{"id":11027,"date":"2011-09-30T00:01:39","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T04:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=11027"},"modified":"2011-09-29T17:01:13","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T21:01:13","slug":"worldbuilding-challenge-welcome-to-blackbloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2011\/09\/30\/worldbuilding-challenge-welcome-to-blackbloom\/","title":{"rendered":"Worldbuilding Challenge: Welcome To Blackbloom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Last week’s “three-sentence challenge<\/strong><\/span><\/a>” is ready for your eyes to behold.<\/em><\/p>\n

This week’s challenge is a little different.<\/p>\n

You’ll note that it does not say “flash fiction.”<\/p>\n

It says “worldbuilding.”<\/p>\n

Here’s the deal. You and me, we’re going to build a world. Out of scratch. This is tabula rasa, and by smashing our faces against the screen and leaving upon it a gooey streak of blood and brain matter (aka “imagination grease”) we are going to birth a world out of zippity-zero-nada-nichts. From nothing to something, from chaos comes order.<\/p>\n

We’re not going to do it all today.<\/p>\n

We will, in fact, do it once a month. Every last Friday of the month for one year, or… until this thought experiment fails miserably and crashes into the mountains where it’s forced to eat its friends.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we’ll be doing some straight-up worldbuilding, other times we’ll dig deeper and start telling stories set in this world. But before the stories, the world itself must be made.<\/p>\n

What are the aims of this weird little experiment? I don’t even know. Part of it is just to see if we can build a world that is a place where fiction can live — can a series of strangers collaborate on a world in such a way to generate a seed bed where stories can grow and thrive? I don’t know. But I’m here to find out.<\/p>\n

We’ll play in this crazy generative playground, see what happens.<\/p>\n

Let’s begin.<\/p>\n

These are the only <\/em>things you know about Blackbloom<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

First, that is its name. Blackbloom.<\/p>\n

Second, it is a place where human and non-humans alike dwell.<\/p>\n

That’s it. That’s all we know. Everything else is up in the air. Everything else is suspect. Nothing is canonical. All is apocryphal. Like I said: chaos. From chaos we shall draw a deep syringe filled with truth.<\/p>\n

Today’s mission is for each of you to provide one<\/em> aspect of the world in under 100 words. This aspect is a point of status quo: it defines the world as it is now. Not as it will become.<\/p>\n

You might say: “It has two suns.” Or, “Water is a precious resource.” Or, “Two warring factions fight over the world’s largest city.” Define the reality as it is now. Define Blackbloom’s<\/strong> current existence.<\/p>\n

You can say whatever you’d like. Given that so little is defined, you’ve nothing to build from — but also, nothing to hold you back. This is the act of creation, the weird Genesis of a made-up world.<\/p>\n

Thus, feel free to be as creative as you’d like. As weird as you must be.<\/p>\n

I will pick… we’ll say 10 of these, but if I see more that are really awesome, I’ll up to… let’s say “20.” That’s my job in all of this: to serve not as deity but rather as adjuticator.<\/p>\n

I’ll pick those by the time the next Worldbuilding Challenge rolls around.<\/p>\n

Which will be…<\/p>\n

October 28th.<\/p>\n

Now, get your pick-axes and encyclopedias.<\/p>\n

Go nuts.<\/p>\n

Create a world.<\/p>\n

And welcome to Blackbloom<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the deal. You and me, we’re going to build a world. Out of scratch. This is tabula rasa, and by smashing our faces against the screen and leaving a gooey streak of blood and brain matter (aka “imagination grease”) we are going to birth a world out of zippity-zero-nada-nichts. From chaos comes order. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-11027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","7":"tag-blackbloom","8":"tag-fiction","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-2RR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11027"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11032,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11027\/revisions\/11032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}