WorldEmber 2024 Pledge & Progress Report

Howdy, one and all, and welcome to my WorldEmber progress report! Fall came in with a frigid gust and winter is just around the corner, so it is once again time to finish the year strong with one last push towards our respective worldbuilding goals.   Just like last year, you'll find all the preparatory homework assignments leading up to the challenge, articles written during the challenge, and any other interesting bits of worldbuilding I get done over the course of December 2024 in the sections below. Articles will appear in alphabetical order within subdivisions for each article type to the extent possible for maximum readability. This year, I'm going to try and focus down on articles for the Manifold Sky and The Sealed Kingdoms settings; in previous years, it's been too easy to become distracted when these, in fact, have the most potential of all my settings going forward to result in publishable work. My New Year's Resolutions didn't include a wordcount goal for this challenge, but I'm hoping to get at least 50,000 words down regardless.   Anyways, without any further ado, let's get this party started!

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  During November, WorldAnvil announced a series of homework assignments designed to help us get ready for the WorldEmber challenge. You can find a link to the homework submission page in the sidebar content panel.  

Week I: Pledge Your Goal

Part 1: Set a word goal and your area of focus

My wordcount goal this year is 50,000 words. I know I can do this with worldbuilding content better than prose, as I've done it several times in the past, and WorldEmber is set after NovelEmber where the prose is more prominent. I'd like to get at least one article done in each category and make a submission for challenge consideration in each category.  

Part 2: Choose your area of focus

One thing I'm going to have to get done eventually is, in The Sealed Kingdoms, fill out the character roster and flesh out the drama to take place aboard the ESCI Dewhollow, the sister vessel and eventual antagonist to the ESCI Revelation. My original plan to focus primarily on the actions of the Revelation's crew through the eyes of a single protagonist has changed, and that means there's a whole new cast of characters to build and situations to put them through that will push them to their ultimate breaking point.   The journey of the Revelation is slated to take around 14 years shipboard relative time and it would otherwise be fairly difficult to maintain interesting drama over that span of time if most of it is spent coasting through space uninterrupted. Thus, with the liberty afforded by the new 3rd person limited perspective and out of a desire to keep the story interesting beyond the regular dangers of space travel, I'd like to establish the events leading up to the mutiny aboard the Dewhollow as a sort of dark mirror of events aboard the Revelation. Whereas most things go right aboard Revelation as a result of effort on the part of well-intentioned, competent people, Dewhollow is where the cracks in the prevailing ethics and social order get put on display. This way, the inevitable conflict between the two when they arrive together over the planet https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-sealed-kingdoms-bcgrwurth/a/ibren-location gets set up over the course of the whole story rather than getting sprung on the reader after foreshadowing that may or may not prove effective.  

Part 3: Create or update your meta

The Manifold Sky meta is already complete, but I plan to expand upon the Sealed Kingdoms meta a little bit in the near future.  

Week II: Prepare Your World for New Readers

Part 1: Review your homepage

I'm pretty satisifed with my homepage blurbs and arragements, though I may eventually change the elevator pitch for the Manifold Sky setting down the road.  

Part 2: Create or review your world primer

To my recollection I actually created a primer page for the Manifold Sky setting before WorldAnvil actually offered a world meta feature. While I'd hardly call this article up to my current desires with regard to writing and appearance, it does outline the most important aspects of the setting. You can find that article here.   The Sealed Kingdoms is currently in need of its own primer page, so that will be an ongoing project. The elevator pitch there is fine, I think, and actually might be a little more pithy than the one for the much more explored Manifold Sky. Now that the worldbuilding for the Sealed Kingdoms is starting to expand again, I'm finding that its categorization structure is a hot mess and will have to be updated on an ongoing basis as more articles get added in.  

Part 3: Set up your community tools

My socials are already reachable from the footers of my most public-facing worlds, though I did go through and add the button to follow me as a user.  

Part 4: CSS wizardry

Alas, I am but a humble CSS neophyte. With some exceptions, basic theming it is.  

Week III: On the Hunt for Inspiration!

Part 1: Read a book or watch a movie!

I recently read through the latest Bobiverse book and the Mortal Engines and am currently listening through the most recently-released Expeditionary Force book. It isn't strictly a peice of prose, but Atomic Rockets is an excellent resource for hard science worldbuilding for science fiction and, as such, is a heavy inspiration for the tech of the Sealed Kingdoms setting and, to a lesser extent, the Manifold Sky setting. I've been diving back into AR recently as a means of gaining more inspiration.  

Part 2: Create a moodboard

In addition to serving as a technical resource, Atomic Rockets (see above) contains a lot of retro science fiction art and, thus, provides a lot of the visual inspiration for the Sealed Kingdoms in particular. The aesthetic of this setting lies somewhere on the fantastical end of grounded, as, though there is still a lot of exposed trusswork and pressure vessels strung with comparatively small habitats across most of the fleets found in the Sealed Kingdoms region, defensive and aesthetic considerations also play a role by dint of the fact that space is as much a place for living and commerce as it is a theatre for industrial activities and military conflict. To put it more concise terms, the aesthetic of the setting lies somewhere between cyberpunk and cassette futurism. There isn't FTL, artificial gravity, or teleporters, but there is artificial intelligence, cybernetics, powered environment suits, and megastructrues. When it comes to how the Sealed Kingdoms looks, think more in the vein of The Expanse or Aliens than Buck Rodgers or Star Trek. The vehicles from Interstellar and Avatar are close to the mark. It isn't as gritty as Starfield or as minimalist as something like The Martian, but it's more grounded-looking than Mass Effect.  

Part 3: Create or expand your writing playlist

Honestly, the older I get, the harder it is to focus on writing unless I'm just listening to ambient tracks. Lyrical content is good for inspiration, but soft instrumentals and environmental sounds are less disruptive for my train of thought. I do have a few long-ish music tracks in my playlist now to accomodate this; these also serve well as pacing markers, as, if I hear an hour-long track to the end, it's probably a good time to take a break!  

Week IV: Harness the Power of Friendship!

Part 1: Find a community

I've been on the WorldAnvil Discord channel for a while, which helps me keep up to date on current goings-on in the community. It's also worth noting that there is an official Manifold Sky channel and a BCGR channel for those interested, though these are not particularly well-used these days. I'm also expecting to rope fellow user SpaceSuitIan into the festivities so that he actually gets that writing and art he wants to get done accomplished - yes, bro, that means you!  

Part 2: Plan your writing schedule

I typically get my best writing done between my lunch break and immediately after work. If I can squeeze an hour or so into the process per day, I will be happy.  

Part 3: Get some fresh air!

I'm ready!

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      * Entries marked with an asterisk will be submitted for special category consideration.