World-Building 5: Fun and Games

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Busy plots often mean that characters don’t have a lot of time to relax. It’s still key that you establish what options they might have though, if you randomly decided to give them a break from new crises or emotional upheaval.

The importance of leisure activities will differ wildly from world to world: you might have a Hunger Games-like environment where entertainment has taken on a worrying and political significance or one where people just play dice of an evening. It doesn’t matter which. Just like with other things we’ve covered in this guide, entertainments are another subtle way to show what a society values or can afford without out and out explaining it to your reader.

For this final prompt, please come up with a graphic that demonstrates how people might spend their free time in your world. It could be an advertisement for a coming attraction, a game board, a pack of cards, a gadget of some kind or anything else you can think of.

Your work needs to be original: taking something off the internet and claiming it as your own is plagiarism. Remember to keep everything HOL appropriate, adhering to all HOL rules, and please keep your submissions 600x600 pixels or smaller. Please also include a short description of your image.

You'll earn 20 beans for completing this prompt as well as it counting towards the chance to snag our shiny Ink Splatters Award.

There is no deadline as such for these prompts but if you’d like it to count towards your chance of earning the award for a specific year, we’ll need it by the end of that school year. If you’re comfortable sharing, then post below. If not, email your image and description to us via hol.bookclub @ gmail.com (without the spaces).

[Amy Smith]