(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)
And now, with the issue of race and species cleared up by largely just giving up (and using race for everything, including species), let’s talk designing races. Please note that in this case I will discuss race as an inclusively interbreeding, defined group – essentially species, as noted earlier.
Now I’ve covered some of this under previous columns on writing intelligent life – which I assume is largely what we’re covering here. In this case, we’re going to get into the nitty gritty about race creation.
Races start with the setting. Before you “run the race” you need to know the landscape.
OK, not the best joke, stick with me here.