The Reading Challenge: WorldEmber 2021
How did I chose my articles?
Well, my writing has some weak points, which I wanted to address with this challenge. I am a lousy storyteller (I guess) and I tend to tell, instead of show, which leads to a more lexiconesque reading experience. That may be OK for world building, but eventually I want to move on to writing stories. So the three priorities I set for myself is to read characters (as they drive stories), plots and/or history since they are narrative (more or less) and some theoretical stuff to learn how to 'fluff up' my walls of text a bit. :)
1) Grundlagen des Arkanen by CrazyEddie
This article is a good example of how to write theory and systematic stuff without getting to long-winded. The principles of how what works are clear (though not incredibly detailled, which surely wasn't intended for this overview article), the individual subchapters are short and concise and some fun, but also informative quotes are strewn in.
2) Irath by PanthersEye
I had a good time reading this goddess character, as the article is not only a list of traits, but shows the character in action by weaving in lots of little stories to show how she acted in different situations and how that shaped her reception. From a technical point I like the different script types used for main text and quotes/'source texts' to set them apart.
3) Battle of the South Rock by H.B. Bacon/Kiyomo
With conflicts being more narrative as well, I decided to try this article as well. The skirmish described here is part of a bigger conflict and the sense of scope portraiyed in the article makes that quite clear. The sketch of the fleets helps to visualise numeric relationships well.
4) Mind Domains by Angantyr
As with the first entry, I wanted to tackle theoretical framework of how things work in a world again and see how this is handled by someone else. While Grundlagen des Arkanen was more focussed on the actual application of magic and the in-world technicalities, this was more of a theoretical or philosophical approach.
5) Papua and Pepsy by Mishralalayana
Another character article - this time even for two characters who are closely bound to each other. This one did things differently as it integrated a longer passage of a narrative concerning how these two got acquainted with each other. This fits in nicely with the more descriptive parts before and after and is one more way to bring life into an article.
6) First Member Hannah by DesdemonaRose
This character article is simple in style in that it goes through a characters biography from start to - well actually above - end. Doing so it gives a solid introduction and wastes no time on details, that aren't important to know. There is for example no physical description whatsoever, since it does not matter. To allow for a visualisation, artwork is used. The portrait - tbh - is a exceptionally well fitting one, considering what we get to know about her in the article.
7) Signal by George Sanders
Another character-article, this time nice and short. One could almost say minimalistic. Yet you get a solid introduction, with pictures to help visualise the character, some details on her academic/work background and her family bonds as represented by her sister. A lot of linking and a section to guide one to related articles show this characters embedding into the world.
8) Finsterschlucht by Secere Laetes
A location, for a change, but a very detailled one. The detail here comes less from the description of landscape features, but more from historical information and accounts of events that have unfolded in the area and give it its distinct character and feel. This one, too shows: structure and linking are good tools to make articles work.
9) Dawnera by Satrium
Again an article on the more narrative side. This one reads a bit like a mix of a summary and an observation by someone involved into the events, so stylisticly it reads more 'lively' than the articles I mostly write in my rather cultural-history-style. Also the little 'guiding blocks' in the article are nice.
10) Ghazali by Winger
It's easy to worldbuild little things, it's not so easy to integrate them into your world. This little shroom article is not only a peculiarity, but is also integrated into it's setting and a narrative in the setting. This makes for mor than just a speck of clutter in the world. New Years Resolutions:
Even though I didn't read only 'narration-heavy' articles, as I planned before, I got a good overview of how other people structure their articles, what works and what doesn't. Some things are stylistic - I am indeed more a writer of 'cultural history encyclopedia articles' - but even so I could try to be less wall-of-text-y in general and to put more pictures here and there, especially when speaking about something corporeal, like an item or species. So what I want to to this year is: Go through my articles, decide on a somewhat normed structure and apply that to all my old articles. I also want to paint more and add visuals to my articles. One last thing - though I need more coherent articles for that - is to do more crosslinking between my articles.
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