A Brief Word About World Building
I had a reader drop a line the other day asking about my favorite subject: “…How do you world build? Is there a process you have? Steps? Questions you ask yourself? I guess what I’m really trying to say is– how do you build a world without dumping all this exposition on the reader’s head?…”
Since I am really and truly, no kidding, I mean it this time, trying to blog more often, I thought the best way to answer would be in a post, because seriously, no matter how many times I talk about world-building, I could always find something else to say. So let’s begin with the first rule of world-building!
[image error]
Those are what ye might call ‘guidelines’.
This applies to pretty much every aspect of writing, by the way. Also piracy. But I digress. Back to world-building.
The second rule is to get yourself a concordance, or a world bible. I called this a Vade Mecum in my ABCs of world-building, but only because the letter C was already taken. I’m sure there are writers out there who work without a concordance just fine, but I need one. It doesn’t have to be an actual physical notebook with real papery papers inside either. A program like Scrivener does a great job of organizing notes, reference pages, inspiring pictures and deleted scenes that you may still find a place for, so that you have everything in one place. Or, if you’re like me, just keep a notebook full of detailed descriptions, lists of names, hand-drawn maps and so many doodles–buildings, animals, leering nekkid lizardmen, dishware…all the little details that add depth to any world.
Once you have your concordance started, spend a little time with it. Just like with a painting, you can hit it with the broad strokes and call it good–call it a masterpiece, even!– but a little time with a detail brush can pay off in a big way. Explore your world, removed from any pesky plot distractions. Right now, don’t even think about what your characters do, think about where they are, how they live, how they were raised. Some people thought it was funny that I led off my ABCs of World-Building with Architecture, but come on!
[image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error][image error]
You have to admit, it makes a statement.
And that brings me directly to my next rule of world-building: You can never go too far. Our own boring human world is so fantastically diverse, populated by a wondrous variety of people who are capable of creating and doing such extraordinary things, that you should never be afraid of going a little bit over the top. If history has proven nothing else, it is that ‘over the top’ is ‘par for the course’ in posterity.
So now that you’ve created a nigh-on unbelievable world in your concordance, it’s time to put it on the page. Obviously, there’s no ONE RIGHT WAY to do this, but there are tools, tips and tricks. Guidelines, if ye will (thank you, Captain Barbossa).
For the purposes of this post, I’m going to assume that the hypothetical book in question involves an alien world, but that doesn’t mean that everything about it is, well, alien!
Some years ago, a friend of mine convinced me to try out a role-playing campaign he had designed. It was in the WhiteWolf system, which, for those who don’t know, is more about story-telling than dice-rolling. After a lengthy character generation and story setting session, he began by plunging my character into a drug-induced hallucination that resulted in me perceiving an alternate world. My safe home surroundings vanished and I found myself on a flat landscape of grey hardpan marked with geometric designs reaching out in all directions. In the distance, I could make out the hazy outlines of buildings. The only feature near me was a metal structure like an unnaturally slender tower, tapering as it grew. At the very top, it split into three even more slender arms that grew out and curled inward at the tips, emitting a sallow light.
I spent probably an hour trying to explore that tower to no avail, until the effects of the drug wore off, and my Story-teller called a break. With some frustration, he then informed me I’d ‘wasted’ the hallucination portion of the campaign by spending my entire trip in the parking lot. That tower I had been studying with such doggedness was a common tri-headed streetlamp. He was so annoyed with me, and frankly, I was annoyed with him. My character was a reasonably well-traveled person from modern America. She knew what a parking lot and a streetlamp were. Why did he describe it in such alien terms? His answer: because it was a such a desolate and creepy scene that it appeared to be alien. No, man, it appeared to be a PARKING LOT. A desolate, creepy parking lot! Lead with that!
My point is, even in an actual alien setting, it should be possible to identify key features. Why? Because even if none of your characters are human, your readers probably are and they need to be able to relate. There may not be pines and oaks and magnolias, but if there are trees, it’s okay to call them trees. A car is a car. A house is a house. Don’t bog everything down with unpronounceable words and esoteric descriptions when all you have to say is, ‘You find yourself in a vast, empty parking lot, lit by a single flickering street lamp.’
[image error]
Sorry I ruined your campaign, Kamiel.
Successful world-building is about finding that delicate balance between introducing something new and unusual, and making it seem normal. To that end, an over-abundance of description is NOT your friend. It’s far, far more effective to describe something appropriately than thoroughly, by which I mean, take into account the character’s situation before launching into paragraphs of painstaking detail. During a tense escape scene, a character is unlikely to be closely inspecting the buttresses of your trollish dungeon and I don’t care how amazing those buttresses are. For that matter, bear in mind that familiarity does indeed breed contempt, by which I mean, the troll who has lived alongside those buttresses her entire life is equally unlikely to notice them, unless it’s a particularly boring shift down in the dungeons and she finds herself staring at them because she has literally nothing else to do, right up until the prisoner conks her on the noggin and grabs her keys.
Point of view really does go a long way toward world-building. Different people see the same thing in very different ways. A few well-chosen words (or paragraphs full of more words) may allow your reader to ‘see’ a scene, but it’s how the character sees it that tells the reader how to feel about it. To pull an example from one of my own books like the raging narcissist that I am, when Meoraq and Amber are hiking together through the wilderness, they are both having very different experiences. Meoraq sees kipwe and mganz trees and has the ability to mentally grumble about how far it is from Tothax to Xi’Matezh. To him, the Wastes are just…the Wastes. He knows what to expect. He knows to keep his guard up, but he has the luxury of being rather blase about the mechanics of survival. Amber, on the other hand, sees only a hostile, unfamiliar landscape. Everything is potentially dangerous–predators, prey, plants, weather and especially the people. She’s never fully relaxed. She never feels safe. Meoraq is the one who knows the names of things; he experiences the world in familiar terms, through past encounters and practical application of skill. Amber is the one taking it all in; she experiences the world with all five senses, every contact leaving a profound impression.
Having a human element allows me, as a writer, to stop and goggle in amazement at the alien world I’ve created, while having a non-human native allows me to shrug it all off, and the two of them together are the most powerful combination in story-telling. Seriously. Nothing caps off a thousand words of detailed description like a well-placed ‘meh’.
[image error]
“Stop staring. You look like a tourist.”
One more thing and then I guess I’ll stop (for now, although I’ve been talking for almost 2000 words already and I could easily talk for another 20,000), and that is to remember that your job is not to create a ‘perfect’ world in which one ruler, one culture, one ecosystem, one religion or one ANYTHING dominates. The real world is a messy place and that’s good, because messy places create illogical, imperfect people who do unexpected, implausible and wonderful things and those are the stories we remember.
