Worldbuilding without wasting time

[AMoveableBeast]

I am first and foremost, a Fantasy/Sci Fi geek. It is what I grew up reading, and what I still prefer.

That said, there is a tendency here... Many of the authors just use a world to explain a particular kink they want to write about. Ummm... There was this disease, and 99% of the men died, so now all of the men remaining are slaves .... Slobber slobber...

Shockingly bad....

That's because the closest approximation of erotica in popular fiction is the action movie. In action flicks, all the other scenes exist to support the action. The characters, plot, even the setting, are all present to prop-up and draw attention to the fight scenes. So it often is in erotica, except replace fight scene with sex scene.

It's not a bad thing. Most people read erotica for sexual titillation rather than the other things. Not that they don't want the other things too. They just often want them subjugated by the sex. But even this isn't standard because the erotic reader is so variable in kink and intensity and desire. The only common ground is often the need to be sexually excited. And even that doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule, as I have a couple of stories on here that have done well that are not, strictly speaking, sexually exciting.

In short, you will find more Universal Soliders here than Left Hands of Darkness. But just when you least expect it, you may get a horny Blade Runner or lusty Terminator. That's what makes his site so interesting.

Sex rules.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Yeah -! Sex Rules!

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

It is a bad thing...

It is like settling for the old drunk bitch at closing time.

Because the good stories found a hero.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

It is like settling for the old drunk bitch at closing time.

Because the good stories found a hero.

Ugly stories need love too.

 

[Hypoxia]

Ugly stories need love too.

There are no ugly stories, only ugly authors.

Some are pretty blatant psychos.

I needn't name names.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

There are no ugly stories, only ugly authors.

Some are pretty blatant psychos.

I needn't name names.

*cough* Joyce *cough*

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

Mental Illness

Can help an author.

Phil Dick was nuts...

 

[Semigloss]

While researching writing advice for worldbuilding, I came across a lecture by Brandon Sanderson that answered a lot of questions. It seems very fitting for this thread.

JordanCon 2010 - Fantasy Writing with Brandon Sanderson: Description and Viewpoint

It is a youtube playlist made of 9 short videos that together form a two-hour lecture.

It has given me a ton of inspiration. Just watching it has already improved my writing.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

Can help an author.

Phil Dick was nuts...

K....

 

[legerdemer]

A different take on...?

I've not thought about it this way before (so it may be complete bullshit), but if you take any classic novel written in its own time (say Anna Karenina or Brothers Karamazov or whatever your favorite Dickens novel is), the authors did no specific world building - they didn't have to, their readers were contemporary with the authors, of course. To us now, those worlds are hardly more familiar than the future worlds Heinlein or Bradbury or (insert favorite sci fi writer here) built.

The most successful, presumably, are the ones that brought the reader into their world, which is now foreign, with their characters largely, and their action. So we (ummm, ok, I) should be able to look back and how these authors did their magic. And conversely, is a classic failed or forgotten because the "world building" failed? Because we aren't drawn in by the world, or how the characters acted in it and reacted to it?

Note added in edit: I guess my point is, is there really anything special about world building in sci fi vs. any other context?

 

[NotWise]

Note added in edit: I guess my point is, is there really anything special about world building in sci fi vs. any other context?

I think the historical fiction comparison is excellent. On another thread I said that my favorite short story was Pushkin's 'Queen of Spades.' I never lived in 19th's century St. Petersburg, and Pushkin does nothing to build that world. It isn't really even connected to my cultural history -- my family isn't Russian and at the time we were already farming the American frontier. Yet, I have no problem fitting my imagination into Pushkin's world.

I think that having realistic, believable characters is critical. If your characters think and react in believable ways then your reader will connect with your characters and the world around them may not matter so much.

 

[SamScribble]

Mer, NotWise, I think you are both 100% right. Despite what some people think, I was not alive during the time of Bleak House or Doctor Zhivago, but I have no difficulty 'picturing' either era.

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

Mer

Yes.

Science Fiction and Fantasy are different mostly because of setting. The best authors turn their worlds into their most important character. It is the reason the book is written. I suppose there was a grand love story in Tolkien's work but compared to the World itself, it was a side-show. There has been a hitchhiker's guide and a HAL computer...

If you can graft personality on to that world... Add some psychology and some angst... Now you got something special.

 

[legerdemer]

Yes.

Science Fiction and Fantasy are different mostly because of setting. The best authors turn their worlds into their most important character. It is the reason the book is written. I suppose there was a grand love story in Tolkien's work but compared to the World itself, it was a side-show. There has been a hitchhiker's guide and a HAL computer...

If you can graft personality on to that world... Add some psychology and some angst... Now you got something special.

Not entirely disagreeing with you, Nate, but LOTR above all was a story of friendship and how they make you strong against evil. And a whole bunch of other things, but the "human" story was at the center. The setting could have been anywhere, and the evil could have been anything - in fact, I'm not an expert, but wasn't Sauron supposed to be a stand-in for the Third Reich, in some opinions? But yes, the setting did make it (very) special.

 

[Hypoxia]

Science Fiction and Fantasy are different mostly because of setting. The best authors turn their worlds into their most important character... If you can graft personality on to that world... Add some psychology and some angst... Now you got something special.

As I said above -- make the setting a player. Portray it; reveal its idiosyncrasies.

All descriptive fiction builds worlds to some extent. Maybe it's only a microcosm of our planet or maybe outré places like Larry Niven's Ringworld, Neutron Star, or Smoke Ring. But closely describing even a terrestrial neighborhood is just as much a worldbuilding exercise. I've never been to south Florida but I can 'see' it from reading Carl Hiaasen. The place is just as exotic to me as Ray Bradbury's Mars or Wm Gibson's dystopias.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I guess my point is, is there really anything special about world building in sci fi vs. any other context?

A sci fi writer has to make his or her imaginary world "real" enough, internally consistent and plausible enough, that the reader will subconsciously accept it. Novelty is the easy part.

My favorite authors have a way of imbuing a setting with its own personality, so that the reader falls in love with it the way one falls in love with the characters in a successful novel. Raymond Chandler did that for Los Angeles -- the city owes him a debt of gratitude.

See also Setting as Character in Erotica.

 

[NotWise]

See also Setting as Character in Erotica.

I like you replying to Mer by linking to her own essay.