A conventional novel can draw on real life. Inspiration on speech patterns can come from a snatch of conversation overheard at the shops. Making a house seem realistic can be helped by seeing how a real house is built. Want to describe a foreign beach? Go there on holiday.
My 6th December post covered how writing novels was like turning iron ore into a sword. I’d left things at the refining stage, where my sword was still little more than an idea. I struggled to answer the question “What’s your novel about?”
Can you make a sword from an iron ore mine and a pickaxe?
Ultimately, yes, but digging ore isn’t enough.
I imagine you’d mine the ore with the pickaxe, turn ore into iron with a blast furnace, create steel with a basic oxygen furnace, and use a forge and other techniques to shape steel into…
There’s more than one way to develop a world.