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I want to put my story in a science fiction setting - more specifically, on a major space station between beyond the orbit of Mars specializing in trade and heavy industry.
I cannot decide, however, how much world building I need to include here - and how I should include it in the story. I will definitely need to address some aspects quite explicitly – including how it is even possible to *have* a space station with hundreds of thousands or even millions of inhabitants.
However, I also want to make my characters minor players in the overall world. And as they will be engaged in more mundane conflicts (kill people and take their stuff), they don't need to go into long monologues about who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2374 and why.
On the one hand, I greatly admire a work like Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker, which is almost 99 percent world building (as the book title even suggests) and very little plot. It even has a formal timeline in the appendix. On the other hand, another of my favorite books (William Gibson’s Neuromancer) mostly presents the world through the (often very narrowly focused) perspective of the characters.
The most minimalist approach here would be to only include world building to the extent that it drives the specific plot (omit needless worlds), but then I fear I might end up with a story divorced from the sci-fi setting I want to put it in. Conversely, the maximalist approach would allow me to flesh out all the assumptions I have made about the story world, but then the plot and the characters might end up being sidelined.
Does anyone have some advice here? And recommendations for good works with either “maximalist” or “minimalist” world building in science fiction?
I cannot decide, however, how much world building I need to include here - and how I should include it in the story. I will definitely need to address some aspects quite explicitly – including how it is even possible to *have* a space station with hundreds of thousands or even millions of inhabitants.
However, I also want to make my characters minor players in the overall world. And as they will be engaged in more mundane conflicts (kill people and take their stuff), they don't need to go into long monologues about who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2374 and why.
On the one hand, I greatly admire a work like Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker, which is almost 99 percent world building (as the book title even suggests) and very little plot. It even has a formal timeline in the appendix. On the other hand, another of my favorite books (William Gibson’s Neuromancer) mostly presents the world through the (often very narrowly focused) perspective of the characters.
The most minimalist approach here would be to only include world building to the extent that it drives the specific plot (omit needless worlds), but then I fear I might end up with a story divorced from the sci-fi setting I want to put it in. Conversely, the maximalist approach would allow me to flesh out all the assumptions I have made about the story world, but then the plot and the characters might end up being sidelined.
Does anyone have some advice here? And recommendations for good works with either “maximalist” or “minimalist” world building in science fiction?