Power Of Myth-A Different View Of Love

Chapter seven of The Power of Myth was an interesting view of love.  According to Joseph Campbell, love as we know it, the joy in having a deep and usually passionate relationship with our other half, didn't exist in the early western culture.  For centuries there was the harmony of arranged marriages built on mutual needs, like having children with a spouse of equal social rank or needing a nother parent for their child when the spouse died, and there was the quick burning passion of a sexual relationship.  The idea of two souls melding to become one, or finding your other half, wasn't popular until the twelfth century when the nobility of an area in France started what I would call a "romance with love".  Why would I call it that?  Because it took centuries for love as we know it to be a reason for marriage.  The love that developed in France developed outside of marriage.   Marriage was designed by the parents or the head of the family but the new version of love was more infatuation than anything healthy.   Campbell said it was a meeting of the eyes across the room and an instant recognition of a great love.   This love was often something pursued while ignoring their spouse (which was common in the time of arranged marriages in society). It is from this time that the term "savage" became popular. Women were expected to make their suitors prove their love by some deed (supposedly a popular test was to have a man guard a bridge for a certain amount of time)before giving the man permission to "love" them. By the action of love, the woman could mean many things. It could be as simple as giving him permission to sneak a kiss every once in a while or as complete as welcoming him into her bed. Either way, a woman who asked too much of a test was "savage" as was a woman who asked no test of a man's love before granting him the permission he asked for.

Why do I tell you about the history of love? I'm not sure. I'm reviewing what was in this chapter and there wasn't much for a fiction writer to learn in this chapter. It was a fascinating history lesson with a number of stories or facts I plan to look up. It may be useful to know how love, an emotion needed for happiness but not survival, became so common. I'm sure that it is useful to learn different types of love so you can get the accompanying emotional story right. A lady struggling between choosing a man she shares a passionate sexual relationship with and a man she's been best friends with all her life due to the early understanding that they would marry would react differently to each and may not notice that her "other half" is really the neighbor helping her through the tough decision. In that case her emotional story could depend on how well you understand the various depths of love and how she would express the different levels or emotions. I'm a big fan of never knowing too much about your characters or setting, but reality is that this chapter had little to offer fiction writers, in my opinion.

I did find a few interesting facts. Apparently there is an idea that hell is really getting what we think we want throughout eternity. If you devoted your life to building wealth on earth, you'll be wealthy in hell. If you sought fame all your life, you'll have it in hell. The writers Campbell quoted say that to the angels who are used to living with God, it seems like eternal punishment. I think it would have more to do with the saying "too much of a good thing is a bad thing" and never being able to get a rest from "your greatest desire". Can you imagine maintaining a business empire through eternity and never going on vacation or meeting someone to come home to at night? What about never getting a break from the cameramen and scrutiny of fame? You may be famous but what if there are no fences or security guards in hell? That doesn't sound so fun any more.

The last thing I want to mention from this chapter is the idea that love is pain. It seems that the original idea of true love was the willingness to ignore society to have who you loved. I guess that the jealousy and insecurity that comes with finding your other half could be considered "the pain of love". I just don't think that love in today's day and age, when divorce or breakups are common, compares to the pain of loving someone already married to someone else, someone like a friend or family member, when there was no emotion in marriage but the only way out was complete shame or death.

Sorry to have reviewed a chapter with so little to offer fiction writers, but it was an interesting read from a history and psychology standpoint. Still a recommended read, just not if you expect a lot of insight to improve your craft of writing fiction.

The Power Of Myth-The Goddess Was First

Chapter 6 of The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers was mostly about the Goddess.  Campbell talked about how most religions first worshiped a goddess.  From the Goddess came the earth and from the earth came the food the people ate.  As the cultures moved from agriculture to hunting and fighting other cultures for territory or animals, women were no longer as important.  The women did the "less necessary" tasks of raising the children and tending the plants in small gardens or hunting for plants in the nearby land while the strong men went hunting and gaining more wealth and prestige for the clan or town.  In most myths, as agriculture became less important than hunting or wars, a male deity overpowered the Goddess and often the Goddess seems forgotten or at war with the male deity.  From what I learned looking at the small Wikipedia article on Gaia, the Greek mother goddess and considered to be Earth itself, she was never conquered.  When Cronos killed Uranus, she became less popular, rather like the weak grandmother than an all powerful goddess.  It did mention that oaths sworn in the name of Gaia remained the strongest oath a person could take for a long time.  However, Campbell seemed to think that Hera was the Goddess, not Gaia, at least in this context.  According to Wikipedia, Hera does seem to have been worshiped before Zeus was popular in Greece and beyond.  I also recall a number of current fictional items (such as television shows) that are set in that time or speak of that time that refer to Hera and Zeus, or at least their cults, being at war with each other.  As in most cultures the Goddess (Hera) and the conquering male deity (Zeus) eventually made peace and were worshiped equally (although the male deity became the "king" and the female merely his queen).  In many cultures though, the male deity killed the Goddess and her body became the earth we live on and depend upon.  Oddly enough Christianity (including the Muslim and Jewish variations in this context) never had a Goddess figure.  As it spread, the faith destroyed all who worshiped the Goddess on the hills and destroyed her temples.  Although a short arguemment could be made of the Mother Mary being similar to the Goddess in how she was worshiped, Campbell made a point of saying that the one religion (that split into three and more over time) is the only religion he knows of that has no Goddess figure that created the male deity that would destroy or devalue the Goddess.
    Campbell also mentions that most ancient cities had their own deities that protected it.  Although the city-states acknowledged and worshiped the other known deities around, it focused it's worship on one, maybe two deities.  (The example that comes to mind is Athena and Athens.)  He also talks about the older religions that thanked the animals themselves for giving their lives to be dinner and mentions that most religions have some sort of "rebirth".  Most religions (Christianity included) strive to be dead to their animal nature or the desires of the flesh in order to be reborn to the desires of the spirit or universe.  Commonly referred to as a "rebirth" or "enlightenment" the goal is common in most faiths.
   Why do I bring all of these ideas to your attention?  You are here to learn to write better stories, create better characters, and take people to other places known only in your mind at the moment.  Why do you want to know about ancient myths in order to write science fiction?  First of all, your setting may be on an alien planet that still lives in ancient times or your ship may go down on a planet that still believes in ancient gods and goddesses ruling according to their whims.  More than likely, you will never write about prehistory times but it is important to remember that the future is built on the past.  It is the ancient myths and religions of a culture that create rituals and holidays of the present.  Just think about Christmas: the Catholic Church at the time wanted to stop a bloody celebration where people couldn't be punished for anything that happened in that week.  Instead they changed the reason for the celebration and over centuries turned the bloody celebration into a warm and fuzzy time for memories while merging other rituals and traditions with the old Roman holiday.  (Here is an interesting article I found on origins of Christmas and the accompanying traditions.  Caroling anyone?)
    Events and rituals of the past or of today create the culture and society of the future and knowing the origins of a few of the customs your characters encounter, being able to tell the story of the history or significance of a cultural event or item can make your culture and story come alive for your readers.

Power Of Myth-The Evolution Of Myth

My latest reading of The Power Of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers had some fascinating ideas such as that following your bliss shows you that you are exactly where you want to be in live.  He went on to say that everyone needs their "bliss station", that place where they are at peace with the universe and nothing can affect them.  For me that is often as simple as putting on my headphones or, on really bad days, turning on my favorite television show.  It's a place that makes everyone relax and forget about that bully at work or the pressures of too many deadlines or responsibilities.  In ancient times, sacred spots were where people were allowed to find their bliss, to get a few minutes or hours away from the demands of this world and worship something they trusted.  He goes on to explain that when people settled a new spot, they "sanctified" the spot through rituals such as having their house face depending on their beliefs of the sun or spirits, or having their settlements a specific distance apart.
   One of the interesting ideas Campbell and Moyers talk about is that geography helps shape a culture and religion.  If you compare the nomadic cultures to the agricultural cultures, you can often see what they mean.  They often mentioned that the Goddess religions were often found in agricultural societies, where women domesticated animals and harvested the crops while the men would go on long hunts.  The women became very important in those days but the spread of Christianity, with the unusual idea of only one deity, a male, turned women into little more than a possession to power hungry men.  They also speak of the idea that most early religions were very familiar with the idea that from death comes life.  There was not the finality that death possesses in Christian cultures where death is the end of things on Earth, but an idea that one end really is a beginning for new life of something else.  It's an idea that Christians have forgotten.  Death is not the absolute end but merely a new beginning to a much longer life in Heaven or Hell.
   They continue to talk about how creation myths, such as the Native Americans and the Bible tell very similar stories but don't quite explain how two sons become whole nations when wives are not mentioned as being created.
   An interesting side note to think about when creating fictional societies comes from the Mayan version of basketball.  I remember learning about the game in grade school so I know it is at least partly common knowledge.  The teams would arrive at the huge court and play a hard game to get the balls through the vertical hoops while crowd watched and cheered.  Then the victory celebration was that the winners were sacrificed to the gods.  Unlike the Hollywood idea that the ancient sacrifices were forced to die or were resigned to their fates, these teams fought hard for the chance to die in honor of their gods.  It definitely creates a different possibility for religion.  What would a culture be like where the aim of people's lives was to be worthy of kill for their gods' pleasure, that to die of old age or sickness was a shame?  It would certainly be different from the modern American idea to accumulate material goods and live as long as possible as comfortable as possible. 
It’s interesting thinking about all the parts and pieces that go into the psychology of a budding society, according to historians.  Figuring out where your fictional society is in its evolution can do a lot in telling you the mythical history of your people.

Operations Department

The next department we talked about on a ship that you should consider placing on your fictional space ship was Operations Department.

The Pilote House
The Quarterdeck
Chart Room
Thoughts on Space Weaponry
Weapons Control
Ammunitions Storage
The Armory
Training Area and Plan

Engineering Rooms on a Ship

Now that we're about halfway through the departments on a ship it seems like a good time to review the rooms we've thought about so far. Let's start with the rooms of Engineering Department:

Main Engineering
The Engine Room
The Log Room
Waste Management On Ship
Electrician's Shop
Emergancy Repair Shop
Other Specailty Shops

Weapons Training

Now you know what weapons your ship has and what weapons your crew uses, now you need to familiarize your crew with those weapons and make them proficient. Some of the big things in military life are the drills. When not working on maintaining the tools and systems people use or learning more about their jobs and systems, military members are drilled on what to do if disaster strikes. As far as ship weapons are concerned, that means running scenarios to prepare for any possible attack. Anything from an unnamed airplane flying too close to everything needed to keep the ship afloat after a torpedo is aimed at the ship and fired. Drill, review, maintain, train, and drill, that is what lower level military personnel do during the work day unless their job is purely to gather information to run up the chain of command. That schedule includes weapons. The military says that at a minimum military personnel need to test and qualify annually in able to carry a weapon on the job. Those that don’t qualify get sent continuously to test until they do qualify. To qualify they need to be on a military gun range supervised by specially trained military personnel. Even while deployed most people are sent to a place near where they can test and qualify. Even underway the US Navy has gunshots on the main deck of most ships to be sure all its personnel can defend the ship if something happens on the pier or if someone onboard gets a gun and tries to kill everyone. You will want to set up a training schedule for the ship wide drills and training as well as a recommended schedule for individual or divisional practice. Using energy weapons allows you to set up a fake system on ship where nondeadly lasers are used to practice and improve aim rather than the normal deadly ones. While ignoring holodecks as a lovely training environment, I can remember at least two scenes where Star Trek: The Next Generation practiced for close combat. In one scene Woorf and Guinan are practicing aim in a circular chamber with little dots that counted how many times a color of dots got hit, the other was Woorf training the crew in Klingon martial arts, rather similar to our Tai Kwon Do. In another scene in Enterprise, set closer to the current date, the crew was teaching some people how to aim and fire the weapons by aiming at floating balls in the cargo bay. As you can imagine there are hundreds of ideas on what the future can hold.

Ship Design

Now that you’ve protected your home world and whatever colonies your species may have you can focus on a space ship. Are you planning to make a single ship or a basic design for a class of ships? If you want to have an intergalactic war, it may be helpful to know the ins and outs of the different classes of ships involved. Now that can be a lot of work so if you don’t want to do that you may merely want to know the key points such as fire power, defenses, speeds, and captains as well as anything else you think may be helpful in your war.
However, if you’re looking to focus on one ship or class, the first thing you may want to decide on is what the ship will look like, at least a basic idea. Is it a single shape or a combination of shapes? Remember as you plan your ship that it needs to be aerodynamic. That means that rounded lines are easier than sharp points that space travel would likely erode down and that long flat surface areas on the front of the ship slows it down. The cube ship the Borg used in Star Trek may come to mind but if you watch the shows or movies you’ll notice that the Borg travel through space with a corner pointed forward, not its flat surface. Once it stops the ship rotates so a flat side is seem on screen but the corner going first shoves the air, or space, it goes through to the side so it can pass. If the flat side were forward, the ship would need much more power to move and never reach very high speeds. You’ll notice the same idea in use today on cars. That sleek design isn’t just for show. Smooth lines attribute to the speed that many long for and make the car more expensive.
For ideas on ship design, click here and go down to the bottom of the page. Click on one of the show names to see the ships featured on that show.

The Space Age

I’ve suggested an order to use when building a fictional world and given you some ideas on how your culture could evolve from non-sentient to sentient beings. Now that your culture is developed on the planet, it’s time to see how you want it to develop in space. Most species will be able to send satellites into orbit before ships or stations are created. Even if a species was able to go to space immediately without dealing with satellites or stations first, they will likely have some sort of fleet of ships or satellites orbiting their planet as defense. You may want to decide what all is orbiting your planet and what defenses your planet has before focusing on an individual or class of ships or a nearby space station. Common planetary defenses are missiles and stations/satellites capable of stopping weapons or destroying ships.

From Equal in Labor to Female Suppression

Now that we have the nuclear family slightly separate from the camp, we also notice that the female job of getting the plants for food has been mostly taken over by the male raising the food for eating while still maintaining his role with the animals. That leaves the female with the role of raising the kids, keeping house, and making meals. Of course it also leaves men away from their wives all day not knowing what they’re doing. With this idea of one man/one woman relationship comes some problems. First of all, it wouldn’t have taken men long to realize that by getting another man’s wife pregnant they could be sure their bloodline would continue without having to bother with raising the child. Also, it could give the woman the security to get another mate, one likely not as safe or already taken, as she has assurances that any child she gives birth to will be raised by her legal mate. Given those facts and men’s natural possessiveness and competitiveness, is it any surprise females were so repressed for the last few centuries? After all, a man’s child has often been his greatest accomplishment. At one time the number of children he had would likely have been his greatest pride (just look at the idea of harems) and eventually his place in society would be dependent on his legal son being able to take the father’s place in that society and protecting the mother and sisters. However, that is one way a culture could evolve. What if men hadn’t taken over the woman’s place in society when they were all equal all those years ago? How would life and history be different if women had become dominant? After all, a woman knows that a child she gave birth to is her own (unless something artificial happened…) and there would be no need to subjugate males. They were only around to conceive the child, do hunting and other distance things like trading and war if needed. Of course, this is disregarding the pride of a male and any emotional attachment. Then again, what man wouldn’t want to be able to mate with a female and not be bothered with raising a child or providing for a family?
Okay, so I’m getting carried away now with story ideas now that the facts are put out there but it is another idea for a culture. After all, there are still matriarchal societies, just no pure ones.

The Formation of the Nuclear Family

Now that we have all the males, females, and children around one large campfire (no one knows when or how our ancestors started using fire but let’s assume that has happened by now) population should be booming, right? One would think so but somewhere along the way our ancestors figured out that it was best for everyone (physically on the mother and emotionally on the youngster who the mom could focus on better) to not be constantly pregnant. That meant fewer children so fewer couplings. That would mean that the men started competing for who got the best females to raise their child. Somewhere along the way the males realized that it was smarter to have one specific female that would bear their children and the females realized it would be helpful if the father raised the male children after a certain age to help them function well in the male area of society. Also, as society progressed status would have developed and it would be beneficial if the best male in the group was protecting her and their young as well as sharing his portion of food with them. (The best hunters got more of their kill than lesser hunters, let’s say). If a man was going to raise a male child he would want to be sure both male and female children are his genetic offspring. (Speaking from an evolutionary stand point: who wants to see another man’s child prosper? That means less for his own kids.) With those facts in mind it makes sense that the nuclear family was created (mom, dad, children) and as people lived longer the grandparents or ill relatives joined the family. Eventually the males would have realized that training animals to help with hunting (horses to ride, dogs to herd) would be a good idea followed by raising animals for food (less hunting needed). At some time in history the villages became towns and people moved away from others to have room to raise animals and farm. The nuclear family moved with and they started new towns and villages. At least that is how the webmaster said it happened. I think it is possible that the males needed to live away from the camp to herd animals or grow lots of plants for food and they needed company and knowledge that their bloodline would continue so women were forced to leave the camp and go live with the male who needed kids. It makes some sense to me and since I’m a writer (not a sociologist) and am writing to give other writers ideas on how to create their species, I thought I’d throw that in. Of course, this is also ignoring emotions as no one knows when they evolved in our ancestors. For all we know our ancestors started out monogamous before they separated from the other apes and other species merely forgot such emotions.

Unifying the camp

With the camp came a sense of home and possessiveness. The family group the apes travelled in eventually realized the things needed for them to stay in one place for a while (access to the best plants, nearby water, animals nearby, good weather) and the different groups would fight for the land, even die for it. The webmaster thought this was against evolution (people willingly dying for a thing instead of just giving it up) but I disagree. Don’t parents in every species die to protect their children? By fighting, and yes even dying, for the camp they assured their offspring would be cared for well into the future by staying on the best land around. Now that the group had a stable home (sorta, they were still nomads who moved at least with the seasons and travelled with the herds), they were also getting united. In ape communities, they travel in smaller groups and most have multiple partners. That meant that the males could have any number of children to carry on their genes (evolution’s main purpose) and the females could mate with whoever was around. As we know, that didn’t last. However, males were individuals. They didn’t tend to mix well with groups. This worked well in hunting where most times it is a single male stalking an animal or it is a group of males some distance from each other herding a few animals somewhere. However, it doesn’t work so well in camps. We know that females often travel with other females and trade responsibilities for childrearing. (The pregnant ones that can’t move so well or the old ones can watch the ones that can’t walk or the rambunctious children while the mother gets dinner.) If the males want to get together with a female, it tends to help if the male is where the females gather, which in this case is around the central fire instead of a smaller one the males would sit around. (Even males now a days know that factor so it’s not too hard to realize some smart male figured it out centuries ago and the others decided to get in on his action.)

The formation of the camp

The ancestors of humans diverged from monkeys about three million years ago. I found it interesting to find that according to another Wikipedia site there were three or four other species that diverged from monkeys as well and are in the same subtribe but only humans exist of their ancestors. It could be thought that all the subtribes eventually mated into one subspecies, but I found no research suggesting that or what happened to those species. However, I did find information on how humans likely developed.
Apes travel in packs, though generally loose ones. They live in forests and are designed for moving about in the trees. Somewhere in our history our ancestors moved out of the forests to begin standing on two feet and they moved away from the plentiful forests. (That could be a byproduct of the Ice Age if their forests disappeared or didn’t produce enough food for the whole family.) Once out of the trees it was faster for the large apes to move and run on two legs than the uneven four legs so they became bipeds, as we are today. They also decided, somehow, that it was best to have a single location everyone congregated, or a camp. From there the apes could travel out to find food each day, mostly plants, and return to divide the food found among the whole camp, not just themselves as most apes do. The camps allowed for safety in numbers as well as somewhere to return. While the females went to pick and dig up plants while caring for or carrying their young, the more mobile males went hunting for animals farther away. When they came back they shared their meat with the camp and the days they brought nothing back they ate what the females and children had found that day. Eventually as the camp grew more meat was needed and they started hunting bigger animals and figured out tools to help them. Meanwhile the females were likely realizing that where small pieces of plants (seeds) fell, new plants grew and started to plant things so they wouldn’t have to journey so far each day. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sentient Evolution

Now that you’ve created the planet and the nonsentient species on it you can start working on how your main species evolved. To find information on that, I inserted “cultural evolution” into Google and looked at a few sites. I am by no means an expert and didn’t plan to get deep into this, merely to give you a general idea of how humans are thought to have evolved from animals to the many cultures we now have. I quickly found out there are many theories on how society evolved, as mentioned on the Wikipedia site. (On a side note, this site is full of theories but rarely explained them. It’s a good site for a basic overview but is definitely not light reading. Be sure this is something you’re fascinated in or that you have some way to stay awake. It’s long and not written to be interesting, merely informative.) However, I got more understandable information from another site I found. Combining all the tidbits I picked up, my own ideas on how creatures would evolve, and the useful second site, I’ll give a simplified version of evolution of the main species on Earth: humans. This may give you an idea of how your species evolved or it may give you ideas of how your species is different from ours. Use it as you will, this is just a rough timeline.

6 things to remember while creating a fictional planet

Planetary formation and why it's important
Why are minerals important?
Why should you have a topographical map created?
What are your climates and how many moons does it have?
What plants are on your planet?
What animals are around your setting?

With this section now done we can continue with how a sentient species evolves, or how humans think we evolved. It privides a good pattern to show how other species may have evolved.

As a bonus, here is a site I couldn't work into the other blogs but I think it is useful to anyone creating a planet. It's a site that tells you how things orbit and where everything is at the same time. You need Java script to use it and it is downloadable.

What animals are around?

Now that you have your planet mapped and your plants in position, you are almost ready to put your main species on it and start your story. First, however, you need to think about the animals on the planet. While it is theoretically possible to have a planet without animals, it would be pretty impossible for a sentient species to be the only moving things on your planet. You could always create a version of sentient plants but evolution says that before a sentient species can be created on a planet, other creatures would have evolved first. With that in mind, you need to think of what animals will populate your planet. If you want a list of animals to describe the species on your planet, look here. Things to keep in mind while you create these critters is that they probably need water, sunlight, and food to live and have probably adapted to their habitat (such as with the kangaroo who hops to save energy in the desert and who breathes while hopping by their organs bumping together. That pouch also allows the mother to go fast without the joey bouncing out or getting left behind.). You may want to start with the herbivores in each ecosystem before moving on to those that eat the herbivores who eat the plants. Each species is adapted to its environment as well as to its specific job or purpose in the ecosystem. Remember that and you will be able to play around with a number of ideas. If you need help coming up with ideas, here is a short list of the top 25 weirdest animals.

What plants are on YOUR planet?

So now we know the way your planet was created, what minerals are on your fictional planet, what your topography looks like and what your climate zones are. Now we can work on what plants are on your planet and where they are. To do that, pull out that topography map again and look at where your bodies of water are as well as your climatic zones. Plants are resilient little buggers and will grow almost anywhere. It helps if there is plenty of water around or the air is very humid, but plants adapt to climates like the desert and tundra by not needing a lot of water or growing places to hold water over long periods of time. Also, minerals in the soil are needed to combine with other elements around like water and sun to create plant food. The climate, light, and soil are very important for plants and if you plan to transplant certain plants, such as farming or gardening plants, remember that the new environment will be slightly different and the plant will not be the same, whether it be that the plants don’t grow as tall or don’t flower as often or any other difference that may occur do to the difference in the two. For a rather full list of plants humans use for farming and gardening, look here. Just remember as you decide to use Earth-like plants or invent your own that each plant must be successfully adapted to its original location or comment that the plant was unable to survive in the changing habitat it evolved in and people are trying to make it thrive elsewhere.
Once you have your plants decided and located, it’s time to think about your animals and where they belong.

Why are moons and climate important?

When thinking about the climate on your fictional planet, it may be best to first decide on if you want a moon or if you want many. Theories have stated that if there was no moon, there would be little change in the tide as they are caused by the opposing gravities of Earth and our moon. The moon is also lengthening Earth’s day slightly over the centuries and stabilizing the axial tilt. Without the moon stabilizing the tilt, the weather patterns would be drastic as the seasons changed. Having a number of moons would make the planet rather unstable as the friction of the moons competing with each other and Earth’s gravity would cause friction heating the planet and the tides and weather would be erratic as well as the tectonic activity.
Once you’ve decided on how many moons your planet has, and how any differences could affect the fictional planet, the next step in your writing process will be to decide on the climatic zones. Take out your topography map and a few markers. If your planet is similar to Earth, get out six markers or highlighters. Climatic zones are decided by how the star’s rays hit the planet (as Earth is round, it takes longer for the rays to hit the poles than the Equator so it’s colder at the poles), How high up it is (heat may rise but higher air is thicker and doesn’t allow much space for particles to move and create heat), winds (cold winds cool the area while hot winds rise the temperature), distance from big bodies of water as they stabilize weather (think ocean effect on coasts or lake effect around the Great Lakes), and where the slope of the hill or mountain is facing towards the star or away from it. Earth’s six main climatic zones are: polar, temperate, arid, tropical, Mediterranean, and tundra. As it is your planet, you can add as many zones as you like or as few zones as you like, it would just help if it were scientifically possible as many science fiction readers these days know as more about science and real possibilities than ever before and nothing is worse than alienating readers by science they know to be impossible without an explanation somewhere.
Once you know the climate zones, we can take a look at what plants are on your planet in the next segment of how to create your fictional planet.

Why is a topographical map important?

The next part of creating your planet for your fictional story will be creating a topographical map of your planet. This may sound easy, you think to just draw a map with a few squiggly lines then decide which gaps are land and which are water but I’m talking about a little more thought than that. First of all, remember the surface of a planet is always changing due to plate tectonics or the heat inside the planet moving to the exterior of the planet, expanding one ridge while pushing another area under the crust of the planet somewhere else. Knowing where those boundaries are can show where mountain ranges should be, where large canyons should be, where volcanoes are common, show things like probable locations for earthquakes, and where tidal waves are likely to go often.
Now that you know where your plates are, it should be easier to decide where your continents will be. Something to keep in mind is that on Earth science says that the continents were once one big continent. For that reason similar soils are found near coastal areas of different continents as are similar fossils. Another thing to consider is that humans only use about .08 percent of all water on the Earth and none of that is from the oceans as they are salt water. If you want to make fewer oceans, you may result in less rain so more deserts on your planet but you would have more landmass for your species to adapt to. It could also mean less marine life so there would be fewer fishermen and buying any kind of marine animal would be expensive. You could also think about making more usable water on your planet which could lead to faster technological evolution if water isn’t a problem. Imagine how much easier life would have been for the ancients if the ocean was fresh water. Then again, if they had plenty of fresh water on the coasts, would they have ventured inwards looking for a different life?
Once all these things are decided, you only have a few more steps before working on your species. The next step will be looking at where your climates are and what you need to decide about those.

Why are minerals important to your story?

Granted, knowing the scientific reason your planet was created may not be all that important to your story, unless it was created for a purpose, but it can lead to what chemicals and minerals your planet is made of. Knowing what chemicals and minerals are on your planet is important because that is what creates life. A planet with no natural form of carbon is unable to create carbon based life forms, although life could still be created through another chemical or your species may have come from another planet somewhere in its history. Whether the people know that centuries later is up to you. Also knowing what minerals your planet has or doesn’t have can be helpful in figuring out what technology is made of and how it differs from human stuff in colors or strength or weight. Although you could merely assume your planet has the same minerals as Earth, here is where you can develop new chemicals or minerals to speed up the technological timeline so they got to space before humans or create things currently impossible on our planet.
Something else to consider when thinking about minerals is what your species needs to survive. Humans need seventy minerals in their diets to stay healthy throughout life. Those minerals humans get by eating plants that have soaked up those minerals from the soil they were raised in and each one is needed to balance all the minerals and chemicals in your body. Years of imbalance lead to degenerative diseases in old age or minor annoyances throughout one’s life. If you plan to have humans on your planet for whatever reason, it would be good to look at how the minerals and chemicals on your planet, or lack thereof, would affect the health of those humans. How do they adapt?
One last thing to think about today is how your planet’s gravity differs from Earth’s gravity. Although scientists argue about how gravity affects evolution, it is agreed that the planet could not exist without the gravity it has. A planet with less gravity would be held together a little looser and things may float around a more than on Earth, or more accurately, fall slower. A planet with stronger gravity may be smaller, more compact than Earth and everything on it not grow as tall. Also, humans would react differently to a different gravity and other species would react differently to our gravity if there’s differed.
Once all these things have been decided, we can think on topography and why to make a map of your planet, as we will in the next installment.

Planetary Formation and Why It's Important

Many of you have already got an idea in your head of what you want your planet like, maybe what planets are around it. For everyone else, and those who are looking for inspiration everywhere, it may be good to decide how your planet formed. How it was formed can affect what minerals can be found on the planet, what the planet looks like, what the different climates are, what can grow on the planet, especially if Earth tries to colonize the planet, what animals could evolve on the planet, as well as where and how sentient species evolved and flourished.
A major question to ask here is if a thing of some sort created the planet for a reason or if the planet was a cosmic happening based on no actual plan. Remember, many species, judging by human cultures, will assume that everything happens for a reason and have a god of some sort in their infancy which they will may out grow by the time your story happens or they may avoid science by clinging to their “guiding hand”. (As a note, this blog is not a comment on human religion but an objective look at creating the best setting possible for your story. Many sci-fi species seem to go the way “educated” humans seem to go in saying science proves there is no god so faith in one is unnecessary.) Although religion will be a different topic, now would be a good time to decide if magic is in your world. If you wish magic to be powerful in your world it can change the natural order of things as I’ll explain things and as you go through this series you may want to keep magic in mind and how it changes the evolutionary process, same goes for if something created the planet. The Bible says that God created Earth with age. Humans were there on the sixth day the universe existed. That skips a lot of steps and means God plans really quick to form the center of the Earth, the moon, the sun, all the other stars with their possible systems, ecosystems, animals adapted to their habitat, and the complexities of humans in six days. (Unless He worked a lot of things out later which is contrary to traditional Christian belief.) Many polytheistic religions have gods creating Earth by dream or thoughts or something getting split into pieces and the planet forming from the pieces or from the act of the destruction (such as something died so something was born). If you wish the scientific reason for the planet to be a god or magic, keep that in mind while reading the rest of this series as gods are fickle in myths and often change the evolution of things.
The most accepted theory is nebular hypothesis which claims that the star comes first and particles surrounding the star eventually combine enough to create terrestrial planets, or planets like Earth that can theoretically contain life similar to ours. So why is planetary formation so important? It can create the building blocks for the minerals on the planet, which I will speak about next blog.