Blank Spots on the Map

[Jabrosky]

While musing on my interests in history, anthropology, and archaeology, I have noticed that the cultures and time periods that appeal to my creative side the most are generally the more enigmatic or poorly documented ones, the societies which we know much less about. For example, my favorite time period in ancient Egyptian history is probably the early predynastic, back when the Egyptians still lived in small "tribal" societies and didn't leave as much in the way of written records as their dynastic descendents. I believe this is because the less scientists or historians collectively know about a given ancient society, the more creative freedom I have in reconstructing that society in art or writing. While it is true that learning more about the past can dig up some inspiring surprises, at the same time I have a lot of fun in filling up the blank spots in our knowledge with my imagination. With more widely publicized times and cultures (e.g. Imperial Rome or medieval England), you have much less creative wiggle room.

I think the same principle applies to world-building. While I definitely enjoy creating my own worlds in the beginning, it seems that the more details I add to a given project, the more likely I am to tire of it. Often I end up feeling confined by the very rules that I lay out and want to revise them. Does anyone else feel this way when it comes to world-building?

 

[Mindfire]

I think this is a good reason to worldbuild as-you-go. Doing it all at once can lead to burnout. However, if you do it right, you can make it so that finding out more about your fictional society actually leaves you with more questions than you started with, which leads to a chain of never-ending discovery. When you can accomplish that, you know you've got something good.

 

[ThinkerX]

I've created half a dozen major fantasy worlds down through the years, and probably at least that number of lesser ones.

Then I noticed something: Worlds, as in 'planets' are *BIG* - and most of my worlds existed in constrained spaces. Travel six or eight hundred miles and you were either 'off the map' or close to it. Plus I kept using similiar themes, names, and ideas. So, I took to combining these various worlds. Now I'm down to two, because, well, thats how the geography has to work. But even so, there are huge blank spots on both worlds even after all the merging.

These 'limited worlds' are also evident with the published fantasy worlds: it took Feist decades and a dozen books to cover even half of Midkemia, for example. Tolkiens 'Middle Earth' fades away into unknown realms south of Gondor and east of Mordor. Much of the geography of Martins world in 'Song of Ice and Fire' is effectively unknown. And time after time I've seen maps of other 'worlds' that are maybe only a thousand miles across - a small part of a much larger planet.

I used to put a lot of time into developing this or that aspect of my worlds...without doing much actual writing. Now, I mostly write, and refer to the more salvagable sections of my notes as when I must.

 

[Graylorne]

I'm like Feist in this. Of my world of Rhidauna, from the Revenaunt books, I've details of only one continent. Lay-out, countries etc are more or less known, although I've left myself room to wriggle. Of the other continent on the northern hemisphere I've only the borders on the map and the names of the nations filled in, without any details. I've some sketchy idea's, but that's all.
The southern hemisphere is one uncharted sea, waiting to be discovered. No Leif or Columbus has been there yet in the six centuries since the fall of the Revenaunt.
I could expand this world for the rest of my writer's life, if I wanted to.

 

[Chilari]

I feel you, Jabrosky. While my masters degree focused on classical Greece, I always tried pushing the boundary back into the archaic period; and both my undergrad and masters dissertations looked at things which haven't been much researched (seriously, who researches classical Greek beekeeping these days? I'll tell you who. Me. Almost nobody else who is still alive has written about the subject.) The unknown is enticing. Researching something that is known isn't enjoyable for me. Subject covered by shelf-fulls of thick volumes, like the Peloponnesian War? Dull. Subject covered by one book written in the 1930s by an amateur historian, one in the 1990s by a beekeeper and two articles besides in the last half century by a couple of archaeologists? I'll jump on it. Where's the fun in finding out for myself what hundreds or thousands of others have already researched in agonising detail when I can look at something only four people before me have really considered, and actually add to the total information known about it through comparing existing data those scholars knew about with new data that's only recently published?

As for worldbuilding, yes I get bored when I get too deep into the minutiae. Getting too technical saps my passion for the world. Maybe I should take a different approach with worldbuilding, forget the minutiae until they're relevant, record and leave alone and keep writing. Still, getting to a point in the first place where I know enough about the world to write a story set in it is often a little tricky. Maybe the answer is to dream it up and keep it in my head, not write it down at all except in the prose of the story, for the first draft at least, and then work on fleshing it out for draft two based on what I remember and what I included already.

 

[Anthony]

Fantasy worlds are not bound to the logic of our worlds. It is just as possible to have a one continent world the size of a country as the only landspace of a planet as it is to have a dragon.

I believe the more you detach from what history tells us, the more you are able to be creative and this is more enjoyable. I also believe that in the same way your character grows as you write them, your understanding of the world changes with the experiences of your characters as the writing progresses.

 

[imsc]

Fantasy worlds are not bound to the logic of our worlds. It is just as possible to have a one continent world the size of a country as the only landspace of a planet as it is to have a dragon.

I believe the more you detach from what history tells us, the more you are able to be creative and this is more enjoyable. I also believe that in the same way your character grows as you write them, your understanding of the world changes with the experiences of your characters as the writing progresses.

i tend to agree with this statement. sticking strictly to science and history is a limit on creativity itself. i think fantasy worlds and writing can be based in history, but should not BE history. if you're trying to be historically accurate, then you worry more about those details that really belong to another world. this is your world, with your history, your science, your gods . . . etc.. there are going to be (and should be) changes. i think it would be great to do something that really isn't based in real history at all, but it might be too far gone for the average reader to understand. this is the reason why history is used in writing as a reference point, but you should get the balance where it is not overused.