Your Story's History

[Andy]

How much of your story's history do you write about? Is it just the past few years? 100 years? Do you write all the way back to the beginning of time?

Tell how much, why, and describe it.

[jordanisonfire]

Well, the Druids in my story have a sort of holy book (like the Christians have the Bible) that is called Life's Tomes (I'm trying to think of a better name, I know the name sucks), so it basically goes back as far to the creation of the universe that my story is set in. :D

[Rafael Domination]

I try to make the history lessons as interesting as possible...but my stories don't really have anything to do about any history unless it has an effect on what's happening now...

[Shaun]

I don't think I have anything that does what you're asking Andy :S. I mean, I throw some history into the present, but it is never developed. It's not like Tolkien where he had to write the Silmarilion and such.
WISB does refer to a lot of ancient history not only of the real world but also the fantasy world that James ends up in. There's hints to Arlin City's past, hints to the nature of magic, hints to relationships between the fake town in the real world called Woodton and the fantasy continent of another dimension called Traea. But it's never developed and likely never will be. It's all firmly established in the present.
I don't know if many of us have a lot to offer in the direction of stories in the same world dealing with different periods of time. We probably haven't written enough :S. But if you're asking for simply mentioning some history, well yeah I do that enough times :P.

[Rafael Domination]

Just wondering...how do you guys write your history?

I prefer to make a timeline list, so I don't mess up on the details later (non-novel) and in the book itself, I use History as an interesting plot element...

[Andy]

Just wondering...how do you guys write your history?

I prefer to make a timeline list, so I don't mess up on the details later (non-novel) and in the book itself, I use History as an interesting plot element...
As an interesting plot element - that's exactly how I see it.

I tend to write history to explain the motives of some of my characters (some of which live for hundreds of years), and then I string them together to form a timeline. There's also a creation story, which explains how everything started out, which was rather fun.:)

[Rafael Domination]

Hundreds of years! :D

Wow. That's does take some effort...I usually just stick to decades...

[Shaun]

I have no idea. I don't have an full timeline, just bits and pieces. I just find relevant information for the story and use it. I guess that becomes a fault though because it is difficult to make sure not to screw up something :S

[Carraka]

When I was younger, I had a lot of stories that I wanted to write some day. I don't want to write those stories anymore, but I can use them as myths or history or etc. Some day. xD

EC doesn't use much of what I came up with then. I have creation myths, but I don't have a version that is actually true. I have a solid version of what happened in the past decade or two, but beyond that, it's mostly stories made up by confused people that wanted to explain confusing things but failed and started wars instead.

[jordanisonfire]

My beginning of my sort of Bible book in my story is like the Bible. "In the beginning", sort of thing, Life created a lone universe in a vast expanse of nothingness. Then, it goes on that he created life and stuff, made new universes etc. Then one of the beings became Death, who brought an end to all the eldest beings on the worlds (they were all originally immortal). Death then created the Spirit Realm and began to take younger people into his own domain. Then, Life and Death made a pact, that when a being reached a certain age or their life force was ended by other means, their souls would pass into the Spirit Realm, but Death could not do anything to them. Also, if the souls in the Spirit Realm reached a certain place in it (they are told where it is), they will be reincarnated into a new body, but the soul will be the same, yet altered in personality and attributes. And thus it has been since the beginning of my story...

[Rafael Domination]

Ever decided to play with your novels' history?

Kinda like a character travelling back in time to shoot his grandpa, and that meant that he was never born, but if he was never born, then he did not have the opportunity to shoot his grandpa which meant that his grandpa lived, and he WAS born, but that meant that he DID travel back and kill his grandpa, but that meant that he was never born...

just for fun? :D

[Andy]

Sounds like Futurama, Raffy. They play with time travel and paradoxes all the time. The main character is his own grandfather, for example. :D

The only way I use time travel in my story is to stop time in a small area, or to go forward in time. Traveling backwards is a big no-no, and the there's no magic spell for it.

[jordanisonfire]

I never use time travel. No point in it, it just complicates things.

[Rafael Domination]

I'm still trying to make history interesting without making it seem like a desperate infro dump...

[Andy]

Well, I think the best way to do history is to only reveal parts when they're necessary, and later in the story, reveal more parts, and slowly connect them. I'm sure there are many cases when history isn't very relevant to the story, and is just like an optional add-on, in which case I think it might be best to leave out the unimportant parts.

[Shaun]

Little bits at a time is the best method. You don't need to present a lot of history anyway. Half the stuff you invent for your world barely gets more than a slight mention in the actual words.