Is worldbuilding pointless?

[Marvolo]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

Tell that to all the Robert Jordan fans and the Terry Goodkind fans who complain about each new book as it comes out but read the next installment nevertheless.

Well, on this I can't honestly take a high road. I never bought anything past the sixth book. I listened to seven and eight on unabridged audio. I despise Terry Goodkind and everything past book four I read because I enjoyed one through four. Looking back, I wonder how I enjoyed them but blame it on the inexperience of youth. And stupidity. Apparently I was very, very stupid.

But I can honestly say that after reading The Eye of the World I didn't waste my money on The Great Hunt. I have a friend who has read them all, including all the Goodkind books. He swears by them, even with the abysmal ending to The Sword of Truth series. To each their own I guess.

[lin robinson]

What indicates quality? Or, better yet, WHO indicates quality?

Read "Zen In The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenence?"

That's the question that throws the guy's mind out of gear...just what the hell is quality?

Worth mulling over. See if you come up with an answer. (The hilarious thing is, everybody assumes, down deep, that they know.)

[Marvolo]

I think you can define quality by a product delivering what you were looking for at a reasonable price and/or a product fulfilling a need amply at an affordable price.

So to a person who craves the type of fantasy Terry Goodkind writes, he produces quality work. The same with Tolkien, Jordan, Martin, etc.

Folks who crave stories with creepy settings and in depth character backrounds with horrific conclusions find quality in Stephen King's work.

That definition seems to suit for me. I'm sure someone is going to pick it apart but... oh well.

[iansales]

Quality isn't competence or mediocrity. Quality is excelling expectation.

There are also a series of objective yardsticks that can be used - chiefly to do with use of language, or techniques of story-telling. An idiot plot does not lead to a quality story. A writer with a vocabulary of 500 words does not lead to a quality story. A style of prose that relies on cliches rather than original turns of phrase does not lead to a quality story.

[Zubi-Ondo]

Just a note. It's "Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenence".

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

- Z.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Marvolo

I think you can define quality by a product delivering what you were looking for at a reasonable price and/or a product fulfilling a need amply at an affordable price.

That definition seems to suit for me. I'm sure someone is going to pick it apart but... oh well.

If the price of a book comes anywhere into your definition of quality writing, then our ideas about quality (not to mention writing) are so radically different I see no way that you could ever understand me or I understand you ... therefore, there seems to be no point in picking your definition apart.

But to return to worldbuilding, the subject of this thread:

There are, of course, ways of revealing things about the setting without resorting to an info-dump. The way that characters address each other can tell a great deal about the society they live in: the formality (or lack of it), the modes of deference within a family (or lack of them), the class structure, etc. You can tell something about the religion or the superstitions by the gestures of respect, blessing, or protection the characters reflexively make under certain circumstances or when certain words are spoken. The clothing people wear can speak worlds about their ideas of modesty and decorum -- a society where women (or men) go veiled is going to be different in some essential ways from one where they go bare-faced.

You can sprinkle in these and other clues throughout a story, so that gradually they build up a very detailed picture. This method does require a little something of the reader, because they have to pick up on the inferences, but at least that's asking less than expecting them to commit to memory long passages explaining religion, or class, or gender politics.

But to do this right, it seems to me that the writer has to have the setting very clearly in mind as he or she writes. Whatever worldbuilding has preceded the writing, whether it's a lot or a little, it has to have been thoroughly internalized. The writer has to know it and feel it without constant recourse to his or her notebooks.


In fact (coming at this in the most roundabout way possible), that might have something to do with what Harrison was talking about in terms of writing triumphing over worldbuilding; perhaps he was saying that internalizing the setting is more important than mapping it out.

[Marvolo]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

If the price of a book comes anywhere into your definition of quality writing, then our ideas about quality (not to mention writing) are so radically different I see no way that you could ever understand me or I understand you ... therefore, there seems to be no point in picking your definition apart.

The question about quality didn't specify specific products. But I do get annoyed if I drop 29.95 for a hardback that stinks. I'm much more forgiving on paperbacks that I spend 6.95 on.

[lin robinson]

I think you can define quality by a product delivering what you were looking for at a reasonable price and/or a product fulfilling a need amply at an affordable price.

Quality is excelling expectation

Most people would quickly say that quality has nothing to do with either price or expectation. (And the word "amply" begs the question...it's like saying, "quality does the job good")

As I said, everybody assumes they know what quality is, but nobody has ever defined it to anybody's satisfaction...that's what flipped Prisig's character out and it's still a challenge that people rush out to answer, but the more you think about it the more it messes up up.

[Strife]

i am a basic reader, and i'll make a basic point.

I need different "qualities" to what i read.

Sometimes, quality is a page-turner (when i need to forget where i am)

some other times, quality is about reflection and stretching my thoughts (this happens when i'm not sure where i am)

or poetry, something that is like music, because i'm well where i am (but also when i'm really not well)

so quality is different when the need and the point of view vary

if many basic readers buy a basic book, it means that the book has some quality (for them)

if many critics praise some other book...


my point: quality is never abstract

[lin robinson]

But everything you said about it here (other than sales and good reviews) is abstact