerry.

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ProWritingAid: Did you certify as a fiction? Nonfiction, or both coach with author, accelerator.

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Kerry Savage: Oh, yeah, I I certified in fiction.

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Kerry Savage: I am not a nonfiction person. I am

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Kerry Savage: so far fiction. I didn't even do memoir. So

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Kerry Savage: yeah, it's great.

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ProWritingAid: Okay, great. And next question is, does pseudoscience count as magic?

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Kerry Savage: Oh.

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Kerry Savage: great interesting question.

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Kerry Savage: I mean, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by pseudoscience, but I would imagine it's all in the way you're handling it. To be honest, like pseudoscience, for whatever, for better or worse, my brain immediately goes. I'm a true crime person, so my brain immediately goes to like all the science that we use or not. All of the science, obviously, but some of the science that we use in criminal proceedings that has been debunked. And so I think of that as, like pseudoscience.

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Kerry Savage: I can see you handling that as exactly what it is science that has been disproven, but also I could see you treating, treating it as a form of magic, and that could be really interesting.

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Kerry Savage: I have to think about it a little bit more. But

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Kerry Savage: That's a that's a really interesting question. I'm not sure I answered it, but that's the answer I had farah thank you for throwing in the Marie Helen Bertino, the author of Beautyland. Thank you for

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Kerry Savage: forget getting that for me.

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Kerry Savage: Just put that in the chat.

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ProWritingAid: Okay, great. I think we have time for a a couple more questions. So sorry if we don't get Ryan to everybody's question. So the next one is when your characters enter a new space, and then in brackets from one society to another, how can we keep their exploration and learning, feeling organic, informative, but not dumping all the relative information on them, and the readers.

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Kerry Savage: Great question. So I think that is a function of how they're going to interact with the world around them and also interacting with the other people, so they need to learn about that world. Right? They need to learn. I would imagine certain things in order to be able to survive and be safe.

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Kerry Savage: So I think them they're they're naturally going to be curious. I would assume right? They're they're

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Kerry Savage: human enough, even if they're not human. And like in ways that we can understand. They're going to have natural curiosity. And there's going to be things that they need to know so they can be asking questions. They can be exploring and trying to figure out the world. They're almost like a little baby right in this new, in this new society or this new new world that their environment that they're inhabiting. So they've got to be asking questions, making sense of the world around them. So I think it's just interpreting it that way

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Kerry Savage: and just making sure that it's not like I'm going to sit you down, and you have a lecture about. Here's all the things unless you're putting them in school for some reason, and then maybe it might work a little bit, but I wouldn't recommend it.

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ProWritingAid: Okay, brilliant. And then, probably the the last question we have we have time for comes from Jenny, which is.

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ProWritingAid: when a book does go off the rails. Do you have any recommendations for what to focus on in order to get it back on track.

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Kerry Savage: That's a great question. And I mean, it's a little hard to answer, only because it sort of depends on how or why it's gone off the rails

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Kerry Savage: and actually what stage you're at. So you know, if you if you're done and you have a full draft, and you're like, Well, I know I'm off the rails like I was when I ended up at 145,000 words with my 1st draft of my novel. Then I knew immediately what I needed to do was like, how am I cutting this? Because 145,000 words is not going to get me anywhere. So that was where I would focus. But I think, pick pick a problem. If you know, you have

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Kerry Savage: a series of problems, pick a problem. Just pick one thing to focus on and start there. And what you'll really find, I suspect, is that by solving that one problem some of the solutions will offer themselves up for the other things, and things will start to solve themselves too. But give yourself a focal point. Whatever feels like the biggest thing that you need to solve. I know it'll feel hard, but that is 100% where I would recommend starting. And just so don't let yourself think about anything else, just that one thing.

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ProWritingAid: Okay. Great fantastic. Well, I I would be great to carry on. But sadly, I think that's where we need to cut session short today. So what I'll do, guys, I'll just post the links for everybody in the chat in case they missed them 1st time around. So they're in the chat now. And I just like to say big thank you

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ProWritingAid: to Carrie, for you know, sharing her her valued time with us, and such great expertise, and to everyone that took part. It was a really great session, especially for me being able to read everybody's everybody's contributions. It was fantastic to see. So a big thank you to everybody involved. As always, you can find the replay to this session and the other sessions in the Science fiction writers. Week hub again. You can find all the links in the chat. I've just posted them again now.

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ProWritingAid: so thank you again so much to everybody, and please join us for our next session, and we'll catch you guys next time.

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Kerry Savage: Thanks. Joe, thanks. Everybody.

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ProWritingAid: Alright, thanks a lot. Guys. See you soon.