does worldbuilding/conworlding have a place?

You're going to have to explain more. What fantasy author doesn't worldbuild?

What is conworlding?

And yes, worldbuilding has a place. It's more common in fantasy and Sci-Fi, and not everyone writes for that. I world build even when I'm writing stories that are based on "Earth" but have different rules of what's normal, like if magic exists or werewolf people.

What are you asking, exactly? Forgive me but "people here seem to..." refers to others at large who are not you, and regardless of whether your assumption is right or not, why would you have to follow the crowd? We're all just doing our own thing. It's okay to go ahead and use your built worlds.

zegota said:

What fantasy author doesn't worldbuild?

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Exactly

Sat ,what are you meaning precisely? Cos you have to worldbuild, or it's this world and...probably not SFF? (even contemporary must world build to show how their world is different)

Can you be more clear?

Writing one setting per novel doesn't mean people don;t world build - probably the opposite - they world build more cos each novel is in a different world...

Guardian, "conworlding" is a term used by people who world-build for it's own sake. It's completely synonymous, but people who conlang (contruct languages) use the term because it's analogous to conlanging.


I'm going to add my confusion to the pile. Building a new world is still conworlding. You just have a lot of different conworlds involved.

I have one world (my first) where I have forty or fifty novels worth of ideas.

But! I don't just want to write high/epic fantasy set in that world. I want to write New Weird, and Urban Fantasy, and Chimney-punk, and Space Opera, and Science-fantasy, and steampunk, and cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk (which I only call it because people keep telling me cyberpunk is dead. Lies!) and hard SF, and near-future SF, and soft SF, and secondary-world contemp fiction, and secondary-world historical fiction. And I want to have different characters, and different cultures, and different time periods.

Yeah, I'm lost.

satyesu said:

but people here seem to tend to write one setting for each novel.

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I am currently building a world that I plan on using for basically every story I write once I'm finished. Is this what you mean?

Are you asking about independant worldbuilding that won't be used in a story because everyone SFF author has done worldbuilding or has had a world built for them.

I don't think many people are aiming to be like Terry Pratchett. Personally I enjoy creating new worlds and universes I like exploring ideas in fresh settings.

In this thread it seems like "world building" is referring to developing a setting across multiple books. Is that necessary though? Can't you do it in one stand alone work?

(Footnote: My WIP is a four book fantasyish series thatt will develop a location indeed, so that's in the works for me.)

Zeavo said:

In this thread it seems like "world building" is referring to developing a setting across multiple books. Is that necessary though? Can't you do it in one stand alone work?

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I'm not sure where you're getting that notion. I know The Package said that but that isn't necessarily true within the whole thread. I've built several different worlds for several different story ideas, so each as a standalone. You can do it either way.

Guardian said:

I'm not sure where you're getting that notion. I know The Package said that but that isn't necessarily true within the whole thread. I've built several different worlds for several different story ideas, so each as a standalone. You can do it either way.

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He's refering to the OP's use of the word. To be honest, I don't know how else the OP could be using it, since the standard meaning doesn't make sense in the context of the post.

satyesu said:

O.O I was just asking whether it was still viable to have a setting for multiple books, because i'm worried about not form-fitting my magic systems to each plot. if that makes sense.

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Oh, is that all? Go for it! There are no rules about recycling settings, ideas, characters, etc. They're yours to do with as you please .

You mean, you want to know if you can use the same setting for several books/stories/series? Absolutely. No question. Go for it.

satyesu said:

O.O I was just asking whether it was still viable to have a setting for multiple books, because i'm worried about not form-fitting my magic systems to each plot. if that makes sense.

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Three of my books are in the same world - latest one is on a different continent with completely unrelated characters and at a rather large distance in time too. Some things are the same (gods, one version of magic etc), others aren't (level of technology)

So, um, yup you can have one world for multiple unrelated stories.

Juliet McKenna has used the same world for 3 loosely-related series

Robin Hobb wrote two completely different trilogies in the same world: the Farseer Trilogy and Liveship Traders.

There are no rules about what you can and can't do, as long as you do it well.