I also tend to make things up as I go along. I know that some people like to work out all the details of the culture and history and geography etc upfront, but as I said in my previous post, my conscious mind is far too dull and comes up with boring and logical stuff. Also how do I know what I need to know until I get to the relevant part of the story?
Anyway, I try to leave as much as possible to the unconscious. So it's just a matter of feeding it a nutritious diet and letting it get on with it.
The other advantage of doing the world building as you go along is that useful stuff just pops up.
on rec.arts.sf.composition Nicola Browne wrote:
I tend to world build and write at the same time to begin with and then do additional research if necessary. The odd thing is when I'm wanting detail the radio, tv and newspapers suddenly seem full of relevant stuff.
It's uncanny, but I find that happens too.