World Building

I wouldn't call it every last detail, but I work out much more than I directly mention. And by "much more" I mean something like five times as much.

I'm lucky in that I write about certain locations in England in the fourteenth century. I have visited most of the places I write about and if I haven't been there I see the place using google earth and read articles about the facets of the place I need to know. Then I make whatever changes I need for my story. So I know a vast amount more about my locations than I use.

Nothing drives me crazier as a reader than having the impression the world I'm reading about only exists within the boundaries of a story. I don't micro-manage my ecosystems but I do create enough that I have plenty of stuff to draw on when I want to drop impressions that there's more in my worlds than just the words on the page.

Renfaery said:

What I mean to say is, do the readers know the difference somehow?

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Readers notice all kinds of things: economy, ecology, language, art, architecture, beliefs, customs, cuisine, biology, physics...

The amount of setting detail needed to just support plot is often far less than needed to create a feeling of versimilitude and immersion in the world. SFF readers often look for insights and inspiration in the setting just as much as surprise and novelty in the plot.

I think that they're reasonably forgiving if it's evident that the author has taken reasonable care with the setting - even if the odd error or hole crops up. They can be downright scornful if the author evidently hasn't.

I have created the background to the entire world...right down to the hours in the day, and the relative distance from the planet to the nearest sun (and its effect on climate). I have social systems, goverments, art, languages, florae and faunae...you name it, I've thought of it.

Obviously, the overwhelming majority of this never appears in the story. That would be self-indulgent and entirely irrelevant to most readers. I do, however, think it's important for the writer to know the background beyond just "it's a different world" in order to throw in those little tidbits that give real credibility to a new world.

For me, it's part of the joy of writing about this particular world. I necessarily wouldn't put the same effort into another story.

By the time I start writing in a particular setting I've usually daydreamed about the milieu for years, so I know my way around it. Usually I have to worry about being too vague for the reader, rather than too expositional.

I write out thousands and thousands of words covering every aspect of the world that I can think of. The majority of it doesn't make it into the story, but I like to feel as if I'm writing within a real world, rather than just a prop of one. And yes, I think the readers can tell the difference.

I never really meant to be so extensive with my worldbuilding, it just sort of happened.
I'll start with, say, religion. What's the religion like? How does it affect society? How does it integrate with the government? Government! What sort of government do they have? What services does it provide? Is it responsible for healthcare, education? Education! What level of education does the common person have? The nobles? Classes! Is it a three tier class level such as I'm familiar with, commoners, middle class and nobles?

And so on.

I think it definitely helps a fantasy or sci-fi story to have a detailed backdrop behind it. Even if you don't use it, I think readers can sense that there is more out there and they easily fall into the milieu without jostling questions about the world.

Dave

Renfaery said:

Just out of curiosity, how far do you go into creating the worlds your books/stories take place in?

Do you flesh out every last detail, whether it will go in the story or not? Or do you only make up the parts that will go directly in the story?

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I posted a response to a similar question in another writing forum; if I remember I'll have to try to find that.

In the meantime, I like to at least know the basics of my world before writing, but I don't really tend to do this through worldbuilding, I just think it up over time. I write very long series stories so most of this stuff gestates in my mind for months or years before ever seeing the light of day.

I tried answering worldbuilding questions on a profile once, while I was also writing the story, and found that I had to keep going back and modifying my answers on the profile as what I had written in the story kept changing what I thought I'd known. Eventually I just gave up on the worldbuilding profile. In my experience you learn the most about your world from just writing the story itself. If you fill out some worldbuilding questions first, and then try to write the story around them, it might come out forced and stale, or, like with me, you might find out that your original answers are always out of date as the world you create through your writing keeps changing.

I don't flesh out every last detail (it's impossible, to me, to know an ENTIRE world!), but neither do I just focus on what makes its way into the story; I know lots of stuff that isn't in the work itself. I just think about it, and write it the way it comes out. Writing the story is the best way, IMO, to worldbuild.

I was discussing examples of what constituted a 'particularly cool setting' with someone and was interested to realize that what setting does in one genre can be quite different than one it does in another. By genre here I don't mean FSF vs other stuff, I mean whether the book is of the 'atmospheric' type or not. My writing is not - IMHO setting is there for the plot to happen in and that's about it. It's the social context that the characters live and act within, not the physical environment. However it's very common in horror, any variety of punk, dystopia, survivalism, and some types of adventure stories for the setting to be a character in its own right which contributes strongly to the emotional tone, creating obstacles for the characters to struggle with, and even expressing morals in those stories.

I'm a "by the seat of the pants" writer. So when I write, I'm creating. I don't plan it all out before hand, everything comes to life as I'm writing it.

The only thing I do is create a glossary of terms as I create new gods, countries, rivers, etc, so I can remember which character worships what and speaks what language. Sometimes I'll map it all out. But if I don't need a detail, like what a certain country's flag looks like, for the story, then it simply doesn't exist and i don't waste time creating it.

I love world building also, and I have way more than I will probably ever use. I world build so much I think I could qualify for World Builder’s disease, which means world building more than actually writing.

From personal experience, I have to say that it’s very important to make sure that you write your story and don’t let continual world building get in the way of doing so. Don’t catch world builder’s disease.

Renfaery said:

So, is it safe to say more is better, at least to some extent?

What I mean to say is, do the readers know the difference somehow?

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I would think that a discerning reader would. By taking the time to fill in the details for yourself before creating the story, you're able to add small bits, creatures, etc, that help with the descriptions, and keep them consistent, in a way that would be far more difficult to do if you were simply making the text up as you went along.
You don't necessarily have to build the world from the ground up, but populating it, creating indigenous flora/fauna, and making up some sort of economic/political system are steps in that direction.
That detailed knowledge of the world and its inhabitants and systems cannot help but to inform the text.

On my first novel I wrote about two notebooks filled with notes. On my second, I've only got one notebook filled with notes.

Whether worldbuilding in advance or not, I have to agree with the others to at least take notes as one goes along. I failed to do this for quite a while and URKK!!--it caught up with me! It's sort of like reverse worldbuilding, I suppose. The better to keep track of what you already know, for when you think you know it but you don't.

Renfaery said:

Just out of curiosity, how far do you go into creating the worlds your books/stories take place in?

Do you flesh out every last detail, whether it will go in the story or not? Or do you only make up the parts that will go directly in the story?

Click to expand...

I make up pretty much nothing before I start writing. The only thing I do is figure out what the core feel is that I want for the world and, armed with that ruler, I just go for it--whatever the story needs, I've got it right there.

I do fairly extensive world-building but with a heavy emphasis on culture, history, religion and government systems. I don't put a lot of time into economy or ecology. Economy doesn't come up much in the writing I do, and I also find it dreadfully boring I do consider what logical major industries for particular cities and nations might be, along with major imports and exports.

As for ecology, I don't try to create new creatures or ecosystems because I find that sort of thing detracts from stories I've read (unless it's really necessary... "wilderness sci-fi" might be a good example of that).

The vast majority of the huge piles of background work I do is characterization. I generally have 3-5 (12pt font, single spaced) pages of notes on a particular nation, and 10-25 on each major character. There are exceptions to this -- the nation that most of my WIP takes place in has an unusual social structure and I believe I have about 8 pages and growing on that.

isande

I don't do much writing on world background--it takes too much time for me. But I do think of it. A helpful thing I've found is to think obsessively about the world while writing about it--to, as much as possible, become a residant of it. I know I'm ready to write, say, my paleolithic story when I'm eyeing up neighborhood plants and thinking, "That's edible, or maybe in a few weeks yet, and I'd better not take up too much because it's slow to grow back...' and staring at growing fields of corn in incomprehension.

Hmm. Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not sure what "wilderness sci-fi" means exactly. Could you provide guidance or examples?
Anyway I am thinking worldbuilding in the sense of Medea or Murasaki, where the built world is a necessary part of the text, and not in the "JackVancian" sense where it is more like society-building. Anderson's Fire Time is a really good example also...where the details are very well-worked-out and consistent, and form the basis of the plot device list.