Sometimes I feel that way anyway, but since I've been here that feeling has been alleviated some, thanks to everyone here that has shown interest!
But my question (and the reason for this sorry sounding thread) is this: How do you connect with people about your fantasy world in person?
Now, of course, I know the goal shouldn't be to grab someone and talk to them, no matter who they are or how willing they are to listen, you should try to listen, too. I'm still working on that part, so I could use advice for that too.
Some related questions are: How do you talk to people that do show interest in your ideas without expounding for 45 minutes on the _____ that the _____ in ____ do because of ____ which is affected by _____ because of _________________________________, only to find that they have either fallen asleep, tip-toed quietly away until they could make a mad dash out of the building (or into one if you're outside), or stared off into space and started to drool?
How do you get other people to talk (this is extremely general, but we are in general discussion)? I have the problem a lot of times where I ask someone a question and they answer it and that's the end, I don't seem to know how to turn it into a conversation.
How do you share about your fantasy world/ideas in a way that makes them interesting and/or helps you find out whether the person is interested or not?

I know some of these questions should probably be asked of...I don't know, some kind of...whatever, what I mean is, I know not everyone can answer all of these questions, but whatever advice someone can give me on the subject would be appreciated.

I actually don't talk to people about my fantasy world outside of Holy Worlds. It's not something I've thought of sharing with my family or friends, it's kind of something that I just have kept to myself.

Yeah, I can see how that would be, I guess everyone is different about that. There are definitely parts of my world I don't discuss with anyone yet because I don't want to let on just how crazy I am...but I guess the reason I want to know how to do this is because people at church know about my fantasy world and sometimes ask about it and I want to be able to answer them without being boring. Also, I just like to talk about it to those that wanna listen, I just want to not be selfish (only talk about what I'm doing, thinking, etc) and I want to make things interesting for them when I answer their question.

My books are a big part of me and my life, and everyone who knows me knows about my blog (the old one or the new one), my writing credentials, and so on. So talking about my writing will just naturally come up in conversation.



When talking with an uninvolved party you want to keep to the essentials, the heartbeat, as I like to call it. You want them to feel the pulse of your book. What are the important parts? What is the point of the story? You need to figure those things down and condense it into a short and natural presentation that flows. Then, if people are interested and ask questions, you expound.




Ask questions that cannot be answered in a yes or no fashion. I've gotten very good at this.



You let them ask. You don't want to push your story on them.

...Wow, thank you Airi! I'm going to have to refer to this! I'm the same way, my writing, world-building and stuff is what I think about...so it's what I talk about, this advice will really help me, thank you.

You are so very welcome.

This is a good topic! I'll sometimes say to my sister: "Hey, I had a cool idea! For Enathal. Would you be interested to hear about it?"

Sometimes she'll say yes, sometimes she's busy/not in the mood. I usually enter into these discussions with her (or anyone else) making sure she/they know they can ask to move on whenever their interest wanes.

That is a good idea actually, because sometimes they are very interested, but not that interested when you go into all of the details, and you want them to know that you won't be hurt if they want to move on.

That was very good, Airi.

*Must learn from this*

Why thank you, Elanor.