My WorldEmber Pledge 2022

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My Homework:

Question 1: "If you have more than one world setting, which one is the most important to you right now? Why?"

My answer: One of my settings is already fairly developed, and belongs to a mostly-completed novel. For this event, I would like to focus on the setting for my new novel, which is so close to ready for me to start drafting. I've got characters, I've got potential conflicts for them, I'm chomping at the bit...and I know very little about the setting they are going to do things in. Especially in a story that involves brain magic ("psionics," in-story), I feel it's important to have a pretty solid understanding of what's really going on. Otherwise, everyone could get really ungrounded, really fast.

Question 2: "Which area of that world setting will allow you to achieve your goals (Continuing your novel/campaign, or starting a new one?)."

My answer: Travel in Artemisia is a subject I need to understand thoroughly: the main characters of Artemisia spend most of their time traversing their world, which has been newly shattered into vastly separated havens of stable reality. These islands are surrounded by an ocean's worth of dangerous void, which some characters can travel through in the relative safety of ships. Our heroes hope to restore the universe, but for now, they have to continue moving and putting out local fires, real and metaphorical. Thus, in order to write the opening chapters of this novel, I need to understand the science-fantasy of Artemisia better, learn more about how travel works in the setting, and discover some places that the characters might end up during their travels.

Question 3: "How will it help you achieve those goals?"

My answer: Knowing where the characters can go, what their travels look like, their limitations, and the rules they must follow, will give me a solid playground to turn them loose in and see how they follow (or break) the plot I'm trying to facilitate.