Is worldbuilding pointless?

[Culhwch]

To return to the original point of this thread...

I was just musing upon another useful aspect to worldbuilding: it can very often unearth characters, plots and settings that may not only enrich your narrative, but take it to places or in directions infinitely better than you'd first thought or imagined. For instance, my current work in progress began life as a simple action/adventure story focussing on one character. But as I fleshed out his world, I discovered that he was but one facet of the story, and in fact the narrative drive lay far from his wanderings, and embraced a host of other interesting characters. He's still involved, but his role is much smaller - to the benefit of the story, or at least so I hope. But if I'd just dived straight into his story, I'd never have discovered what else was going on in the world outside of his line of sight. And, knowing me, it would have petered out very quickly indeed.

I might just add a caveat (so I don't kick off another back-and-forth debate) that I'm not saying worldbuilding is essential or that everyone must do it. Just sharing my experience...

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think, Culhwch, that you've just summed up several points I was trying to make earlier on, and much more lucidly than I could have done it.

[JDawg2.0]

Hi! I'm new here, and I couldn't wait to post in this thread.

When pondering the question serving as the topic of this thread, I almost immediately typed "yes, it is pointless". I suppressed that urge, and thought on it some more.

It ultimately depends on what you are trying to do. Someone else in this thread wrote that the answer is dependent on what the reader is looking for. I believe that completely. Some readers want glorified summaries, with a lovin' spoonful of melodrama. And that's fine. Others want a rich world, full of places and people and creatures and kingdoms and castles and...well, convolution! And that's fine, too.

When talking about what is widely considered to be good fiction, the definition shrinks, generally, to tightly-written narratives. For my money, the best writers can pound out a great story in ten thousand words.

To be fair, there is something to be said for grabbing a sheet of scrap paper, and drawing the map of an alien world. I've done it as recently as yesterday! There is something very fatherly about creating your own universe, and the feeling is nearly god-like. It truly is.

In reality, however, to expect your readers to enjoy a story that is comprised of 1000 countries, 10,000 people, and 100,000 battles, equates to asking them to fund your "I want to build a robot out of empty Diet Pepsi cans" project. As others have already mentioned, info-dump is no one's friend.

And info-dump is exactly the cliff's edge on which we breakdance when we undertake world-building. In my opinion, world-building is best used for the author's purposes, and not meant to be revealed in full to the reader at any one time. If you want to build yourself an epic planet, full of strife and battles and drama, then feel free. Draw a map, write a thousand-page outline, hang both on your bedroom wall. Feel free to use it as a path to spinning your highly-complex weave of stories in the YOUniverse...but don't give it all away. It is a sound guideline, but never an entertaining storyline.

Just my two cents.

[Sephiroth]

What a great post. I agree with all of it.

(Yes, things are great if they fit in with my views.)





Welcome to the forums, JDawg.

[lin robinson]

Glad this thread is back because we were talking about this topic last night.

Somebody mentioned a LOTR marathon and said they couldn't imagine sitting through ten straitght hours of a film they had already seen.

I told him a friend of mine did exactly that three times in one week.

It's not that she is caught up in the story. She is paying money to live in that world. She'd give anything if it never ended. Or better yet, if she could slip through the screen and stay there.

So there are people for whom the cleverest story is merely a game played out in what really matters to them: a world their mind and soul inhabit.

So, no, it's not pointless. There is a big audience out there for whom it's the only point.

[Sephiroth]

I agree that it isn't pointless, and I'm counting on the fact that people like your friend exist (I'm one of them).




But when it's a book, and not a film, it has to be well written. And being well written involves not bogging us down in details and descriptions.

[JDawg2.0]

Yeah, I fully believe that there is a great difference between film and literature. In film (especially now) you can do all the info-dump you like, simply by showing this grand world you've built. The same is not true in literature.

You have to be concerned with narrative. While a lot of people say the same is true with film, it really isn't. There are enough special effects out there that you can effectively distract people from the fact that you are throwing in needless details.

I would like to think a talented writer could distract me with pretty prose, but it really isn't possible. So, the writer must be certain they aren't straying far from the plot, drifting off into things that really are better left unwritten. It may appeal to some, but the point of writing isn't to appeal to just a few people--even if there was no money and fame as a reward for it, you still want as many people as possible to read and enjoy your work.

[iansales]

Originally Posted by JDawg2.0

I would like to think a talented writer could distract me with pretty prose, but it really isn't possible.

But... how would you know?

[Giovanna Clairval]

Well, the discussion has been evolving around the question of the necessity of building a world that has consistency, and whether this building of a world should not take front stage in the stead of story and characters.

But now, after marvelling at I, Brian and his full-fledged universe( World building gone mad ),
I'd like to ask another question.

Is it necessary and indispensable to build a complete world before starting to write a novel?
Or is this need for building a world beforehand an effort to be in control? Can it be seen as a way of not accepting the challenge of, simply... writing? Or, at least postponing it?

[iansales]

Isn't that the whole point of M John Harrison's comment? That the worldbuilding should come out of the writing? It's all very well spending years drawing a map of fantasyland, but it should only really be used inasmuch as allows you to determine routes and times for characters on their journeys.

[JDP]

To say that the world should suit the writing, and the writing alone, suggests (to me) laziness on the part of the author and usually results in internal inconsistencies that I'm sure a lot of readers do not appreciate:

Bodrick pulling out his 'changer-stick' just so that he can defeat the bad guy is weak! What the f^€[ is a 'changer-stick'? Where did it come from? What a cop-out.

Had the rare-but-reknowned use of changer-sticks been thoughtfully included in the built milieu, then that makes it more consistent (instead of just another MacGuffin). I would constitute this forethought as worldbuilding. You don't have to narrate every second of the ChangerTree's growth and the biography of the Magi-Lumberjack who felled it and the Grand-High-Whittlemeister who turned a branch of said tree into a functioning changer-stick through the power of prayer and onions.

NB: This is perhaps not a good example, but I had to fit my 'changer-stick life-cycle' in somewhere, or I'd have wasted the last six years of my life.

Bad writing is bad writing and should be avoided. Writing that has been put off in favour of worldbuilding is not writing (it's thoughts in a brain).

I maintain that: Worldbuilding (as the vast majority of people would define it) IS necessary to SFF literature.

And that: Every moment of a science fiction (and fantasy) story should aspire to be a triumph of writing AND worldbuilding.

STET.



Blimey, I must be on the same medication as Harrison, judging by that rant.

P.S. Bodrick and the Changer-Stick will be in a Critiques Section near you SOON.

[iansales]

The example you gave is more of a deus ex machina than a worldbuilding inconsistency.

Let's just say that your fictional universe is like an iceberg - but rather than 10% seen in the story, 90% hidden underwater, the ratios should be nearer parity. But that doesn't mean you should stick as much of your worldbuilding material in your story as possible, of course :-)

[JDP]

Hmmm... I guess I should have qualified my example as not being that relevant. Perhaps in bold.

When it comes down to it, you should only INCLUDE as much of the worldbuilding info as is directly relevant. The rest should, perhaps, remain unwritten like the bit of an iceberg you can't see.

I rest my case.

[Ursa major]

Originally Posted by JDP

Bodrick pulling out his 'changer-stick' just so that he can defeat the bad guy is weak! What the f^€[ is a 'changer-stick'? Where did it come from? What a cop-out.

Given that the name, changer-stick, is made up of two words that can have (approximately) opposite meanings, the reader may think that the sudden appearance of the said item is some sort of joke (well, I thought it was funny ); or, worse, that the author is having a laugh at the reader's expense.

By the way, I agree with the sentiments of your post.

EDIT: Now I've seen your post in Critiques, I know the joke was meant.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I always do some worldbuilding before I begin, but after that the story and the background tend to develop right along side of each other. Often, I'm thinking ahead, and while I am writing Chapter Five I may be scribbling background information needed for Chapter Nineteen in my notebooks. Then, of course, I have to go back later to bring Chapter One and Two into line with these new revelations -- except that often I discover that they're already there, I just didn't realize it. As a result, I have learned that a lot of my worldbuilding goes on subconsciously, which tends to keep it from piling up on the page, since I don't even know it consciously until I need to. And sometimes I leave gaps in my knowledge, where it isn't important yet to fill something in. By the time I get to the point where an answer is necessary, the story and the background are already evolved to the point where I usually don't have to pull something out of the air, the answer is already there, somewhere, I just have to look for it.

But even though this is how I do it, I still have favorite authors who put an enormous amount of world-building on the page, and because they are great artists they do keep me enthralled with "pretty prose." I can't do what they do, but I can appreciate it.