History
Quote: "History is written by the Victors" Napoleon Bonaparte
Creating the History of your world is one of the most time consuming and challenging aspects of World Building. Don't expect to begin the History and finish the history in one foul swoop. The history, mapping, geographical and social sciences for your world can be intermingled and developed over a long period of time.
If you've already developed the birth of your world then the first part of your history has been completed. The birth of your world is a springboard for the rest of your history.
So what happens next?
Dreaming
Dreaming, daydreaming, imagining is an essential part of creating a fictional world. You need to be able to visualise your world in your mind and breathe life into its stories. When you go to sleep, use the daydreams to begin your rest. If you're catching public transport, close your eyes and allow the worlds to surface in your thoughts and entertain you. This creative time between you and your imagination will help to build some of the foundations for the more formal creative process.
When you are ready to begin the developing the History of your world, your dreams will be a great resource. Keep a note book and pen handy, so that you can write down your dreams and any ideas you may have throughout the day.
Ages
By now, you should an idea of where you want to take your geofiction. You may decide to focus on a particular time period of your fictional world especially if you are creating your geofiction for a story. There will be other Ages, before and after in your fictional world where significant developments may have occured. Sometimes, this time is referred to as Pre-history. If your geofiction contains the entire lifetime of your world, then you may have a lof of pre-history and history to record.
Question Time
- What is the present time of your world?
- How much time (your world's time) has passed or will pass?
- What are the significant ages or time periods in your world?
- Have there been any significant social structures or civilisations that have risen up in your world?
- Environmentally, have there been any significant events that have shaped your world?
- Are there any extinct sentient or intelligent races?
- Are there any significant extincitions of fauna or flora?
- Have alien races been to your world?
- What significant astral events have occured?
Timeline
Using the answers to your questions, begin to map out a timeline for your world from its birth up to present time or to its death (if your geofiction evolves as far as your world's demise).
Time Will Tell All
Your world's history and pre-history will lay foundations for the events of your world's present time. Things to consider as you develop your world's history are:
- Artifacts
- Geographical landformations
- Mineral deposits
- Sacred sights
- Techtonics (if it is an Earth like world)
- Evolution?
- Fossils
As you develop the history of your world, you will discover many other topics about your world which you can choose to explore.
Links of Interest
History is written by the Historians
Kidspast.com
HG Wells - A Short History of the World (Google Books)
Wikipedia: Alternate History