How to Create Unique Worlds for Your Speculative Romance Novels

Speculative romance books are very hot right now. Speculative basically means anything where genres may be mixed, such as science fiction romance, paranormal romance and fantasy romance. Since these stories have elements of realities that are otherworldly, it is important to be able to create unique worlds for them in order to keep your readers interested. Using tired story lines isn’t going to win readers. Here are some ideas to help you get started on creating unique worlds for your speculative romance novels.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. If you haven’t started doing so already, begin studying other cultures. It really is imperative to learn about other cultures to create unique worlds. First of all, you can use elements from the cultures you learn about when building your own cultures for different worlds. If you also are able to learn something about the languages that go along with these cultures, all the better, although this is not a requirement.

2. If you can, interview people from cultures around the world. Try and understand what makes their personal cultural universe tick and how they feel about it. Find out how their culture has shaped how they think. This can be critical in being able to explain for your readers why your characters do what they do and how the world you create has shaped them.

3. Read speculative romance by other authors. Don't copy anyone, but reading other authors if you haven’t already done so will help you to get an idea of what other authors are doing with their worlds. It may in fact trigger other ideas that are unique to you that you can use.

4. Talk to other speculative romance authors that you trust about your ideas. They may be able to help you flesh out certain aspects of your world-building that will make your world more unique. Since you can’t all read every book out there, it is possible that someone else has done your idea and so talking to other speculative romance authors you trust can help you to find this out.

5. Bounce ideas for your unique worlds off of trusted friends that read speculative romance. As readers, they will catch things that you might otherwise have missed because they are viewing your story from a reader’s viewpoint rather than a writer’s. Writers tend to get tunnel vision when it comes to books and so having those extra pairs of eyes and ears is really important in helping to write the best possible book.

6. Take all your notes, interviews and whatever else you’ve collected and create your unique world.

Tips & Warnings

• There are hundreds of discussion boards online, so if you don’t know anyone from another culture that you can interview, consider posting on a board with people from that culture. Be polite, explain you are an author and you would like to talk with some of them about their culture to give you ideas for your book. Most people will be more than willing to help you, but if not, then move on to the next board.
• Consider checking out websites that are dedicated to a particular culture as well. There are also hundreds of websites that are dedicated to different cultures and you may be able to find someone to interview there as well.
• Take copious notes or tape interviews with people from other cultures. You aren’t going to be able to remember everything on your own, so recording the information in one form or another is important.
• Don’t rely on your imagination alone to come up with the details to create a unique world. While most writers have wonderful imaginations, they are shaped by the cultures they grew up in and no matter how wonderful your imagination might be, it is easy to create a world that is more like your own than you may realize. Studying a variety of cultures and reading what is available in the speculative romance market will help you to create a truly unique world.
• Just because something is written about a culture doesn’t make it true. Don’t believe everything you read. The erroneous things written about Native American cultures for the last few hundred years are a really good example of this. This is why it is important to not just read and study other cultures, but to interview and or talk to people from other cultures.