Needing an advice to start my story

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Hi there,
I'm actually starting to write a fantasy story with all the good elements you need to find in one of those. I'm from Quebec so I'm writing it in french. My problem's this : I really enjoy the world of the forgotten realms but i don't know if I'm ought to write my tale in the world of F.R. or in a world created by my own...?
Help me!

 

Do you intend it to be published (professionally, i.e. for profit rather than self-published for free distribution). Unless you can convince someone (who ever currently possesses the book rights to FR) to let you write for them (officially) then it is unlikely you will be able to publish a non-official piece set in FR (read: sued to sh*t).

If it's just for fun then it's completely up to you.

 

Don't ask others how to write your story... it's YOURS... Do what you want to do, not what others tell you to do. Choose something that makes you feel good, something that expresses you. Then you will be sure that your story has many possibilities to be a best seller if you plan to publish it. But if you don't, it will surely be a nice story... that's what you want, right?

 

can always start in faerun, that way you dont have to make a frame for a story.

Personally, I'm constructing my own world for what will eventually be a fantasy-novel, but it's a buttload of work.

Start easy, if you think it's fun and cool, start making your world and write in it.

 

When writing something of my own to what I want to have authorship and the like, I go for invented "worlds". Notice the quotations, it doesn't mean I invent lots of stuff. It's more the way I use it. It's doable, it isn't that hard. Actually, fitting in the FR world fully at the same time maintaining full originality is by definition impossible. Frankly, I believe it's both better and easier to go for your own creation. If you wish, you can always make it implicitly D&D compatible by simply not placing in it anything that couldn't be implemented in D&D. It's not like they (C) paladins laying hands and healing people or evil priests summoning daemons, or valiant elven woodsmen or whatever such. After all, characters in your story don't make saves, attack rolls and the like using d20, do they?

However, I recognise world building looks different when you're a history geek and have learned tongues, studied religions and the like. Still, even if you don't have such preparation, I suggest going for it. Practice makes masters. If you want feedback on your ideas, you have a large community here and it's not like anyone will pull copyrights on you after making some contribution.

 

Making your own world is tremendously amusing and fun, but as Lokken said, it's a lot of work. And you'd better be prepared to work out many, many little details if you want it to be a world people can understand and build in their minds as they're reading.

Of course, using the world of another author you enjoy is just as amusing. And it's less work. But as you write, it's sometimes difficult to keep the author's world straight; you don't know fully what it's about, or what the author meant by some things. I often write fan fiction using my favourite author's worlds, and I always end up stopping in the middle of my story with several dozen questions I want to ask the author.

Ahem... I didn't quite mean to go on so... I just wanted to give you an idea of how each way is, so you can pick the one that suits you best...

 

If you're going to go and build a new world, check out some of these sites that I use.

The Great Net Spellbook/Prayerbook
http://www.myths.com/pub/rpg/netbooks/html/cover.html

Magic Systems
http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/link.useful/MagicHtmls/magic.html
Home Site: http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/world.build.html
Good Guide:
http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/wcreate.pdf

Medieval Demographics (VERY good!)
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

Worldbuilder Questions
http://www.io.com/~eighner/world_builder/world_builder_index.html

More Worldbuilder Questions
http://hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/faqs8.html#3

Language Construction
http://www.zompist.com/kit.html

Mythopoet's Manuel (just about everything you need, but the others are still worth it)
http://www.rpgmud.com/WorldBuilding/Mythopoets/tmm.html

Links
http://www.specficworld.com/resources/world.html

Vision World (or is it World Vision? )
http://www.astrofantasy.com/fantasy_world/World_Creation/create_world_vision.htm

World Builders Home Page
http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/courses/builders/

More Links
http://hiddenway.tripod.com/world/

DnD Style World Building
http://www.dungeonmastersguild.com/world_campaign_building_main.htm


World building is one of the most fun (geeky , but fun) things you can do. So enjoy and if you build a world, share it in this forum.

 

I would say make your own world. Or if you're just writing for the hell of it - jus start writing and make up the world as you go along.

And if you want to make your own world in full, well, I'm sure you can find some people here interested in sharing the pain with you (well, probably not if you're writing it in French, but still...)