The Thrill of an Expanded Fictional Universe

Andy
Peloquin

St. Augustine said, “The world is a book and he who doesn’t travel only reads one page.”  
Earth is a great big, bold, colorful place filled with delicious foods, fascinating cultures, intriguing belief systems and religions, masterpieces of architecture and engineering, ancient and modern art in every style, and wonderfully dissimilar people. Travel a short distance in any direction, and you'll find a good deal of new and marvelous among even the most familiar things.
Why should fictional worlds be any different?

It's More Than Just One Story
Every great epic starts in one location, with one person. The hero embarks on his quest. The heroine defies the odds. Boy meets girl. Every tale must have a starting place.
However, as the story develops, so too does the world around it. The hero's quest leads him to lands of magic, mysticism, and monsters. The heroine's journey leads her to places high and low, where she encounters villains and heroes alike. With every new scene, we get a great glimpse at the town, metropolis, or country where the story is set.
Yet, there is only so much of the world to discover in a single book.
Take “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy as the perfect example. The story began in the Shire, but the heroes trekked across the world, discovering Gondor, the Mines of Moria, the lands of Rohan, the secret pass into Mordor, and the Grey Harbor where the elves sailed into the sunrise. The continent-spanning quest explored a huge amount of the world, introducing a breathtaking array of races, peoples, and cultures.
Still, how much more of the world remained unexplored? What about the Forest Elves of Mirkwood, the lands of Umbar to the far south, or even the other continents across the ocean? There will never be enough time or space to tell all the stories in just that one world.
And therein is the beauty: there will always be more stories to tell!

Read the entire article in the November 2017 issue of InD'Tale magazine.

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