World building

[NotWise]

I wonder why Science Fiction and Fantasy are so popular outside of Lit yet get so little attention inside Lit. I've come to suspect that it's at least partly due to the effort authors put into world building in their Lit stories. This was posted on Bluesky, originally by Will McMahon and reposted by AnthropicTales, and I thought it relevant:



This is M. John Harrison's Wikipedia article. It isn't necessary for you to agree with him, but I think it's something that SciFi/F writers should think about.

 

[StillStunned]

I wrote in a post just yesterday that a story that begins with exposition is like being cornered at a party by a D&D player who wants to tell you all about their game world. You don't care. You have no reason to care.

Readers don't care about imaginary worlds. They care about people and their adventures and their feelings and interactions with others. They don't care about your clever premise or your cool Elvish empire or the history of demonic invasions.

In the Sword & Sorcery Appreciation thread, I wrote this:

In a conversation with another author here, I made the following comment about worldbuilding:

"I've played D&D for forty years, and one thing I've learned is that people don't care about any part of the setting they're not interacting with. Also, with sword & sorcery in particular, you don't need an overarching theme. You can create a new setting for each story, and it just adds depth and history to the world."

I think this is perhaps another feature of stories that I personally consider S&S: the limited geographic scope. Not that authors don't develop their worlds - REH for example had a complete history of his world, and explored different cities and countries - but the individual stories are concerned with a much smaller area.

But then all those small areas add up and create a richer tapestry than a prebuilt world often has. Each ruin, each buried civilisation, each corrupt and rotten city makes the world feel more alive and more tangible. A fictional fantasy world that's built around a theme can often feel stylised, shallow and sterile. "In this country, everyone is a sheep farmer. In that city they all use nautical metaphors. These elves all hate dwarves and have beautiful hair." There's little effort to define these places once their role in the greater plot has been established.

So here's StillStunned's paradox of fantasy worldbuilding: the less worldbuilding you do, the more real your world will feel.

 

[crookedletter]

I think like a lot of writers' advice it's perhaps going too far into absolutes. But I think it's a worthwhile take. I very much disagree that worldbuilding is by nature dull -- I think worldbuilding can be a lot of fun, both for the reader and for the writer.

It certainly can be dull. And I think Harrison is getting at something that's useful to remember, which is that the work of imagination can be a gratifying part of the reading process. A writer has to know when to show some restraint, when to step back and let the reader's imagination take over. Reading a story with an overbuilt world is a little bit like opening up a box of a puzzle to find all the pieces are already connected. It might look nice, but it defeats some of the purpose.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

There was a rather elaborate attempt a while back with maps and details.



Didn't go far.

 

[Rob_Royale]

"the great clomping foot of nerdism"
Ouch.
But seriously, world building, as with all things, moderation is key.

 

[NotWise]

I used to beta read Sci Fi stories, mostly for new and first-time authors. What I saw too many times was the long intro and continuous asides into the what, why and how of their worlds while their characters waited for their story to start.

Authors here often discourage "info-dumps," and world building often means long info dumps that may shed only a glimmer of light on the story or the character, or maybe none at all. And meantime, the reader is looking for a story, or a character they can love, or maybe a sex scene to turn them on. And the details! Things that must be important to the author but mean nothing to the reader or the story appear from nowhere to distract the readers.

Setting is a fundamental feature of most stories. Maybe SciFi and Fantasy stories need a little more than most stories, but they don't need a lot more. Characters should behave in rational ways, stories should unfold naturally. Explanations, where necessary, should fit comfortably into the telling.

Clumsy, over-done world building comes to my mind when I try to explain the unpopularity of SciFi and Fantasy on Lit. It's pervasive, and its been going on for decades. Is it enough to drive away so many readers that the most popular genres in fiction are among the least popular genres on Lit?

 

[FromManyOne]

I wrote in a post just yesterday that a story that begins with exposition is like being cornered at a party by a D&D player who wants to tell you all about their game world. You don't care. You have no reason to care.

Readers don't care about imaginary worlds. They care about people and their adventures and their feelings and interactions with others. They don't care about your clever premise or your cool Elvish empire or the history of demonic invasions.

In the Sword & Sorcery Appreciation thread, I wrote this:

My fantasy story that goes live tomorrow begins with a very passionate love scene, moves into a discussion of monster origins and hunting, drifts into court intrigue ... the story has a small pitched battle, assassins, and, um, fisting. There's quite a bit of worldbuilding in there, but not much pure exposition.

 

[Britva415]

I wonder why Science Fiction and Fantasy are so popular outside of Lit yet get so little attention inside Lit. I've come to suspect that it's at least partly due to the effort authors put into world building in their Lit stories. This was posted on Bluesky, originally by Will McMahon and reposted by AnthropicTales, and I thought it relevant:

View attachment 2705201

This is M. John Harrison's Wikipedia article. It isn't necessary for you to agree with him, but I think it's something that SciFi/F writers should think about.

Worldbuilding is firstly something that happens in the ideation / brainstorming / drafts-writing phase, and is only secondarily the "worldbuilding" words which are present inside that final piece the reader has access to. I think Harrison is using a really limited conception of "worldbuilding" such that it only considers the kind of worldbuilding the author puts way too much of into the final draft.

It's too bad because a worldbuilding mindset, a worldbuilding effort, a worldbuilding draft or notebook prepares the author to know what to put into the (ideally much-abridged) final draft. To convey the message "don't worldbuild" is to deny the value of this off-page work.

Can one take on-page worldbuilding too far? Of course. Can one take off-page worldbuilding too far? Of course - it can keep one from writing the story and instead spend all their time writing a lot of stuff that doesn't happen in the story, doesn't need to be in the story, maybe doesn't even contribute to the story at all.

I don't necesarily disagree with the first line: "Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding." However, everything that follows comes off like "don't worldbuild, instead just write." Sure, worldbuilding can generate stuff "that isn't there." But it also can let you discover "what is there" and belongs in the story.

I actually don't worldbuild a lot. I tend to wing it and worldbuild as-necessary, as I go. And then sort out inconsistencies, blank spots, and other blemishes later, in the revision process. But I wouldn't discourage off-page worldbuilding, or, worldbuilding in draft content.

You might as well say "don't research, just write."

 

[NotWise]

Worldbuilding is firstly something that happens in the ideation / brainstorming / drafts-writing phase, and is only secondarily the "worldbuilding" words which are present inside that final piece the reader has access to. I think Harrison is using a really limited conception of "worldbuilding" such that it only considers the kind of worldbuilding the author puts way too much of into the final draft.

Harrison was talking specifically about world building in the text of the story. It wouldn't otherwise be a concern for readers.

I wonder though, reading what Lit authors say about their planning for Sci Fi stories, whether off-page world building takes up so much of their total effort that it can't help but spill into the story more than it needs to. Some of it seems truly obsessive -- and probably unnecessary.

 

[Voboy]

Worldbuilding is fun and fascinating and, in my opinion, it cannot be done in enough detail: this helps the writer keep all the characters in the same milieu.

What you don't have to do with your worldbuilding is include it all in your story. It exists, whether or not you're exposing it to the reader; let that be enough. Your readers will see the truth of the worldbuilding through the web of your narrative if you treat the built world like what it is: background, known to all the characters, mentioned as casually as we would mention a toaster.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I maybe include 5% of my worldbuilding in my stories. I put a hell of a lot of thought into the world in which my characters inhabit. I personally find worldbuilding delightful, but it should be handled more artfully than dumping five pages of explanation of the governance of Xi'thur'tiddle'winks if it has no relevance to the story. The story is the cake, worldbuilding is the frosting. Too much, and it overwhelms the flavor and you get instant diabetes. Too little, and sure, you have cake, but you don't really have anything else, so you better hope that cake it fucking delicious and moist and perfect, otherwise, you get a mouthful of dry crumbs. The right amount of worldbuilding compliments the story and makes the world feel more real and inhabited. It has background, rules, systems, and leaving that out can keep the story tighter, but a sci-fi or fantasy story that doesn't give me any worldbuilding in the story is dull as fuck. It just feels like a regular ol' story, but you glued on ray guns or flying cars.

Keeping it focused is important, or small snippets or asides, tie it into the story, or include it as dialogue rather than exposition dump. Artful worldbuilding a thing of beauty.

It's also odd that worldbuilding takes away from the reader experience. What, are they supposed to come up with all the tech and backstory of every story they read? That can change everything about a story if you have a reader doing all that creative lifting. Give them a framework, or guidance, or glimpses, or hell, give them a big glob of frosting, at least then it's your world, and not some totally different one.

 

[FromManyOne]

I'm reminded of an old friend who told me he had written most of a novel. He asked me to read it. (This is before I ever started writing fiction, but I was already a professional nonfiction writer.)

It wasn't a story. It was 100 or more pages of worldbuilding and a long, adulatory sketch of a mysterious guy who had mysterious powers and used them occasionally to influence history. My friend made it clear that this guy would never be the viewpoint character, either, he was just a force that would show up and mysteriously affect things. He had not even sketched out a protagonist or villain of any actual story. He was convinced that the worldbuilding was 90% of the work of writing a science fiction novel.

He thought he had written a novel. In fact, he had written a sourcebook for a TTRPG.

How would you folks have let this very nice person, a good friend, down easy?

It was later that year that he started actually playing TTRPGs. Other friends of his and I played them, but he never tried until after I pitched the non-novel as in fact being an RPG supplement.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

His opinion is too extreme to be considered much more than a rant against something he himself is probably unable to do.

Worldbuilding is an important element in fantasy and scifi, and I see it as something that should be in tune with the scope and the size of the story. It shouldn't be a dominant element for sure, and it should always be introduced gradually. No one will have the motivation to learn about some fantasy world unless they are already invested because of the characters and the plot.

But it's such a fulfilling element when it's done right. It makes one truly feel as if they were in a wondrous new world rather than being in some barely adapted version of Earth.

Whenever I see radical opinions such as this one, so dismissive of something other authors value, I imagine someone small-minded who is unable to see art through different lenses.

 

[NotWise]

His opinion is too extreme to be considered much more than a rant against something he himself is probably unable to do.

He's a successful writer, editor and critic with a career, mostly in Sci Fi, dating back to 1966, and continuing today at the age of 81. He started raking in the awards in 1979, most recently the 2026 Booker award "for the best single work of sustained English fiction which was published in the United Kingdom or Ireland" according to Wikipedia.

 

[NotWise]

The story is the cake, worldbuilding is the frosting. Too much, and it overwhelms the flavor and you get instant diabetes. Too little, and sure, you have cake, but you don't really have anything else, so you better hope that cake it fucking delicious and moist and perfect, otherwise, you get a mouthful of dry crumbs. The right amount of worldbuilding compliments the story and makes the world feel more real and inhabited. It has background, rules, systems, and leaving that out can keep the story tighter, but a sci-fi or fantasy story that doesn't give me any worldbuilding in the story is dull as fuck. It just feels like a regular ol' story, but you glued on ray guns or flying cars.

I disagree with the analogy. I don't think world building is the frosting. I think world building is foundational. It has to be there. The story is the building on the foundation. I think the story is mostly what readers are after.

It's also odd that worldbuilding takes away from the reader experience. What, are they supposed to come up with all the tech and backstory of every story they read? That can change everything about a story if you have a reader doing all that creative lifting. Give them a framework, or guidance, or glimpses, or hell, give them a big glob of frosting, at least then it's your world, and not some totally different one.

Do you actually try to explain the tech backstory? I don't. It's effectively magic. I don't expect people to explain magic.

World building is not the story. There are five fundamental components to a story: characters, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution (or theme). World building is part of the setting, and if the readers have to wade through a lot of it, there isn't much room for the rest.

Maybe someone else can explain this to me. Speculative Fiction is one of the most popular genres in fiction. Eroticism has been a prominent part of popular Science Fiction since at least the 1930s. Yet on Lit SciFi/F is one of the least-read categories. The readership there is generally friendly and accepting. They don't push writers away like they do in Romance.

What gives? I point my finger at the way the stories are typically written, which is probably the way they've always been written on Lit. It was one of the first categories I visited when I started reading here. I didn't stay there long because the stories were usually disappointments.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I disagree with the analogy. I don't think world building is the frosting. I think world building is foundational. It has to be there. The story is the building on the foundation. I think the story is mostly what readers are after.

You know that point when you think you've been really clever, only for someone to poke a pin in your inflated ego so you go flying around the room like a daft balloon? Hi, I'm daft balloon.

Very good point.

Do you actually try to explain the tech backstory? I don't. It's effectively magic. I don't expect people to explain magic.

World building is not the story. There are five fundamental components to a story: characters, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution (or theme). World building is part of the setting, and if the readers have to wade through a lot of it, there isn't much room for the rest.

Depends on how important the tech backstory is to the plot. I've gone into somewhat deep analyses of technologies because it was relevant. But just plopping it in because I can? Basically never unless I can find some way to tie it into the characters or the story.

How much lore depends on how big the work is, you have to consider it's not necessarily the absolute amount, it's the relative amount of lore-to-story ratio. It also depends on your audience. If you have a very dedicated group of Warhammer people, and you're writing Warhammer fanfic, or actual canon books, you're probably shoving a ton of backstory about emperor so and so blah blah blah big-ass sword (I don't know much about Warhammer, my brother talks about it and the amount of lore is stupefying, so I get stupefied and retain none of it, which probably proves some point). The audience wants it, audience gets it. I think there's less tolerance for lore nowadays due to attention span, everyone's expected jam-packed action and never taking your foot off the throttle, so you can't spend five pages detailed how water collection systems work on Arrakis anymore.

Maybe someone else can explain this to me. Speculative Fiction is one of the most popular genres in fiction. Eroticism has been a prominent part of popular Science Fiction since at least the 1930s. Yet on Lit SciFi/F is one of the least-read categories. The readership there is generally friendly and accepting. They don't push writers away like they do in Romance.

What gives? I point my finger at the way the stories are typically written, which is probably the way they've always been written on Lit. It was one of the first categories I visited when I started reading here. I didn't stay there long because the stories were usually disappointments.

Because most people are here to get written porn. Not story or characters or anything other than flimsy pretext, they want smut so they can get off, and it should match their kink. Most kinks are grounded in reality, not speculative fiction or sci-fi, so most people go to the places that have their mundane kinks, not super-magic technowizardy hot sexy cat lady kinks.

People who read in SF&F are accustomed to a wide range of types of stories, and most of them have specific interests they're looking for, so the pickings there tend to be more lean for their particular fetish or kink (same with non-human). They also tend to be people who are really into sci-fi or fantasy, and so are willing to engage on the non-erotic elements to a greater degree (and also because non-erotic elements tend to be more of the story than elsewhere on Lit, which has a higher focus on the kink, not the scenario or world) because they really like when people put in the effort and don't just make it "sexy blue alien, um, sex?" (They also like that, to be clear, but it's appreciated when people put more into it than that.)

It can be hard to find good stories in sparse categories, especially ones that are incredibly diverse; you're sticking sword and sorcery next to galaxy invasions and anal probing after all. So when one comes along, it tends to be very much appreciated, even if you have to overlook some aspects to get there. If you go in with the expectation of finding something specific, odds are, most of it will be subpar, like literally every category on Lit. They just stick out more because there's less of them and there are fewer alternatives.

At least, that's my theory of the case, having been a reader of SF&F and Non-Human for nigh on 15 years, that's kinda what I've picked up and has been my experience there.

 

[StillStunned]

Maybe someone else can explain this to me. Speculative Fiction is one of the most popular genres in fiction. Eroticism has been a prominent part of popular Science Fiction since at least the 1930s. Yet on Lit SciFi/F is one of the least-read categories. The readership there is generally friendly and accepting. They don't push writers away like they do in Romance.

What gives? I point my finger at the way the stories are typically written, which is probably the way they've always been written on Lit. It was one of the first categories I visited when I started reading here. I didn't stay there long because the stories were usually disappointments.

It can be hard to find good stories in sparse categories, especially ones that are incredibly diverse; you're sticking sword and sorcery next to galaxy invasions and anal probing after all.

This is part of it, of course. My own SF&F stories include sword & sorcery, post-apocalyptic sci-fi, space horror, a time-travel parody, D&D fantasy, cyberpunk, a fantasy ghost story, space opera and magical realism.

But I think (and I might be prejudiced here, and more than a little snooty) fantasy is also a gateway genre for young writers. I've seen a lot of romantasy, portal fantasy/isekai and urban fantasy with immature styles and skill levels. And lots of those stories become endless series that dominate the New and Top Story lists.

This makes it harder to stand out and attract the readers who are looking for your type of story (although I'll be the first to admit that not writing a single genre consistently makes it worse). And maybe the types of story I write just aren't what the majority of SF&F readers are looking for. There's a reason why romantasy, portal fantasy/isekai and urban fantasy are hugely popular in mainstream fiction, and sword & sorcery and so aren't.

 

[anthrodisiac]

But I think (and I might be prejudiced here, and more than a little snooty) fantasy is also a gateway genre for young writers. I've seen a lot of romantasy, portal fantasy/isekai and urban fantasy with immature styles and skill levels. And lots of those stories become endless series that dominate the New and Top Story lists.

This makes it harder to stand out and attract the readers who are looking for your type of story (although I'll be the first to admit that not writing a single genre consistently makes it worse). And maybe the types of story I write just aren't what the majority of SF&F readers are looking for. There's a reason why romantasy, portal fantasy/isekai and urban fantasy are hugely popular in mainstream fiction, and sword & sorcery and so aren't.

Interesting thesis. I was going to say that doesn't prove anything, people can be inexperienced and sloppy and old, not even new to writing, just not good at it and not developing their craft. But then I think that most of those people aren't writing in SF&F, they're writing in the more mundane categories (I use the term in the more literal sense, not in a disparaging way, for clarity). Especially around the more recent trends like romantasy and isekai, which weren't popular when those older writers were growing up and probably don't have much exposure to them, so I imagine that group skews younger.

SF&F is definitely less Heinlein and Tolkein and more LitRPG and monsterfucking.

I also think the big series suck up a lot of oxygen as well. Those things, as you mentioned, can be massive, millions of words, and it leaves less chance for writers who aren't those handful of popular never-enders to get eyeballs on their stuff.

 

[StillStunned]

Interesting thesis. I was going to say that doesn't prove anything, people can be inexperienced and sloppy and old, not even new to writing, just not good at it and not developing their craft. But then I think that most of those people aren't writing in SF&F, they're writing in the more mundane categories (I use the term in the more literal sense, not in a disparaging way, for clarity). Especially around the more recent trends like romantasy and isekai, which weren't popular when those older writers were growing up and probably don't have much exposure to them, so I imagine that group skews younger.

To be fair, I think that it happens in other genres as well, only with more focus on the characters' personal backstories instead of the world. Plenty of stories begin with a long infodump about who the main character is, who the people around them are, what their likes and dislikes are and why they've never heard of sex until today when they turn 18.

Another problem with worldbuilding is good old JRRT. Because he's a giant of the fantasy genre, writers often think they have to do what he did. How many authors create their own fantasy languages nowadays? And do they really think the readers care or are going to bother to learn the words or rules of grammar?

But it's easy to point to Middle-Earth and say, "But he did it!" Sure, but you're not Tolkien. You're not Robert Jordan either. You're not writing for the same audience, you're writing for readers who have become sated with endless fantasy worlds that somehow seem largely indistinguishable.

 

[Jada59]

I dunno. Not my thing, really. I did enjoy the old “Gor” books though.

 

[anthrodisiac]

To be fair, I think that it happens in other genres as well, only with more focus on the characters' personal backstories instead of the world. Plenty of stories begin with a long infodump about who the main character is, who the people around them are, what their likes and dislikes are and why they've never heard of sex until today when they turn 18.

Another problem with worldbuilding is good old JRRT. Because he's a giant of the fantasy genre, writers often think they have to do what he did. How many authors create their own fantasy languages nowadays? And do they really think the readers care or are going to bother to learn the words or rules of grammar?

But it's easy to point to Middle-Earth and say, "But he did it!" Sure, but you're not Tolkien. You're not Robert Jordan either. You're not writing for the same audience, you're writing for readers who have become sated with endless fantasy worlds that somehow seem largely indistinguishable.

True, true.

I think people fall into the trap of coming up with a lot of lore, and then feeling like it's wasted if they don't include every little bit. Or they want people to see how much work they put into it, or they think other people will care one whit. Which I get. I have literally hundreds of pages of notes on lore and history and technology and creature lifecycles and yada yada yada, but including 35 pages' worth of notes for your 60k-word novel is for the author's benefit, not the reader, and stories should exist for the reader's benefit, not the author's edification. If you really must share all of that, make it its own side story/book. I've seen a couple authors here do that, one of them was like, double-digit pages, and I think it was over 100k words about the geopolitical such and such and 10k years of history and all the alien races and languages and stuff.

People shouldn't be thinking about being the next JRRT, or GRRM, or CSL, or JKR, or ELJ, or WTF, or whatever other initialist author they're striving for; they should be innovating, not emulating. That's how you break through the flood of mediocrity (or you're really lucky, or have a fucking phenomenal PR person, or you buy a ton of your own books to juice the numbers).

Also, I don't get why people think I'm your alt, it's weird.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

He's a successful writer, editor and critic with a career, mostly in Sci Fi, dating back to 1966, and continuing today at the age of 81. He started raking in the awards in 1979, most recently the 2026 Booker award "for the best single work of sustained English fiction which was published in the United Kingdom or Ireland" according to Wikipedia.

Oh, I don't doubt he can write, even if I've never heard of the guy, nor am I very much impressed by his awards. I meant that worldbuilding probably isn't one of his fortes. I actually checked out his most prominent books, and every one is set on a future or apocalyptic Earth. Makes sense, I guess.

Also, don't get me wrong here. I love when people challenge dogmas. And had he written a thoughtful essay about why worldbuilding isn't important, backed it up with analysis and examples, I would have loved to read it, even if I love good worldbuilding. Only by challenging our convictions can we ever truly strengthen them, or eventually abandon them.

But instead, he wrote an empty, vitriolic rant. So why would anyone even ponder those words? His accomplishments mean nothing in this sense, even if I don't really see him as a truly influential sci-fi writer. Stiven King could have said those words, and I would dismiss them just the same. Argument from authority is not what should make us question our opinions.

 

[FromManyOne]

... Another problem with worldbuilding is good old JRRT. Because he's a giant of the fantasy genre, writers often think they have to do what he did. How many authors create their own fantasy languages nowadays? ...

[raises hand, points to Beast: https://literotica.com/s/beast-14]

True, true.

I think people fall into the trap of coming up with a lot of lore, and then feeling like it's wasted if they don't include every little bit.

Pro SFF writers refer to this as "Showing your homework." You have to do the homework, depending on the story, but that doesn't mean your readers are interested in it.

 

[Soixenta]

I do very little world-building because I would rather write. When I have an idea for a story, I want to start telling that story, and do not want to first create a world where that story is to take place.

I would much rather find out about the world as I am writing. Small ideas are inspired by a word choice or are necessitated by the situation in the story. I would not like to force my story into the straightjacket of a pre-determined world.

I want freedom to take it where I want and learn about the place on the ground level as that is where my characters are, and my readers as well. If the world has larger, overarching concerns, we will discover them as we encounter them.

 

[FromManyOne]

@Soixenta, you're worldbuilding, you're just discovery-writing the worldbuilding. I do a lot of that, myself.