Five Things I Know about World-Building

[truepenny]

[first published on Storytellers Unplugged, August 29, 2007; thanks to the Wayback Machine for helping me rescue it]

1. The more fun you have, the more fun your audience will have.

World-building should be fun. That’s what it’s for. You don’t have to approach it like a history textbook with all the dates and the names and the dry tedious facts. You only have to talk about the good bits, and you get to decide what those good bits are. And you can be outrageous. Real history is.

2. Never world-build through infodump.¹

(N.b., there is a difference between an “infodump” and “exposition.” Robin McKinley world-builds through exposition at the beginning of Spindle’s End; Diana Wynne Jones world-builds through exposition at the beginning of Howl’s Moving Castle. These are both markedly different from the infodump world-building at the beginning of the book I’m reading right now, James White’s Ambulance Ship.)

Avoid giving your readers information in solid lumps. This causes skimming and skipping, and if there’s something important in there, odds are pretty good no one’s going to catch it because their eyes have glazed over. Also, it feels fake; the dream ceases to be continuous and the reader gets dumped out of the story on his or her ass.

3. You can work it all out in advance or make it up as you go along. The end result will look the same.

How do I know this is true? Because 80% of my world-building, I make up as I go along. I take copious notes so as not to contradict myself or invent the wheel twice, but I invent my worlds on the fly.

Writing is, thank goodness, not a performance art. The finished product does not have to tell you anything about the details of the process. Therefore, the only wrong way to world-build–as with everything else–is the way that doesn’t work.

4. Never tell your audience everything you know.

This goes back to both (1.) and (2.) You aren’t writing a textbook; there isn’t going to be a test. You don’t have to explain everything, and in fact you’re better off if you don’t.

Also, there should be a difference between everything you know and everything your viewpoint character knows. Unless you’re writing in omniscient (in which case you, sir or madam, are as mad as a fish²), you need to filter your information through the character. If she doesn’t know it, she can’t tell the reader about it. If she doesn’t think it’s important, she won’t tell the reader about it. If the version of the facts she’s been given is wrong …

5. You have to let some details be throwaways.

This is what gives the world-building the illusion of depth. Not every folksong can be the coded solution to a mystery, and if you only mention popular culture or history when you are pushing another piece of the plot into place, your audience is going to get wise to your tricks, and your world-building is reduced to two-dimensional stage scenery.

Include details that have nothing to do with your story. Let your characters make allusions to events or ballads or novels that aren’t clues, just things they’ve read or heard or seen. The way real people do.

My favorite example from my own work (to be vulgarly conceited for a moment) is in the first chapter of Mélusine, when one of the protagonists says disparagingly of his teenage ambitions as a knife-fighter, “I thought I was quite something back then, like I was another Charlett Redding and they were going to have my hands plated with gold when I died” (p. 22).

That’s the only time Charlett Redding is ever mentioned, and that’s all we ever know about her. (I know more–although not a lot more–but like I said, never tell your audience everything you know.) Nothing about this throwaway anecdote has any bearing on the story, but it tells you a lot about the character and a lot about the world, and a lot of what it tells you, it tells you precisely because it’s a throwaway detail. It matters because it doesn’t matter.

And now, before I start calling people Grasshopper, I’m going to end this post.

---
¹For a definition of “infodump,” plus any number of other useful concepts, please consult the Turkey City Lexicon.
²A statement which is not the same as saying you shouldn’t do it.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hope you don't mind a comment? But I liked this post quite a bit - it touches on some of the problems I've had with various sci-fi/fantasy novels that I've read, along with various historicals, and the sci-fi novel that I'm writing at the moment.

Years ago, a creative writing professor told us not to write sci-fi or fantasy, until we got characterization and plot mechanics down pat. Why? Because a lot of people spend all their time on the world-building and forget the characters. One of the things that impressed me about your novel, The Goblin Emperor, was how you were able to create a viable world and great characters. The characters were vivid as was the world. Some writers don't quite pull this off, you feel as if they've gotten carried away with their world. Which is understandable. I've seen this happen with historical novels as well - where the writer is more interested in providing us with all their research than the story. In fact the story is just their way of putting in the research and info-dump.

Never tell your audience everything you know.

This goes back to both (1.) and (2.) You aren’t writing a textbook; there isn’t going to be a test. You don’t have to explain everything, and in fact you’re better off if you don’t.

This is my main quibble with a lot of historical novelists and hard sci-fi writers. I read one book a while back that spent most of its time describing the time period, the Edwardian period, complete with costumes, parties, politics, etc, but the characters were barely there and the plot was cobbled together. The writer was clearly more interested in exploring the period.

Also, there should be a difference between everything you know and everything your viewpoint character knows. Unless you’re writing in omniscient (in which case you, sir or madam, are as mad as a fish2), you need to filter your information through the character. If she doesn’t know it, she can’t tell the reader about it. If she doesn’t think it’s important, she won’t tell the reader about it. If the version of the facts she’s been given is wrong …

A great way of building character and world at the same time -- do it through your characters eyes. Also, build a distinctive voice. A lot of writers, or so I've noticed, don't spend time building their own distinctive voice or style. I think omniscient point of view is tricky - because you risk falling into the info dump. I read a review recently of a Kim Stanley Robinson novel - and the reviewer's main critique was that Robinson spent too much time on his world-building and detailed description, often throwing his character into situations, just so he could describe them. I don't know if he used omniscient though. I've seen it done a few times, it rarely works well.

I find multiple point of view works best for me - something similar to what GRR Martin does in his Song of Ice and Fire series. But with that, you have to make sure each character is distinctive and the reader can figure out whose head they are in. Some writers have a tendency to blur the lines between their characters points of view, which can confuse the reader.

As a reader - I find I prefer it when the writer doesn't tell me everything. But as a writer, I know it's a tricky balancing act - to figure out just how much you can reveal without either overwhelming the reader, or confusing them.

Question - do you outline at all? I tried it once - with my sci-fi. Did a thorough outline of the world and plot and characters. But as a result I lost interest in my own story. I find I'm more intuitive when it comes to writing. I like to discover the story and characters and the world as I go. In fact often I write to find the story. If I outline or plot it out ahead of time - I lose interest in telling it. There's no need. But I know other writers do extensive outlines. Curious, what you find works best for you? I think you said above that you discover it as you go.

[mmarques.livejournal.com]

Good point not to have every detail be a clue.

[m-nivalis.livejournal.com]

Your throwaway details is probably one of the things I loved most about the Doctrine of Labyrinths books. It's a wonderful way of worldbuilding.