World Building, Part One: Writing the Rules
Five or six years ago, I did a blog series (my first one!) on world-building. Not long after it was completed, I collected all those posts into book format, and put it up for sale on Amazon. Its been there ever since. My husband recently suggested running an ad for it, so I found the old file, and took a good look at it. Long story short, I decided I wanted to revisit the series with everything I've learned since. Because I've learned a lot, and I think it's time to expand it. ;)
The first lesson is on rules.
Yes, rules. Or, more accurately, physical laws or realities.
One of the best things about being a fantasy writer is the chance to write these yourself. For people who either don't like or aren't good at doing research about the real world, you can escape it, so to speak, by creating your own. Unfortunately, this gives rise to the idea that fantasy is an easy way out. I met someone once who thought that fantasy writers were lazy, and some of them surely are. But there's a reason fantasy novels are expected to be longer than regular fiction ones.
Just because you can write the rules yourself doesn't mean that world-building is easy. On the contrary, once you write those rules, you have to follow them, and that means everything you want to happen in your story has to fit within that framework. You can't just fall back on earth-rules if you wrote ones that were different; you have to make your story work with the rules you have. If, for example, you decide that the sky is going to be green, you are probably going to have people wanting to know why it's green instead of blue. Does light behave differently? Is there some sort of particle in the air that does that? How does that affect clouds?
Your story and the rest of the world has to be consistent. If it's not, readers will find out. So, writing your rules might be easy. But following them is not. And that's where the creativity comes in.
Say you want a world with no naturally-occurring water. You probably don't, but think about the implications. If there is no naturally-occurring water, then how do creatures survive? To solve this problem, you have at least two options. Either water is unnecessary for survival in this world, or it's imported from somewhere else. If it's unnecessary, that gives you a plethora of other questions, like why not? If you choose to have water imported from somewhere else, then what is that somewhere else like? What are the political and economic consequences of that? Perhaps that other place decides to cut off the water. What then? You have the bare bones of a story right there.
But, once you decide the answer to that question, you have the inevitable. What kind of plants and animals grow and live there? How do they survive? What kind of economy grew up in this place? Is water more precious that gold? Is it a poison to creatures who don't need it to survive?
All of these things have to be consistent with the rules you make. You need to follow the logical progression of your rules in your story. And that means if two of your rules conflict, then either you have to change them, or you have to make it work somehow.
So, feel free to make any rule you desire. But be prepared to do the legwork, and make it all fit together.
Now choose your rules and write them down. This is important. You may need to reference them later, so get a notebook, a sheet of paper, something to write on. My suggestion would be an empty notebook, especially if you plan on writing a book set in this world. On the first page, write down the things that make your world different from the real one.
On the next page, write down the consequences of those rules. For example, a world that has no animals will as a consequence have large groups of intelligent life that are either cannibalistic or vegetarian. Keep these consequences in mind as you choose your rules.
The first lesson is on rules.
Yes, rules. Or, more accurately, physical laws or realities.
One of the best things about being a fantasy writer is the chance to write these yourself. For people who either don't like or aren't good at doing research about the real world, you can escape it, so to speak, by creating your own. Unfortunately, this gives rise to the idea that fantasy is an easy way out. I met someone once who thought that fantasy writers were lazy, and some of them surely are. But there's a reason fantasy novels are expected to be longer than regular fiction ones.
Just because you can write the rules yourself doesn't mean that world-building is easy. On the contrary, once you write those rules, you have to follow them, and that means everything you want to happen in your story has to fit within that framework. You can't just fall back on earth-rules if you wrote ones that were different; you have to make your story work with the rules you have. If, for example, you decide that the sky is going to be green, you are probably going to have people wanting to know why it's green instead of blue. Does light behave differently? Is there some sort of particle in the air that does that? How does that affect clouds?
Your story and the rest of the world has to be consistent. If it's not, readers will find out. So, writing your rules might be easy. But following them is not. And that's where the creativity comes in.
Say you want a world with no naturally-occurring water. You probably don't, but think about the implications. If there is no naturally-occurring water, then how do creatures survive? To solve this problem, you have at least two options. Either water is unnecessary for survival in this world, or it's imported from somewhere else. If it's unnecessary, that gives you a plethora of other questions, like why not? If you choose to have water imported from somewhere else, then what is that somewhere else like? What are the political and economic consequences of that? Perhaps that other place decides to cut off the water. What then? You have the bare bones of a story right there.
But, once you decide the answer to that question, you have the inevitable. What kind of plants and animals grow and live there? How do they survive? What kind of economy grew up in this place? Is water more precious that gold? Is it a poison to creatures who don't need it to survive?
All of these things have to be consistent with the rules you make. You need to follow the logical progression of your rules in your story. And that means if two of your rules conflict, then either you have to change them, or you have to make it work somehow.
So, feel free to make any rule you desire. But be prepared to do the legwork, and make it all fit together.
Now choose your rules and write them down. This is important. You may need to reference them later, so get a notebook, a sheet of paper, something to write on. My suggestion would be an empty notebook, especially if you plan on writing a book set in this world. On the first page, write down the things that make your world different from the real one.
On the next page, write down the consequences of those rules. For example, a world that has no animals will as a consequence have large groups of intelligent life that are either cannibalistic or vegetarian. Keep these consequences in mind as you choose your rules.
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