# Why does world building matter?



## FatCat (Sep 12, 2014)

To what extent does worldbuilding effect your story, and why? It seems like a lot of writers in fantasy try to emulate a certain culture to the extent of near historical fiction, just without the actual work of prescibing to details. Sometimes I wonder if world building is an exercise in imagination beyond the narrative or if it's application forwards the role in a story. Now, I know that the world in which you set a story is imperetive, but when does those elements hinder your writing or creative vision? 

Let's say I have a story about a young farmer fulfilling a prophecy (I know), how does the world you build around that narrative effect the overall narrative arch? Beyond the basics of 'when' and 'where', like, with most fantasy, Europe in ages past with knights and what-not, isn't 'how' the most important question? The idea behind the world, the reason why the stage is set in such a way. 

I'm not sure if I'm conveying my thought coherently in this post. I can see a flood of posts arguing that a unique world sets the tone for a great fantasy novel, and I would not disagree, however witnessing the stress put on mundane concerns of how a certain society would act within the strict guidelines of historical reference make me believe that the whole of world building is an exercise in over-obsessivness, a willingness to sidetrack the true meaning of what you're attempting to convey into a psuedo-historical look on a fictional society.

To stream-line the idea of world-building, I believe, is the key. To understand what is important in your world that builds within the characters dillemas and obstacles and include only the briefest mention of actual, hard-thought societal creations.

This is the problem I have with world-building, and have struggled with while writing. When does the ball stop, so to speak, and when does too much homework ruin the creative process?


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## ThinkerX (Sep 12, 2014)

Poor or limited worldbuilding shows, and detracts from the story.

Tolkien built a credible, detailed world steeped in history and traditions.   Weathertop wasn't just a ruin, it was the remnants of a watchtower, an outpost of a mighty nation.  Moria wasn't just a hole in the ground, but a fallen realm with a glorious past.  And so on.  Middle-earth *lived* and that showed through in the story.

Afterwards came the Tolkien imitators: slap dash worlds with the equivalent of cardboard cutout scenery - and that showed in the writing.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 12, 2014)

I agree that too much time spent on preliminary world-building or research can distract from or delay the actual writing process. On the other hand, I would very much like the societies I create to be plausible, as in they could actually function as intended within the parameters of a given world. I want things to make sense.

Maybe this is one reason why real historical cultures are so popular as bases for fantasy settings. You can't have a society much more plausible and potentially functional than one that actually existed.


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## Penpilot (Sep 12, 2014)

I think it's different for everyone. Certain writers legitimately need to know a certain amount before they can proceed. Others just wing it. Me, I consider myself somewhere in between. 

I'm getting well into my third novel, and as of right now, what I need in terms of world building is fairly simple. I can't remember where I got this from, but I just need to know three things. In no particular order, religion, group divisions, and moral compass.

These things obviously expand out. Religion can be many religions or none. Group divisions can mean how the world is divided up geographically, as in countries, or societal strata. And finally, moral compass means what is considered right and wrong in the world. Maybe it's considered OK that women are treated as possessions or that slavery is fine too. 

I don't need to know these things in great depth, just enough to sketch out a trail. The rest I make up on the fly. For the most part I look at my notes before I start writing, and I generally don't look back until I'm finished my first draft. If it didn't stick in my memory, then it probably wasn't all that important. This isn't a hard rule. I do look back if I remember I have notes on something very specific. Otherwise, what I come up with on the fly to fill the holes is generally better than what I had written down.


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## Svrtnsse (Sep 12, 2014)

I did craploads of world building before I even started writing. My original intent was to create a setting for P&P roleplaying, not to write a story. 
The benefit of this is that I have a very good feel for the world I'm writing in. I know the "rules". When I need to make something up on the spot I know what the limitations are and what I can work with and I can be fairly confident that what I come up with will fit within the bigger picture.

I believe that these rules are a pretty important, but often over-looked part of world-building. It's easy enough to come up with cool races and nations and magics, but it's trickier to try and figure out how their existence affects the world and what consequences they have for how the inhabitants of the world view it.
By setting up rules for how the world works and then sticking to them you're supporting your framework and your world building, making it seem more real (believable) to the reader.


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## Mythopoet (Sep 12, 2014)

FatCat said:


> This is the problem I have with world-building, and have struggled with while writing. When does the ball stop, so to speak, and when does too much homework ruin the creative process?



It sounds like you are searching for an answer that applies to fantasy writing in general, but that's just not how things like this work. The answers that you find to these questions will only apply, in specifics, to you and, more broadly, to writers who share your likes and dislikes when it comes to fantasy books and who share your goals for what you want to write. 

If your goal is to tell stories where the world is palpable and yet still mostly in the background, then that's fine. Lots of people tell stories like that. Lots of readers love them. 

Personally, as a reader, I've always loved best the fantasy that takes place in detailed worlds I can really immerse myself in. To me, the worldbuilding is just as important as the plot and the characters. If the world is bland or vague I have just as hard a time getting into a story as when the plot or the characters are lacking. As a writer, I aim to write the kind of stories I want to read and so it's important to me to have a strong, detailed foundation of worldbuilding.


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## CupofJoe (Sep 12, 2014)

For me there is a difference between “world building” and “building a world”.
It doesn’t take years of research and thousands of hours in detailed construction to make a realistic world just coherency.
Yes, the _rules_ have to apply to everyone and everything _consistently_, but on its own that isn’t the same as engaging and believable.
I can’t think [and haven’t read] that Philip K Dick or HP Lovecraft spent any time world-building as we would know it [especially in the case of PKD if what I’ve read about him is true]. Admittedly neither is “fantasy” in the purest sense, yet both these writers create some of the deepest and elaborate worlds in the stories. They leave grey ill-defined parts of their realities, maps with the proverbial [or not] “Here be dragons” legend. They do this because you and I as readers don’t need to know. It doesn’t add to our enjoyment of their stories.
Terry Pratchett has admitted that he made up the Discworld as he went along for the first few books and didn't start world building [or rather _world recording_ as I think he put it] until someone tried to make a map of Anhk-Morpork.
I like “world building” but it is more mportant to “build a world”.


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## Devor (Sep 12, 2014)

FatCat said:


> Let's say I have a story about a young farmer fulfilling a prophecy (I know), how does the world you build around that narrative effect the overall narrative arch?



I'll stick to a list of three:

 - Your characters _have already grown_ in this world.  Is the king kind or cruel?  That's going to affect their views on authority.  Are the neighbors abundant or scarce?  Friendly or rude?  Magical or mundane?  These characteristics of the world will affect the way your characters have developed before the story begins, just as they continue to throughout the story.  If you can't give each character a sense of a personality history, a sense that they "fit" the setting, they will come across as shallow and cliche.

 - Your characters and antagonists derive their resources from the setting.  The setting shapes their choices.  Can we scale the castle walls?  Magic makes it possible!  But if it makes it possible now, it did in the past, too, right?  A well-developed world in this case has characters using magic to scale the walls, gives the protectors the foresight to develop defenses against it, and has the attackers anticipating at least some of those defenses.  A shallow world leaves out the last third or two thirds of that sentence, creating characters that fail to think through their decisions.

 - ...y'know, you mentioned that "prophecy" thing.  That's gotta come from somewhere.


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## SeverinR (Sep 12, 2014)

World building matters,
1. It allows you to run your characters through known realities rather then making it totally up as you go and maybe conflicting something you made up before.
2. It helps keep reality engrained in your story.
3. It anchors your story into a world, rather then just some story, in some place, at some time.
4. It keeps you from cheating. You have established foundations that will affect how your characters enteract.  IMHO it keeps you from or helps you establish a reason something happens.  Such as: "Unicorns can't kill something unless it is intent on killing or harming something, even if it is the most pure evil."
5.It keeps the world from revolving around your character.  If you establish everything to support your story/character, then it will benefit or hender your character rather then just being part of the world. ie it will seem more contrived if you create it just for that story/situation.

As I said in the Air Force when the military exercise didn't seem realistic. 
"It's not in the script!"  ie the good guys can't win yet, its not the way they wrote the script for the exercise.


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## Queshire (Sep 12, 2014)

In my opinion there's two different ways to go about writing a story, World-first and Plot-first. With world first you start by making this cool and awesome world and then write the story to show off that world. Tolkien's a good example of this, if I remember correctly he started by coming up with his Elvish before starting to write LOTR. Table Top RPGs such as D&D or Exalted are also examples of this, particularly setting books such as Eberron which provide a ready made world to the players and then they make their own story through the action of their characters.

On the other side there's plot-first writing where you start with a story or a plot idea and only do what world building is necessary to advance the story. It feels to me that this is the sort of writing that FatCat is talking about.

Both are valid paths, though I find I lean towards world-first personally.

As for the rest of it, yes excessive world building can become procrastination when it comes to writing, I have seen this and struggled with it myself. It's a balancing act.

World Building is also fun. Imagining other worlds, other people, other ways of life? That's fun, and isn't it what writing's all about?


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## Ryan_Crown (Sep 12, 2014)

When I started my current WIP, I figured I'd only do the minimal world-building I needed to get me started in outlining the story. But every step I took, I discovered some aspect of world-building that needed to be done. I realized that the character's whole journey was through this nebulous, not-really-developed environment. So I started developing the history/geography of the city that's the starting point of the story. But as I developed this city, I realized I needed to know more about the region as a whole, and as this developed, I came to the conclusion that I would be much better served by knowing the setting as fully as I could _before_ I wrote the actual story.

The other factor that played a big part in this decision for me was that I'm hoping to write a series of novels set in the same world, which meant that my world-building wasn't just background work for my current WIP, it was potentially background work for many (if not most) of my future stories going forward. That was the point where I decided that putting the story itself on hold, and dedicating my time to fully build the world of the story was the only way to go. As I've developed the world, I've come across so many questions about the races and cultures, the geography, etc. that would likely have arisen during my story. This way, I can get those questions answered now, so that I'm not stuck breaking the flow of my writing later if I hadn't done the world-building.

So that's my take on it, at least as far as my own writing goes.


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## Feo Takahari (Sep 12, 2014)

I've never needed to build a world, but I've often needed to build a town. What are the local laws? What attitudes do the citizens share? What do they consider prosperity, and what do they consider lack of resources? From there, I may need to build a region, or a society, or even a continent, showing the differences from place to place.


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## Incanus (Sep 12, 2014)

I can be firmly emplaced with the world-building proponents.  I'd say that the subject of 'setting' in general is often important in any and all genres.  There are many non-fantasy stories where the setting is crucial, informing the plot and characters and theme.  In fantasy, I think its almost always more important still.  I recommend going both wide and deep when world-building.  Wide--add more original names, peoples, cultures, creatures, items, places.  Deep--think through the implications of these things in the world; think them all the way through, as Devor so eloquently described.  It takes work and patience.  And yes, continue to world-build while you draft, adding in a new level of detail, and again when revising, sneaking in another round of details.  Do this, and see it all the way through, and you might just end up with a Middle-earth, or a Westeros.

(Actually Middle-earth is not likely to ever happen again:  Nobody is going to spend 40-50 years working out a backstory to sell two novels (in Tolkien's lifetime).  Not that that was the plan from the beginning, but that is how it worked out.)


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## Mythopoet (Sep 12, 2014)

Incanus said:


> (Actually Middle-earth is not likely to ever happen again:  Nobody is going to spend 40-50 years working out a backstory to sell two novels (in Tolkien's lifetime).  Not that that was the plan from the beginning, but that is how it worked out.)



Well, this is probably more because Tolkien was a perfectionist than it is because of his worldbuilding. He didn't even finish the one book that he really did spend his whole lifetime working on: The Silmarillion. It went through many versions and ultimately had to be readied for publication by his son after his death. The Hobbit wasn't even meant to take place in Middle-earth when he first wrote it. But of course, if The Hobbit hadn't been tied into Middle-earth and LOTR subsequently published due to popular demand, The Sil would never have been published at all. There was no market for it until LOTR became a huge bestseller.

I approach my worldbuilding quite like Tolkien. I have invented one secondary world that I pour my heart and soul into and my goal is to flesh it out at least as much as Tolkien fleshed out Middle-earth (though minus the constructed languages). I will happily spend the rest of my life working on this world. I hope to tell as many of its tales as I can along the way. The main difference is that I don't need a publisher to approve of my work and find a market for it. I can just happily self-publish as I go.


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## Terry Greer (Sep 12, 2014)

Worldbuilding matters to the extent that if you don't give a crap about your setting - then why should anyone else.
You owe it to your readers to have consistency in what you right, and for that consistency to be 'plausable' - not necessarily realistic.
However you also need to ensure that you're not arrogant enough to think that what doesn't concern you won't concern someone else. I've lost track of the number of novels I've stopped reading after I've lost confidence in the author to remember what they've already said about their world earlier, or where they've simply not seen (to me anyway) a blindingly obvious or contradictory flaw in their worldbuilding. For me it breaks immersion completely. Everyone draws that line somewhere different, but we all have a line that breaks a world for us. Your worldbuilding needs to keep well clear of that line.


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## Incanus (Sep 12, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> my goal is to flesh it out at least as much as Tolkien fleshed out Middle-earth



I pretty well agree with what you've said in your post, and I'm going to be doing something similar--setting all my stories, or nearly all, in my one, big world.

But, what I quoted above may be a bit more ambitious than you realize; at least in my view.  I'm inventing a number on the spot here, but I'd say that the next most fully realized world of any kind after Middle-earth, might contain at most about 25% of Tolkien's work.  I've read all twelve of the History of Middle-earth books, in addition to Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and the LOTR appendicies, and the sheer amount of detail is jaw-dropping.  Most fantasy books, including series', could fit comfortably within the borders of the Shire, even many of the 10+ book works that are out there.  The Shire alone has somewhere around 150-200 original hobbit names, probably a good 50 place names, history, customs, timeline, and all kinds of stuff.  I'm not going to be doing the con-lang thing either, but that's a whole other chunk of detail.

I'd be amazed to be proven wrong, but I still think we shall never see its like again.  Ever.


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## Mythopoet (Sep 12, 2014)

Incanus said:


> I pretty well agree with what you've said in your post, and I'm going to be doing something similar--setting all my stories, or nearly all, in my one, big world.
> 
> But, what I quoted above may be a bit more ambitious than you realize; at least in my view.  I'm inventing a number on the spot here, but I'd say that the next most fully realized world of any kind after Middle-earth, might contain at most about 25% of Tolkien's work.  I've read all twelve of the History of Middle-earth books, in addition to Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and the LOTR appendicies, and the sheer amount of detail is jaw-dropping.  Most fantasy books, including series', could fit comfortably within the borders of the Shire, even many of the 10+ book works that are out there.  The Shire alone has somewhere around 150-200 original hobbit names, probably a good 50 place names, history, customs, timeline, and all kinds of stuff.  I'm not going to be doing the con-lang thing either, but that's a whole other chunk of detail.
> 
> I'd be amazed to be proven wrong, but I still think we shall never see its like again.  Ever.



A lot of HOME is material appears only in early versions and was dropped from later versions, material that is redundant (multiple versions of the same story), or simply non-canonical (fragments that likely never would have made it into the canon even if he'd had more time to work on it). I'm a bigger Tolkien fan than most people (I have a daughter named Luthien and a son named Maedhros) but I think you're overestimating the actual amount of solid information that exists about Middle-earth. The Shire isn't that big and there are more than a few fantasy writers who have put at least that much work into their worlds. M. A. R. Barker and Steven Erikson come to mind. And I'm sure there will be many more to come, especially now that the world of publishing is opening up beyond what large corporations think there is a solid market for.


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## Devor (Sep 12, 2014)

Incanus said:


> But, what I quoted above may be a bit more ambitious than you realize; at least in my view.  I'm inventing a number on the spot here, but I'd say that the next most fully realized world of any kind after Middle-earth, might contain at most about 25% of Tolkien's work.



I can't tell you how much I despise myself for saying this.

*sigh*

_Warcraft._


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## Incanus (Sep 12, 2014)

Devor said:


> I can't tell you how much I despise myself for saying this.
> 
> *sigh*
> 
> _Warcraft._



Oh, right.  I should probably further qualify what I'm saying.  I'm talking about a world created for literature purposes and designed by a single person.

I've only dabbled a little in Warcraft, was the entire thing designed by a single individual?  I'm guessing not.

I've read the whole Malazan series, and I dig it.  There's a lot there for sure.  I suppose it would be difficult to quantify this stuff, and who would want to?  When speaking of the Shire, I didn't mean physical size, but number of details.  I think it is safe to say that the entire Robert Jordan world has less detail than the Shire, for instance.

There is also the matter of quality.

For now, I'm standing by what I said earlier.


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## Incanus (Sep 12, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> (I have a daughter named Luthien and a son named Maedhros)



Apologies for the thread hijack--

That is awesome!  I'm wondering how you pronounce Maedhros, though.  Are you using the voiced _th_ sound (like in the word:  then), or the 'D' sound?


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## Devor (Sep 12, 2014)

Incanus said:


> I've only dabbled a little in Warcraft, was the entire thing designed by a single individual?  I'm guessing not.



I can respect that there are certainly many differences that make the comparison moot for the most part.  And I'm a fan of Tolkein.  But Warcraft is far and away the richer IP, and Chris Metzen, who greenlights the lore, deserves most of the credit for the world they've developed.

Looking at what Tolkein created, however, I think you do have a point in many regards.  At the same time, the world building in A Song of Ice and Fire is often just as deep in its own somewhat different way.  Tolkein's worldbuilding goes back eras, but Martin has reams of secondary characters on a scale that's almost unheard of in literature.  It's likely that both of these will go unrepeated, in some ways, but I think Martin shows that there's still room for the genre to grow in depth in ways that we have yet to see.


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## FatCat (Sep 13, 2014)

Let's first get out of the way that I've never read Tolkien.

From what I've heard, though, he is obviously the master craftsman of worldbuilding, and as such I can see why his name is brought up so frequently in this conversation. If you understand my first post beyond the title of the thread, I'm not disregarding world building as a legitmate function.  Sometimes a backstory makes the connect between the mundane and something captavating to the reader. And while this obsessive-function of world-building is striking, I don't believe it to be the norm. 

As Devor stated, if your world has the ability to make castles irrelevent, why would castle exist? A solid world-building concern. The question, for me, arises when the need for the details of your world cascade into a  "non-fiction" account of rhetoric behind the actual narrative. Instead of a fictional account to motivate a character, such as a cruel king, why that cruel king exists inside the character's development is more important. 

So, then, when does world-building coincide with character development? Or is it one in the same? I'd most likely find 100 pages of what basically is a phone book of the Shire less fascinating than a novel explortion of the human condition. an idea that the genre of fantasy can easily shadow upon.


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## ThinkerX (Sep 13, 2014)

> So, then, when does world-building coincide with character development? Or is it one in the same?



Harry Mondon grows up in a large city where mages wear green cloaks secured with intricate broaches denoting their alliance to this or that wizardly sub-faction.   The cities ruler is chosen by lot, rules for five years and then ritually executed.  Literally anybody in the city can be chosen as ruler. 

These things shape Harry's personality.  Moving elsewhere, he still associates green cloaks with wizards, and finds the notion of a purely hereditary leadership to be bizarre.

Elaborating on why this is so requires worldbuilding.


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## Mythopoet (Sep 13, 2014)

Incanus, I guess my problem with your argument is that you're basically saying that even if it is my goal and I put in the time and effort, I can't do what Tolkien did. Now, I would be more than willing to concede that I may not have the skill to create a world as believable and beloved as Middle-earth, but you're basing your argument on the number of names associated with The Shire (which is not all that large a number) and the general quantity of detail in Middle-earth. At least, that seems to be the crux of your argument. The amount of details in Middle-earth is simply not as large as you think it is (I think I have some insight into this as someone who has had arguments as to exactly which details from works like HOME and UF and even The Sil can be counted as canonical for RP). As much as I love Tolkien, it's simply not that hard to sit down and generate a ton of details about an imaginary world. I can do it. Other authors have done it. The genuineness and depth of the details is another matter, but that doesn't seem to be what you are arguing. 

And we pronounce Maedhros as Mythros. We don't stress about whether the th sound is pronounced like _then_ or _throw_ because Maedhros ended up being autistic and needed lots of speech therapy just to be able to communicate with us. It's a lot easier for him to say it as in _throw_ so we roll with it.


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## Mythopoet (Sep 13, 2014)

FatCat said:


> Let's first get out of the way that I've never read Tolkien.
> 
> From what I've heard, though, he is obviously the master craftsman of worldbuilding, and as such I can see why his name is brought up so frequently in this conversation. If you understand my first post beyond the title of the thread, I'm not disregarding world building as a legitmate function.  Sometimes a backstory makes the connect between the mundane and something captavating to the reader. And while this obsessive-function of world-building is striking, I don't believe it to be the norm.
> 
> ...



You seem to be completely misunderstanding what worldbuilding actually is. "100 pages of a phone book of The Shire"? Do you actually believe that is what worldbuilding amounts to?


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## thedarknessrising (Sep 13, 2014)

Before I started my WIP, I detailed the history of the land. I wrote of the major wars, the heroes, the political turmoil, etc. In doing so, the stories started to come alive on their own. I could pick any war and write the story surrounding it. Perhaps there's a character somewhere in my notes who has a really epic story that needs told. I can go through my notes and write about his exploits.


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## Gurkhal (Sep 13, 2014)

If our story is a play then I would think that the stage that the play takes place on is constructed with our world building. It will be much more difficult to get a grasp on what's going on if there isn't a world to support the story and make sense of what is going on.

That's my immediete thoughts on the matter anyway.


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## Incanus (Sep 13, 2014)

Hey Mytho--I like to think we probably have more in common than not.  I like to think we're on the same team, but are having a little dispute about some arcane strategy or something.  I'm loathe to argue against someone with children named Luthien and Maedhros!  (So cool).  I'm normally pretty level-headed, but I can see how some of my Tolkien enthusiasm could be a bit annoying.  I want to be super-clear about one thing--I did not at all mean to sound discouraging.  I want you to work on a detailed world, I'm glad you are and I encourage you to do so, I sincerely hope that you succeed (it sounds like something I would want to read!).  From my point of view, there isn't enough of them out there yet (good ones that I really love).  I'm doing the same thing myself.  But, I have too much to say on this subject, though, and want to get back on point.

My advice to FatCat--I don't know anything about what project you have in mind and fantasy can be wildly versatile and is full of sub-genres.  Re-reading your OP, I think the most important thing for you to consider is the finding of ideas to work with that you LOVE.  I gather that coming up with more and more world details and spending time on world-building would, for you, end up being a tedious chore, done only because it was perceived to be somehow 'expected'.  For me its a labor of love, no matter what ultimately gets used.  I'm thinking of two examples of 'successful' stories that have little or no world-building in them:

The Blade Itself, Joe Abercrombie--I saw very little 'world' here.  I don't think there were a dozen place names in the whole thing, and no map or glossary needed.  (It was an OK book, not terrible, not awesome--lack of world building was a factor for me.)

The movie Midnight in Paris--I know, its a romantic comedy, but the fantasy element is the major mechanism for the whole thing.  No world-building at all, none needed.  The fantasy element isn't even explained.  Nor does it need to be.  It works fine.  I liked the movie for what it was, but I didn't really love it.

Maybe not the greatest examples, but the point is that there are 'degrees' of world building ranging from a billion details to one that might be used in making a fantasy story.  Try to stick to what you think is important and try to minimize the details you don't care about, or don't seem to add anything.  It might not be a book that would interest me, but if its otherwise done well, there should be plenty out there who would appreciate it.

(And yeah, the 'phone-book' thing I usually associate with fantasy outsiders dismissing the genre as a whole--again I don't know what project you're working on, but I have to wonder:  does it even need to be a fantasy at all?  I guess I'm just not picking up much enthusiasm for fantasy from you, right or wrong.)


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## Penpilot (Sep 13, 2014)

One thing I failed to mention in my post is what you don't say about a world can be just as important as what you do say. Sometimes worlds feel larger than they actually are, in terms of actual text and details supplied, because the author gave enough information so that the reader could fill in the rest. Whether or not what they filled in was accurate to what the author envisioned didn't matter. As long as it sparked the reader's imagination to dream beyond the page, then the world becomes larger and grander.


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## Svrtnsse (Sep 13, 2014)

Penpilot said:


> One thing I failed to mention in my post is what you don't say about a world can be just as important as what you do say. Sometimes worlds feel larger than they actually are, in terms of actual text and details supplied, because the author gave enough information so that the reader could fill in the rest. Whether or not what they filled in was accurate to what the author envisioned didn't matter. As long as it sparked the reader's imagination to dream beyond the page, then the world becomes larger and grander.


This matches well with a previous post here:


CupofJoe said:


> I can’t think [and haven’t read] that Philip K Dick or HP Lovecraft spent any time world-building as we would know it [especially in the case of PKD if what I’ve read about him is true]. Admittedly neither is “fantasy” in the purest sense, yet both these writers create some of the deepest and elaborate worlds in the stories. They leave grey ill-defined parts of their realities, maps with the proverbial [or not] “Here be dragons” legend. They do this because you and I as readers don’t need to know. It doesn’t add to our enjoyment of their stories.


In the case of Lovecraft I think that leaving the information out actually improves the story. The things we can suspect or imagine or fear in our own minds are very likely to be more fearsome than what they could have actually put on paper. So in this case it's about know what to leave out for best effect, rather than what to show.


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## WooHooMan (Sep 13, 2014)

Svrtnsse said:


> In the case of Lovecraft I think that leaving the information out actually improves the story. The things we can suspect or imagine or fear in our own minds are very likely to be more fearsome than what they could have actually put on paper. So in this case it's about know what to leave out for best effect, rather than what to show.



A lesser known fact about Lovecraft was that his mythos and Conan the Cimmerian share their universe.  Isn't that interesting?  Each time Howard wrote a Conan story, he was fleshing-out (in some small way) the universe of Lovecraft.  And vice versa.  There were other writers who also shared the universe as well.  And this universe was really a strange kind of extension of our own.

Most, if not all, of Howard's worldbuilding for the Conan saga was done in a single essay called "The Hyborian Age".  Which opens with the following disclaimer:

_"Nothing in this article is to be considered as an attempt to advance any theory in opposition to accepted history. It is simply a fictional background for a series of fiction-stories. When I began writing the Conan stories a few years ago, I prepared this 'history' of his age and the peoples of that age, in order to lend him and his sagas a greater aspect of realness. And I found that by adhering to the 'facts' and spirit of that history, in writing the stories, it was easier to visualize (and therefore to present) him as a real flesh-and-blood character rather than a ready-made product."_

And I think that's the point of worldbuilding: make the characters and setting feel more real by giving them some ethos.  And, of course, ethos is one of the fundamental ways of appealing to an audience.


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## Hananas59 (Sep 14, 2014)

Well why does World Building matter?
The answer to that question is pretty simple for me.
For me the world I make is one of the most important things. When you've got a strong world set up you can create characters and a setting for it much easier. The setting you have in mind can be used in the world building to make a strong world that lets you remember a project/novel.


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## SeverinR (Sep 15, 2014)

Feo Takahari said:


> I've never needed to build a world, but I've often needed to build a town. What are the local laws? What attitudes do the citizens share? What do they consider prosperity, and what do they consider lack of resources? From there, I may need to build a region, or a society, or even a continent, showing the differences from place to place.


You world build as you need it.  You establish the world on a small scale, the only need is the local town/city. What the realm does outside of the town/city doesn't matter to the story.  That's how I started, but then I started a second and a third story in the same world, so I needed to tie them together.  I am world building to the country and it's primary enemy country(basically only the basics for the enemy) There are neighboring countries, but I have not needed them so, they are a blank canvas.  When Bored I create animals or plants that I might include in the stories as interesting mentionables, rather then important plot notes. Little things to make the world more real.



FatCat said:


> Let's first get out of the way that I've never read Tolkien.
> 
> From what I've heard, though, he is obviously the master craftsman of worldbuilding, and as such I can see why his name is brought up so frequently in this conversation. If you understand my first post beyond the title of the thread, I'm not disregarding world building as a legitmate function.  Sometimes a backstory makes the connect between the mundane and something captavating to the reader. And while this obsessive-function of world-building is striking, I don't believe it to be the norm.
> 
> ...


If there is a way to defeat castles, then how profitable would it be to invest in a castle? If there is only a percentage of people able to destroy the walls with magic or might alone, and every country has an army, then a castle could protect from the majority of people, while they would have a way of dealing with the castle breakers. Special defenses, anti-mage mages, etc.
If the tactic or ability is known, then the common warrior will know of it, and will have considered how best to deal with the problem. (definately alot more then some writer would, the writer is safe from harm, the defender's betting his life on his defenses and tactics.)

Anyone know if Rowling is a big world builder or is she a story driven writer? I assume she is a creator as she goes, since I heard there is contradictions in magic through the books.
My goal in world building is to have all my stories follow all the rules established in my world building no matter if they are Mentalists, Mages in training, Warriors, Dragon corp.

My world building royalty goes up to Baron/Baroness, I won't be writing King/Queen, Prince/Princess characters for a while. I would think the part of my story devouted to these high ranking leaders would only be a cameo.  
I am not one to enjoy writing politics, RR Martin does that very well, I don't think I could.
As you can guess, my novels are not Epic.

Just a note on my world building... I use Word, I compiled all my world into one large document, I believe the last check, my* table of Contents*(toc) is 10 pages long.  Later I changed it to more of an encyclopedia style document.


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## FatCat (Sep 16, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> You seem to be completely misunderstanding what worldbuilding actually is. "100 pages of a phone book of The Shire"? Do you actually believe that is what worldbuilding amounts to?



That is my opinion of excessive world-building, to the point where your writing a world for your own pleasure instead of illuming a narrative arch.


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## Mythopoet (Sep 16, 2014)

FatCat said:


> That is my opinion of excessive world-building, to the point where your writing a world for your own pleasure instead of illuming a narrative arch.



And yet every time you talk about worldbuilding in this thread you've described it in terms that make it sound like you find all worldbuilding excessive. 

Let's be clear here, there is no "100 page phone book of the Shire". It doesn't exist. You made it up. There are appendices to LOTR that give significant amounts of worldbuilding information including several Hobbit family trees full of names. To reiterate: these are not a part of the narrative, they are appendices added after the end of The Return of the King. No one is required to read the appendices, but scores of Tolkien fans have enjoyed learning more about Middle-earth because of them. And perhaps when you write the book of the century you can criticize Tolkien's worldbuilding. 

The bottom line is, there are many, many fantasy readers who read fantasy specifically because of the worldbuilding. Only the speculative genres (sci fi, fantasy, and sometimes horror) require a foundation of worldbuilding that sets them apart from the real world and from other genres. For a large number of the readers of speculative fiction, THIS IS THE POINT OF READING IT. I include myself in that number. I love worldbuilding. I crave worldbuilding. I want to be transported away from real life by the books I read, to explore new worlds and new civilizations. I've put down I don't know how many books because of a lack of worldbuilding. I've only read one book where I said to myself, "Wow, tone down the worldbuilding details, man." Why do you think LOTR is the most popular book of the last century? People LOVE Middle-earth. It's the one thing almost anyone whose read the book and liked it agrees on: Middle-earth is awesome.

So, it all comes down to this: Worldbuilding matters because readers want it.


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## WooHooMan (Sep 16, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> Why do you think LOTR is the most popular book of the last century? People LOVE Middle-earth.



[citation needed]



Mythopoet said:


> So, it all comes down to this: Worldbuilding matters because readers want it.



Not always.  It depends on the reader, as do most things.  
I actually know two people who gave-up on LotR (and an additional two or three people who didn't like LotR) because they felt the worldbuilding was distracting.

I do, however, think it is safe to say that readers want some character/personality in the setting and worldbuilding is a good way in which that can be provided.  
It's as valid a writing tool as mood or style.

I also agree with you that _some_ readers mostly care about the setting in fantasy and some writers find worldbuilding as fun and as rewarding an activity as actually storytelling.  There are plenty of people who create a setting for the sake of creating a setting.  And that's fine.  There are also people who write story with little thought or interest in the setting.  That's also fine.

Now, I'm going to go ahead and backtrack to FatCat's initial post...



FatCat said:


> Let's say I have a story about a young farmer fulfilling a prophecy (I know), how does the world you build around that narrative effect the overall narrative arch? Beyond the basics of 'when' and 'where', like, with most fantasy, Europe in ages past with knights and what-not, isn't 'how' the most important question? The idea behind the world, the reason why the stage is set in such a way.



Generally, I like to have themes illustrated in the setting.
In the example you've provided, I'd imagine such a story would involve the Campbellian Hero's Journey business of the Known world vs. the Unknown world/world of Adventure.  In a typical Feudalistic European setting, the rural peasantry can act as the Known world while the noble upper-crust (as in knighthood) or the mythic elements (prophecy) acts as the Unknown world.  So, the setting would reflect the theme.  
Usually, the kind of fantasy that falls back on these cliches do so because it's a simple way to illustrate the main characters development from youth (farm boy) to maturity (epic hero/knight).

I recently did a story about the dichotomy between dreams and reality.  So, I used Aboriginal Australian culture as a basis for the setting.  What with the whole "Dreamtime" thing.  I didn't do a historical fantasy because real Dreamtime spirituality wouldn't illustrate the theme as well.
And the setting was a desert to both better fit the Australian-vibe and to demonstrate the main character initial feelings of isolation and stagnation (which acts as their motivation).



> the rest of FatCat's first post



I notice that when people give advice on how to worldbuild, they tend to ask a lot of rhetorical question, usually dealing with unromantic and mundane things like economics.
I think if we were to create a more streamline method of worldbuilding, we would have to acknowledge that different stories/settings have different needs.

Likewise, the use of actual cultures (especially historic cultures) as a basis is a phenomena that may be with looking at.  How often do people create fantasy cultures straight from the own imaginations without any historic basis?  And how often do people use preexisting fictional cultures as a basis?  

And are historically-based, fiction-based and straight-fantasy all equally valid ways to go about creating cultures?  It seems like people look down on fiction-based as copying or a lack of originality (despite a lot of people doing it) while historically-based is seen as the norm and straight-fantasy is seen as the ideal.


_I've been on this forum for too long, my posts keep getting longer and longer._


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## Svrtnsse (Sep 16, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> So, it all comes down to this: Worldbuilding matters because readers want it.



...and because I want it. At least in my case.


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## Devor (Sep 16, 2014)

WooHooMan said:


> [citation needed]










Mythopoet said LOTR was the most popular book of the last century, and most of Harry Potter's success is from this century.  So, putting aside the Bible, and the Chairman's book that I can't even describe without sounding political, I think her statement is pretty accurate.


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## WooHooMan (Sep 16, 2014)

Devor said:


> Mythopoet said LOTR was the most popular book of the last century, and most of Harry Potter's success is from this century.  So, putting aside the Bible, and the Chairman's book that I can't even describe without sounding political, I think her statement is pretty accurate.



I wasn't literally asking for a citation, that was kind of a joke.
But mostly, I'm trying to say that Middle-Earth shouldn't be the standard by which all fantasy settings are measured regardless of how successful LotR is.  Middle-Earth and it's use or level of detail might have worked for Tolkien but whatever, not everyone is trying to write Lord of the Rings or something like it.


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## Svrtnsse (Sep 16, 2014)

WooHooMan said:


> I wasn't literally asking for a citation, that was kind of a joke.
> But mostly, I'm trying to say that Middle-Earth shouldn't be the standard by which all fantasy settings are measured regardless of how successful LotR is.  Middle-Earth and it's use or level of detail might have worked for Tolkien but whatever, not everyone is trying to write Lord of the Rings or something like it.



Whether it should or not is an entire discussion in its own right. We can debate the quality of it back and forth for ages and we probably won't reach any kind of conclusion or agreement.

The fact (as I see it), is that thanks to its renown and its impact on the fantasy genre it IS a de facto standard to measure against when it comes to world building. There are surely better worlds, made with more detail, but they're not necessarily as well known. 
Middle Earth is a setting with which most people "in the scene" are familiar with to some extent. That is, of course, only in cases where someone feels the need to measure up against something. Ideally we ought just to write what we feel like because we enjoy it, without paying too much attention to what Tolkien did or didn't do.



For me, with my writing, the important part isn't to tell a certain story or stories, but rather to provide a pleasant escapist reading experience. To that end, the setting feels really important, which is why I've put a lot of effort into it. It makes me more confident about my world when I know in detail how it works and I don't have to stop and figure it out as I'm going.
Once I sit down to write I can focus on just getting the words down and I don't need to stop and consider the implications of whatever new additions I come up with for the world (luminous-tail night-squirrels).

This is what works for me and what I enjoy doing with what I'm trying to do.


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## Mythopoet (Sep 16, 2014)

WooHooMan said:


> I wasn't literally asking for a citation, that was kind of a joke.
> But mostly, I'm trying to say that Middle-Earth shouldn't be the standard by which all fantasy settings are measured regardless of how successful LotR is.  Middle-Earth and it's use or level of detail might have worked for Tolkien but whatever, not everyone is trying to write Lord of the Rings or something like it.



Multiple polls found LOTR to be the most popular book written in its century. Given the enduring nature of its popularity, I think it's a safe claim. 

And I'm not saying any of that. I am always vocal in my belief that writers should write whatever they most enjoy. But this thread seems to be calling into question the entire concept of and purpose of worldbuilding. I think it's fair to point out that the most popular fantasy book ever has a strong emphasis on worldbuilding. That doesn't mean that all fantasy books should, but it supports the argument that worldbuilding is important to fantasy.


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## WooHooMan (Sep 16, 2014)

I thought we've already come to the conclusion that worldbuilding has a practical use.  Tolkien's an example of how worldbuilding proved to be useful but you could point to a number of fantasy works to support that statement.

But I dont think FatCat questioned whether or not there _was_ a use to worldbuilding.  They asked how and when is worldbuilding useful or valuable.


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## SeverinR (Sep 16, 2014)

World building is needed. To what point is what a writer must decide. Create only what you need or create more then you will ever use. World building is a must for any world other then ours, and even historical fiction needs some world reconstruction if not world building. Because the world of olde is not known to the world today enough to truly experience it.

If you don't world build you can easily over create for the story at hand. Writing the world for a story rather then writing the story in a world.  If the world revolves around your story, then things happen just to make the story work.  If the story revolves around your world then things happen in the world as things happen to us in the real world.
To me, it prevents cheating.  You create something to make it easier or more difficult for the characters, instead of feeling like its actually a part of the world.

Its like a dream or time travel. Either one makes the story meaningless, since you simply wake up and the story never happened or go back in time and change the story.  (Disclaimer; Time travel, if done right is interesting, but to save the day at the end with no mention is a cheat.)


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## Chessie (Sep 16, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> Multiple polls found LOTR to be the most popular book written in its century. Given the enduring nature of its popularity, I think it's a safe claim.
> 
> And I'm not saying any of that. I am always vocal in my belief that writers should write whatever they most enjoy. But this thread seems to be calling into question the entire concept of and purpose of worldbuilding. I think it's fair to point out that the most popular fantasy book ever has a strong emphasis on worldbuilding. That doesn't mean that all fantasy books should, but it supports the argument that worldbuilding is important to fantasy.


Absolutely. Worldbuilding...the word itself makes me feel like there's a weight on my shoulders and something I MUST do. I groaned at it. But when I started viewing it as setting, which is just as important as characters, plot, problem, it became easier and much more fun. I ended up creating a world that is dear to me, and I'm so glad it ended up like this.

Think of it this way: fantasy is another world. Sure, in other genres the world is important, too. But not like it is with fantasy. To be an efficient writer in this genre, creating another world is important because the whole idea of the genre is that it takes place outside of real world expectations. That's rather cool.


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## thecoldembrace (Sep 16, 2014)

A good quote by Ace Antonio Hall sums it all up for me. 



> "When you get some free time, write. When you get some lazy time, plan. When you get down time, world build. When your time comes, shine!"



Worldbuilding makes a story breathable by the reader. A good world, with the time spent in making it will show a glimmer, a spark, a firefly light of your soul and make all that you create more real and inspiring to those who will never meet you. Your characters will thank you, you will thank yourself for your preparation, and your readers will thank you for showing them a glimpse of the real you.

That's all me.

-Cold


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## FatCat (Sep 17, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> And yet every time you talk about worldbuilding in this thread you've described it in terms that make it sound like you find all worldbuilding excessive.



You picked a glib expressive to my idea of excessive world-building to quote, so I can see how you came to that conclusion. Though I believe I get your point beyond that, and I have my own ideas and opinions on what world building should be. This post came about from some time on this forum, and many writers inquiring about whether certain ideas in their world could/should/how-can-they exist. I hesitate to use an example, because it seems like a theme that the example itself is criticized disregarding the context, but here we go.

I have a problem. In my world, I want three suns. How can I make this work? Any astronomers online that can help me? 

Now, enter the people knowing something of this field. The astrophysics of such a thing, how it'd effect the life on that planet, such on. But the question why is surpassed by the notion of originality, because, three suns is different that our own one star. But why that concept exists beyond orginality is lost, why having three suns effects the characters and how having those two extra suns is imperative to the narrative.

I must stress, again, that I understand how setting effects a story. I don't disregard the whole of world-building. I do, however, wonder at what limits should be put on making a world. When it matters, and when it doesn't. 

That is the summation of what I'm trying to say. There's been a lot of great responses of how people write and why they feel that way, and that is the sole reason I made the thread. To understand a different opinion than mine.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 17, 2014)

FatCat said:


> I have a problem. In my world, I want three suns. How can I make this work? Any astronomers online that can help me?
> 
> Now, enter the people knowing something of this field. The astrophysics of such a thing, how it'd effect the life on that planet, such on. But the question why is surpassed by the notion of originality, because, three suns is different that our own one star. But why that concept exists beyond orginality is lost, why having three suns effects the characters and how having those two extra suns is imperative to the narrative.


Whatever the narrative significance of three suns in a world, I've come to the conclusion that designing a perfectly "realistic" fantasy world is impossible as long as human knowledge of how the real world works remains incomplete. We do not know everything and probably never will. Even the reality we can perceive is subject to varied interpretations due to different worldviews. Given that, inaccuracies and implausibilities to one degree or another are inevitable. Even stories which seem realistic or accurate at one point in time are going to lose that aspect of credibility once science marches on and new knowledge is acquired.

So yeah, we as world-builders probably do stress out way too much on making our worlds realistic.


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## Devor (Sep 17, 2014)

FatCat said:


> I have a problem. In my world, I want three suns. How can I make this work? Any astronomers online that can help me?



I don't know if this is real or a hypothetical for the argument, but if you need astrophysicists to figure it out, then it's more of a hard science, sci fi type question.  Maybe that's a part of worldbuilding, but it's not usually what people refer to when they talk about worldbuilding in fantasy.  For instance, I'm very much a world builder, but I would immediately try to find a magical explanation, and try to follow through on the consequences of that explanation, instead of worry about the hard science of that one (in part because the hard science for that one would probably lead to a very broken setting).

Worldbuilding is about immersion and making the setting as much a part of your characters as anything else.  Worldbuilding isn't "Here's a phone book of the Shire," but "Here, let the readers feel that the Shire is a real community just as Bilbo and Frodo feel, and here, let the readers get a first-hand sense of how it shaped their behaviors and actions."  When Frodo and Sam are sitting on Mt Doom, thinking about the Shire, wanting to go back, _worldbuilding helps the reader to feel that, too_.

I wrote a short story about a dwarf, and included a paragraph early on about the dwarf's father.  It was a "boring" paragraph, by itself, easy to cut.  But one of the big "payoff" lines later in the story referred to the dwarf's father.  It wasn't enough for the readers to imagine the sentiment.  I needed them to feel that they knew who the father was to get the full impact.  I needed that 'boring" setup paragraph to make the payoff line work.

Worldbuilding often works like that.  It's about branding a setting, making a memory, making an impression, and using that impression to make an impact on the reader throughout the story.


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## WooHooMan (Sep 17, 2014)

FatCat said:


> I have a problem. In my world, I want three suns. How can I make this work? Any astronomers online that can help me?



You ever see the movie 2010: the unnecessary, universally panned sequel to Space Odyssey?  I'm going to assume you haven't.
In that movie, through a process called stellar nucleosynthesis, Jupiter heats-up and becomes a second sun.
I think Earth having to suns was suppose to be some kind of Cold War symbolism: "two global superpowers with two suns moving forward to a brighter future" or whatever.
Fortunately, the Jupiter-sun is small enough and far away enough that it doesn't really effect the Earth beyond being visible in the sky.  In fact, the new sun only effect Jupiter's moons.  

Actual triple star systems operate in a similar way (though I don't think those systems could realistic support an Earth-like planet), so having MUCH smaller stars orbit a sun like planets do could work in a way that appears realistic.

Key word being "appears".  I don't think fantasy settings need to make logical/scientific sense as long as they "feel right".  At the very least, the reader won't question the setting as long as it feels right.


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## SeverinR (Sep 17, 2014)

Thinking about what I said earlier.
All writers must world build.  Even modern setting writers build alittle. Their readers don't know the setting. If based in a real city, they won't know the lay out, the weather, the population of the area, and the style of buildings. Such as Tucson Arizona would be a hispanic flair, definately a southwest style. A two story home with shingles is extremely rare.
But the reader would not know anything about Tucson unless they have been there.

You have to research the area of your setting, which is basically worldbuilding in the known world. That is what world building is in a fantasy. Telling the reader what the town looks like, what it feels like, what it smells like. How the town fits into the region, the region fits into the country, the country fits into the continent, the continent fits into the globe, and if it matters, how the glode fits into the galaxy.  You can world build down from the town, how a family fits into the town, how a single person fits into the family. How the rat fits into the home, how the flea affects the rat, and the individual, and the family, and the town.
(Remember many plagues and deadly outbreaks were caused by fleas or poor sanitation.)


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## Logos&Eidos (Sep 17, 2014)

World building matters because the world is the stage on which your story is going to unfold. And the fun(to me at least) of figuring out the nuts and bolts of world.


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## Gryphos (Sep 17, 2014)

I think that the question posed can be answered so easily like this. Why does world building matter? Because it's fun! I don't know about you, but I love writing Shire phone books. I love thinking about the world, the history, the tiny insignificant details. Most of what I come up with probably won't ever be mentioned in any of the novels I write, but I come up with it anyway, for my own sake if no one else's.


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## Incanus (Sep 17, 2014)

I guess I must be a little confused about the sentiments FatCat is expressing.  He seems to be simultaneously acknowledging the importance of setting while dismissing working on the setting.  The more work that gets done on a setting, the worse the story gets?  Logically, the exact same argument might be made for character--how much character backstory and detail is too much?  To me the question is rather absurd.  An old adage applies:  It is better to have and not need, than to need and not have.

The term 'limit', or 'limited', suggests quantity.  Maybe 50 original place names for a setting is acceptable (say), but 51 would be too many?  How is one to determine the cut-off point?  Who is the final arbiter?

The work on setting is determined by the nature of the story:  Middle-earth required a lot, Hogwarts not so much.

Speaking only for myself, I will never love a novel written by an author that didn't want to be bothered by the requisite hard work.  It shows.


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## WooHooMan (Sep 17, 2014)

Gryphos said:


> I think that the question posed can be answered so easily like this. Why does world building matter?



I don't think that's what FatCat is asking, though.  He or she is inquiring as to a more utilitarian justification for worldbuilding.  Which is where the misinterpreting comes in: this is a forum full of artists (of some kind), we have a very romanticized view on notions like "worldbuilding".  For us, "it's fun" might be a good enough reason but FatCat seems to be looking for a more logical and practical reason.



Incanus said:


> I guess I must be a little confused about the sentiments FatCat is expressing.  He seems to be simultaneously acknowledging the importance of setting while dismissing working on the setting.  The more work that gets done on a setting, the worse the story gets?



I don't think he's expressing a viewpoint for or against worldbuilding.  I think he's trying to provide some kind of counter argument against _excessive_ worldbuilding, which I think is reasonable.  "Adding a lot to the setting can add to the story however, isn't it possible to focus too much on the setting to the point where it's detrimental to the writing process" is what I think he's trying to say.
He's looking to build a "Vulcan" argument in favor of worldbuilding.  Perhaps even constructing a guide to worldbuilding.  At least, that's how I'm reading him.


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## Ryan_Crown (Sep 17, 2014)

WooHooMan said:


> I don't think he's expressing a viewpoint for or against worldbuilding.  I think he's trying to provide some kind of counter argument against _excessive_ worldbuilding, which I think is reasonable.  "Adding a lot to the setting can add to the story however, isn't it possible to focus too much on the setting to the point where it's detrimental to the writing process" is what I think he's trying to say.



I think there's a very valid point to be made there. On another thread I'm following, about "your writing sins", a few people (myself included) have listed excessive world-building as a possible "sin" that we have, because there reaches that point where you have to ask yourself, "Am I really creating quality world information that will add to my stories, or am I just procrastinating on actually starting my rough draft by continuing to find more world-building tasks?"

Don't get me wrong, I both love world-building and think it's important, but if you've spent a year working on your Shire phonebook, and your Shire map, and your Shire tourist guide, and you have detailed graphs breaking down religious and political affiliations and age/gender demographics, and on an on, but you haven't figured out a story to put into this setting (or have a story in mind that you haven't gotten around to starting on), then essentially you spent a year "having fun" and that's about it. So the question I would ask is this, "At what point would you say you should transition from world-building to story writing?"


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## Incanus (Sep 17, 2014)

I'm still not getting it.  What am I missing?

There seem to be two main questions:  'Why does world-building matter?'  and 'When is world-building excessive?'

The questions are vague, and vague answers appear to be useless truisms--world-building matters because it is setting, and setting matters.  As far as I can tell, no one here disputes this, so there would be no point in starting a thread for this reason.  The other answer--world-building is excessive when there is too much of it.  This sounds circular and useless, no point in starting a thread for this.  How much is too much?  A matter of taste and personal choice.

On the other hand, a specific answer would be 'one-size-fits-all'--you invent 200 original names, 60 place names, 3 kinds of plants, a magic system with 2 original ideas, 8 new creatures, 2 unique items, etc., etc.  This type of answer can't possibly satisfy anyone.

Why can't this be viewed in a similar way as research?  People research a subject, but don't generally include every single last thing they found into their writing.  You can only know _precisely _what was needed when you're done writing.

What type of answer is being sought here?

Also, can anyone provide an example--a novel or series boasting too much world-building?


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## Jabrosky (Sep 22, 2014)

Since people are worried about whether world-building can be a distraction, might there be certain compartments of world-building which are more likely to distract or have less relevance to whatever story one is developing?

Thinking back to my own world-building career, I have to say there are certain aspects of a world which I take great pleasure in developing, but they're not always the ones that would have the greatest impact on a story.

For example, I have a soft spot for defining and classifying the races of my world. By this I usually don't mean elves, dwarves, or orcs, but rather races within humanity. I'll describe the physical characteristics ubiquitous to people in a certain geographic region, and then sort the world's nations into these races (or rather which races demographically predominate in a given nation). One time I even created a phylogenetic tree showing the racial affinities between different human nations in my world, which was meant to resemble graphs such as one might find in physical anthropology or population genetics papers.

Is that all relevant to most stories I might write in a world? Probably not. At most it will factor into the characters' physical descriptions. But damn, do I enjoy it!

(As someone with a B.A. in Biological Anthropology, I know race is considered an arbitrary social construct these days. But then every classification scheme is socially constructed and arbitrary to one degree or another.)


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## AngelBlue (Sep 22, 2014)

What an interesting thread! 

I'm currently writing urban fantasy, set in our own world, so it is a bit different, however, since I have myriad supernatural creatures inhabiting our world in my story, I very quickly found that I needed to build rules, if only for my own knowledge, for how these characters work, how they interact (or not) with each other, with humans, and the world around them. I strongly felt that if I simply wrote without setting boundaries, I would not only end up with shallower characters and storylines, but I would betray my readers, who, by reading, trust me to guide them through a world they believe I know. So I'd better know it, whatever that takes (currently it has taken a helluva lot of walking around Dublin and virtually walking around Ancient Mesopotamia. A lot. Wanna know about Ancient Mesopotamia? Ask me ) 

So I think worldbuilding matters, and quite a bit--but how much of that world building you actually write into your book is up to you. Most of my rules and history I know, because I needed to know. Its not all going in the books, by any means. 

Just my 2 cents.

 :angel:


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