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oEPISTLES FROM A GOBLIN PRINCESSo
World-building for novelists -- No, your characters *aren't* in a play.
Posted 11th December 2011 at 12:19 AM by Teresa Edgerton
Updated 23rd December 2012 at 06:10 AM by Teresa Edgerton
Updated 23rd December 2012 at 06:10 AM by Teresa Edgerton
Tags fantasy, fantasy novels, science fiction, science fiction novels, world-building, writing, writing fantasy, writing science fiction
Some of you may recognize parts of what follows from things I have said in discussions on the forums here, or from critiques I have given here or elsewhere, but I am, I think, bringing all of it together for the first time. Though it is principally addressed to fantasy writers, it applies to science fiction, too.
Back in the days of my youth, I used to spend a good deal of my time in costume: because I was involved in my local Renaissance and Christmas fairs, because I was active in the SCA, and because ... well, because I was just the kind of person who liked to run around in costume. I rather wish I was that kind of person still, because it was good, harmless fun. A common question in those days was, "Are you in a play?" It was with a great deal of weariness (because the question had been asked and answered so many times already) that I would say, "No, I'm not in a play." But though I was not in a play, I was play-acting, and one of the things I had to learn when I started writing seriously was that my characters were not acting in a play, neither were they play-acting. I had to learn the difference between a backdrop and an invented world with depth and texture. Here is a distillation of what I've learned on the subject.
Some writers seem to skip over the world-building entirely and content themselves with an odd amalgam of our modern era and the Middle Ages or a future world that is oddly similar to our own (everyone wears jeans and leather jackets). On the other hand, some spend so long building their worlds, they never get around to writing their stories. There is a middle ground, and it is an extensive one, where each writer may find a place that is comfortable, yet give readers all that they need to visualize the invented world.
Much of this article will concentrate on description: not only how it reveals your world to your readers, but how you can use it to generate insights that may help you add depth and texture to the world you are in the process of building.
Rule number one (and you will find this mentioned again and again in this article) is make the details specific. In general, a few specific, concrete, or tangible details sprinkled in along the way will allow readers to build up their own picture of a person, a place, or a culture. If characters are invited into a cottage for a meal and the cottagers offer “goat cheese and a coarse brown bread sprinkled with flaxseed” -- rather than simply “bread and cheese” -- not only does it create a more complete picture of the meal, but it suggests herds of goats and fields of flax growing nearby. “Dates and oranges” suggest a warm climate. “Fine white bread and delicate spiced meats,” suggest wealth and luxury. Longer descriptions, if the writer does them well, can add context, texture, and color, but selectivity, discrimination in choosing your words may allow you to describe briefly and more effectively what would otherwise require many words.
In some cases, adjectives may be the least part of a description. Use verbs, nouns (this goes back to what I said about specific details), adverbs, present and past participles used as adjectives, and do not rely too heavily on adjectives.
Descriptions should appeal to the senses. A long description might appeal to all five senses; a shorter description might only appeal to one or two. The sense of smell is particularly tied to emotional memory, and most of all to childhood memories. Description should appeal to the reader’s imagination, and not simply be a list of what is to be seen, heard, smelled, etc.
Characters
As for the characters that inhabit your world, descriptions of them, if handled correctly, show more than how each one looks, it provides insights into age, social status, and much more. A character who sweeps into a room as though he owns the place, though he is wearing a tunic five years out of date, scuffed boots, and a cloak of rubbed and stained velvet is either someone who has come down in the world, or a mountebank -- the other world equivalent of that man in Nigeria who wants to send you all his money. You need not recount his history. After this first impression, the next words out of his mouth should establish which one it is.
Such details, in turn, add insights into the world: Is there a class system? How does it work? How can members of each class recognize members of another at a glance, or according to the way they speak (accent, evidence of education, forms of address, etc.)? If someone has either elevated his status or lowered it, what are the clues and how do people respond to them? Is an individual of decayed gentility still more highly regarded than a useful and prosperous member of the middle class? Or are those who are upwardly mobile admired for their energy and their efforts to better themselves? (Unlikely, since any class is jealous of its privileges and reluctant to admit new members. To use a broad generalization, it is only where money and the ability to make it speaks louder than anything else that this is possible.)
World-building is also shown through dialogue. If the characters really match their setting -- if they are people who could believably exist within that invented world -- then the thoughts they express and the words they use to express them can also tell much about the world they inhabit. A perfect line of dialogue inserted at the perfect moment can be deeply revealing as to character, at the same time bringing to life the thought patterns of an entire society.
One of the best ways to reveal an invented world is how the characters act within it -- how does it mold them, how do things like social standing and custom limit them, what impact do they have on their world, to what extent are their present actions and their present situation ruled by their historical context.
It can be fairly said that world-building and characterization are so closely linked, it is almost impossible to do well at the one without paying close attention to the other. For writers who are stuck in the world-building stage and can’t progress, instead of concentrating on the characters you have outlined and then stalled on, consider what kind of people must live in your world and what the inherent challenges must be. Those are the characters and that is the story you should be telling.
Landscape
When describing landscape, again be specific. When describing a hill it is better to say, “the lower slopes were purple with heather, and dark pines grew on the summit” than to say, “trees and shrubs grew on the hill.” Note that the first one paints a vivid picture in one sentence, while the other uses seven words to create only a vague impression -- which, as a result, may read like seven words too many. Shorter is not always ... shorter. If describing places where people live (village, cities, even solitary houses) try to give each place a personality of its own. Descriptions of towns and cities should provide clues to the kind of people who live there, their habits, their religion, the economy, etc. Rather than “merchants hawked their wares from booths around the square,” a better description of a marketplace might be something like this, “From hide tents and hastily erected wooden booths men hawked their bone-handled knives, leather pouches, and crudely painted pottery. The women told fortunes and sold packets of dried herbs.” The first is generic, and the second provides clues to their society and available natural resources.
continued in next post
On World-building
Back in the days of my youth, I used to spend a good deal of my time in costume: because I was involved in my local Renaissance and Christmas fairs, because I was active in the SCA, and because ... well, because I was just the kind of person who liked to run around in costume. I rather wish I was that kind of person still, because it was good, harmless fun. A common question in those days was, "Are you in a play?" It was with a great deal of weariness (because the question had been asked and answered so many times already) that I would say, "No, I'm not in a play." But though I was not in a play, I was play-acting, and one of the things I had to learn when I started writing seriously was that my characters were not acting in a play, neither were they play-acting. I had to learn the difference between a backdrop and an invented world with depth and texture. Here is a distillation of what I've learned on the subject.
Part I
Some writers seem to skip over the world-building entirely and content themselves with an odd amalgam of our modern era and the Middle Ages or a future world that is oddly similar to our own (everyone wears jeans and leather jackets). On the other hand, some spend so long building their worlds, they never get around to writing their stories. There is a middle ground, and it is an extensive one, where each writer may find a place that is comfortable, yet give readers all that they need to visualize the invented world.
Much of this article will concentrate on description: not only how it reveals your world to your readers, but how you can use it to generate insights that may help you add depth and texture to the world you are in the process of building.
Rule number one (and you will find this mentioned again and again in this article) is make the details specific. In general, a few specific, concrete, or tangible details sprinkled in along the way will allow readers to build up their own picture of a person, a place, or a culture. If characters are invited into a cottage for a meal and the cottagers offer “goat cheese and a coarse brown bread sprinkled with flaxseed” -- rather than simply “bread and cheese” -- not only does it create a more complete picture of the meal, but it suggests herds of goats and fields of flax growing nearby. “Dates and oranges” suggest a warm climate. “Fine white bread and delicate spiced meats,” suggest wealth and luxury. Longer descriptions, if the writer does them well, can add context, texture, and color, but selectivity, discrimination in choosing your words may allow you to describe briefly and more effectively what would otherwise require many words.
In some cases, adjectives may be the least part of a description. Use verbs, nouns (this goes back to what I said about specific details), adverbs, present and past participles used as adjectives, and do not rely too heavily on adjectives.
Descriptions should appeal to the senses. A long description might appeal to all five senses; a shorter description might only appeal to one or two. The sense of smell is particularly tied to emotional memory, and most of all to childhood memories. Description should appeal to the reader’s imagination, and not simply be a list of what is to be seen, heard, smelled, etc.
Characters
As for the characters that inhabit your world, descriptions of them, if handled correctly, show more than how each one looks, it provides insights into age, social status, and much more. A character who sweeps into a room as though he owns the place, though he is wearing a tunic five years out of date, scuffed boots, and a cloak of rubbed and stained velvet is either someone who has come down in the world, or a mountebank -- the other world equivalent of that man in Nigeria who wants to send you all his money. You need not recount his history. After this first impression, the next words out of his mouth should establish which one it is.
Such details, in turn, add insights into the world: Is there a class system? How does it work? How can members of each class recognize members of another at a glance, or according to the way they speak (accent, evidence of education, forms of address, etc.)? If someone has either elevated his status or lowered it, what are the clues and how do people respond to them? Is an individual of decayed gentility still more highly regarded than a useful and prosperous member of the middle class? Or are those who are upwardly mobile admired for their energy and their efforts to better themselves? (Unlikely, since any class is jealous of its privileges and reluctant to admit new members. To use a broad generalization, it is only where money and the ability to make it speaks louder than anything else that this is possible.)
World-building is also shown through dialogue. If the characters really match their setting -- if they are people who could believably exist within that invented world -- then the thoughts they express and the words they use to express them can also tell much about the world they inhabit. A perfect line of dialogue inserted at the perfect moment can be deeply revealing as to character, at the same time bringing to life the thought patterns of an entire society.
One of the best ways to reveal an invented world is how the characters act within it -- how does it mold them, how do things like social standing and custom limit them, what impact do they have on their world, to what extent are their present actions and their present situation ruled by their historical context.
It can be fairly said that world-building and characterization are so closely linked, it is almost impossible to do well at the one without paying close attention to the other. For writers who are stuck in the world-building stage and can’t progress, instead of concentrating on the characters you have outlined and then stalled on, consider what kind of people must live in your world and what the inherent challenges must be. Those are the characters and that is the story you should be telling.
Landscape
When describing landscape, again be specific. When describing a hill it is better to say, “the lower slopes were purple with heather, and dark pines grew on the summit” than to say, “trees and shrubs grew on the hill.” Note that the first one paints a vivid picture in one sentence, while the other uses seven words to create only a vague impression -- which, as a result, may read like seven words too many. Shorter is not always ... shorter. If describing places where people live (village, cities, even solitary houses) try to give each place a personality of its own. Descriptions of towns and cities should provide clues to the kind of people who live there, their habits, their religion, the economy, etc. Rather than “merchants hawked their wares from booths around the square,” a better description of a marketplace might be something like this, “From hide tents and hastily erected wooden booths men hawked their bone-handled knives, leather pouches, and crudely painted pottery. The women told fortunes and sold packets of dried herbs.” The first is generic, and the second provides clues to their society and available natural resources.
continued in next post
Total Comments 1
Comments
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I'm so glad you've posted here again. I really enjoyed reading these entries.
I struggle with description and I like the freedom here to go my own way (light, scattered descriptions) coupled with the examples -- I loved the bread and cheese example, but I found what you said about the landscape description especially illuminating. I'd never thought of it before, but vague, generic description does often read as unnecessary filler whereas the specific example (with the purple heather/ dark pines) didn't.
Developing from the bread and cheese example in this post, there's this thread in the Workshop.Posted 11th December 2011 at 12:57 PM by Hex
Updated 14th December 2011 at 09:28 AM by Hex (Adding link to bread and cheese thread)
