“Love is as Strong as Death”

Today, I want to do some world-building. I have been desperate to write fiction for the past three weeks or so, and I’ve yet to do hardly any, so I figured I’d take today’s blog to work through the skeleton of one of my projects.

If you prefer straightforward writing advice, I apologize that the short reflection that follows probably isn’t for you. But in a sense, this is still writing advice (I certainly categorized it as such here), because instead of telling you how to do worldbuilding, I’m letting you into my mental process to show you how I do worldbuilding.

(The picture that tops this post was taken in Alaska 15 years ago, but it was on that trip that I visually imagined many of the scenic locations in my world.)

My fantasy world (Áilleacht) finds its origin in love. This should be obvious, considering the name of this blog, but when it comes to the stories that find their setting in this world, it will certainly not be that obvious (apart from knowledge of this post). Love is the underlying force of my world. Characters will certainly show love (in varying degrees), but love will not be claimed as the underlying force in the text of my stories. This goes back to the importance of theme, which I mentioned previously.

Because this world revolves around love, the magical aspect must also be related to love. Historically, this has mostly protected the world from wicked magic, but it is possible to be so devoted to the wrong things that the magic is twisted for evil. In fact, while not widespread, there is a whole “school” of this sort of magic: people who are negatively counter-cultural.

Those who have the ability to perform good magic are positively counter-cultural.

The average citizen of the world is just part of the culture, satisfied with the status quo, unconcerned about changing anything, simply trying to make it in life. (However, there are some proofs that even these people have the ability to perform magic, but most people find other explanations for these proofs.)

And magic is not simply confined to humans. In fact, humans were not original to this world. The original intelligent inhabitants, of which there were three races, were given specifically-focused magic for caring for the world. However, as time has gone on, many of these races have lost sight of their calling, and as such, their magic has diminished. This has resulted in a darker world than initially intended.

Will love prevail?

In this with you.

Soli Deo Gloria

Thanks for reading.