Sci Fi & Fantasy Writers at the Table Forum Building a world

Well, I suppose I will break the ice and jump in to start some discussions going.

As the description of the group points out, we are writers with visions for the world to remember. Yet how do we accomplish this?

Each one of us will approach this tall order in different ways. I have my methods and you have yours. And we can learn from each other to enrich the little microcosm we are sub-creating.

For me, I have embarked on a multi-volume fantasy series. To create a world that feels realistic to the reader, I have been doing major research on everything from aspects of styles of governing to sexual politics. I have focused on details on plants are used, to how a quill works. I look into the impact and influence religion has, as well what kind of beer a character prefers.

And this is just as important with respect to sci-fi. I've have written some sci-fi and it is still important to develop the world the reader is going to become engaged in.

So, to open the discussion and learn from each other, what are you doing to create that vision that the reader is going to remember? How you are creating that Dune or Middle-Earth? What do you think is important to focus on?

Well, I, for one, read a crap load of history books. Just finished one called Justinian's Flea by Rosen, set in that bizarre world of the end of the Roman Empire right before the birth of Mohammad. I find good history shows me what a full world looks like. Where does the food come from? Do people trade, and how, and how much, and if not, why not?

Because I write scifi, I deal with humanity (mostly), so what is important to me in building a world is keeping in mind that people want the same things for the same reasons unless I build it in for them to want something else. This is one of the ways that Dune excels and Brave New World has to address in depth, in the guts of the boots. Society is maintained by the same old threat of force, but that force is maintained by various devices, or combination of devices.

But in making a world, it's all those little things that flesh it out, but they have to have reasons to be there. Thirty years ago, I would have believed in the i-Phone, but I never could have imagined text messaging or ringtones. Hell, in 2003, the US military imagined a networked battlefield but couldn't imagine an IED.

I agree. Sci-fi is tough because you want to extrapolate a future that people will believe in. Fantasy gives you a little more leeway.

I look at David Brin's Earth. There are details he throws in about people watching each other with little video cameras in their sunglasses, especially retired people who have nothing to do. it chilled me because the technology is getting there. It is bad enough the government is putting CCD cameras everywhere for our "security". What Brin wrote is just a natural extension for this. And he wrote this in 1990.

But what made that scene work was the characters involved. How it impacted their lives. How they could not do certain things because of these busy-bodies. That to me is what good sci-fi is about, keeping the human element in. Which cannot be forgotten when building a world. Unless that world is populated with non-humans. :-)

I think the big way that many writers fail to create a believable world is the language they use to describe the world. If the character did live in the world that they're written in they wouldn't be spending their time gawking at it. If it's described as unbelievable the reader will follow suit with disbelief.

I'd like to hear about how it is/isn't easier to do "world building" in the fantasy vs. scifi genres.  I've noticed that many popular fantasy books seem to present a world with rules, and those rules present the possibility of a "technology of magic." 

I see this in "Harry Potter," of course, where magic is something that can be packaged, bought, sold, and learned by rote in a school.  (Decent enough allegory for much education today).  Also in the second trilogy of "Star Wars," where the "fantastic" element of The Force suddenly required a scientific explanation ("mitochlorians") that - for me - killed the real wonder of it. 

Nowhere in LOTR is there an explanation of magic, rules for it, things that magic can or cannot do.  It is what it does.  It's fantastic.

Is fantasy becoming more like science fiction?  Does fantasy require the same level of "Star Trek" technobabble to make magic "believable"?  And what are the other elements of "fantasy" that - for the purposes of worldbuilding - make it different from science fiction?

First off, yeah I agree with you, Phil. Language is an important aspect of any world, sci-fi or fantasy. The only time the characters should be gawking is when they hit something they don't expect.

And, oh, Calypsoidal1, you hit one of my biggest beefs about the second trilogy of Star Wars. The force was a Zen type thing which gets reduced to symbiotes or parasites, depending on how you look at it.

And you are right, fantasy has been hurt by reducing things into formulas. Yet sci-fi also falls into that trap. Trying to over-explain things instead of letting the reader wonder and ponder.

For me, magic in my story is important. But I don't want to go into details. Not just to remove the wonder but as Phil points out, it is part of the society and world. It isn't something special. I prefer to focus on the prejudice and other issues magic brings up.

Personally, I do not see a major difference between sci-fi and fantasy. We are exploring something different. We have to build a scenario that is believable and plausible. We don't have the convenience of the stuff about us. Culture in the future is different, mores change. If I wanted to write a coming of age story taking place now, I have the "safety" of using all that is about me. But in 50 years, it will be different. Politics will be different, borders will be redrawn.

I don't think world building is really that different for sci-fi or fantasy. The only advantage sci-fi has is you can possibly use cultural references for the reader which fantasy can't. You can bring up things like Kennedy's assassination or 9/11 for a near future sci-fi story, fantasy can't.

But look at something like Dune. Frank Herbert developed a complete world. That is no different than a fantasy world like Middle-Earth.

So, in my humble opinion, I don't see a difference. But I do see, in the current wave a tendency to treat readers like little children and explain everything. And it hurts both sci-fi and fantasy. It definitely hurt Star Wars. :-)

I've personally plotted out plenty of fantasy stories, made a number of maps. When I first started writing, I thought that was all it took.

How wrong I was. I've since had to go into all sorts of research. Ranging everywhere from Biology to  politics to herbalism medievil military protocol to nobility titles to architecture. It doesn't end. I've made many mistakes with past projects. Giving away too much too fast. Foreshadowing the hell out of things (easily repaired by throwing the readers left when they were looking right), endless androgynous dialogue, empty, lifeless characters with no personality, and the ocassional red shirt.

My own personal style is to plot out a basic story, write the hell out of it, and only afterwards go back for revisions, tying up loose ends, rewriting entire scenes, sometimes even rearranging chapters, maintaining continuity. The world-building process takes place before, during and after the first draft.

I find that much of the deeper aspects of world-building comes with the writing of the story, and particularly, the revisions. That's when the rules of any given world are finally fleshed out, giving an answer to the question, "What is this place?"

And that's my two cents.

My two concerns about world-building are the following:

- that it is easy to fall into a pattern of shoe-horning in detail that distracts from the plot, themes and characters; and,

- that there is too much sci-fi and fantasy writing seems to have an explanation for everything.

On a personal note I think world building has to not only have a have an intelligence, for instance - sustainable food chains that would support a dragon in your midst, but they also should have a resonance with human existence. 

History is grotesquely innaccurate -  even generations apart develop new myths.  Furthermore, the man on the street's perspective will often be at odds with a scholar's.  Likewise, science is still searching for a theory that reconciles Newtonian physics with the theory of relativity.  This week, I picked up a science magazine that frontpaged an article questioning the big bang theory.

I favour a relativist perspective where the characters are opinionated and question their environment and culture.  Some may believe in gods, other will not.  And this brings in amazing possibilities like - what happens if an atheist comes face-to-face with Zeus ?

Whilst the writer must have a clear idea of how the whole world works s/he should act like an absentee landlord and allow the characters to mess up the house with their own conclusions.   

 

 

 

I agree completely with this statement.  It's true; the characters don't always know what the hell is going on, so it's fun to let them make their own interpretations, even if it does confuse the reader (and the writer) from time to time.  In one of my fantasy novels, which is set in a primitive world, the characters all have their own theory on the "price" of magic, each backed up by their own cultural experiences, etc.  None of them are far off, but there's enough of a difference between each's theory to keep things interesting.

World building is actually one of the aspects of fantasy writing that I like the least.  I enjoy doing the research on cultures and history (especially love the research on witch hunts and witch craft I'm doing for my current book).  And the sociologist in me loves watching the conflicts arise between socities.  But it gets tedious after a while, too.  I think mostly because, as a fantasy writer, I feel a pull toward writing about worlds that are atypical to most fantasy.  It is definitely an integral part of writing fantasy, though, I believe.  My studies in sociology have rubbed off on my writing, so I can't imagine trying to write without throwing in all the cultural, religious, political, ect experiences behind each individual.  Especially if you have individuals from various cultures coming together.  And especially if you're trying to avoid writing a typical western type culture. 

To agree with something said previously, there really is a lot in common between fantasy and sci-fi, which is probably part of the reason they go together so well.  World building, really, I believe, is about creating a cultural background for the characters so that they come alive on the page.  Not so that you have a setting.  It's really all for the characters.  At least, that's how I write it. 

I sit down, shut my etes, and visual. I'll think of mountains with bizzare creatures flying over them. then I'll ask myself question like, how far is this rangs? What's to the North? Are there people there? What kind?

I take a lot of character quizzes and imagine being my character for more personal details. oh, and I imagine weather. Weather plays a key factor in the development of every country

 What about the South? are the people there aware of the people in the mountains and to the North? Is someone wanting to find out? I'll visual everything in my mind and draw my details from there. Then I'll research the details. like in my realm, thre are more Arabic/Persian type countries, then more Medieval Europe countries, but I always put in something incomprehensible and beyond our own world. Oh and I always that into consideration race and species. these people live her and look like this, those people are there and have wings, etc.

I like to put in cultural, international, and local conflicts. i also like a group of people attempting to obliterate and humiliate another, usually out of bigotry, desire for power, and revenge. There isn't usually a purely evil country or a purely good country, more like bad and good-guys-wo-have-issues figureheads, and people who are loyal to them even against their own conscience or persuasions. And then I have a couple of countries who are utterly consumed by Evil. there is no negotiating with them. There's another force involved that wants to destroy you.

And this I believe all communicates an imperfect world not really any better than ours in flaws, but adds different situations with causes not unlike Earth

I too close my eyes, and imagine myself as a citizen of the world. For me I take the world around me and teak it just enough to make the reader believes it is a new world yet, find enough similarities to make the want to go there.

Okay, let's see if I can alienate myself right out of the gate...(I just joined today.)

I agree with what everyone's put so far.

The way i like to write my world is to pretend that the different places are just as normal as London and New York.

I think if there's too much focus on how different your world is, the less fantastical it becomes.

For example, when i first started planning my world, which is called Veras, i spent a lot of time in early chapters describing the towns and villages and it just didnt sound right, but now i've just written in places like the Valley of the Slain and the village of Javov as if they're normal, which they are to my characters. 

I also wrote a foreward for my book, which was a made up bit of text from a pretend history book, which just told briefly of how the world came to be as it was.  

Not sure if that makes sense, but thats how i see it anyway.

Check out Enchanted Rivalry on my profile (lots of excerts to read) :)

 

I used to go into a lot of detail designing worlds for role-playing, and as such I used to map everything, plan out every detail so that I could let my players explore as they wished.

 

I've never done quite the same for a written world.

 

Instead, I find that I get images in my mind. I'll write little bits here and there, and keep track of the details that show up: mostly so that they don't change at a later date! For my Slick Thames setting, I've got a few ideas in my head. I want to actually get a few stories written first so that I can keep track of what's going on!

I share many of the views shown in this thread. Clearly, writing a science fiction story is more challenging than creating pure fantasy material. After all, a true science fiction story should meet certain criteria. I admit that I find this quite difficult. On the otherhand, too much seriousness in a story can simply bore the reader. Furthermore, the readership must of course be able to follow your arguments and appreciate any scientific details. Otherwise, what is the point? My most recent science fiction story, "Xtron", does make reference to the subject of "Building a world", by introducing the concept of a chemical formula which could help to increase crop yields on our planet. In addition, the alien protagonist brings various forms of advanced technology with him, such as might be useful in this mission.

Despite the great good which this new chemical compound could bring, such as putting an end to starvation, can humans be trusted not to manufacture this substance as a mere commodity? In other words, for profit alone, with inadequate attention to the bigger picture?

With sci-fi, I try to find ways to describe things without allowing the reader to know a description has been given. Then there are those things I never descibe, allowing the reader to pull them out of context.

With fantasy world-building, I think people sometimes pay a little too much attention to OUR history. In retrospect, the events that led to our modern society seem inevitable, but really, everything turns on the actions of individuals. Hell, how different would our world be if Jesus had not existed? Feudalism, the Dark Ages, and hence the Renaissance, wouldn't have been at all the same, if they'd existed at all.   So I think people have to take special care about how they shape their worlds. For example, if you have a warrior religion, how would that really shape a society? What about climate?   In many cases, we can't help but be influenced by our religion. Anglo writers (England, USA, etc) tend to put the barbarians to the north, civilisation to the south, exoticism to the east and mystery to the west - all thanks to England's position relative to the rest of the medieval/ancient world. When you study history - hell, or Tolkien - you can't help but feel these influences.   Obviously many writers use fantasy to comment on familiar themes, and a familiar setting serves best for that. But if we want to stay fresh, we have to learn to play with history a bit. Maybe black people are the central culture. Maybe the presence of dragons - huge, violent, indestructible predators - have an affect on how people farm or live. Maybe a religion that preaches freedom has resulted in a sophisticated democracy.   Who knows?

Building a world, sci-fi or fantasy, is very similar. How you immerse the reader into that world is different.