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Q&A Research overgrown main novel plan and writing

If you write a history, it will likely be of interest only to yourself (or as preparation for your book). That's not necessarily a reason not to write it. JRR Tolkien put years of effort into wor...

posted 9y ago by Chris Sunami‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:33:39Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/18699
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Chris Sunami‭ · 2019-12-08T04:33:39Z (almost 5 years ago)
If you write a history, it will likely be of interest only to yourself (or as preparation for your book). **That's not necessarily a reason not to write it**. JRR Tolkien put years of effort into world-building for his books, which is a key reason for their continued popularity.

If you do go ahead and write your narrative now, **don't make the mistake of trying to cram all your research into the plot**. To paraphrase advice from the great SF author, Theodore Sturgeon (via Delany), your narrative will be richest when it is located in a fully imagined setting, but the only things that should make it onto the page are the thing that the characters actually notice and interact with.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-08-18T13:34:12Z (over 9 years ago)
Original score: 8