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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Welcome everyone.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Welcome as you filter in. Please drop your location in the chat if you can see and hear me. Just fine

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: world! Anvville rocks. Yes, they do. We have someone who's already a fan. Awesome.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Idaho, Washington. I see so many places coming in already.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Alright. It looks like we are excited and ready to go. Love to see it. I'm gonna drop some links in the chat for you.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: including a special offer from world anvil. So make sure you check that out. We have a couple of quick housekeeping notes to go over before we get started with Janet.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So your replays on the fantasy week. Hub! They will be there they get posted pretty much as soon as they process from Zoom, so you can keep checking back. But all of yesterday's replays are there, and we will be working on today's all of your slides will be there as well. Special links and offers from our speakers a special offer from prorating aid. Participant, guide all of that great stuff. Make sure you check it out.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Those replays will be moving to our community. Page by May third, and all of our community members will have access to see those. So if you're not in our community yet, make sure you join

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: premium day is this Friday, and that is limited to premium and premium pro writing aid users only. That will be a special day of sessions that are more hands-on special networking session, and if you would like to join that, you can upgrade your account by Friday morning.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: we do have a special offer for you if you would like to upgrade this week, and folks who are attending premium day will receive an email Friday morning with instructions to join those sessions. So please keep an eye on your email Friday morning for that information.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Our special offer for you for attending fantasy writers. Week is 25% off your first year of providing a premium or premium pro. So if you are considering an upgrade, now is a great time to do so, so you can take advantage of that. 25% off discount. That offer ends on May tenth, and the information to take advantage of that offer is on the Hub page.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: If you would like to keep talking fantasy writing, we'd love to have you over in our community. That is also where the replays will be by May third, so you can watch them indefinitely. There. But we have a great live event chat going right now, full of a lot of attendees, talking about different fantasy, writing things, and we would love to have you join us. So joining is super simple. You log in with your prorating aid account information, and you're in. So check out this link. You can also join from the Hub page

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: reminders for today's session with Janet if you would have a question for her. Please use the QA. Box, as you can see, the chat moves very quickly, and we don't want to lose your questions, so drop them in the QA. And we will try to get to as many of them as possible when she is done with her presentation. If you would like to chat with other viewers. You can use the chat. Please make sure you're selecting everyone in the little dropdown menu next to 2. Otherwise, by default, your messages will just come to me and Janet.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So with that being said, I believe we are ready to begin. I am thrilled to introduce our speaker, Janet Forbes.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Janet is a published fantasy author, game developer, and secretly a velociraptor, and has been building world since she was knee high to an orc in 2,017. She cofounded World Anvil, the award-winning World building, writing, and Tabletop, Rpg. Platform, which boasts a community of almost 2 million users.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: As a writer, Janet has published short fiction in several collections was the lead author of The Dark Crystal. Rpg. Has also written for infinite black cobalt, pressed penny dragon games and tide breaker, and is notorious for sneaking dinosaurs into every IP she works on. Welcome, Janine, we're so happy to have you back.

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Janet | World Anvil: I had forgotten. That was in my bio, and it's true, but I'd forgotten it was in my bio.

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Janet | World Anvil: Thank you so much, Michelle. I am always glad to be back with pro writing aid. I'm not paid to say this. I'm a big fan of pro writing aid. I personally use it for my my own stuff. It works with world anvil with a Google Plugin. So I personally use it on world angle for everything. And I always love talking with you folks and your amazing community. And hey, I love talking about world building. So what could be better.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Love to see it. I'll go ahead and let you take over, and I will be back for QA. At the end.

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Janet | World Anvil: Whoa.

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Janet | World Anvil: okay, then. So some of you may already have noticed that my better half Dimitris is not here. Unfortunately, he couldn't join me, so I'm flying solo today. But I'm sure you guys will keep me company in the chat which I have open, and I'm really looking forward to yeah, hearing your take on a lot of this. So

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Janet | World Anvil: building rich worlds for many stories. That's the name of the game that we are playing today. Michelle read my bio so beautifully that I feel like I don't really need to go through this. But I am a fantasy author. I am also a game designer. I do both of these things professionally. I am published in both of these realms. I am also a professional world building consultant, and I've worked on

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Janet | World Anvil: vtt projects, video games.

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Janet | World Anvil: How do you say? Like Rpgs? And I've also consulted with with authors as well. So I've done a lot of world building consultation and a lot of different kinds of media. I'm also the CEO and founder of World anvil. So in 2,017 I realized that I needed a world building software and that didn't exist. So my husband made me one. And now it's 2024, and we have 3 million users. So it turned out, a lot of other people needed a world building software as well.

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Janet | World Anvil: So that is what occupies a lot of my time, that is who I am. Hi!

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Janet | World Anvil: But let's talk about what we're really here to talk about, which is what

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Janet | World Anvil: what's going on with that world building. What's wrong with your world building? It's a very inflammatory question. But really, what we're gonna do is we're gonna chat about, you know, how is your world building. Why does world building matter? What are the elements that can make a world feel rich and deep and exciting, and lived in, and that will enrich the kinds of stories that you're telling.

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Janet | World Anvil: And

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Janet | World Anvil: once you know what those elements are, how can you get from either your idea of your world, or maybe the world that you've already written and written stories in all the way through to a world that feels richer and deeper a version of your world that is more.

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Janet | World Anvil: So. That's really the name of the game today. And if you don't already have a world, everything we're going to be talking about is going to be supporting all kinds of world building in all different kinds of medias and all different kinds of genres. So if you're just starting out with world building. Everything here applies to Youtube.

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Janet | World Anvil: But let's talk about a lot of

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Janet | World Anvil: writers as they experience well, building.

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Janet | World Anvil: You've written a story.

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Janet | World Anvil: It's an awesome story. It's got some great characters, wonderful plot moments.

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Janet | World Anvil: The only problem is.

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Janet | World Anvil: as you've written your story, either plotted or discovery written your way through.

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Janet | World Anvil: You have built a world that is only as big as your story

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Janet | World Anvil: kind of looks like this. You've got your cookie cutter in the middle. That's your your novel, that's your characters, and that's your plot. And then this little dusting around that, that right now is your world.

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Janet | World Anvil: that dusting cannot support multiple stories, that dusting cannot support

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Janet | World Anvil: intrigue, it cannot support. Interrogation! It cannot support you as a writer

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Janet | World Anvil: doing more in this space.

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Janet | World Anvil: So the other problem, often with world building when it's built like this, when it's just a dusting around the main story or around the main characters, is that it can feel very inconsistent and unconnected. Often it's been created. Simply to support what is going on. So it's convenient, and sometimes it feels too convenient.

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Janet | World Anvil: and sometimes it doesn't connect to itself. It doesn't feel consistent from one scene to the next, and it can be uninspiring to you. That's the most important thing. Your world should be a source of inspiration

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Janet | World Anvil: which is kind of one of the reasons that world building is so important.

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Janet | World Anvil: So world building is literally genre defining for fantasy.

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Janet | World Anvil: If you are writing fantasy. There are certain expectations about the world that you are creating. It's a world probably, that has either fantasy magic. It probably has fantasy races. It may have fantastical geography. It doesn't have to have all of these things, but it probably has at least one. If it's considered fantasy.

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Janet | World Anvil: which means that the world building is pretty important. It's literally defining what our work is.

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Janet | World Anvil: It is the formative factor of whoops.

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Janet | World Anvil: Your characters and their past characters do not exist in a vacuum. Characters are a product of their society. They are a product of the environment that they grow up in. They manifest the taboos of their society. Even if they work against them, they're still formed by them.

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Janet | World Anvil: So it's also the origin of your plots.

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Janet | World Anvil: And most importantly.

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Janet | World Anvil: world building is the thing your readers often remember long, long after your characters and plot specifics have faded.

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Janet | World Anvil: This is what will bring them.

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Janet | World Anvil: That

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Janet | World Anvil: is one of the major opportunities of rich worlds.

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Janet | World Anvil: So you save time by reusing a world that you've already created, and it's very easy to tempt readers back

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Janet | World Anvil: to the same world over and over again.

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Janet | World Anvil: Rich world building allows you to create richer stories, more in depth, with more impact.

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Janet | World Anvil: and it allows suspension of disbelief for your readers as well, because there is this kind of immersive setting. And of course it's a constant source of new inspiration for stories and characters and ideas and situations. There's so much in world building that can give you your next idea, your next story, your next novel that will all be there for you, ready to explore in your world. If your world has been built with some forethought.

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Janet | World Anvil: Now I do have this quote. I will read this in full

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Janet | World Anvil: in the world of IP creative content and branded franchises. The World builder is King

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Janet | World Anvil: 32 of the 50 top grossing movies of all time are films that belong to identifiable fantasy. Universes, Pandora, Oz, Narnia, Middle Earth, Hogwarts, Neverland, Wonderland.

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Janet | World Anvil: lurking luring moviegoers into theaters with the promise of return to a beloved fictional world like a tourist returning to their favourite spot.

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Janet | World Anvil: As with movies, so with books.

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Janet | World Anvil: these are the things that get people back. Now this is a quote from Tom shone who is an author and a critic, and it was from an article in the Guardian in 2,022. It is still true

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Janet | World Anvil: it is so so important that you have these rich worlds. It does so much, and I was so glad to see that you know other people have

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Janet | World Anvil: recognized the absolute and importance of the world building in terms of the success of not just a single book, not just a standalone book, but a series

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Janet | World Anvil: and some of the most successfully commercial authors have already figured this out.

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Janet | World Anvil: Instead of making you know, 57 books in a single series, which you are, of course, welcome to do. I'm not going to tell you what not to do. Robin Hobb has written 16 books

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Janet | World Anvil: in the same universe, but they're all arranged in 5 written trilogies. I think one is is a quartet, but they're all at 5 collections essentially, which means that readers can have multiple endpoints, but once they're in, they want to read the rest.

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Janet | World Anvil: Who else has done this? Brandon Sanderson has done this. He has 7 books in the same universe with another trilogy coming out in 2025. Why? Because there are multiple endpoints to the world.

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Janet | World Anvil: Once a reader is in the world, they want to know more. They want to read more. They will buy your books if they like the first one, they will keep coming back because

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Janet | World Anvil: you have hooked them, not just on the writing, but on the concepts and the world that you have created. And again, these books span different different time periods. So these are not the same characters bringing people back. It's the world that's bringing people back.

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Janet | World Anvil: And that is so valuable. And this is why rich world building is so important. It's not just important for your story. It's not just important for your sequel. It's important for your business. It's important for your readers, and it's something that's going to add a lot.

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Janet | World Anvil: And it's really not that complicated. And that's really what I'm going to be telling you for the rest of the seminar is like, what are the ingredients, and how can we do this for ourselves with what we already have?

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Janet | World Anvil: Don't have to take it all the way back to the beginning, you can take what you already have and expand it strategically to build a lot of depth and a lot of storytelling options.

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Janet | World Anvil: So that's what we're doing.

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Janet | World Anvil: Hopefully you are here.

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Janet | World Anvil: I've convinced you. I hope you need a rich, deep world setting, or at least you're willing to hear me out.

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Janet | World Anvil: So what makes a well building setting feel rich and deep?

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Janet | World Anvil: Well, that's a really good question. Thank you, Janet. You're welcome. So

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Janet | World Anvil: it's very odd doing these seminars by yourself, guys, you just talk solidly for an hour.

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Janet | World Anvil: Just just so, you know. What makes a setting for rich and deep the laws of the world feel consistent.

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Janet | World Anvil: If you have set something up, it should feel consistent.

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Janet | World Anvil: If you have set up that your winters are long and your summers are also long, like game of thrones.

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Janet | World Anvil: It should be consistent. If you have set up that

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Janet | World Anvil: you are in a world where the cities walk around and eat each other like in the model engines

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Janet | World Anvil: that should be consistent. There should be a good consistency with everything that's going on there. It should make sense in and of itself.

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Janet | World Anvil: The repercussions of past events are felt in the present and define the future.

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Janet | World Anvil: It makes your world feel deep and rich a sense of history, a sense of historical causality, cause and effect

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Janet | World Anvil: instantly makes a world feel deeper, because this is not just a world that exists in

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Janet | World Anvil: space. This also becomes a world that exists in time.

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Janet | World Anvil: a world where the people and cultures feel real and interesting.

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Janet | World Anvil: We're going to talk more about this, we're going to unpack this. I have lots of tools for you, but this is one of the things that make the world building feel rich and deep.

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Janet | World Anvil: The world does not revolve around your main characters. So I have the pleasure as the host of the world, building podcast to talk to a lot of expert world builders. And if you're curious about that, you can go to worldamble.com slash podcast that's a podcast I get loads of amazing speakers. They're very intelligent.

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Janet | World Anvil: And Trent Hergen, reader, Professor Trent Hergen, reader, who is the head of Multimedia storytelling and an actual professor of world building at Rochester, Tech

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Janet | World Anvil: told me that this was his number one mistake that he sees in world building.

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Janet | World Anvil: The world only revolves around the main characters.

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Janet | World Anvil: But when you're creating a world that you want to be able to tell multiple stories in. You need to build your world out wider than that, or you have nowhere else to put any other characters who aren't just related to your main characters.

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Janet | World Anvil: The world's interesting or unique premise has been well worked out and thought through.

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Janet | World Anvil: makes a world feel deep and rich. For example.

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Janet | World Anvil: the mortal engines. That's the thing I was talking about before. It's an apoth in. It's an apocalyptic world. Cities can only survive by moving around and eating one another. The books are excellent. The movie was slightly disappointing, but the books are excellent.

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Janet | World Anvil: The work that the author has done throughout those books in making all of the practical details feel real and logical and impact the world that he's created.

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Janet | World Anvil: No.

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Janet | World Anvil: it's phenomenal.

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Janet | World Anvil: And it's really.

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Janet | World Anvil: it's really not that much work. He's really just taken extrapolated what he's established already as the main point of the world. And then said, Okay, but how does this work? And how does this work? And if this is true, then what? And if that's true, then what? And if I want to have that cool thing.

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Janet | World Anvil: Then why does that exist in the world?

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Janet | World Anvil: And I'm going to be sharing this all with you

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Janet | World Anvil: in my plan of action.

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Janet | World Anvil: Yes, because I do not believe in pointing out problems without also bringing you solutions. So

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Janet | World Anvil: if you are sitting there thinking, oh, I have a world. Maybe it is suffering from one or a couple of those issues. Maybe I haven't built any history that has given context to the current day. Maybe I haven't really worked through that really cool thing I introduced into the world

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Janet | World Anvil: to make it make sense.

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Janet | World Anvil: Well.

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Janet | World Anvil: I have. I have tasks for you. So

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Janet | World Anvil: let's do this

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Janet | World Anvil: number one

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Janet | World Anvil: build deep, not wide.

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Janet | World Anvil: So one of the big mistakes I see from especially fantasy world builders is they start with a world map.

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Janet | World Anvil: and they're like it's going to be my world. And I'm going to put this and that and the other, and they start filling out the map with all of these details.

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Janet | World Anvil: except then they realized that

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Janet | World Anvil: in something the size of an entire planet.

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Janet | World Anvil: That's really not a lot of details, because a planet is so big.

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Janet | World Anvil: And they're actually not telling a story over a whole planet, you know, if you consider something like Lord of the Rings, which is, you know, the the father of Fantasy. Story telling Tolky, Lord of the Rings takes place

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Janet | World Anvil: in a space about half the size of the Us.

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Janet | World Anvil: That's not very big. That's definitely not world sized like, if you consider the size of Africa, which is this massive continent or Asia, and then you look at half the size of the Us. This is a really small space.

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Janet | World Anvil: but because he has chosen a space that is smaller.

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Janet | World Anvil: it's allowed him to concentrate the detail and build deep

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Janet | World Anvil: rather than building wide.

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Janet | World Anvil: So if you have already a glorious world map congratulations, big love, you are awesome. But

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Janet | World Anvil: it may be time to start concentrating on a smaller area that rings where you want to tell the next story.

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Janet | World Anvil: because if you have thought carefully about the the bigger areas of the world, then you'll know enough

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Janet | World Anvil: for that to be off screen.

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Janet | World Anvil: You don't need to know enough for that to be on screen until your characters intend to go there.

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Janet | World Anvil: This does change a little bit with different genres.

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Janet | World Anvil: So if you are telling, I know that this is a fantasy week, but science fantasy is a thing, and that is also awesome. If you are doing a science Fantasy Star Wars, Space Opera, you know, monks in. But paladins in space, with magic and and

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Janet | World Anvil: lightsabers.

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Janet | World Anvil: You might need a whole galaxy.

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Janet | World Anvil: But you're not going to build everything in that galaxy. You're going to spotlight specific areas of that galaxy.

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Janet | World Anvil: And if you're doing something like the Dragon Writers of Pern by Anne Mccaffrey. You will need at least a Northern and Southern continent. That's what she uses. But again. They're not going everywhere all the time. It expands gradually, book by book.

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Janet | World Anvil: and the initial active world building area is not that big?

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Janet | World Anvil: So remember, define your active world building area.

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Janet | World Anvil: and it is going to save you a whole bunch of overwhelm and a whole bunch of stress. And it's going to take loads of stuff off your shopping list of stuff. You feel like you have to worldbuild. You don't have to touch that until it's relevant.

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Janet | World Anvil: Put it over there, you can come back to it later

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Janet | World Anvil: and on the topic

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Janet | World Anvil: of taking things off your list.

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Janet | World Anvil: Let's talk about focus topics.

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Janet | World Anvil: your world.

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Janet | World Anvil: It's not about

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Janet | World Anvil: everything.

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Janet | World Anvil: You do not have to expand literally everything in your world. I give you permission to not expand everything in your world. There you are! You have it from me. I am a world building, professional. I give you permission

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Janet | World Anvil: because

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Janet | World Anvil: there are very few stories where you need

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Janet | World Anvil: all of these focus points developed in detail.

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Janet | World Anvil: And this is just a small number of what could be many, many more focus points. I haven't even gone into things like, you know, magical influence or

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Janet | World Anvil: you know, sapient species relations is not here. For example.

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Janet | World Anvil: you have

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Janet | World Anvil: to choose.

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Janet | World Anvil: That doesn't mean you can't build other stuff. But let's have a look at some examples. Now these are always contentious, and I will say that somebody mentioned Star Wars is is something something Star Wars. We get deeper looks at specific elements. Yes, you do. But Star Wars is also now a massive franchise, so do not consider what Star Wars is now, unless you're willing to break it up into individual elements, because Star Wars is something that has been built over decades and decades by hundreds of writers.

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Janet | World Anvil: We're not looking at that right now, that is not a useful comparison. But let's consider the first couple of books of game of thrones.

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Janet | World Anvil: What are they really about? Are they about arts and cultural influence? Not really.

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Janet | World Anvil: That's not really relevant. There's not a lot about social services in them. There's not not an Nhs equivalent. There's no old people's homes. These are not important for game of thrones.

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Janet | World Anvil: What is important is class relations.

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Janet | World Anvil: gender relations, religious influence, and rule of law, who sits in the spiky chair. That's what game of thrones is about.

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Janet | World Anvil: That's really important.

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Janet | World Anvil: And this other stuff.

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Janet | World Anvil: When it comes up it comes up. That's awesome.

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Janet | World Anvil: But you don't need to focus on it.

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Janet | World Anvil: Let's have another look.

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Janet | World Anvil: So was.

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Janet | World Anvil: we're going to consider the first Star Wars, because Star Wars has got very interesting and pocketed, and because it's got a massive budget because it's now owned by the mouse. Lord, and because it is, you know, this kind of epic, sprawling, multigenerational fascination.

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Janet | World Anvil: It's got slightly different rules. But if we go back to basic Star Wars, what's it about? It's about

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Janet | World Anvil: the government versus the dark side. That's about government presence and rule of law and military influence.

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Janet | World Anvil: It does touch on other things. Again, there's not a lot of social services. There's not a lot about the food. There's not even really a lot about race relations. It only comes up when it's political, when it's factions. Nobody knows that the Wookies don't like ewoks, or that the Wookies are actually all

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Janet | World Anvil: you know, absolutely adore such and such.

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Janet | World Anvil: They don't know that. And that's not relevant. What's

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Janet | World Anvil: my earphones turn themselves off. What is relevant is these 3 things to tell the story? There are the big government, the Empire. They are evil. Then there are the rebels, and there is the military influence. This is what's important. And again, we can argue until the cows come home about the the absolute specifics of this.

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Janet | World Anvil: But let's convert. Convert this Star Wars

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Janet | World Anvil: to this Star Trek.

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Janet | World Anvil: What's Star Trek about? It's about the natural world. It's about exploring planets and aliens and species. It's about species relations.

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Janet | World Anvil: as much as it as about diplomatic relations. Because how do you make friends with somebody who is utterly, utterly different to you? That is absolutely a Star wars thing like that is so Star Wars. And it's about technology influence. There's a lot of focus on the the warp drive. There's a lot of focus on, you know, the the latest shielding technology. And who has that? And what are they going to do with it? And you know, the brand new ship that's just come out. This is really important for Star Trek.

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Janet | World Anvil: but there's not a lot of military influence they do have military like there is fighting, and that does become important sometimes. But that's not one of the fundamental focus topics of Star Trek.

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Janet | World Anvil: Now, why do we care about focus topics. How is this going to help us make our own world richer? Well, as I said, to start with, you don't have to do everything which is very relieving.

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Janet | World Anvil: But, secondly.

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Janet | World Anvil: it helps guide. What aspects are you adding?

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Janet | World Anvil: So it's very easy to write a story about a fantasy city. You've got a nice story. Maybe you've got a novel, and then that's it. You don't know anything else, and you also don't know what direction to go in. You don't know what's important. Should I be focusing on making taverns? Should I be focusing on who the government is? Should I be focusing on the food culture?

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Janet | World Anvil: Well, if you're writing delicious and dungeon, which is my new guilty pleasure, it's an anime about eating food in dungeons. You should be developing the food. But if you're writing a political thriller.

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Janet | World Anvil: you don't need to develop the food. You need to develop the political factions.

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Janet | World Anvil: That's why the focus points are useful. They are guidance, they help you literally focus your efforts. So this is achievable task.

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Janet | World Anvil: Go to the world you already have.

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Janet | World Anvil: Consider the the major aspects of your world building. Whatever those are now, they might be locations. They might be organizations, religions, governments. They could be really important buildings. I don't know. I don't know your world.

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Janet | World Anvil: but there will be certain things that really stand out.

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Janet | World Anvil: Go and add one to 2 details in major aspects of your world building.

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Janet | World Anvil: Tie back

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Janet | World Anvil: to those focus points, these ones.

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Janet | World Anvil: Now, there is a full list of these on world anvil, because we include this as part of our Meta, which is something that we use as essentially a guide to start world building, and also a diagnostic tool. If you already have a world, I've used the the meta many, many times for my professional projects. So you can find that there. But I believe the slides will also be available. In

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Janet | World Anvil: the pro writing aid space, and Michelle will give you details about that, because she's much more learned than I am

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Janet | World Anvil: on that subject.

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Janet | World Anvil: So hopefully, you've defined your active world building area at some point in the future. So you're not anymore trying to build an entire world. You know, you're focusing on an area, a region, maybe a city, maybe a continent or an island.

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Janet | World Anvil: And you know what your focus points are. You know what's important for your world, and that is different for different worlds and different stories and different writers. There are some writers who love writing about food.

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Janet | World Anvil: and there are some writers who love writing about politics.

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Janet | World Anvil: It's entirely up to you who you are. What are you writing about? Just try and focus, and that will help you.

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Janet | World Anvil: So

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Janet | World Anvil: what else can you do to make your world feel richer and deeper?

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Janet | World Anvil: I have a tool for you.

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Janet | World Anvil: It is called.

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Janet | World Anvil: If this, then what

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Janet | World Anvil: I am guessing that most of you. If you've already built a world, or if you're in the process of building a world, you've thought about how it is different with Earth.

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Janet | World Anvil: Has it got magic? That's a natural law that differentiates it from our world.

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Janet | World Anvil: Is the geography flying islands? Does it have like crazy

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Janet | World Anvil: dorms of spores that rain down from the moon, like the dragon riders of per

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Janet | World Anvil: from each thing that you have introduced into your world.

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Janet | World Anvil: If this.

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Janet | World Anvil: then, won't.

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Janet | World Anvil: if I have a world where spores rain down that destroy the

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Janet | World Anvil: the the vegetation, like the dragon riders of Pernworld.

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Janet | World Anvil: What am I going to do? I want? I have to solve this problem. So how do I solve the problem of the spores? I can burn them. Okay.

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Janet | World Anvil: But I need to burn them as quickly as I can, because they borrow.

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Janet | World Anvil: So what if I had a thing that could fly

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Janet | World Anvil: to the site that they were landing, or even burned them before they hit the ground. Well, that's dragons, and that is the premise of the Dragon Riders of Pern Series. I referenced this particularly, because it's pretty well known, though it's a little bit older now. I'm showing my age.

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Janet | World Anvil: But let's take another example. I have the forgotten realms here. The forgotten realms is the classic dungeons and dragons setting created by Ed Greenwood and others. So we love Greg Greenwood in the chat. Yes, he's also very nice, by the way, very friendly guy. Just so I throw that out there.

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Janet | World Anvil: Now, the forgotten realms is intended to be a toolbox for Gms, so it does not dive deeply into these problems. But as authors, this is often where our stories come from.

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Janet | World Anvil: If magic is accessible to everyone.

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Janet | World Anvil: what problems arise from that forgotten realms is a very high magic setting. There's magic rocking around everywhere. You can buy magical things at your local good store.

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Janet | World Anvil: So

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Janet | World Anvil: what problems arise when everyone can have magic?

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Janet | World Anvil: How is magic controlled?

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Janet | World Anvil: How is magic abused?

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Janet | World Anvil: How do people use it

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Janet | World Anvil: selfishly? And how do people use it altruistically?

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Janet | World Anvil: How do folk protect themselves on the everyday.

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Janet | World Anvil: And how do Grandfak protect themselves? Because Grandfoke attract grand threats? So

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Janet | World Anvil: does that differ.

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Janet | World Anvil: You can use this for your own world building. So if your world has flying islands.

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Janet | World Anvil: How do people get to them? How do the flying islands work? Can the flying islands fall down? What are the circumstances that that can happen, and if it does happen well, what happens next?

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Janet | World Anvil: How do people abuse flying islands? Are they used by criminals to evade the law? Are they used by smugglers who've figured out a way to propel them. There's so many different things that you can do with a thing, whatever your like chosen thing is.

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Janet | World Anvil: how do everyday folk protect themselves? How do grandfrope protect themselves? If there are? I've read a book recently where there were enormous storms that happen?

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Janet | World Anvil: And during the enormous storm

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Janet | World Anvil: there were people who were smuggling stuff

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Janet | World Anvil: because nobody else would go out. It was too scary.

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Janet | World Anvil: So these are exactly the

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Janet | World Anvil: the the approaches that can help you build that cool thing that you made from rule of cool into something that really integrates, that really underpins your world and has lasting implications for societies, and somebody mentioned in the chat. How is it abused? This can be included for a villain back story absolutely. And this is how you make real people. And this is how you create and solve real problems in your world

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Janet | World Anvil: that make them feel deeper.

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Janet | World Anvil: But you can use this the other way as well?

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Janet | World Anvil: If you have, let's say a magic item or a magic castle

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Janet | World Anvil: who built it.

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Janet | World Anvil: why did they build it? Why do they need it. Nobody's going to build a castle for nothing. It takes a really long time. That's it's a lot of stones to move. So why did they build it? Why did they need this item?

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Janet | World Anvil: Was it the first of its kind? Was it one of many that's important?

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Janet | World Anvil: And how was their culture represented in this item. What does the item tell us about who they were?

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Janet | World Anvil: Because

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Janet | World Anvil: they will have impacted history, and they will have left artifacts behind which can become dungeons and temples, and absolutely fascinating kind of artifacts in your world that can then be used to further your world building.

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Janet | World Anvil: And it starts from stuff you already have. You're not reinventing the wheel. You're not starting from scratch. You already have cool ideas. You're just interrogating them to get to the next step.

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Janet | World Anvil: and that goes back to what I was saying before.

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Janet | World Anvil: Rich.

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Janet | World Anvil: deep settings are settings that feel contiguous. They feel logical in a way that's sometimes surprising, but makes sense to the readers, and they're settings where things hang together because they have been worked out, and that can provide surprising storytelling opportunities.

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Janet | World Anvil: But I promised you actionables and actionables I will deliver for each point in your world that differs from earth. Consider, if this, then what think about your magic system? If you have magic. If this, then what if it's a blood magic system.

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Janet | World Anvil: how do they get the blood? Are they people donating it? That seems awfully nice are people having it stolen? Do you wake up in an alleyway? And you've been half drained of blood, because that's how magicians get their supply. Or maybe they don't even leave you half drained. Maybe they just murder you. I don't know. Are they breeding people to get the blood for their blood based magic system.

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Janet | World Anvil: And does this differ in different societies and different factions and different areas?

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Janet | World Anvil: So much world building from? I have blood, magic, and so many storytelling possibilities. Right? This is this is how we play the game. This is how we extrapolate from a single concept to something that is breathing stories.

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Janet | World Anvil: and we can do the same to retroactively define our settings from major items and locations. If you have a Major Macguffin in your world, interrogate it. If you have the sort of rainbows. Why is it the sort of rainbows who built the sort of rainbows are? There are the sort of rainbows. What happens when 3 sorts of rainbows come together.

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Janet | World Anvil: Super red Book.

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Janet | World Anvil: I hope

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Janet | World Anvil: these are questions that will give you so many ideas and storytelling things, and all you're doing is saying, if this, then what

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Janet | World Anvil: if this?

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Janet | World Anvil: Then what remember this phrase? It is an absolutely glorious, well-building technique. It will give you so many ideas.

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Janet | World Anvil: So we've talked about. If this, then what? And we've talked about retroacting, and it works really well, for you know, items and natural laws. But it also works for taboos

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Janet | World Anvil: and attitudes.

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Janet | World Anvil: Let's look at our world for a second.

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Janet | World Anvil: I'm going to go through this quickly because our world sucks. That's why we write fantasy right

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Janet | World Anvil: in our world. There are many racial tensions, and a lot of them stem in Europe and the Us. Especially from the colonial past. I'm going to say it. Britain had a large part in that.

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Janet | World Anvil: I'm sorry.

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Janet | World Anvil: In the Us. There is animosity between the North and the South. A lot of that stems from the aftermath of the Civil War.

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Janet | World Anvil: and in France there is strong anti-monarchical sentiment, and this stems from the French Revolution era. There's a reason why this thing is true.

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Janet | World Anvil: So let's look.

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Janet | World Anvil: add some fantasy examples.

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Janet | World Anvil: In Skyrim they have the white gold concordant. That is why the elves feel like they can walk all over everybody else. It's mentioned all the time in the Skyroom video game in Bright, which was a kind of shadow Runny. Movie urban fantasy, modern urban fantasy, but a high fantasy world, with Orcs and elves and everything else.

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Janet | World Anvil: There was a dark lord

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Janet | World Anvil: 1,000 frigging years ago, and everybody still hates the Orcs because

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Janet | World Anvil: they sided with the Dark Lord.

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Janet | World Anvil: So there's a lot of racism against the Orcs within the bright setting.

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Janet | World Anvil: and that is because they sided with the dark Lord. That's what that is pinned on, and that gives a lot of depth and context. And literally, it's just they sided with the dark. Lord, 6 words!

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Janet | World Anvil: That's a 6 word historical event. You can add a little bit more to it. But literally, it's just saying, if I want this cool thing in the present.

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Janet | World Anvil: How do I create a past that I can reference that will give a sense of depth, a sense of, you know, space through time that my setting has existed.

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Janet | World Anvil: And really it's 6 words

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Janet | World Anvil: in fallout. There was a literal apocalypse, and you see that all over the world I'm a big fan of the new prime fallout show by the way.

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Janet | World Anvil: In the witcher there was the conjunction of the spheres. All the monsters poured in, all the magic poured in suddenly chaos that was really the inciting incident for the world. But when they referenced that you're like, oh, yes, I remember this world has a huge past.

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Janet | World Anvil: This world wasn't always this way.

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Janet | World Anvil: In the dark crystal which I know the world intimately. I wrote the Rpg. I was literally the lead writer on the Rpg. For the dark crystal. There is this alignment of the planets, which is this sort of major event that is referenced again and again.

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Janet | World Anvil: and in the Huntinga games there's the dark days of the rebellion, and that is what they still use to support the idea that all of these places are, you know, controlled carefully against rebellion, because at 1 point there was a rebellion, and the people in power are still using that as the excuse why we like this. Oh, yeah, that was that rebellion once. And now we're all. We're all paying for it.

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Janet | World Anvil: So obviously, I'm simplifying these historical events to give you a flavor of them. But really these are not complicated things to create. If you have a status quo in your current world.

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Janet | World Anvil: you can add all those bits and pieces behind it. Just a few words here, a reason there, it doesn't. And this is this, okay, this is a 102. Are you ready? This is this is a 102 advice!

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Janet | World Anvil: It doesn't have to be

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Janet | World Anvil: the same. According to everyone, you can use unreliable narrators for this and that can make it even more interesting.

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Janet | World Anvil: But before I get ahead of myself on the 102 advice, I will say.

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Janet | World Anvil: here is your homework on this point. Build a past for your status quo. 2 or 3 events is enough to get you started.

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Janet | World Anvil: Consider the current taboos, prejudices, people in power, situation whatever that is.

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Janet | World Anvil: and create some well known historical events that originate, that they originated in all that fueled them.

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Janet | World Anvil: So don't create things that are so secret that they're never going to impact your plot or nobody's ever going to talk about them.

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Janet | World Anvil: You can create those. They're very interesting. But start with. Excuse me, start with things that everybody knows, because those are things that are going to directly show up in your book. They will directly be referenced and talked about, and that is the best kind of world building is the kind of world building that you can

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Janet | World Anvil: actually use immediately for your thing. I'm not against other well building. I'm not against well building that underpins and does not show up. I love world building. I enjoy it very much.

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Janet | World Anvil: but when you are a writer, you have to capitalize on your time. And part of that means making sure that the majority of the stuff that you are making. It's gonna show up in your book directly. So that is why I recommend well known historical events, at least to start with. If you wanna go down the History rabbit hole, be my guest. World anvil has excellent timelines that will support you in your quest. But start with a few things that everybody knows about and go from there.

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Janet | World Anvil: Okay.

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Janet | World Anvil: I am. I am with an eye on the time here, because I literally could and do talk about well building all day. But let's talk about people's.

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Janet | World Anvil: So the

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Janet | World Anvil: the advice that I started with earlier

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Janet | World Anvil: was quite big

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Janet | World Anvil: but it all dealt largely with stuff that was like physical.

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Janet | World Anvil: And there's a reason for that.

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Janet | World Anvil: Physical stuff is easier to deal with in world building generally.

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Janet | World Anvil: and cultures tend to be where people kind of struggle a little bit. So that's why I left this one for a little bit later.

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Janet | World Anvil: You can, of course, use the if this, then what if these people are like this? How did they become that way? You can use these things? You can say, Okay, if the environment is like that. What will my people be like?

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Janet | World Anvil: But

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Janet | World Anvil: you do? Need to show culture, because culture is the thing that you want to like showcase. And it's a lot easier to show it in motion and to show it at rest.

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Janet | World Anvil: So for this reason I recommend world building traditions like rites of passages and festivals. What is a rite of passage? It's a birthday. It's a coming of age ceremony so like when you turn 16 or 21 in the States. These are moments in people's lives. It could be a harvest festival. It could be a festival to the moon if that's important to these people, and

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Janet | World Anvil: that's important to these people really is the critical thing we're doing here.

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Janet | World Anvil: We are trying to show what is important to these people. We are trying to show the culture in motion. Another tradition that you could use would be something like a judicial tradition. So as they walk into town, you see that court is being held.

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Janet | World Anvil: and you see the culture through their sense of justice or through their sense of ethics. If that is one of your focus points, remember focus points. If that is one of your focus points. That would be a great way to show your culture. And again, you can take focus points to help you build cultures that are going to be really appropriate and interesting for the kinds of stories you are telling.

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Janet | World Anvil: I will say one thing

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Janet | World Anvil: which is unequivocal.

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Janet | World Anvil: Avoid monocultures.

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Janet | World Anvil: People have different opinions, people have different hobbies, they have different concerns. They like different flavours of ice cream.

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Janet | World Anvil: Do not make people who are all the same. And I'm going to point my finger at fantasy here because traditional fantasy really does badly on this one often. So this

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Janet | World Anvil: is basically every dwarf that was born in 8 generations, according to most high fantasy, like elves and dwarves, kinds of stories. They all look the same. They all have the same concerns. They're all warriors. For some reason they all have axes. None of them became a chef. None of them became a doctor to make the mother happy? No, they're all warriors.

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Janet | World Anvil: and then we have on this side.

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Janet | World Anvil: All 4 of these people were born in 90 85 in New York. I tried to keep it as specific as possible.

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Janet | World Anvil: So we have this guy who is a writer, this lady who is a show jumper, this guy who is a rapper, I think, and this guy who is a football player, an American football player. Just

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Janet | World Anvil: just remember that there are many people with different proclivities

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Janet | World Anvil: avoid monocultures, avoid them, do not make monocultures, and if you have made a monoculture, and you are so attached to it that you cannot bear to write invariance.

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Janet | World Anvil: Why.

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Janet | World Anvil: if this, then what

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Janet | World Anvil: who created this creepy monoculture? Is this a 1984 situation is this, George Orwell? Is nobody allowed to be anything different or rebel.

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Janet | World Anvil: That's interesting in its own right. So if you absolutely have a monoculture and you don't want to step away from it, tell.

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Janet | World Anvil: and then I will forgive you. My earphones turned off again.

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Janet | World Anvil: So

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Janet | World Anvil: This is your assignment for making your cultures feel richer, living, breathing people consider your people's beliefs and taboos. How would their births, birthdays, marriages, and deaths? Look! I've used those as examples. You can use anything you like.

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Janet | World Anvil: and if you have accidentally created a multit monoculture.

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Janet | World Anvil: Consider what the rebels look like and what happens to them.

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Janet | World Anvil: That's what I want to know. If you rebel, how much tolerance is there that tells me a lot about your culture and your society as well. And that's a really interesting source of characters.

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Janet | World Anvil: Let's talk about geography very quickly, because I'm running out of time. Geography

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Janet | World Anvil: unpacks everything. I'm going to show you a picture of Venice. Are you ready for this?

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Janet | World Anvil: This is Al fresco dining in Venice.

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Janet | World Anvil: This is what Venice looks like quite a lot of the year, because

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Janet | World Anvil: it is basically underwater.

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Janet | World Anvil: Yep, because the biome has a huge impact.

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Janet | World Anvil: It's really important, it affects everything.

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Janet | World Anvil: So consider, if you've built a city.

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Janet | World Anvil: do not build it in the void. Remember, your city will be on the coast, on a river up a mountain in space, your city literally in a void, but also that has a biome that has its own problems. Right? You have airlocks, and if the airlocks fail, well, you know

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Janet | World Anvil: people are gone. So when you are creating cities, consider the biomes and environments that they are in, consider the resources that they have access to. Even if you are not digging deeply into, you know trade or resources as a well building focus point, they give a tactility and a physicality to your setting.

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Janet | World Anvil: So remember that, you know, are they a society with lots of gold? Or do they use mother of pearl?

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Janet | World Anvil: This gives a uniqueness and a tactility that comes from the environment they are in. And this is a really nice way to kind of.

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Janet | World Anvil: you know. Make your world feel more held together, more considered and literally, all you need to go do is say, Where is my city? What do they have, and what don't they have?

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Janet | World Anvil: And when they don't have a lot of something, and somebody has it that defines either wealth or connection. So that is, give it doing a lot of world building, heavy lifting for 4 bullet points.

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Janet | World Anvil: 4. 4 of your finest bullet points of single words

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Janet | World Anvil: as, somebody said in the chat, what is common, what is rare. You don't need to go crazy on this. You don't need to create, you know, a massive, interactive table, rollable table, or something like that you can just have, you know, 1, 2, 3 common things, 1, 2 rare things. That's enough. That will get you closer than you are right now, and it will make your world feel richer.

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Janet | World Anvil: Make sure everything happens in a biome

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Janet | World Anvil: use. Weather weather is great, weather is a storytelling tool, and it should be appropriate for the biome that you are in. As well. So make sure that you are not creating settings in a void.

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Janet | World Anvil: and then consider the advantage and disadvantage of that, as viewed through your focus points.

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Janet | World Anvil: If you are creating a setting about trade.

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Janet | World Anvil: how is your city trading?

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Janet | World Anvil: If one of your focus points is magic. How is your city gathering manner from the sun? If that is important for your setting? Or how is your city controlling their wizards. If that is important for your setting.

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Janet | World Anvil: consider the physical spaces and then consider the physical spaces through your focus points.

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Janet | World Anvil: This last slide is really just other places to hunt for stories. So I talked a lot about lots of different stories in the same world.

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Janet | World Anvil: and remember that as you can interrogate your world. You can interrogate your M. And your Mcs. Your main characters

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Janet | World Anvil: play the what if game on them? What if things went wrong?

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Janet | World Anvil: What if they were born 50 years earlier.

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Janet | World Anvil: What if they had a different skill? I've often wondered what would have happened to Bilbo baggins if he'd been hired as a bard instead of being hired as a thief.

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Janet | World Anvil: What would that story look like that is interesting to me? These are ways that you can interrogate, not just your world but the things in your world and around your world, for more stories, for more interesting ideas that will give you your next book, or your next short story or an interesting scene that you hadn't considered. That has all come from what you've already created and feels organic.

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Janet | World Anvil: And that's what you want. It feels authentic, inorganic to what you've made.

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Janet | World Anvil: Dig into your focus points. You made them, you know what's important to you. Dig into those extrapolate them. See what happens when you mash 2 together, what happens when you mash

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Janet | World Anvil: magic and trade? What does that look like? I bet you have ideas. I'm expecting to see them in the chat in just a second. What happens when you mash

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Janet | World Anvil: politics and food? What does that look like or religion? And

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Janet | World Anvil: you know the natural world. What does that look like?

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Janet | World Anvil: These are these are options, these are iterations that you can play with.

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Janet | World Anvil: Consider who is unhappy with the status quo? And why?

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Janet | World Anvil: That is a very important question, because people who are unhappy with the status quo tend to rebel, fight for change, protest.

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Janet | World Anvil: This is going to give you a lot of options, a lot of story.

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Janet | World Anvil: and consider, finally.

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Janet | World Anvil: your favorite thing about your setting.

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Janet | World Anvil: What is your favourite thing about your setting? Because, after all, you are the person number one that you are writing the story for. So you have to be excited about it too.

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Janet | World Anvil: And then

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Janet | World Anvil: what happens if you intensify that what happens if you dial that up to 11,

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Janet | World Anvil: and so just a few more ideas, these are things that you can consider as you are doing the washing up or going for a walk, or whatever, to start exploring your world, to start expanding that world that you have already made beyond that cookie cutter shape

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Janet | World Anvil: into something that's rich and diverse and full of storytelling possibilities.

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Janet | World Anvil: If you are sitting there thinking, I don't have a world yet this is all very interesting, but

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Janet | World Anvil: that

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Janet | World Anvil: then

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Janet | World Anvil: go to worldamble.com forward slash courses. I am currently working on a how to get started worldbuilding course, that integrates a lot of these elements from the beginning in an easy to follow pattern. So you will have focus points and you will develop along them. As you develop your first setting, we will use genre and motivation and inspiration in order to make sure that you're developing what you want to develop. So that's worldbuilding.com sorry worldamel.com forward slash courses! I beg your pardon.

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Janet | World Anvil: and you can sign up for that free course. It should be ready in about a month. If I get my skates on and get it together.

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Janet | World Anvil: I will say, use proper tools for the job. My world building blossomed when I had an actual world building tool. In my case I made it.

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Janet | World Anvil: You don't have to do that. You can just go to worldamble, com and use it. And I saw a few people saying that

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Janet | World Anvil: They they weren't quite sure how world anvil worked. We have just released a whole new learn section. It's got workflows. It's got guides. It's got everything in there and the get Started World building course will also help you because I don't just go through how to get started world building. I also show you, optionally, how you can do those things on world anvil. So all of that information will be in there together

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Janet | World Anvil: if you would like it. And finally, if you do have access to the back catalogue of the pro writing aid seminars, I did an agile world building for writers. So if you are well building from the beginning, I do recommend that that also goes through, you know.

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Janet | World Anvil: bit by bit how to get started world building.

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Janet | World Anvil: and that with 9 min to spare

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Janet | World Anvil: is me. Thank you so much for listening folks. If you have any questions. I would love to answer them. And just as a little, thank you for listening. We have a 60% off code for world anvil for any annual membership. You could use that until Saturday, the 20 eighth. And the code is Pwa fantasy 24. We have to start making these easier to say, Pwa, fantasy 24.

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Janet | World Anvil: I'm gonna start using poetry.

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Janet | World Anvil: Thank you. So.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Thanks, Janet. I dropped the link in the chat for everyone again. So it is there, and it is also posted on our hub along with Janet slides, so you can check those out again at your leisure.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We do have a few questions open right now.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: first gala. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, says, can you recommend map making software.

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Janet | World Anvil: I get this question so often. Yes. So map making software is

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Janet | World Anvil: is is many and varied.

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Janet | World Anvil: depending on what you want. I would say, off the cuff. A very good one is incarnate. They do not pay me to say this. It is my husband's preferred map making software. It has a freemium model, so you can do a bunch of stuff for free, and you can also pay to get more on a subscription basis.

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Janet | World Anvil: And it's pretty good. It's it's pretty solid. It's got a lot of, and particularly for fantasy. It's got a lot of stuff in there, so it's very easy to make a pretty respectable map pretty quickly and pretty nicely, even if you do not have a huge amount of artistic talent which I do not. So

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Janet | World Anvil: even I can make a map in incarnate. There are others that are similar wonder drafts. Actually, I have a blog about this.

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Janet | World Anvil: I'm just going to grab this really quickly. Sorry.

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Janet | World Anvil: I literally have reviewed all the map making softwares because we get this question so often

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Janet | World Anvil: and in that blog I also go through like random generators for cities. And

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Janet | World Anvil: it links to one about spaceships and ship maps and stuff. So yeah, I have a big, old, big old

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Janet | World Anvil: like,

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Janet | World Anvil: there you are. I've just shared that link there.

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Janet | World Anvil: Map making software. So that will take you to all of our other map making software

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Janet | World Anvil: blogs as well, which go through the the whole gamut of you know, and cities and random generation software and make it yourself, software and everything else.

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Janet | World Anvil: Sorry. Quite a long answer. But it's a big question.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Awesome. Thank you, Sylvia asks. I'm interested in becoming a game designer. What training, program or certification should I follow any recommendations.

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Janet | World Anvil: Yeah, so I know that there are a lot of game courses out there.

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Janet | World Anvil: I'm a professional game designer, and I did not do professional game designer training.

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Janet | World Anvil: I have a very inquiring mind. I read some excellent books. I would recommend the Cobalt Guide to game design

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Janet | World Anvil: again, not paid to say this, I just think it's an excellent book. And I played

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Janet | World Anvil: games so many games. I played board games and video games and D and d games, and I've been playing games in a serious way since I was about 10.

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Janet | World Anvil: So I would say, if you just play loads and loads of games, and you can think about them critically.

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Janet | World Anvil: That is a great start. And with regard to getting started designing your own games, most game designers start with what's called in the Rpg. World hacks.

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Janet | World Anvil: so they will take a game.

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Janet | World Anvil: and then they will

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Janet | World Anvil: tweak it a little bit, or they would change the flavour, or they will say, Okay, but what happens if I introduce my own home rules? How does that affect it? And generally that is how most game designers get into game design.

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Janet | World Anvil: If you want to do video game design that is completely different, because video game design

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Janet | World Anvil: generally involves a lot of coding. I cannot give a lot of recommendations for that, but I can say that

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Janet | World Anvil: Brunel University in London has a very good course. I think they do some distance, learning stuff as well, and they use well downfall. Just they happen to for their world building stuff. But I also know that their course, is chris Cox is the guy who runs that and it's won a bunch of awards. So

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Janet | World Anvil: in terms of video game design, that's what I would recommend.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Eric asks, how would you go about developing your premise for low fantasy? Does the premise have to be rather fantastical with magic dragons, etc, to be interesting. Nope.

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Janet | World Anvil: Absolutely not.

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Janet | World Anvil: Game of thrones is low fantasy.

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Janet | World Anvil: so most

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Janet | World Anvil: characters do not have access to magic most of the time, and the magic that they do have access to is generally pretty low.

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Janet | World Anvil: It's a very interesting world, but what they've done in game of thrones.

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Janet | World Anvil: I use this just as an example because everybody knows it. What they've done is they've introduced. It's low fantasy, but what they've what Georgia R. Martin has introduced is a large

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Janet | World Anvil: world difference on a world level. So that big thing with the seasons

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Janet | World Anvil: has created a lot of super interesting politics and changes that makes the world feel fantastical, even though generally it's like.

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Janet | World Anvil: I don't know the the Apple people versus the lion people, and they're fighting on a field right? There's not a lot of fantasy in most of game of thrones. And then later, of course, you get more of the religion, and there's like a little bit of. You know the

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Janet | World Anvil: I think we're past the International spoilers line. So I'm just going to go ahead. There's like the the first one. So the fairy people. There are some characters who use some magic.

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Janet | World Anvil: but the world feels magical for different reasons.

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Janet | World Anvil: It's not a high magic world.

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Janet | World Anvil: So I would say you need to look for the exciting things that excite you about that world, and you need to write for you first.

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Janet | World Anvil: and you don't. Magic is not the only thing that makes a world feel magical.

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Janet | World Anvil: wondrous nature, fascinating geography, you know, really interesting people. This makes the world feel wondrous as well. It's got nothing to do with magic.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Alright. Anna asks, what is the difference between rule of law and government? Presence.

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Janet | World Anvil: Hmm! Very good question.

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Janet | World Anvil: in a slightly facile way. Anything you want it to be right in a slightly more considered way.

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Janet | World Anvil: I would say, rule of law is very much about, you know. Who is allowed to do what? Where, why, who isn't allowed to do it? How stringent is the law. How far does the law extend?

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Janet | World Anvil: actually, no, it scratched that last bit. Government presence is more about like.

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Janet | World Anvil: how much does the law get busy in your everyday life. Are there police monitor on the street everywhere? Is it a very

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Janet | World Anvil: Lord town?

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Janet | World Anvil: So, for example, rule of law might be your bodies of law?

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Janet | World Anvil: and

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Janet | World Anvil: Government presence might be more like how many people are enforcing those on a real level.

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Janet | World Anvil: So if there is a rule that you cannot kill, but nobody can enforce it. That's rule of law versus government presence.

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Janet | World Anvil: But really the most important thing is that what does it mean for you

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Janet | World Anvil: at the end of the day, like, if you're writing about government presence because you're writing about bureaucracy.

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Janet | World Anvil: then it's bureaucracy versus its government presence, not rule of law.

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Janet | World Anvil: But yeah, they're very close. They're very intertwined. And the most important thing is like.

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Janet | World Anvil: how how does this impact you and affect your world?

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Janice asks, how many worlds can you have in world? Anvil.

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Janet | World Anvil: Great question. So world anvil like incarnate I was just talking about has a freemium model. So you can create a free account. You can get started, and you can create 2 worlds completely free.

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Janet | World Anvil: If you want more worlds, then you need a guild account, and I believe once you have a guild account. All worlds are unlimited. You can create as many as you like.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Michael asks, how quick in the story should I bring up the world or region in my case? Can this be done? Slowly.

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Janet | World Anvil: Yes, I have a whole seminar about World Building Exposition. It is a whole hot potato mess.

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Janet | World Anvil: It is difficult. It is about meeting out the right information at the right time, and making the reader care

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Janet | World Anvil: the reader should be asking the questions, and then you should be like, reader, you want to know this? Here you are. I kind of supply it, and that keeps the reader wanting to read and read and read. So the answer is usually slightly after you think you need to

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Janet | World Anvil: and my golden rule for exposition that is introducing your world is in motion

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Janet | World Anvil: and emotional.

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Janet | World Anvil: If you want to introduce something. It should either be

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Janet | World Anvil: something that's like moving and active and important for your characters in a physical way. This is important, because it is attacking you. This is important because you have to get through it in order to achieve a goal or emotional. It should be something that creates an emotional reaction in the characters, and then

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Janet | World Anvil: you can get away with telling the audience whatever you want, because that they will care, because it's about the characters.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We have a question, I think will be a great one to end with. That will tease into tomorrow's session. Lee asks. You're also running a seminar tomorrow morning. What will it cover versus what you covered today?

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Janet | World Anvil: Well, today, I talked about world building and ways to expand your world tomorrow. I'm gonna talk about world anvil and how it can help you as a writer, expand your world. So we're gonna go through. What is world anvil? And how can it support your writing journey? We're gonna go through a bunch of the features and what they do, in brief. And then we're gonna answer loads of questions from you guys, because you always ask really interesting things that we don't think of. So yeah, it's really gonna be like a Q&A about world anvil. And for some of the folks who are saying, oh, I really wanna get back into world anvil.

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Janet | World Anvil: Come, ask us questions. We will help you. That's that's what we love to do. That's literally why we made World anvil available for other people rather than just keeping it for ourselves, which is, you know, I'm I'm patient, 0 of World Anvil. It was literally built for me

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Janet | World Anvil: so, but we shared it because we want to help people. So if it helps you hooray! And if you want to know if it could help you.

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Janet | World Anvil: Come, hang out with us. Tomorrow I will be with my lovely husband and better half.

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Janet | World Anvil: And yeah, we'll tell you about what we do every day, and how how? Maybe it could be useful.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Well, we can't wait to have you back tomorrow. Your sessions are always so much fun. Thank you to everybody who came today. If you didn't get your question answered, come back tomorrow at 10 Am. Eastern, and we'll have another go, and hopefully you'll get it answered then, and in the meantime check out the hub for the replay, the special offer, and the slides, and we'll see you in just about an hour for our next session.

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Janet | World Anvil: Great. Thank you, everyone. It was so much fun.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Bye, everyone.