We’re nearing June, which means a new issue of Worldbuilding Magazine is about to be released. The last articles are being edited, layout is starting to lay the foundations for the final product, and our writers are starting to focus their efforts on the August issue. It’s a magical, if chaotic, time for us.
Let’s take a step back and look at how we got to this point, though. Specifically, we’re going to look at how my article on marriage came to be.
One of the feature articles for this next issue is on different types of marriage customs, which I began writing as far back as February this year. It began as a collection of notes that I took mostly revolving around Aphra Behn’s The Rover, a 17th-century play that worked to challenge cultural values about gender roles in London. I spent a while reading and studying the play in college, so it seemed a natural fit for this issue about gender and relationships. However, over time, that draft took on a new mission. I began to focus more on marriage within 17th-century plays then eventually broke away and just looked at marriage around the world. Some digging brought me to a few interesting papers and books on the subject written by travelers, anthropologists, and others.
All of this research fed into a new draft, yet there was work to be done. The first person who reviewed it noted some issues with the way I presented certain ideas. It took some time to fix that, but soon my editor was sifting through it and making corrections. The whole process took about a month, and then we’re left with what goes into the magazine. At that point, our layout team takes the writing and brings it into Adobe InDesign, where they arrange it on what will become the final product.
Writing for Worldbuilding Magazine has forced me to learn about the world in ways I wouldn’t have otherwise sought. For example, in writing this article on marriage, I can now hold a conversation about !Kung society and relationships decently well. It’s been a great exercise, if a bit intense with all the reading I had to do first!
Would you like to write for Worldbuilding Magazine, too? Submit your work to us via email or on Discord as an editable document by June 12th for a chance to be accepted into our Geography issue! Submit by August 12th for a chance to be accepted into the October Economics issue.
As always, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more about the June issue very soon!
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