Nick's Journal · Craft Decisions
If you are reading or listening to this article than you have no doubt already figured out that I am somewhat obsessive in my world-building. The Roar of Winchester website started off as a typical author’s site, with a bit of additional flavor thrown in for good measure around the character and character art.
Bit by bit, I added to the world that I was creating. And as I did, I noticed an interesting dynamic that I feel it is worthwhile to share. I would write about something in my novel and it would inspire two or three things that I could add to my website, which was great for my creative outlet but didn’t do much to impact the novel series itself. That is until I noticed that it was not a one-way street.
As I fleshed out the world further and further from the avenues that my website offered, I began to expand my novel to incorporate the same. I realized that my focus on certain viewpoints was limiting the richness of the world within the novels and that my website world was actually feeling increasingly like the more expansive of the two.
This led to inspiration for characters who could better explore narrative arcs that would allow me to tell that part of Eloria’s story and widen the lens to be inclusive of additional elements of society. When telling a story about collapse too much focus on the wealthier, higher educated and credentialed aspects of a society can lead to all sorts of lost opportunity.
Now I had a two way creative funnel that was happening. Building out one area of one would naturally lead to inspiration on building out a new area in the other. It did not stop there though. Next thing I knew I was adding Storyboards to my site, first solely as a creative endeavor that would allow for a shorter story format, but as I became more comfortable with them I realized that I had stumbled on another tool that was symbiotic in nature.
There are any number of points in a novel where you realize you simply do not have the narrative room to tell all the stories that you wish to tell. The plot arcs multiply and if you want to have any hope of keeping them contained and cohesive enough that you can actually finish your story, unlike say The Wheel of Time or a number of others I could name, than you learn that you need to be ruthless at times with minor plots.
As a writer, those minor plots will gnaw at you though. You didn’t want to let them go when you wrote. Now I had a solution for that. I could use my Storyboards to build out parts of my story that just couldn’t make their way into the main novel. As a reader of fiction I know how many times I encountered this in books, where an interesting arc would suddenly fast forward and catch up to the main story arc with a quick synopsis, leaving you with a bit of whiplash. Now I could ensure my readers didn’t feel abandoned.
As I near completion of the second book of the series, I already see a solid five or six storyboards that I will end up compiling. They will cover off interesting parts of my story that hit the cutting room floor but still have a lot to offer. And they will further build out the characters that I have grown to love creating.
Already the website has become far more than I ever thought it would, in June of 2026. Depending on when you read this I can only imagine what it may have become by then, as it has come so far in such a small amount of time already. In fact, I simply can’t write fast enough to provide all of the material that I would like to release on the website itself, as the books need to have been released for much of the content to not spoil them!
I hope as you read this you will be inspired to consider the same for the worlds that you create. To push yourself well past your comfort level and to explore all of the other ways that you can look to tell the stories that you wish to write about, the characters you wish to create, and to slowly reveal the hidden gems that inhabit the nooks and crannies of your story’s world.
Just think of if we all build worlds as rich as I hope to build Eloria, the endless realms that would exist for our imaginations to wander? I will certainly do my part and I hope that all of you each do yours as well. For if you do, OUR world will be far richer for it, and for our children.
Much love as always,
Nick