World building

[NotWise]

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.

I think that says it very well.

I'll thank @anthrodisiac and @StillStunned for their thoughts. For me, it gels the answer a little.

One of the best explanations for why speculative fiction is so popular in the larger market and such a backwater on Lit is simply that Lit readers aren't the larger market. Lit readers are mostly here for erotica, and stories in SF/F don't compete for readers with categories that deliver to a specific erotic kink.

I think other causes have to be invoked to explain why readership in SF/F is as low as it is. One of those is that the category draws writers who are often more interested in exercising their imagination than their writing skills. There are probably other reasons.

This probably reflects my pre-digital training in writing, but some writers in SF/F could improve their output by writing in short form first and only moving to long-form stories after they understand more about what needs to be said and how to say it. That would, if nothing else, teach them that they shouldn't "show their homework."

 

[FromManyOne]

This probably reflects my pre-digital training in writing, but some writers in SF/F could improve their output by writing in short form first and only moving to long-form stories after they understand more about what needs to be said and how to say it. That would, if nothing else, teach them that they shouldn't "show their homework."

I think the advice I got early on in this forum would help many writers (in all genres and categories), at least those with hearing.

Either read the story aloud yourself, or have a text-to-speech program read it to you. I did that for my latest and caught dozens of really obvious, annoying mistakes. Some were just mechanical ("with with"), but also you get an idea of how you just ran on for five minutes with exposition, during which literally nothing happens in the actual story. I'm not saying my story is now good enough to win awards, but I'm definitely saying it's better than before I did that.

 

[Duleigh]

I love worldbuilding! Why not? JRR Tolkien loved world building, Sir Terry Pratchett made the greatest world the multiverse has ever seen. Isaac Asimov built an entire universe! So what's so bad about worldbuilding? I built a colonized Mars in my Alan Scarlett series. I built an entire solar system in my Gods Save the Queen universe. I even pack 3 maps into the appendix of each book - Elm Springs, Waleston, and Edux (Village, capitol city, and Continental) I really need to make more maps for book 6. My MC is going out knocking on Castle Doors.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I read a lot of SF and a little fantasy, offline. On Lit, I rarely look at SF&F because I need a reason to care about a different world, as well as to care about the characters, and then I need to suspend disbelief because two characters are going to get it on (quite probably in ways I'm not very interested in), and the chances of there actually being a story I want to read shoehorned in around all that? Not very high.

To be fair, I don't read that much on Lit, because I want to start with characters who convince me of being people, and many Lit stories are more interested in stock characters and their actions - not saying there's anything wrong with that, I'm just not their audience most of the time. Fanfic generally works much better for me, because even if the writing isn't great, there's my existing knowledge of the character to fall back on, and the stories generally play with those characters in various new situations quite well.

You'd think I'd end up writing SF on Lit, and for sure I've thought about it a lot, but so far all the drafts have ended up in the real world. I had one fantasy with an immortal, but that ended up in Erotic Horror, and was set in modern day London. I have a few drafts of worlds and potential stories, but none of them have inspired me to put any sex in, so Lit isn't a place for them.

 

[StillStunned]

I think other causes have to be invoked to explain why readership in SF/F is as low as it is. One of those is that the category draws writers who are often more interested in exercising their imagination than their writing skills.

 

[Soixenta]

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

I do not consider it world-building, not in the same way many people use the word. I am not interested in creating a consistent world for my characters to operate in. I do not make notes about how things work, or where places are situated, or what happened historically and when. I make it up as I write, and do a quick review for inconsistencies, and that is all.

 

[NotWise]

I love worldbuilding! Why not? JRR Tolkien loved world building, Sir Terry Pratchett made the greatest world the multiverse has ever seen. Isaac Asimov built an entire universe! So what's so bad about worldbuilding? I built a colonized Mars in my Alan Scarlett series. I built an entire solar system in my Gods Save the Queen universe.

Harrison gave his reasons why not and I outlined mine.

In his first sentence, Harrison drew a distinction between writing and world building. I think for clarity that distinction might be between story telling and world building. You can build a world by telling a story.

I even pack 3 maps into the appendix of each book - Elm Springs, Waleston, and Edux (Village, capitol city, and Continental) I really need to make more maps for book 6. My MC is going out knocking on Castle Doors.

I knew this about you. I also think that you produce those graphics (like the ones you post on the forums) more to amuse yourself than for anything else.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Harrison gave his reasons why not

He did? Where? All I saw was disdain and insults against those who do like to worldbuild. I saw no reasoning or justification for his pretty extreme stance.

 

[CalBishForNow]

I love worldbuilding! Why not? JRR Tolkien loved world building, Sir Terry Pratchett made the greatest world the multiverse has ever seen. Isaac Asimov built an entire universe! So what's so bad about worldbuilding?

It's funny, I was going to use Pratchett as an example of why worldbuilding is optional. He was wildly successful despite Discworld being a pastiche of barely-disguised real places thrown together for the needs of the latest story. He was a great writer and Discworld was a great series, but place names were puns and his idea of continuity was "the History Monks were on vacation that day." Using "worldbuilding" to describe both Middle-earth and Discworld makes it so broad as to be almost meaningless.

 

[Duleigh]

Using "worldbuilding" to describe both Middle-earth and Discworld makes it so broad as to be almost meaningless

I respectfully disagree, besides, Isaac Asimov's foundation series stretched worldbuilding by light-years. Is it real? Once you have your world set, how real is it? Yes, PTerry's discworld was based on real world punes (XXXX being my favorite) the proof is what happens when you drop a reader in there. Does the reader look around and say, "Oh, this is Australia." or do they buy it. Are they in XXXX joining Rincewind's adventures and wearing hats with dangling corks? Or are they watching from the outside saying, "It's just Australia." There has to be something familiar to give the reader something to hold on to. That's why Ents look like trees and Wyrmberg was an upside-down mountain. Something familiar that you made your own for your world.

Making it real is the final and most important step. You can make maps and puns all day long, it's got to be real to the reader.

 

[StillStunned]

Apparently, when the Map of Ankh-Morpork was made, the creators kept asking TP where things were relative to each other. Where Unseen University was relative to Short Street or Sator Square and so on. And he had no idea. He'd just made these things up and written the story around them.

I think that points towards minimal worldbuilding. Tell the story and don't bother with how the world fits around it.

 

[CalBishForNow]

Making it real is the final and most important step. You can make maps and puns all day long, it's got to be real to the reader.

Sure, agreed, but that's not the kind of worldbuilding people are arguing for and against in most of this thread. Of course you have to make it feel real. Does that require having maps (a map of Discworld was published at some point but after at least a dozen books were written), carefully delineated histories of fictional empires (Pratchett laughed at the concept like Douglas Adams laughed at deadlines)? If so, should they appear in the books prominently, in the background here and there, or not at all?

That's the kind of "worldbuilding" most people are talking about, not "does it feel real?"

 

[Britva415]

I love worldbuilding! Why not? JRR Tolkien loved world building, Sir Terry Pratchett made the greatest world the multiverse has ever seen. Isaac Asimov built an entire universe! So what's so bad about worldbuilding? I built a colonized Mars in my Alan Scarlett series. I built an entire solar system in my Gods Save the Queen universe. I even pack 3 maps into the appendix of each book - Elm Springs, Waleston, and Edux (Village, capitol city, and Continental) I really need to make more maps for book 6. My MC is going out knocking on Castle Doors.

The writers you cite arguably achieved what Harrison was talking about: The storytelling triumphed over the worldbuilding. I’m not saying these writers aren’t valued for their worlds, I’m saying they’re only valued for their worlds because of the stories that take place in them.

Worldbuilding is not storytelling.

 

[Britva415]

You can build a world by telling a story.

I would say, you must build the world by telling the story.

At least, as far as the reader’s experience goes. I’m’m not saying, don’t “worldbuild” as an off-page brainstorming exercise, I’m not even saying don’t worldbuild and then discover what kind of story that world demands telling. That’s how Tolkein developed LOTR.

No, what I’m saying is, when you reveal your story to the reader, reveal it by telling what happens. And include mostly only the world-facts which are necessary to the story.

It’s the Chekhov’s Gun idea but applied to settings, not to props. Some “unnecessary” details are okay, I’m not rigid about Chekhov’s Gun. “How much of this atmosphere / world / lore really contributes to this story” is a question which one should be ready to answer during revision with, “not this much,” and then strike some.

“Don’t worldbuild” isn’t necessarily right, but “kill your darlings”often is. Don’t let worldbuilding impede, retard, displace or obscure the storytelling.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Worldbuilding is not storytelling.

Then characterization isn't either.

 

[StillStunned]

Then characterization isn't either.

Characterisation as it emerges through the events of the story is storytelling. Characterisation in exposition, with the writer summarising the character, that's not storytelling.

(I'll make an exception if the narrator frames the story as a tale, and introduces the character to the reader in generally a humorous or sarcastic style. In those stories, the narration is part of the storytelling in that it determines the tone of the story.)

 

[Britva415]

Then characterization isn't either.

I completely agree.

I’ve been saying: The reader should perceive the world through the storytelling. The activity of story-free worldbuilding shouldn’t be perceptible to the reader. Same with the story-free activity of characterization and the revelation of character via the storytelling.

The act of characterization can be achieved by telling the story. It can also be achieved by telling stuff which is not the story. The storytelling is the only one of those acts which the reader should be exposed to, though. Same with worldbuilding.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Characterisation as it emerges through the events of the story is storytelling. Characterisation in exposition, with the writer summarising the character, that's not storytelling.

I agree. And the same goes for the kind of worldbuilding that serves the story. For grand, overarching stories, complex worldbuilding can make sense and can enhance the storytelling. For simpler stories, it doesn't make sense to create an extensive world. That was my point all along.

I completely agree.

I’ve been saying: The reader should perceive the world through the storytelling. The activity of story-free worldbuilding shouldn’t be perceptible to the reader. Same with the story-free activity of characterization and the revelation of character via the storytelling.

See the answer to SS. Again, I completely agree with your point about the characterization and worldbuilding that aren't part of the organic storytelling but rather the product of the author indulging themselves, especially if it's done through heavy exposition.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Worldbuilding doesn't have to be the Chronicles of Xarthoin and the Fire-Elves. If you set the story in the everyday world, there's still the potential for voluminous background notes. These would be equally ill-fitting if they don't contribute to the story as story.

My writing here is set in a fictional English county, with fictional towns, streets, and pubs, and I could have spent ages jotting background notes about all of those. (It sounds like just the thing my younger self would have loved to do.) And characters: ordinary everyday people who enjoyed X in school and like to eat Y and repeatedly read Z. At one point I thought I should do this, to make my people three-dimensional.

But I never have. The only knowledge I have of the towns, the pub interior, the characters' literary tastes, is what I wrote in the stories because it seemed to be needed there. I keep an encyclopaedia to make sure I'm consistent, but I haven't yet needed to ground any of my published details in a much greater background. I genuinely don't know whether this is the right way to do it.

 

[Britva415]

Worldbuilding doesn't have to be the Chronicles of Xarthoin and the Fire-Elves. If you set the story in the everyday world, there's still the potential for voluminous background notes. These would be equally ill-fitting if they don't contribute to the story as story.

Yep. I wrote a few posts ago, you might as well say “don’t research.”

 

[Britva415]

I genuinely don't know whether this is the right way to do it.

I genuinely know it can be right for some stories and/or authors, and wrong for others. There can’t be any single right answer.

 

[Voboy]

Apparently, when the Map of Ankh-Morpork was made, the creators kept asking TP where things were relative to each other. Where Unseen University was relative to Short Street or Sator Square and so on. And he had no idea. He'd just made these things up and written the story around them.

I think that points towards minimal worldbuilding. Tell the story and don't bother with how the world fits around it.

When I was a young lad, writing my first embryonic stories, I started the way I felt stories should start: with a map. I drew it in ink and then filled it in with watercolors. I was in junior high, I think. I started a story with characters who'd inhabit that world, then lost interest (because I discovered Girls).

MANY years later, when I was contracted to write an erotic sword-and-sorcery story... I just used that same map, now quite old. I added some more worldbuilding, but the bones of my original idea were already there.

Now I find myself writing stories here, and they all share a common universe. In most cases, they occur in the same place: a good-sized coastal town somewhere in the mid-Atlantic (probably), and I have a strong sense of where everything is in that town. But, somewhat to my own surprise, I've never bothered mapping it on a piece of paper.

Thirty years ago, I didn't think I could start without a map. Now, I find it more liberating to avoid having one. I think I like the Pratchettesque idea that my town is very fluid, and has everything where it needs to be for the demands of a given story. If that has ever hurt my stories' continuity, nobody has yet complained.

 

[deathlynx]

I love worldbuilding! And I keep it mostly in my "help" files (and the back of my mind) until and unless it's important to the characters, at which point it's important for the readers to understand, but by that point the characters introduce it organically.

 

[RejectReality]

It's got jack squat to do with worldbuilding. The one and only thing we do here that most SF&F authors don't do is cross the threshold of the bedroom. Thus, we're getting a small subset of the greater readership, who otherwise seek their fix from traditional venues. I'd say it's purely accidental for many. They're here looking for spicy stories, and there just happens to be a crossover with a genre they enjoy.

Heavy worldbuilding has been part of the genre from the beginning with Tolkien. The notion that going overboard with worldbuilding is why it's a niche category on Lit is preposterous.

The reader doesn't need the backstory of every fuckin' tree branch ( ©ERB ) but worldbuilding is probably half the enjoyment of writing in the genre, and discouraging people from doing it based upon a not even half-baked premise is pure malpractice.

 

[anthrodisiac]

The reader doesn't need the backstory of every fuckin' tree branch ( ©ERB ) but worldbuilding is probably half the enjoyment of writing in the genre, and discouraging people from doing it based upon a not even half-baked premise is pure malpractice.

Well, maybe some backstory on the fucking tree branch if they're doing an Ent story, but the non-fucking branches probably not so much.