Too Many Ideas - Archive for the ‘World Building’ Category
STEEPVM Worksheet
Thursday, January 18th, 2007Tonight’s continuation of the STEEPVM series of articles is a simple work sheet to help work using the STEEPVM technique from the past few Wednesday’s articles. Next week in the final part I’ll use the work sheet for a worked example from a real project I’m working on at the moment. STEEPVM Worksheet
STEEPVM Tips
Wednesday, January 10th, 2007Add factors wherever they seem to fit in best. If they might fit into multiple categories put it in them all. In some situations you may want to carry out STEEPVM for different regions or organisations that are parts of the same setting. Rearrange the headings to suit your needs on the worksheet. If the […]
STEEPVM Ecology, Politics, Values and Mystical
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007Ecology The playfield of disaster stories, the ecology and environment looks at changes to ecosystems, climate change, extinctions, evolution and the interconnectivity of many factors. Supernatural and mythical creatures place and effects in an ecosystem may appear here. Politics Like economics changing political systems is rarely the stuff of science fiction but its popular with […]
STEEPVM Social, Technology and Economics
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006Social This area covers a variety of topics including changes in attitude, population change, fashion. Changes in attitude cross over with Values later. It may be that society hypocritically expects values to be one thing at this level but acts differently at the personal level that the Values heading represents. Some topics to consider under […]
STEEPVM Timeframes
Wednesday, December 20th, 2006To use STEEPVM as a writer there are a number of timeframe issues you need to address. The first one is the starting point you’re working from. If your writing science fiction your most likely starting point is today. For alternate history you need to pick the point at which history diverges and decide why. […]
STEEPVM Adding the Unknown
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006STEEPV is a tried and tested way of working and with a thirty-year pedigree. It works well in its own field and some of its results read like science fiction. However it is not perfect if your writing includes what might be seen as less hard science and more fantasy elements. Magic, monsters, gods, religions […]
STEEPVM Introduction
Wednesday, December 6th, 2006Sometimes ideas are lurking around in the most unexpected places. Planners in business, marketing and government use what they call scenarios to try to predict the future. They usually start with the present day and try to extrapolate what the future will be like if certain changes happen. Historians sometimes create counter factual histories to […]
Characters on the Couch
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006I really need to come up with something else to blog about on Wednesday’s. Honest I will. For next week. Really. Until then though I’ve put up a PDF of the complete Characters on the Couch on the all new impworks On Writing page.
Characters on the Couch (Part 18)
Thursday, November 16th, 2006There really isn’t a part 19 but I thought I’d finish up with a list of all the parts. Introduction Drivers The Ruler Archetype The Creator Archetype The Care Giver Archetype The Jester Archetype The Regular Guy/Gal Archetype The Lover Archetype The Hero Archetype The Outlaw Archetype The Magician Archetype The Innocent Archetype The Explorer […]
Characters on the Couch (Part 17)
Thursday, November 9th, 2006This Follows on from: Characters on the Couch (Part 16). The first part can be found at: Characters on the Couch (Part 1). Jung, Carl Gustav (1875-1961) Born in 1875 Jung (pronounced young) was trained in medicine in Basel. His early years of practice were at the BurghÅ¡lzli Mental Hospital in Zurich. He was influenced […]