Worldbuilding With Training Wheels

Writing About Writing #6

This post has it’s inception in a question from

Jeff Kinnard

, a seconding from

Leigh Parrish

, and a reminder and discussion from

Walther Cantu

. The nature of this post has evolved somewhat as I thought about it, but here’s where we are.

Other people have written eloquently about how not to over-worldbuild. This article is written for an audience of those with the desire to write, with the desire to write in a world of their own creation, and with uncertainty of where exactly to begin. Begin here!

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How Can I Build Worlds? That Seems Hard!

You have probably heard of worldbuilding, whether you are a new writer or a seasoned writer, and you probably have heard that dreaded invocation of J R R T O L K I E N. So you probably are hesitant to start building a world because you are afraid to commit to inventing six languages and 4,000 years of history just to tell the story of Johnny going out to get a drink of water.

I am here to tell you that worldbuilding can be easier than you might think it is, that you already know how to do it, and that you don’t need to invent six languages or 4,000 years of history to do it well. Good Worldbuilding serves the story. That’s the standard we are shooting for.

The Brass Tacks Of Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is a trap. If you enjoy it, you can eventually start enjoying it more than writing a story. You can spend hours and hours on details that won’t make it into the final draft. When people—when beginners—hear the word “worldbuilding” they might be inclined to think immediately of JRR Tolkien, with his multitude of languages, cultures, lore, history, and characters.

Not every story needs a JRR Tolkien amount of worldbuilding¹. The purpose of worldbuilding is to give your characters defined boundaries to play in. When I write without a firm world in mind, I tend to solve problems in the easiest way possible—I conjure the solution right when the problem presents itself.

                         Johnny was thirsty. He turned to his left, and there was a water fountain. 
                          He drank from it.

You can avoid this problem by having a sense of geography.

                      Johnny was thirsty, but he was three blocks away from the nearest fountain.

This gives you an opportunity to introduce a challenge for your character that enhances the story.

                   Johnny was thirsty, but he was three blocks away from the nearest fountain.
                    The path led him through the territory of a rival gang.

Maybe the confrontation with a rival gang and the pursuit of a drink of water is a major part of the story. But you see what just happened? An obstacle has been put in place, more questions to answer, more challenges to overcome.

If it’s not necessary to the story, if it’s not a challenge worth overcoming—it’s not worth mentioning in the first place. If Johnny is thirsty and a water fountain is readily available, don’t mention that Johnny is thirsty. Not unless it serves the story somehow.

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Simplify, Simplify

OK, OK, Scoot, hold up, you’re going too fast.

That’s because worldbuilding doesn’t need to be over-complicated. When you’re writing a story, you want to present your protagonist with challenges, and your protagonist has to overcome them to grow. Worldbuilding is about giving context to your character AND to the challenges he faces.

HOW you build your world is by asking questions. Johnny is thirsty. Where is the water? Maybe you need to draw a map to figure that out. Once you have a map—what will Johnny encounter on the path between where he is and what he wants to achieve? If he’s not encountering anything—again, why are you telling this story²? Who would want to STOP Johnny from getting water? A rival gang! A monster! His past! His Future! A barricade! A Giant Hole In The Ground! A scorned lover! A feral cat! A wall, cutting the city in two! Whichever obstacle you choose to interpose between Johnny and his Water, you can then ask the question of what that obstacle is and how it got there. Rival gang—Why are they rivals? A monster— Where did it come from? So on and so forth. Substitute “Johnny” with your main character; substitute “a drink of water” with your main character’s primary desire.

Keep Asking Questions! Tug on these threads to see how you can give everyone in the story a motivation and a good reason to be motivated.

Stop Asking Questions! You don’t need to know the legal codes of Hammurabi when your character is just trying to drive across the state of Nebraska. Think of it like fog of war—clear enough of a path to be able to move the story forward, and then move until the path forward is obscured again. Then clear some more.

Once you’ve written the whole thing, then you can read it as a cohesive unit, and find out where you’re missing detail or where characters or motivations seem shallow. Then you can expand on it!

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Complicate, Simplify

Scoot, OK, this is great—but I am ready for something more. I have a much more expansive world I want to tackle.

OK, this is going to sound counterintuitive. A lot of times, when you are at this point, it’s because you have a world and you’re looking for a story, as opposed to what I have just described which is a story and you’re fleshing out the world.

When you have a world and you’re looking for a story, my advice to you is to not write anything, yet. Live imaginatively in your world for a while. Maybe write short vignettes to help you visualize and give flavor. Think about your world—what is the defining feature? What makes it interesting? What makes it different? How does that feature/interesting thing/difference affect everything about that world?

Tug on threads as much as you like. Live imaginatively in your world. Then, when you feel it’s settling down into something real and cohesive, you can find a story in it. When you find a story in your world, the details and descriptions will come easily because the story has a setting and you’re just describing the setting.

Here’s an example: In Father and Sun, a main feature of that world was that the sun was a red-giant about to go supernova. I forgot that I decided this and so when I revealed the red-giant sun in the sunrise scene, it was an organic-feeling moment. I didn’t begin by explaining “everyone lives in bunkers because the earth is a wasteland and the sun is a red giant”—it was a mystery, until it was relevant to the story to reveal it. And the reveal happened organically because my characters were moving through a “real world” of my imagining.

When you spend a lot of time imaginatively in your world, you get happy accidents, because you learn the layout and topography and technology that defines your world, and as your character moves through it you can observe them (or fail to observe them!) in ways that makes them feel grounded and real.

The most important element of any world is the story. If a detail doesn’t serve the story, don’t explore it, don’t build around it, and don’t spend time on it. When you are doing intermediate-to-advanced worldbuilding, you can have details in your head as an author, but don’t put them in the story unless they serve the story. You want to min-max the detail-to-story ratio. What are the minimum number of details you need to tell the most story possible?

1. I would like to coin the Tolkein as the unit of detail in a story. 1 Tolkein is too much. 1 millitolkein might be too little. The happy medium might be around a Half-Tolkein.

2. I once saw advice—I can’t remember where—that your character and their story should be the most interesting thing happening in a given place and time. If they are not—who is? Why aren’t you telling THEIR story?