__Imperator Furiosa

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furiosa, imperator furiosa, mad max, movie's worlds, story building, world building, writing

I watched Mad Max a few days ago after hearing so much discussion about how good the movie was. I’m going to discuss the movie generally and won’t be giving any spoilers. While I did enjoy the movie, I was dissapointed at how the world was created. I loved the idea but so much more could have been done. Don’t you hate when that happens? When you watch a movie that you love it’s potential but it just doesn’t reach it? Well the world of Mad Max was like that for me.

by Koroa on Tumblr

But on the topic of Furiosa (the main female lead, Charlize Theron) she was exactly what I wanted in a female warrior. She is currently my favourite main female character EVER. She was a female lead that was not sexualized. Yes. Let that sink in. She was a badass, kick-ass woman who was NOT sexualized. They have her fight in the movie, dirty, gritty, and unrestrained fighting. What I also love about the movie is that no-one questions her gender, or her rough appearance, or underestimates her ability to fight. Not even the villains. They know that she’s powerful and they try to outsmart her. While the director of this movie didn’t intend on making a feminist movie, this movie has definitely made massive waves in the feminist community and many others. Tumblr is currently exploding with so much fanart of Furiosa, fanfiction, etc. They have gripped onto this movie (that I thought could’ve even been better in terms of world-building) because we have been given something we rarely have before. A badass female lead who is not sexualized, who is gritty, and has her own well-established arc independent of the men in the movie. And there are many other female characters in the movie who all have their own arcs which I was happy to see too. To be honest, it’s probably the first action movie I have seen with SO many established female characters. It was sad when I realised that. It really stood out to me how many women were on screen and I was annoyed that it looked ‘different’ and ‘odd’. I can see why so many people are obsessed with her and what she represents as an action hero. Her character particularly impacted me considering how disappointed I was with Black Widow, as an action hero, in the Avengers.

How do you build your world?

Tags

books, world building, writing

While I doubt many of us will ever reach the detail of Tolkien, I find world building an exciting part of writing and often surprise myself with the detail that goes into it that no one will ever know abut because it doesn’t make it into the book.

A few examples: Phoenix serves 4 meals a day rather than the traditional three (in the US at least) because smaller portions over the day reduces over eating and obesity.  Both Ana and Alaya are control freaks and would go into this level of detail for something they care about as much as the orphanage.

The U-turn lane.  Nevaeh, the capital, has U-turn lanes.  Having just test driven a car and missed several exits resulting in three U-turns to get back to the dealership, I was once again grateful for U-turn lanes.  For those of you who do not live in Texas, a U-turn lane is a designated lane to the far left of the access road to the highway whose sole purpose is for people to get off the highway and avoid two red lights otherwise required for left turning and going back down the opposite direction on the highway.  They didn’t have these U-turn lanes in Kansas City where I went to college, and boy did I get lost.  GPS is a wonderful, life saving invention, without which I would be unable to drive.

How do you build the world for your stories?  Do you write it down or is it all in your head?  How do you decide what makes it into your book and which parts only you will ever know?

-Eliabeth