Worksheet 5

 

WORKSHEET FIVE

World building/back story

 

What kind of background, setting, or back story is needed

to tell this story?  Yours need not be as detailed as my 

example below.  

If your book will require research, this would be a good place to create a list for later. 

World building and back story example:

Two hundred years before STAR-CROSSED begins, the human colony on the Earth-like planet Arden was devastated by a plague which killed many inhabitants and most of the males.  Having no cure, Arden has been quarantined ever since with only careful trade allowed.  Arden's women took over, and the men came under government protection to keep the humans from dying out completely.  This control has evolved into a planetary harem system.  Through a lottery, women of wealth or merit can buy a male for a year's time for reproductive reasons.  The rest of the female population bear children through artificial insemination, the sperm coming from off-planet.   Most male children supposedly die within hours of being born.

This lottery has become extremely profitable and useful for the government so, at all costs, the leaders wish to keep it in place.  All contact with other planets is controlled, only scientific knowledge being allowed into or out of the planet, and the concept of a male-female society has faded from memory.  Few women have seen a man except at brothels, and men have no rights or privileges within the system.  Women consider men fragile and unworldly.  Words like "father" and "love" in a romantic sense aren't used.  Children and pregnant women are the most protected members of society.

Arden is fairly poor, and its quarantine prohibits much trade so its citizens live with day-to-day technology ranging from the late 20th to the mid 21st century.  The novel is set in the mid 24th century.

The planet is Earthlike except for some pink vegetation and animals.  The buildings have high small windows and yards are enclosed by high brick fences because of the tyrlin, a large tiger-like predator.  The planet's gravity is a bit heavier than Earth's so the women on the planet are stronger than Earthmen Tristan and Kellen.