World building. Questions that help you think about the world you're creating.

The first thing that comes to mind is the movie, Planet of the Apes. There only seemed to be one city and the rest of the planet was unpopulated. Combine this with a kind of Lord of the Flies scenario, with no religion and no laws except for the force of the strongest and you might have something approximating your world. In order to create something believable for the reader, the world needs to be real to you. What does it look like? Does it have a sun or maybe two, or a moon etc.? What does the sky look like? Does it rain or get windy? Are there volcanoes or twisters? Are there seas, lakes, rivers? Is the grass green? Does it even have grass? Build the earth itself and then think of what their houses might look like. What sort of animals live in forests, if there are any. What do they use for transportation? If there is no weaponry, what do they use for protection from one another? People don't move in a vacuum and characters shouldn't either. It sounds like you need to put some more thought into this before you go much further. Good luck with your story! I think the hard part is building a new world, not something I've ever tried.
Linnea

HourglassMemory said:

In an entire planet there is only one city. That city hasn't expanded for a long time. And it's not that big. The rest is unexplored terrain. There is no religion. There is no weaponry. There is no one who rules above anybody else. Alot of things look like they were made in teh 18th/19th century, like the clothes, and the technology is sort of stuck in that era, but there are a few machines that ave futuristic attributes in them, and that perform futuristic things also.

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Questions off the top of my head from this...

1) Why hasn't this one city expanded? Are the people afraid of the uninhabited regions for some reason? Is there something about the environment that makes it more sensible to group together?
2) If there's just the one place to live and it hasn't expanded much, is there some sort of population control, or how do they handle an expanding population if not?
3) No weapons, no social strata...no violence? And if not, why not? I'm a country girl myself so my views are a little biased as regards crowds, but it seems like close quarters generally means at least some crime.
4) Why no technological advancements outside the few futuristic machines?

For worldbuilding advice, I'd recommend Cherryh's website; she has a great list of questions to ask yourself. The link is here:
http://www.cherryh.com/www/panel_room.htm
about 1/4 of the way down the page.

Also, she's got a great collection of short stories, many of which focus on cities. Very cool.

[/monthly Cherryh plug] I just can't help myself.

Good luck!

What do people do for fun? What do they do for work?

I just completed some work that I had to create 6 unique cultures in. What really helped me is producing a separate work that was almost like reading a sociology / history book.

As noted above there are key questions that need to be asked to help flush out the work. Chiefly for me is, why no weapons? I remembered in college I as talking to a girl who said, "Why can’t we just have a society with no weapons and no army." I said, "Ok, lets say you have a 100 people with no weapons and live in peace. Now lets say five strangers with guns show up and BAM! Who's your leaders now?" Or something like that. What I mean to point out is one way to go is explain out why there are no weapons. Or don't and leave it an odd mystery that the reader has to chew on. I remember this independent film about space cowboys more or less and in it there were no women. They never explained why. And also the men would have dances with each other when they arrived in space stations, but none were gay. It created an odd tension that played off very well.

Anyway I've strayed a bit. Ok some questions to ask in a write up on a society. (Maybe think how of America functions or your town functions):

Economics:
Where does the food come from?
Is there a class structure?
What commodities are traded?
Is there currency?
What industries are there?
Are there luxuary goods?
What is the weather like?

Government:
What is the division of power?
What form does Justice take?
What is the size of the government?
Who gets to vote (if there is suffrage)?
How is order maintained?

Culture:
What art movements are there?
Is there a "dark" counter culture?
Is there drug use?
What is the chief form of entertainment?
Nightlife?
What sports are there?
What is the food like?

Family:
How does the society treat their Elderly? Their dead?
Is there a family unit?
What are children's toys like?
What do people do for work?
Is unemployment high?
If there is no religion, is there marriage?
Where do people get their morals from?

City:
What is the architecture like?
How are the living conditions?
What neighborhoods are there?
Are there poor areas?
Where does the human waste go? (I know but it’s a good point!)

And so on and so on....

Even if you don't use half the information in the book it may help you create a living and breathing city. Once I started asking myself questions like that I found I could interject little details that generally give a more memorable life to the stories.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin has a few of those things. If you have a harsh environment where not much grows populated by people with a rigid social code, the lack of weapons/violence/population and all that stuff we think is impossible doesn't seem so far fetched. There are plenty of small groups in reality who might be a model of at least some of these things, like the Amish, Hutterites, and so on, so that might be something to look into. A liberal democracy is by no means the natural or default state of humanity, neither is chaos and violence.

I agree very strongly with everything Straka said. That's an excellent list of questions.

If no one rules,Have you seen Pat Wrede's Worldbuilding Questions? Yes, there's a section on magic in there, but most of the other sections apply to almost any type of story.

You could try imagining a day and night cycle in your world - from getting up in the morning, to going to bed....and do that not as a heroic character, but as an everyday peon.

This thread is awesome. I just wanted to say that. World-building is the thorn... thorns... spikes and nails in my writing process. It hurts so much. I need all the help I can get.

HourglassMemory said:

I think I haven't really thought about how the world where my stories happen works, because, well....it really doesn't matter. However I need to have this. I need to think deeper into the world I've created, because I feel it would only benefit the story. And any push to help me think about it would be much appreciated!

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It does matter... it matters a lot. Environment (to include nature, neighbors, government, religion or lack thereof, technology available, blah blah) plays a big part in how people respond to each other.

You've already got some pretty good suggestions on questions to ask yourself for world building but I wanted to throw my own 2 cents into the mix.

In an entire planet there is only one city. That city hasn't expanded for a long time. And it's not that big. The rest is unexplored terrain. There is no religion. There is no weaponry. There is no one who rules above anybody else.

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Then what keeps your people from beating each other to death and stealing things? Just because no one has advanced weaponry doesn't mean they can't grab a fork and stab someone, or take a piece of wood and smack each other with it (unless there's no wood on that planet but you get my point). If there is no one that officially rules over anyone else then you'd have a shaky or nonexistant disciplinary system which may or may not encourage random acts of violence. And if there are no weapons, you better pray that the surrounding environment doesn't have predators with an appetite for human flesh. Not easy to fight man-eating creatures with bare hands.

Even in the lack of an official leader there is always someone who steps up to take charge, whether by force or because he/she has the necessary charisma and people skills to do so. To not have some sort of leader, official or not, for this group (groups?) of people is unrealistic. Even before our "civilized" days we roamed in packs with some sort of leader.

Also, I have a question. Was this a planet colonized by people, or are these people native to the planet?

If the planet was colonized -
...why was it abandoned? I say abandoned because if we were to go through all the trouble of settling on a new planet there would be more than one city, and we would certainly expand it.

If these are native peoples -
... what keeps them from expanding their city? Is the environment especially hostile? Are there extreme weather conditions that make it unsafe for travel? Are there creatures in the wilderness that pick off lone humans for food? Are they geographically isolated (perhaps surrounded on all sides by impassable mountains)?

Why is there no religion? Humans have always been a superstitious sort, so even if your people don't officially worship anything they will likely try to explain the scary or unexplainable through some sort of myth/legend, or will recognize there is a higher power at work even if it doesn't control them specifically. In the lack of a government religion was often used as a means to control the population (don't murder your neighbor or you go to hell, etc). I really can't think of any culture that was completely devoid of religion. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Plus, people need something, some sort of motivation. If it doesn't come from a leadership and doesn't come from religion, you have to give the reader a satisfying alternative. If all your people do is survive one day to the next with no thought to the future, you've got a very boring story on your hands.

Which leads me into technology. Why no technological advances? People are naturally curious and inventive. It's hardwired into us. If you have no official government and have no religion, and no viable alternative to either, people will find something to do with themselves. If they've been so busy fighting off the surrounding predators that they have no time to expand the city they would have at least taken the time to invent weaponry (like a spear??) to defend themselves (see earlier comment about fighting things off with bare hands). Not to mention they'd probably try to divine a higher purpose for themselves since merely surviving is pretty emotionally exhausting. You might also examine the culture of ancient Rome for creature comforts minus the modern need for electricity. They had things like heated floors thought up centuries ago.


Anyways I'm starting to write a book here and I still need to eat breakfast, and you know, work or something. I hope that helped some!

You could also look at the Judge Dredd comics. IIRC, the city in those was almost entirely isolated (although not the only one on the entire planet, I think).

In a sense, there is that post appocolyptic feel in "The Time Machine", where you have a passive society, but you also have this sort of horror story taking place underground.

Obviously, there must be a reason for your creating this scenario. But it's not clear in your message.

HourglassMemory said:

In an entire planet there is only one city. That city hasn't expanded for a long time. And it's not that big. The rest is unexplored terrain.

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Why? Lack of desire or lack of ability?

HourglassMemory said:

There is no religion.

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Why not? Belief in a 'higher power' to explain the unknowns of the world is a near-universal response in history.

HourglassMemory said:

There is no weaponry.

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Weapons are tools, so no weapons means no need for those tools. For example, does no one hunt? So, no slings, spears, bow and arrows, hunting rifles? Is there no crime? So, no need for billy clubs, handguns, or pepper spray?

HourglassMemory said:

There is no one who rules above anybody else.

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Somebody ALWAYS rules above others. Human nature and all that. Unless your city is small enough for true democracy and nobody WANTS to be more powerful than others, somebody will seek a position of power (POP).

Once someone is in a POP, he will want to maintain his POP, so he gets weapons. Someone else will want to either take the first person's POP or start his own POP -- so he gets weapons. Now, you have two armed people both seeking power -- you get violence.

You've got violence, so you need a way to stop violence, protect the innocent, and punish the wrongdoers. You need a systems of laws, a way to enforce the laws, and a way to punish the guilty. Legislatures, courts, police, and jails.

These things cost money and governments don't make money on their own -- so you get taxes and tax enforcers.

People don't like taxes and their will be some who eschew the safety of the city to strike out on their own. So, the world gets explored and populated.

On your world, this didn't happen. Why not?




Part of your situation reminds of The Haven, a 1977 Graham Diamond novel. The only city in the world is surrounded by an endless forest which is highly dangerous. Plenty of weapons, though, since there are both dangers in the forest and dangerous people in the city.




Someone mentioned societies like the Amish. Alone, these societies can only exist in a location where there is no external danger. Put a weaponless, pacifistic group next to an armed, beligerent group and the pacifists will quickly lose all their stuff. They either have to accept this or develop defenses. The only reason I can't go to an Amish town today and steal all their cows is that I will be hunted down, arrested, and punished by armed defenders of the Amish (i.e. the Illinois state police). Plus, my wife says I can't have a cow and she worries more than the cops.

I only have one question I need an answer to when I worldbuild: What is the core feeling of this world?

Not as easy as it looks, but once I have that, I have everything.

Whenever I come to a question in my story where I think, "That is out of the norm for my world", I have to ask myself why. So, questions that I tackled in the last 5 days when thinking about my current WIP:

Why is my country atheist while other countries are not?
What was the war 20 years ago like? Where did major battles occur? When a second civil war sprung up 14 years later, did it follow similar lines? What was the political rhetoric? When I wrote that there was a treaty to divide the nation, what were the objectives laid out in the treaty? Which royal families split from the Crown? How were accusations of treason handled?

Why does my prince go to a public University? What is he studying? Who are his friends? Where are they from? Is he friends with anyone who would be on the "other side" in the recent war? What happened to his friends whose families were called traitors during the war?

Who are his guards? Why were they chosen? Does he like them? Why doesn't he like them? To whom are the guards loyal--the Regent or the Prince? If he orders them to leave him, will they?

How is the city laid out? What is the city's ethnic population? Is the prince safe walking down the streets? How far is the University from the palace? How far is the harbor from the palace? How much trading happens during the winter? What's the weather like during the winter? How do they heat the palace during the winter? Is the prince guarded within the walls? How paranoid is the Regent of a threat to the prince's life?

The Capitol city is Tul, but it is often referred to as the Capitol. Why? What does Tul mean? Does it have a bad connotation? Oh, it's the name of the city's patron god? How does this connect to the atheistic nature of the country? Is atheism mandated by the Crown? If so, why? What would the prince know about gods and goddesses if there were no temples? Or were they not worshipped in temples? One of his friends believes in gods and goddesses--what does this do to their friendship? Can he be "saved"? Is that part of her religion?

Where do the merchant ships in the city come from? What are the trading routes? What do they trade? Who becomes a sailor? What type of ships are they? Where do they get repaired? How big of a port is this? What involvement does the Crown have in trading? What kind of economy is this? What status in society do merchants, ship captains, bankers, etc have in society? Are there stereotypes about sailors, merchants, and bankers? Are there rules for those social strata?

In my world, there is a tight grip on security in the capitol because of the recent war. There are soldiers who patrol the streets and pub fights can land people in jail for a long time. Citizen weaponry was confiscated a few months into the war and though the war is over, has yet to be returned. Thus there is a black market for weaponry, and it has caused problems. Additionally, the citizens rely heavily upon the soldiers for protection and a breach of the sense of security causes mass panic and rioting.

I hope this was sort of helpful for you--I know it didn't have to do with your world but maybe seeing the questions that I ran through for my story would help you. And this was just for one city, for the most part. This wasn't even "world" building.

HourglassMemory said:

In an entire planet there is only one city. That city hasn't expanded for a long time. And it's not that big. The rest is unexplored terrain. There is no religion. There is no weaponry. There is no one who rules above anybody else. Alot of things look like they were made in teh 18th/19th century, like the clothes, and the technology is sort of stuck in that era, but there are a few machines that ave futuristic attributes in them, and that perform futuristic things also.

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1: If there's no ruler or governemnt of some sort, is the place run over with bandits? Is each house a mini fortress? are there internal wars? Or is the city so small its more of a community where everyone knows everyone and they all get along?

2: How's the education?

3: what happened to make the planet like this? That background would have a huge effect on the way people live.

4: what could someone in this culture aspire to? A young child, a teenager, a man hitting his mid-life crisis?

5: Are people happy with thier lives?

6: How are things built? Do people have jobs? Is food grown outside the city, or in it?

7: Are people sure the rest of the world is uninhabited, or is this a kind of superstitous guess based on generations of belief? What's the farthest someone would go outside the city?

8: What's day-to-day living like? what are the houses like? what food would you eat, would you brush your teeth, if you fought with your wife would you head to a bar or go see a dogfight?

9: What's the currency? Does old technology have high-value or low-value?

10: Are there poor-people and rich people? How would they react to each other? What would be the difference in thier lifestyles? How would you describe a "rich" neighborhood compared to a "poor" neighborhood?

Also, if this planet isn't Earth, you need to find animals to populate it, a deep history behind the way people act/live, and a reason for the technology cutoff.

I hope that helps

-Feathers

RickN said:

Somebody ALWAYS rules above others. Human nature and all that. Unless your city is small enough for true democracy and nobody WANTS to be more powerful than others, somebody will seek a position of power (POP).

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This is a dangerous statement. I'm not going to say that you're wrong, just that you're mistaken to say 'always' or to argue 'human nature.'

I'm just saying, human nature hasn't been proven. I'm not saying humans don't have a nature. I believe that they do. I've gotten into many hours of arguments with people on this topic. But it's a far cry from "I believe there is an inherent nature to humans" and that there is a "human nature."

You can write as though you believe in human nature. Just don't tell others to make their writing like that.

dempsey said:

This is a dangerous statement. I'm not going to say that you're wrong, just that you're mistaken to say 'always' or to argue 'human nature.'

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Agreed. Few things are absolute.

dempsey said:

This is a dangerous statement. I'm not going to say that you're wrong, just that you're mistaken to say 'always' or to argue 'human nature.'

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I'm comfortable with 'always' since I don't know of a single society in the history of this world which did not have someone in charge, someone in a position of power over another person. I do not believe such a situation is possible. I'm always happy to be proven wrong, so if you can show me an single city where There is no one who rules above anybody else occuring any time in history, I will cheerfully modify my opinion.

dempsey said:

You can write as though you believe in human nature. Just don't tell others to make their writing like that.

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I DID NOT tell them to write like that. The OP asked what questions arose from their statements and my last line in that section is very clear: "On your world, this didn't happen. Why not?" That is my question that arose. This is different from "On your world, this didn't happen, so change it to to be that way I like." I thought about demanding that they write it my way, but in the end, decided just to answer their request.

Rick

dempsey said:

This is a dangerous statement. I'm not going to say that you're wrong, just that you're mistaken to say 'always' or to argue 'human nature.'

I'm just saying, human nature hasn't been proven. I'm not saying humans don't have a nature. I believe that they do. I've gotten into many hours of arguments with people on this topic. But it's a far cry from "I believe there is an inherent nature to humans" and that there is a "human nature."

You can write as though you believe in human nature. Just don't tell others to make their writing like that.

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You're right.

However, in fiction, being right isn't the point. Being believable is.

The relevant question is how many readers will be willing to accept the possibility of a human society in which no one rules. The relevant question is whether you are skillful enough to present it in a believable way.

FennelGiraffe said:

You're right.

However, in fiction, being right isn't the point. Being believable is.

The relevant question is how many readers will be willing to accept the possibility of a human society in which no one rules. The relevant question is whether you are skillful enough to present it in a believable way.

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See, for example, Iain Banks's Culture novels.

Are you familiar with Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy? They take place in an alternate universe, and it feels really real, because...Garth Nix doesn't know any more about his world than we do. I mean, books that take place in the real world don't explain the world, do they? So why should books that take place in an alternate world? Explanation takes me out of the story. I'm a huge fan of vagueness in my fantasy...it's supposed to be a real world in this story, so why should it be explained any more than the world we live in?

Danger Jane said:

I'm a huge fan of vagueness in my fantasy...

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Oh, thank God!
*Clings to you as the ideal reader*

Danger Jane said:

Are you familiar with Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy? They take place in an alternate universe, and it feels really real, because...Garth Nix doesn't know any more about his world than we do. I mean, books that take place in the real world don't explain the world, do they? So why should books that take place in an alternate world? Explanation takes me out of the story. I'm a huge fan of vagueness in my fantasy...it's supposed to be a real world in this story, so why should it be explained any more than the world we live in?

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I'm not familiar with that trilogy, but... Has Garth Nix stated somewhere that he never bothered figuring out how that universe works?

If not, then you have no idea how much worldbuilding he did. There's a huge difference between how much worldbuilding you do (in the privacy of your own home) and how much of it you explain in the story.

If I'm writing a story about a road trip set in the here-and-now, you're right, I'm not going to explain how cars work. But my knowledge of how cars work prevents me from writing about driving 3000 miles without stopping for gas or driving across the bottom of a river underwater.

That's what worldbuilding is--creating that body of background knowledge about your world so that you, the author, don't write stupid inconsistent shit into your story. Dumping long explanations into the story about how things work is just bad writing.