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World Building and World Writing

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I've done world building, mainly back when I would DM for D&D games, but I've got an alternate history world that I really like and I have put a fair amount of work into it. But I'm sort of at a dead end. And I think that's not just okay but is a good thing.

Here's what I mean.

I could build the world. That is, I could work out magic systems and geography and climate and races and social structure and economics. I could make lists of kings.

Or I could write stories.

I'm not here to pretend writing stories is superior to world building. As long as we're all writing, I'll drink to that. But what I'm noticing is that I'm happier having the stories drive the world building.

For example.

There are elves in my world. They weren't always there, they show up at a certain point. I sort of know where they came from and mostly I know what they *aren't*. They aren't little floaty mischievous things and they aren't Tolkien elves. They don't have pointy ears.

But for the rest, instead of sitting down and drawing up a whole system for them, I'm letting them appear in my stories as they seem to fit. And as they fit into the story, I have to invent backstory and context. As a result, for example, at least some elves tend to live on the wrong side of the law. I was writing and I needed a criminal sort and my pen said "elf" and there he was. So now I had to figure out why there were bandit elves, what sort of history and sociology was in play. Was this one unusual or typical? And I went from there.

This felt better to me than the traditional world building I've done. Now, I readily admit, it may be that I can do this because I in fact have invested a great deal of context for this world -- it helps that it's simply alternate earth history, so a great deal comes ready-made. So making up elven characteristics on the fly may be easier for me than if I were dealing with a wholly invented world.

But I thought I'd bring it up for the consideration of the Dearly Assembled. The play's the thing, right? Let the story need what it needs and create the necessary background for it. Then, between acts, as it were, reconcile contradictions, smooth out the continuity issues, and in general engage in your world building just to the extent that's required by the story. Again, my case may be unusual in that I have multiple stories set in this world and intend to spend the rest of my writing life there. But hey, if a world's worth building, it's worth writing!
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Sounds a bit like my story.

I too, did a great deal of world building back in my gaming days...and for a while afterwards. Most of my early stories were set in a AD&D context.

Then I stopped writing for a while. Just real short tales aimed at specific audiences, and a few 'for fun' fragments.

When I took up writing again several years ago, I almost instinctively set my first major story on one of my old game worlds...and it showed. It made me think about the nature of my world, and rethink pretty much everything to do with it.

As a result, about half the stuff in my old notes became useless: they were based on gaming, not fiction writing. The wizardly spell lists didn't fit what the magic system morphed into. The rest are still useful, but limited: I have to think in terms of soldiers, not third level fighters. I did have to take out time from story writing at one point to put together a geneology, as several of the stories skirt the edges of a imperial dynastic crisis, but unless its something like that where I NEED to know what's what it in advance, I either consult my old notes or make it up on the fly.
 
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