Building a World Without a Clue of Where You're Going

[Ned Marcus]

Does anyone build new fantasy (or SF) worlds by just jumping in without a clue about where they're going?

I've always planned some aspects of the world in advance: more in some stories, less in others. But I've always planned parts of the world. I've read that C.S. Lewis had no idea where he was going when he started the Narnia books, and the ideas just came to him as he went along. I feel like copying this approach—and probably will whatever anyone says. Still, I'm interested in the thoughts of others.

Have you tried anything like this?

Edit: I've done this with short stories. I'm thinking about novellas or novels here.

 

[pmmg]

I kind of did that with my current story world. I had an old D&D world I was basing stories in, but wanted to leave it behind, and just started writing in a new one. Over time I started to place things, and then made a map. Its been the story world every since.

It has some weirdness to it, but the characters in the story are not very good at finding it out. One aspect of the world is that the sky is covered in a haze, and is hard to see through. One can see the moon, but none of the stars. So....stars do not come up much in the tale. No one knows to ask about them.

I've worked it in a little, but I am not sure its really come across, and certainly not in book 1.

 

[BJ Swabb]

I do this all the time with my book series. I write and create as I go. I have an outline of what I want in the story, but as far as where and whom my protagonist meet is always a mystery until the chapter comes to present. It's always an adventure when I write as I write with what my mind gives me at the certain time and place. It's like watching a tv show or a movie for the very first time. But in my mind it is always playing when I write.

 

[Foxkeyes]

Part of a recent podcast I did concerned world building from scratch. Starting point = Room Zero, a blank room in an unknown world that is 'created' over time, using a variety of different methods including maps, art, magic, food, etc . . .

 

[JBCrowson]

Some of my scenes that are primarily conversation based I'll just let my characters go at it. I find if one person says something the other will have only a couple of plausible responses based on their character. I add in the emotional responses / unspoken thoughts, he said / she said after.

 

[Finchbearer]

I’m currently enjoying world building, however, all of my worlds (all two of them) have been fitted around the story I have in mind, not the other way around, and have evolved as the story has evolved and the characters have been developed.

 

[Queshire]

Eh? I'm confused. Do you mean starting out by writing a story and building the world around the story as you write it, or do you mean world building a world without giving thought to what kind of stories would go into it?

 

[Finchbearer]

Eh? I'm confused. Do you mean starting out by writing a story and building the world around the story as you write it, or do you mean world building a world without giving thought to what kind of stories would go into it?

You asking me?

 

[JBCrowson]

Eh? I'm confused. Do you mean starting out by writing a story and building the world around the story as you write it, or do you mean world building a world without giving thought to what kind of stories would go into it?

I read it as writing the story without pre-building the world.

 

[Finchbearer]

Eh? I'm confused. Do you mean starting out by writing a story and building the world around the story as you write it, or do you mean world building a world without giving thought to what kind of stories would go into it?

Well either way, if you were asking moi, then yes the previous answer would be correct. Story first, worldbuilding second, although I usually have a generalised setting and time period in mind as I think about the story I wish to write - which influences the worldbuilding. Maybe it’s a bit chicken and egg, you can’t have one without the other.

 

[AlexArcter]

When my friend and I decided to start writing together regularly, all I knew I wanted to do was to build my own magic system and fantasy world. So we sat down and brainstormed some stuff together, and I ran with ideas that I liked. I want to build a cohesive, coherent, well thought out magic system. The kind that the eagle-eyed readers who log every bit of information and look for inconsistencies wouldn't find anything. I don't want a "why didn't they use the time turner to kill Voldemort" kinda deal.

So at the very very beginning no, I had no idea what I was gonna do.

 

[pmmg]

don't want a "why didn't they use the time turner to kill Voldemort" kinda deal.

I dont know about everyone, but I look to avoid these as well, and in spite of it, there are just a million things you cannot account for that your readers will point out. My answer to that is along the lines of, yeah, they could have done that, but they chose a different option instead, cause....sometimes people have a lot of ways to accomplish things and have to choose one. Maybe its not the best one, but its the one they chose.

Hopefully, I did not miss a really dumb one. I dont get it. Your character spent the whole story looking for her sister. Why didn't she just look at her cell phone location? DOH!!!!

 

[AlexArcter]

I dont know about everyone, but I look to avoid these as well, and in spite of it, there are just a million things you cannot account for that your readers will point out. My answer to that is along the lines of, yeah, they could have done that, but they chose a different option instead, cause....sometimes people have a lot of ways to accomplish things and have to choose one. Maybe its not the best one, but its the one they chose.

Hopefully, I did not miss a really dumb one. I dont get it. Your character spent the whole story looking for her sister. Why didn't she just look at her cell phone location? DOH!!!!

I'm okay with people questioning character's logic and choices, I mostly wanna make sure that the logic of the magic system is sound, I don't want things to break down mechanically when it's examined in detail

 

[Finchbearer]

I think in some ways a hard magic system can ruin a story for me - I think there’s a lot of mystique and beauty in the unexplainable, which in fantasy you get a lot of because you’re dealing with magic, some of it is bound to be unknown just as we humans do not and cannot know all the mysteries of the universe - we may try, but we will never know. Although I can see why a hard magic system would appeal to those who like things to be spelled out for them and think in black and white terms.

 

[AlexArcter]

I think in some ways a hard magic system can ruin a story for me - I think there’s a lot of mystique and beauty in the unexplainable, which in fantasy you get a lot of because you’re dealing with magic, some of it is bound to be unknown just as we humans do not and cannot know all the mysteries of the universe - we may try, but we will never know. Although I can see why a hard magic system would appeal to those who like things to be spelled out for them and think in black and white terms.

I know what you mean. There are definitely times where not knowing how everything works can add to the story. I'm considering having some phenomena that's on the softer side of things, something (or things) that even as they develop more and more scientific knowledge they might still not be able to explain.

 

[Ned Marcus]

Eh? I'm confused. Do you mean starting out by writing a story and building the world around the story as you write it, or do you mean world building a world without giving thought to what kind of stories would go into it?

The first one. Having an idea for a story, but not stopping to intricately design the world, perhaps not knowing anything about it at all apart from what can be seen in the immediate surroundings.

 

[Ned Marcus]

I think in some ways a hard magic system can ruin a story for me - I think there’s a lot of mystique and beauty in the unexplainable, which in fantasy you get a lot of because you’re dealing with magic, some of it is bound to be unknown just as we humans do not and cannot know all the mysteries of the universe - we may try, but we will never know. Although I can see why a hard magic system would appeal to those who like things to be spelled out for them and think in black and white terms.

I agree about a hard magic system's potential to ruin a story. I prefer it to be mysterious. I don't want to understand too much; just some glimpses of what's happening.

 

[Mad Swede]

Yes and no (I know, that wasn't very helpful). I think things through before I start writing, but that's because I'm dyslexic. Thinking things through isn't just about the story and the characters, it's also about what they do for a living and where they're from. And once I start thinking that through the setting starts to take shape, simply because it has to. Things like agriculture, trade, money and legal issues. So yes, I do create a setting, but no I don't do so before I start creating the story.

 

[skip.knox]

There's building and then there's building. When I started with Altearth, I began with a premise: magic was real, the Roman Empire never fell, and there were fantasy beings in the world. Oh, and as much as possible I would retain all I could from the real Earth.

So, looked at in one way, I didn't have to do any world building. I just inherited a world. But I quickly found out that I had to do all kinds of inventing, or at least improvising from existing material. It's like Earth was a classic song and I was tasking myself with doing a jazz improv on it.

But even allowing for all the adjustments, when it came to specific stories, I was still inventing more or less in the dark. Or at least in a room only partially lit. I might, for example, have scenes where the MC has to cross a river. It could be a real river, but the actual point of crossing--the speed of the river, depth of the bed, the weather that day, whether or not there were monsters on the other side--I usually found I had to invent those world aspects more or less on the spot. I had the chord changes, but I still had to invent the melody.

One other thing worth mentioning. I've had to invent approaches, which is something I hadn't even thought about until well after I was actually doing it. Take magic systems, for example, but it applies to history, economic activity, social groups, and so on. I prefer inventing this stuff as I go. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to avoid retcon where possible. Once you write something into a story, every story that comes after is going to have to abide by that.

At first, that might sound like an argument for pre-design. Lay it all out, and write the stories to fit. There will be challenges, but all writing is a challenge. But I have discovered advantages to my approach that I didn't anticipate. Probably couldn't have anticipated.

One is, when I invent something--for example, that dwarves don't have a formal religion but instead practice a kind of ancestor veneration--I do this in the context of a specific story. It gets invented on the spot. Even that topic of ancestor veneration is very big, so I invented only pieces of it for that story. Then, later, I chew on that and try to fill it out because, oops, I wrote it into a story so now it's part of the world. So now I have not only the main line of practice, but I've got a splinter line--not a heresy but definitely a minority reform movement.

Which brings me to another advantage of this. Because I have over a thousand years to work with, and a whole continent, there's room for variation. So, I have people who say this is magic and others who say it isn't. I have people who explain magic one way, and others who have a different explanation. And all that varies over the centuries. This lets me write stories that have their own truths without disrupting the underlying "real" explanation. Basically it lets me do what the story needs at the moment. Which is another way that sometimes having rules and pre-set design can be liberating. Or restricting. ymmv

 

[pmmg]

One of the aspects I enjoy about writing is all the problem solving I have to do while creating it. It never stops, and keeps me having the think about it. I like puzzles, so... Even when it seems its all laid out, something comes in and Bam...new puzzle that has to be solved. Fortunately, I seem to have been able to navigate it, not been stumped yet (but i've been close to it )