Details, details, details...

[Richard Quest]

(Seal of a minor university in the FSK)

I believe that in order to be considered a true daydreamer, one has to be stuck in the minutia of the details of their dreams. My dreamworld is so vivid to me that I can clearly picture just walking down a street in one of my cities and know exactly what to expect. 

(Queensland in all her glory)

I spend hours upon hours of thinking of every little detail needed to create a wholesome world, with life that could be real to me. Sometimes I would draw for weeks on end about the most random things in my world:

(Street lamps: A special Kennedian artisan-made, a symbol for the city)

(Battle plans: battle plans for the invasion of Gulf City by the Americans that lead to the end of the Hoffman Empire.)

(Minor religions and Saints: Saint Leah Brighton from the FSK, who wrote The Gospel of the Trees, an environmentalist treatise that galvanized a nation)

(even flags, and here one nation's flag over its entire existence: The Reformed United States of America, current flag, founding flag, expansionist flag, Northland flag, and a Asteriskian flag.) 

(architecture: first church in Queensland )

and the list goes on and on forever. Do any of you daydream like this? Just random details of your world? I daydream details until it is believable? Only then I start to place characters and weave an intricate story within the confines of this established world. I can see it progress like a movie plot--it is just so vivid. 

Comment below if you guys do this, and what details you focus on!

[Richard Quest]

Thanks emma! I'll try to turn it into either a book or a graphic novel! I haven't really decided yet though XD But I Do want it published!

That's cool! I do that too, picture the storyline of characters and often wait to add details until later. I figure it out as I go too!

[Emma]

That's so nice.  Maybe you should put it together into a graphic novel type thing.  Loads of fans would love to have such an intricate world to dive into.  

I don't daydream about cities like that because my dreams take place in real cities.  But I picture rooms and houses in detail.  I could draw the houses of all my major characters.  Also I rehearse the timelines of their lives, including their school years.  I just realized I could picture their childhood homes also.  And I go over their clothes and facial expressions and all that in extreme detail.  Oddly enough, I forget to add details to some major things and don't realize it for a long time.  For example, I only recently realized that the wife of one of my main characters does not have a name.  I've never needed to use it before, and she's never played a really big role in any story, so while she has a face and a job, she has no name.  I can picture her home in detail and even know what car she drives, but she has no name.  ha ha.

[The1andonlyAbber]

Yep! I do this! You sound a lot like me. I don't go into as much detail, though. I can't really because my daydreams take place in a nation with over a billion people in it.

[Richard Quest]

Floris, do you have plots in your daydreams? I am interested on what you do!

[Floris]

I wish! This is a great strength to have as a writer/graphic novelist/other type of artist. When daydreaming, I focus on more abstract things that you cannot really draw, it can be concepts, music or emotions for instance.

[Kay M]

I do it as it goes along, but sometimes I need to sit and plan things out before I go any further, like when I first started, I did have some idea of the layout of the house and general area the story is set in-some bits of it just came together, but its easier to daydream how things happen in the house when theres a consistent floor plan. In the surrounding area, all I needed to do was give identities to their neighbours, the area they live in is fairly near me, somewhere I have actually been to. I just brought up a map of my general area, closed my eyes and pointed.

[Richard Quest]

Wow Kay M! That's so intricate! It looks like you are very interested in a very narrow scope of life: your character's immediate surroundings! That's so cool! It's like you have an entire new life in your head! Mine is more like generalizations of society like culture and architecture. Do you do this as you go along with your character's story? or do you think this all out before a plot can form?

[Kay M]

I add so many details!

So far I have a map of my main character's area, including giving every house on their street (about 14 houses) occupants and giving them a backstory and a picture of the people that live there. I drew out the floor plan of their house, and the one they are moving into soon.

I have a full family tree, every one of them starting from their great great great grandfather, even distant cousins who they rarely see have a full name, date of birth and picture.

I drew a map of the relationships between all of the characters.

I have a spreadsheet containing details about every family member and all people who have come up in the daydream.

I drew pictures of every room in my main character's house, along with a commentary explaining exactly what goes in which drawer and stuff.

When my main character got married, I wrote a full guest list and stuff, and researched and planned out every detail, like what they wore, what their wedding party wore, how they decorated their venue...

I planned out how many cars they would need to take my main character and my other main characters (a few of her cousins) to travel to another family wedding.

I wrote a list of things one of my daydream children wrote, that she wanted to pack for their vacation, even using childish handwriting and spelling mistakes.

I wrote a full timeline of main events, going back from 1985 (when my main antagonist met her husband and they joined a cult, kicking off the whole story).

I also have a document with a whole other random pile of details, minor character backstories and stuff.

I did the same thing with my last one, it was set in a school, and it went from just about a group of five 16 year old students, to a massive notebook filled with details. I gave all the kids in the class an identity-full name, birth date, grades, and what their siblings names were. I drew a map of the school, and a map of the small town they lived in, including the addresses of everyone in the class. I wrote a full schedule for what classes my character had. I wrote examples of work they had done in class. I even wrote about the history of the town, working out how many people lived there and things like the average number of kids per family, unemployment rate and stuff. I even wrote about how the town was founded. I got so far into it!

I love how detailed your world is.

[Richard Quest]

thanks ivy! Love sharing about it! What are those pen and paper RPGs you're talking about?

And fitri, I do have many animals for each city like their favorite dogs etc. But I'm not good at drawing them xD I'll post about that later! And yes, horses are used a lot in warfare in my world!

[Ivy White]

Wow t hat is amazing! I tend not to be able to picture that much detail because I focus so much on the feelings of my characters but this inspires me to draw more. Thanks for that. I'm also very curious about your world, it sounds like there is so much potential for it. Reminds me a lot of those pen and paper RPGs I play which all have those elaborate world to them.