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Universes: the art of worldbuilding

Universes: the art of worldbuilding

Creating stories is a narrative art that can take any form. I have been a storyteller ever since I was a kid, even though that just meant creating stories in my head. As I grew older, I started to experiment with more artistic approaches: small comics on a notebook, a small series of comics on a book, painted mangas, even 2D animation using Flash. But there was a trend: every time I came up with new characters playing a part in a story, I always had the tendency of investing myself in the story to make it bigger and bigger. So, in less time than I expected, I will always end up worldbuilding the universe of those characters: its places, attributes, its rules, the history, who is who and why; and, when I started writing as the ultimate way to produce a faster narrative, I even started creating maps in a very much-inspired The Lord of the Rings way.


Worldbuilding is not easy. It requires patience, commitment, time, and, most of all, consistency in the narrative. This consistency is not simple to achieve either: you need to look up for every detail and be so organized that you do not end up getting lost in the ocean of information of the fictional world you are creating. It's a common mistake, in the best-case scenario, to end up with secondary characters that have blue eyes in one chapter and black eyes in another; in the worst-case scenario, end up with a story with so many plot holes that it does not make any sense.


As Inkspired, ultimately, is a storytelling platform for reading and a storytelling tool for creating, we felt the need to expand into that direction. As a writer of fantasy, I have seen the struggle first-hand, and I always thought there must be a better way to organize the content and put it in the function of a larger production. Inkspired has always let you create stories in different formats, but we know that for longer series there was a key component missing: a component that actively links all those stories and puts them in the same content, unifying all the elements that take part in them. So we did something about that, and it's called Universes and Smart Glossaries. Today I'm welcoming you officially to our new worldbuilding tool.

What are Universes?

Universes are Inkspired's latest initiative* designed and created by Galo A. Vargas. They are a new way to showcase your stories. Instead of a story type, Universes are an immersive way to aggregate your existing stories, microfictions, and other media into one single common space. It's especially useful if you are writing full-length novels, books or starting a wider creative project based on fictional worlds. It will help you to remember names, places, dates, and everything you create and write along the way.

Even though it's widely integrated with everything Inkspired as a platform offers, you can also use it with your content elsewhere or even internally in your own group creative projects.

Universes will greatly help you to organize and connect your ideas and your Characters, Places, Events, Cultures, Societies (and more) through our Smart Glossaries.


*Inkspired's "Initiatives" is a program aimed at entrepreneurs who want to start a private app within our community using Inkspired's technology. Send us an e-mail to learn more.


How does it work and for whom is this for?

Universes act more as an aggregator of content rather than a content creator per se. That means that it better serves you if you already have stories (or other media, not necessarily only hosted on Inkspired) you want to bring together in a common space. Universes will be the go-to place for your readers to know everything about the development of your world: the stories you are writing on it, all the glossaries playing a part, the news of upcoming releases or updates, its world maps, and even open up channels for direct collaborations.


So if you are storyteller, or a novelist expanding a fiction universe, or even a producer of other interactive media like video games, role playing games, or a series: Universe are just the tool for you; it will help you organize your content as the producer, and it helps you to follow all the details of the stories if you are the reader.


To get started, just visit the Universes official page. It contains all the step by step of what you have to do to start today for free.


What are the Smart Glossaries?

Smart Glossaries reside at the core of Universes. A Glossary can take the form of a Character, or Event, Place, Item, Vehicle, Technology, Weapon/Armor, Organization, Culture, Society, Historical Registry, Storylines, Techniques/Magic or Creatures. Each one of those brings up all the possible information you could add to better describe that Glossary and then connected to one or more Glossaries in a way that all the information around your story and chapters is always related.


Smart Glossaries can help you to write more accurate fiction by serving us a record of all the details you write about, but it also will help readers to look up for all the references you mention in your narrative and make them stay within the world you are describing. Furthermore, the end goal of the Smart Glossaries, over time, will be to help you as the author and your readers browse all that information "visually", with the involvement of interactive maps, genealogy, characters' relationships, and more.


The vision and the future

We envision Universes as a pillar of what Inkspired wants to be: the ultimate tool for creators and storytellers. Writers (especially fantasy authors) are the first ones to benefit from all its perks, but in general, it can serve any kind of creators as we add more features and integrations throughout the rest of the year. Expect Universes to become a pillar of what Inkspired, as an interactive storytelling platform, wants to be.

26. Januar 2021 14:25 2 Bericht Einbetten 21

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Post!
Bella Oliveira Bella Oliveira
Ok
September 24, 2023, 15:11
Andrea Cubides Andrea Cubides
Me parece una gran herramienta
July 16, 2022, 19:21
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