April Thoughts
It's an odd thing that for most of my life, April was the start of Autumn, when the months would grow colder. That's not true anymore. These days, the months grow warmer and spring is in the air!
In the past three months, I've given a lot of thought to character creation, building lore, and how to engage the reader on every level.
I've also been working away at Sangwheel Tales and playing around with another world and a new story in the background.
And I've received the interior art for Sangwheel Chronicles! All that and more in this quarter's newsletter.
Table of Contents
Why Did You Add That Elf?
While I was working on the Ancient Lore series, I found myself thinking a lot about the differences between George R. R. Martin’s world building and J. R. R. Tolkien’s. Specifically, how they handle why something exists in a world—and how that choice affects readers.
Martin builds his world with deep political and historical layers that echo real-world changes over time. Cultures evolve, religions syncretize, and forgotten wars still cast shadows. It’s all about grounded realism and cultural persistence. Tolkien, on the other hand, leans into the mythic. His civilizations are shaped by divine forces, and his world is full of legendary artifacts, fading magic, and the slow decline from a greater past. It’s a world where the mythos is real and the fantasy deep.
But as I dug into Tolkien’s process, one key insight struck me: if you’re going to change something for the sake of fantasy, make that change matter. If you don’t, the fantasy elements feel like they’re added for no reason and (perhaps even worse), your world runs the risk of feeling like a cheap knock off copy of Tolkien. The only way you can make the change matter is if you understand why you introduced the fantasy element.
It doesn’t matter if it’s your magic system, a mythic age, or a fantasy race. What’s important is what that fantastical element means to you. Is it wish-fulfillment? Great, really lean into that and make it cool. Is it thematic support? Fantastic, dig deep and let it permeate the philosophical stakes of your world. Is it about adding a certain tone or flavor to the world? Excellent, spread the fairy dust far and wide.
It’s not about what the specific reason is, it’s about you knowing what the reason is. When you know the purpose behind your world building decision, you can lean into it. You can shape your plot, your characters, your setting, and your prose to make that piece of world building land with impact. That’s really the big takeaway for me from diving into Tolkien’s mythic layers and Martin’s grounded depth. Purpose-driven world building is what sticks with your readers.
📜 The Ancient Lore series—where I explore everything from how civilizations rise and fall to how myths echo into the present—is available right now! There are 2 more videos to go in the series as I release this newsletter, but they’re already available to members of the channel. So if you want all my thoughts immediately, joining the channel not only supports my work but also gives you early access to all my content.
Building Characters from the Inside Out
I recently published a video on designing characters where you use plot motivation vs character motivation to create tension. But since then, I’ve read Donald Maass’ The Emotional Craft of Fiction and watched a great video interview with Pulitzer Prize winner, Richard Powers (https://youtu.be/QUDlpMN-f5w?si=DNjxccBGOn0PQHjz), and I’ve come up with some additional thoughts around character creation. And you, lucky newsletter subscriber, get to enjoy those thoughts first.
So, let’s break this down into a step-by-step process.
​
Step 1: Culture as Foundation: Before you define a character’s personality, figure out where they come from. Culture shapes what a person believes, how they behave, and what they wear. For this, we use the cultural circles models (video link).
Just to recap, that’s:
-
Core Ideology: What are the civilization’s deepest values? Honor? Freedom? Submission to divine will?
-
Norms & Mores: What social behaviors are expected? What is taboo?
-
Symbols & Communication: How does this culture speak, gesture, dress? Do they bow, whisper, or shout?
-
Kinship & Hierarchy: What social structures exist? How is family defined? Who holds power?
-
Laws & Governance: What rules shape daily life? How are they enforced?
-
Cultural Expression: What kinds of art, rituals, or traditions do they uphold?
-
Material Conditions: What geography, economy, and magic shape survival?
-
Intersectional Identity: How do race, gender, sexuality, or religion shape experience?
​
These elements help define the pressures that shape your character before they even speak.
Once you have your culture, you move on to step two of creating that character. Now, one caveat: regarding step 2 and 3, I actually use them together because they inform each other, but for the sake of clarity, I’ve kept them as two separate steps in this process: first, the character’s interiority, mannerisms and appearance and then their drama. However, sometimes, I start with the drama and then go do their values.
Anyway! Enough caveats. On the with process.
​
Step 2: Build the Character from the Inside Out: Once you know their cultural background, you can begin building the character using three layers:
-
Inner Values (Core): These are the values your character holds. They may align with their culture, or they may conflict with it. They can also clash with each other, creating powerful internal conflict. For example: A soldier raised to believe in obedience but secretly wants nothing more than freedom from hierarchy. Or a priest who treasures faith but is haunted by scientific doubt.
-
Mannerisms (Behavior): How do those values manifest? These include speech patterns, nervous habits, body language, and cultural etiquette. For example: A character who never looks a superior in the eye because they deeply value hierarchy. Or a soldier who always adjusts their gear before leaving their bedroom, drilled by years of training.
-
Exterior (Appearance): Clothing, body language, scars, jewelry, tattoos, grooming—these are all informed by culture and values. Your character’s exterior signals their identity. For example: A desert wanderer with layered robes and ritual tattoos. Or a courtier with ink-stained fingers from writing endless diplomatic missives.
These three layers of the character should flow from the cultural foundation. Inner values should be shaped by the culture and should, in turn, influence mannerisms, which should shape appearance.
​
Step 3: Drama at Every Level: There are 3 classic levels of drama:
-
Person vs. Self: The character is torn between two values. One may come from their culture, the other from experience. Or they could simply have two conflicting values. Example (cultural): A general who believes in honor (personal) but must lie (cultural) to protect their people. What does he value more? His honor or his people? Example (purely internal): A character who holds both fidelity and integrity dear and is put in a position where they must lie to protect a friend. Do they cling to integrity and sacrifice their loyalty to their friend? Or do they cling to fidelity and sacrifice their integrity by lying?
-
Person vs. Person: Clashing ideologies rooted in different cultures or experiences. Example: A reformist prince wants to abolish slavery. His father believes slavery is necessary for order.
-
Person vs. World The character’s conflict is defined by the environment. Example: A survival story where the character has needs and desires and those are denied by the very environment. These stories focus on a character overcoming their limitations, despite the impersonal threat of the natural environment in which they exist.
​
So, what you want to do is build your plot and character arc in such a way that your character has drama in at least one, but preferably two, perhaps even all three layers.
Give them conflicting inner values. Create characters that conflict with them ideologically. Put them in challenging environments based on their culture and the fantasy elements of your world.
In short, start with your cultures. Let that inform your character’s inner values. Reflect those values in how the characters act and look. Put the characters in situations where their values are tested.
​
What This Gives You
-
Characters who feel like products of their world, not like genre placeholders.
-
Conflict that emerges naturally from internal values and external pressures.
-
A built-in system for showing cultural diversity through behavior, not exposition.
-
Deeper emotional resonance because values are tied to stakes and choices.
-
Plot and theme integration, since cultural values can reinforce or undermine the story’s moral arc.
Like with all tools, this framework isn’t just for protagonists. Use it for every major character and you’ll create a great cast!
Sangwheel Update
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |
The work on Sangwheel Tales carries on. I’m on thirty thousand words now for the first book. I’ve also commissioned the new covers for Chronicles and some interior art! (Check out above).
And on the note of my writing, if you have read Chronicles, I always appreciate reviews. Even just leaving stars is a great help. You can review on Goodreads (Sangwheel Chronicles Series by Marie M. Mullany | Goodreads). It would be very, very, very much appreciated!
In other news, I’ve completed an urban fantasy. I’m on the fence about self-publishing it versus traditional publishing. I’ll keep you updated 😊. If anyone is interested in beta-reading seventy thousand words of urban fantasy, let me know!
And in other, other, other news, the ancient lore world building gave me an idea for building a Tolkien-Esque world. This is my core world idea:
The First Breath sighed in the darkness and gave rise to creation. Stone formed where the air shifted and the First Breath breathed life into the Khaj-Rei, the living architects . Each Khaj-Rei was invested with a spark of the divine and they shaped the land and the mountains and the sea. The First Breath reached the end of creation and returned threefold as the Echoes of the Divine: The Pulse, The Chorus and the Script. And each echo created for themselves a people. The Vekari, the people of the body. The Ithiri, living archives of the world. The Shai-Taren, the song of creation.
There’s a lot more, because of course there is, but I don’t know exactly when I’ll start writing that story. At the moment, I’m most just world building and character building. We’ll see how it goes.
Questions and Answers!
Here are the questions asked since my last newsletter. Remember, you can always submit questions via my website for the newsletter!
In story circle outline (launchpad) does beats 7-9 happen in the same act?
Generally speaking, I would write beats 7-9 in the final act, in the third act, however, it also depends. You can use story circles to define the growth arc of a character before the final act and you could spread them over multiple acts. A character could even go through multiple story circles in a single book as they learn multiple lessons.
The story circle is about the character’s growth in a certain aspect. So, if the whole book is about one story circle, I’d say yes, beats 7 to 9 go into act 3. But that’s not a fixed rule, it’s just the general approach.
Are you familiar with the world building-oriented fantasy rpg Aria: Canticle Of The Monomyth? I would be very interested if you could do a video/episode on your analysis and appraisal of that rpg. In particular, a discussion on the more in-depth world building process as provided in the second volume for the game, Aria: Worlds.
I am not familiar with Aria, but having looked it up, it looks super interesting. I’m going to do some research and then I’ll try to give a better answer or maybe even make a video on the topic. Thanks for pointing me in this direction.
I'd like to know how to possibly figure out the kind of technology and it's implied evolution I need for my world. Would you have any tips on that, please?
Why yes, yes I do! Here are some videos that I’ve done on that topic.