Fictional Seasons
Seasons are cyclical periods categorized by changes in weather and sunlight. Fictional seasons often mirror real-world seasons (commonly spring, summer, autumn, and winter) with exaggerated characteristics, add additional fictional seasons, or alter the length of which a season lasts. Certain fictional worlds are centered entirely around a single season, such as winter wonderlands, and different subworlds within a single world may experience seasons differently – such as spirit realms or fairylands which possess different seasons or a different cyclical period than the mortal realm. For designers creating fictional planets, seasons are the result of the axial tilt of a planet and planets with more than one sun or planets that are tidally-locked may experience vastly different types of seasons.
| Synonyms: periods |
| Example Mythonyms: the Season of the Redstar, the Grim Season, Harvest |
Designing Fictional Seasons
Overview
Fictional seasons are cyclical periods throughout the year broadly defined by a set of characteristics, often weather-related. Designers creating their own fictional seasons should consider what natural events occur with regularity each year. While dividing the year into four seasons (spring, summer, fall, and winter) is common in fictional worlds, designers should note that the year can be divided in other ways, such as the dry season, and the rainy season. Designers may wish to consider weather, celestial events, migrations, magical phenomena, and plant ecology among other events which may contribute to the defining characteristic of a fictional season.
Mythonyms
It is very common for worldbuilders to give fictional seasons fictional names, or mythonyms. Often these names reflect the characteristics of the season and like all mythonyms, can be used to great effect in establishing the tone of a world.
Designers should consider the central characteristics of the season and choose words related to that. For instance spring is often associated with growth, summer with heat, autumn with the gathering of crops, and winter with the cold. Mythonyms may then take the form of Blossom, Parch, Harvest, and Frost if using a gentle tone or Verdant, High Sun, Reaping, and Bitterchill for a different tone. New fictional seasons which are not based on real-world seasons often also take their names from some central characteristic. This has the added benefit of providing contextual clues to any audience about what to expect from that particular season. An audience would then not be surprised to find that the Blood Season had an increased frequency of blood rains.
A Change in the Seasons
Seasonal change can be marked in different ways that worldbuilders may wish to explore. While the change between one season and the next may be nebulous as they slowly transition from one to another, it may also be sudden, fall on a specific date, or only be marked by a specific event. In addition, people and cultures may have ways of celebrating (or mourning) the change of the seasons. Festivals that mark the change of a season (either to mark its’ beginning or its’ end) are common in the real-world and may have fictional parallels in fictional cultures.
Pace of the Seasons
Worldbuilders may wish to tune the pace of their seasons. Fictional seasons may last years, with prolonged winters, or never-ending summers being common. Certain fictional seasons may only occur once every ten years.
In game worlds the pace of the seasons is often matched to the pace of the game with seasons only lasting shorter periods of time so that the game does not feel like it is dragging on. For instance, a single autumn in a farm simulation game may only last for 30 game days (and far less in real time).
Metabuilding: Color
For worlds with an audience and a visual component, the different seasons are typically associated with different colors. By convention, spring is represented through light greens or pinks, summer with darker greens or reds, autumn with reds, oranges, or browns, and winter with light blues and whites. For games worlds where seasons are important to the gameplay, these colors can be interwoven into the game menus and color of the game elements to provide the player information about the current season as well as help establish a tone for that season. Trees and forests are natural elements to incorporate these colors and are frequently used for this purpose as they can be colored light green, dark green, red/orange, and covered with white snow depending on the season.
Metabuilding: Narrative Themes
Seasons are often used in narratives to represent change, decay, renewal, and the cycles of life. The coming of winter seasons is often symbolic of approaching hard or difficult times, while the coming of spring often represents renewed hope or the triumph of life over death.
