How do you improve World-Building?

[FifthView]

Oh man, Fifth, I feel you on the plot thing. So much.

For me, I tend to have a very similar problem over and over. I have a character concept and the immediate situation she's in, and then I figure out some stuff to happen, but then I feel like I go off track and just add things, but don't exactly have a great journey to the end? Maybe that's clear?

I think that problem is common for pantsers?

I would love to be able to offer insight, but I'm still feeling my way through my own issues with plot. I have to psychoanalyze myself, and that's not easy.

Like you, I can create characters I like, and even a world (in general) that I like, and from that point I can imagine a great many scenarios or scenes that interest me. But having a coherent plot that interests me as much as characters and world....not so much.

I don't begin writing with only characters and world in mind, but have to have some idea of a plot before I begin; so, that's where the problem starts. Often, I think in terms of what will display my characters and world well, the sort of events that will shed light on the various facets of my characters and world. (I like making characters suffer, for instance–although usually, emotionally and/or existentially, not so much physically.) But problematically, potential events are abundant. The way I approach things means that my main characters will be interesting regardless. (At least, that is my intention.) So how to settle upon a single plot, a coherent thread of events, when just about any will do? Plus, I often feel that no plot is good enough for my characters. (A plot archetype just seems flimsy in comparison to a fully-fleshed character.)

I think my problem, and perhaps yours?, may be that plot needs to be driven at least in part from the outside. From outside the main characters. It's not enough to have just a series of events that allow a character to shine or suffer. I suppose a character-driven approach can work great if the character is a strong protagonist–is protagging strongly, or extremely proactive–but if he's not, or is often reactive (you want to show the facets of his character through reaction to exterior events beyond his control), then having a good plot means letting go a little bit of the character-driven approach and letting something else drive the story forward also.

Now, I don't know whether that means creating a compelling villain to protag (a new character to help drive things) or just building up the world so that it protags in a compelling way. (World in general. Could be physical, e.g., ecological, geological...or could be human forces albeit without a single face or villain behind those forces.)

It's just that I feel that a convincing plot, when the MC isn't a very strong protag, requires the willingness to acknowledge that the MCs are not the end-all, be-all of the story, and that other things beyond them are just as important as they are, and need to be as fully fleshed...if that makes sense. I also think that maybe we always need a great answer to this question: Why are these characters and that exterior reality coming together just now?

I realize this is rather vague and may not be helpful in the slightest.

 

[FifthView]

Ok, this is a little weird, but I just finished listening to the latest Writing Excuses podcast, and at the end of it Brandon Sanderson brings up something that echoes the OP. Here it is, emphasis added:

[Brandon] That's very good. I think we're going to end on that note. Although I'm going to give you guys some homework. This is something I push my students to do a lot in my class, which is to take a step further on something in their story. Often times, I'll have students come to me and say... They'll have actually a really compelling character, but they'll be in the most bland, generic world that's ever existed. So I want you to take a story that you've been working on, and I want you to push either some world building element or some character element further. I want you to brainstorm an idea. I don't want you to just have a monarchy. I want your monarchy to be weird in some way. I want you to follow the awesome. I don't want you to just use coins in your thing, or just fly on spaceships like every other spaceship you've seen. I want you to take a story you've actually written, and make it weirder in a geewhiz kind of way.

[Mary] While you're doing that, make sure that you are thinking about the implications and consequences.

11.12: Idea as Subgenre, With Nancy Fulda | Writing Excuses​

This is interesting. I started thinking about one long term project that has been bugging me, stalled. I have characters and a world that I really like...but plotting? Meh. Nothing that was grabbing me the right way. The world and characters do have some distinction, are not really generic; but on the other hand, even the novel ideas were not greatly far from many that have already been used.

So as a mental experiment, inspired by Sanderson's suggestion, I started thinking, What would happen if I just added these dark, oily, deadly pools of liquid that would start popping up for no reason in populated areas....that would disappear after a time and then reappear elsewhere?

That's entirely outside the scope of anything I'd considered for my world, doesn't tie into anything I've already put in the world, including the magic system.

But it started my mental juices, because I'd then have to ask what those pools are, why are they appearing, how do they kill the unfortunate who wander into them (or, when the pools just appear under them) ... and so forth.

And I suddenly realized that all the great ideas I already had for my world and my characters were still okay, could still be explored, but now I'd have something like a plot–discovery of the origin/reality of those pools, and resolution of the problem. All that other stuff could be developed around this.

I'm not saying I'm going to use this idea. But it's an interesting exercise, to just introduce a totally random but really weird thing (weird for your world) and see where it takes you.

The entire podcast is about how to utilize "idea" from the MICE quotient to spice things up or, if you have all those ideas, how to go about creating a story that will incorporate those ideas.

 

[Mythopoet]

How interested are you in your world? Does it fascinate you? Do you feel compelled to tell its stories? The best fantasy worlds have a personality of their own and the stories seem to come alive from the world itself. The characters are part of the world, the world is not merely a back ground for the characters.

 

[HellionHeloise]

I agree with most of what has been said on this thread, particularly FifthView and Caged Maiden's many points. World Building has many facets, so I am going to touch on some concrete ways I attempt to world build in my writing.

Ways to include world-building details:

-Narrator describes a scene
-Individual observes surroundings with his/her character-specific filter
-Plot includes aspects of your world, i.e. local government, religious authorities, geographical obstacles, etc.
-Dialogue drops hints about your world, i.e. a character around a campfire telling the story of a local legend

Ata was ran for her life. As she crested a ridge at the edge of the valley, she passed a trio of clergywomen scourging a young girl for Code violation. She stumbled, nearly coming to a stop by the young girl, but staggered on over the slippery moss-covered tree stumps behind the ridge. Ata was no stranger to being scourged, but this could be her only chance of escape from The Flatlands and she had to stay hidden.

This example shows you can combine methods all at once for more effective world building. As you can see, the narrator is describing the situation & throwing in geographical descriptors, the plot includes the MC running past key members of the religious authority & you can tell there are other parts of the religion/society like the "Code." Most importantly, the MC displays her bias toward the religious authority and narrator hints that might be part of the reason why she wants to escape.

This is hard to do and I struggle to combine these methods organically in my writing. It takes time & many drafts. As Caged Maiden said, "it's easy to have a character walk into a room and notice everything, but it's terribly boring for a reader and quickly gets tedious. The secret is to run the filter constantly. And to pick words that really speak loudly about who the character is."

I constantly default to having the character observe his/her surroundings, but that's more telling than showing readers.

Does anyone else have more methods of world building they use in their writing?

 

[Ben]

FifthView:
Thanks for the Sanderson quote. As a consumer of fantasy fiction, my point of view is I don't need a completely original setting. In fact, I have more trouble getting into it if it is too far from a traditional dungeons and dragons type setting. Maybe I'm old fashioned. Maybe I'm in the minority, maybe not. But I think Sanderson's idea is brilliant - take one aspect, use your imagination, and make it unique.
The example you mentioned from your own brainstorming is fantastic - I'm already intrigued and would definitely be interested in reading more.

 

[Helen]

I realize with my WIP that the settings are dull or practically non-existent. I feel like there's no real sense of place in my characters' world, but i have terrible world-building skills.

Any general advice for improvement?

Relate the worlds to the theme(s).

Not unlike Avatar (2009), where the human world believes one thing, the Na'vi another.

The worlds aren't random.

 

[FifthView]

FifthView:
Thanks for the Sanderson quote. As a consumer of fantasy fiction, my point of view is I don't need a completely original setting. In fact, I have more trouble getting into it if it is too far from a traditional dungeons and dragons type setting. Maybe I'm old fashioned. Maybe I'm in the minority, maybe not. But I think Sanderson's idea is brilliant - take one aspect, use your imagination, and make it unique.
The example you mentioned from your own brainstorming is fantastic - I'm already intrigued and would definitely be interested in reading more.

I might be old fashioned too, then. Even when I add little twists and turns to an old standby, sometimes I find that my motivation just isn't strong. There's a big So what? factor. So maybe Sanderson's idea is just the thing for breaking that kind of rut.

 

[Heliotrope]

Hi everyone! I'm late to this conversation, but Fifthview, the Sanderson quote reminded me of something I had read a while back about the development of the Steampunk/fantasy/stealth game Dishonered. A few years back when I still had a gaming system my husband bought me the game for Christmas. I like reading about how the games are developed, so I did some investigating. The story of how the game progressed in development is fascinating. They changed the setting multiple times until they could find something that they liked/worked. But one quote stood out to me:

Because it was the last year of the plague, and the year of the great fire of London, which of course ended the plague by burning the slums down ... In this kind of game you’re always looking for a way to up the tension and frankly make the world a little more perilous, and justify why there aren’t giant crowds of people at the market. Then people had the idea for swarms of rats, and we were talking independently about possession, and we wondered if you should be able to possess rats and if they could clean up corpses so you don’t have to hide them. All these pieces just worked together.[41]

This really makes me think about what you are talking about and world building and setting and Sanderson's quote of adding in that one extra thing that twists the mundane into something weird. Adding that extra bit of tension and perilousness in the process…

George RR Martin could have just had people fighting over the throne of Westeros. He could have just had all the different families and rulers and wars and people… But instead he used the environment… the setting… the world… against them by adding in the challenges of the long winter and the White Walkers, giving the story the extra oomph that pushed it over the edge.

Very interesting…..

 

[Incanus]

Very fascinating. It think it is interesting that we all of us start with different things, or different sets of things, to get where we’re going.

The Sanderson thing a few of you have mentioned is—far more often than not—my starting point for a story. (I wasn’t aware of the Sanderson quote-thing before now, it’s just how I work.) I try to find an interesting combination of things, some common, some rare, that make for a unique situation—hopefully something intriguing. Then I find a place and time for it in my existing fantasy world. And then I think about who might be involved in it all. Once I’ve got that far, I start to develop all the ideas together a bit further. Then when it feels ready, I write.

Of course, my stories are more idea/plot-centric than character-centric, and not everyone loves that.

This leaves me with a similar problem to that of the OP, except that it’s characters, not setting, that I can’t seem to visualize or develop very well. Things that make a character unique are the hardest things for me to come up with so far. I just seem to always draw a big, fat blank.

So… problem identified, now I just need ways to address it.

 

[Miskatonic]

Sanderson makes some good points and is good at explaining writing from a theoretical point of view, but I have never found his actual writing to be anything but par for the course. Maybe because I'm beyond the point of being satisfied with run of the mill "read for entertainment" novels that get enough things right to be popular. I don't want The Avengers where I can just sit there and stare at the screen and eat popcorn and not think, I want The Silence of the Lambs with superior storytelling, masterfully crafted characters and engaging concepts that make me think.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I just had a little fun while bored this morning and popped up a preview on Amazon of a Sanderson novel and a paragraph glared at me... so I did a little counting. 60 words, 6 uses of had. 10%. Not to just pick on this guy, GRRM is also a haddict, heh heh.

I myself am a recovering haddict. A very common mental illness in fantasy writers, because of the depth of history and world building. Now back on topic a bit.

Someday I will pick a Sanderson book and read all of it, but my general perception follows Miskatonic's view from what I've perused. The writing excuses stuff is, well, ok, and apparently it works for some folks so that's great. As an exercise some of the suggestions, such as one gee-whiz weird thing, is borderline useful, IMO. I could see this working particularly well in short-stories, and of course, now and again it could conjure a truly inspired concept. But only if it provides the inspiration for an in depth run of world building is it really useful.

I will take cultures, depth of history, and a wide array of detail over one weird thing any day. Really, the one weird idea notion is simply a variant of "high concept", a dead horse well beaten over the years. Not useless, but certainly no revelation if you've been around the writer block a few times.

 

[FifthView]

I will take cultures, depth of history, and a wide array of detail over one weird thing any day. Really, the one weird idea notion is simply a variant of "high concept", a dead horse well beaten over the years. Not useless, but certainly no revelation if you've been around the writer block a few times.

I don't think the one weird idea notion was meant to be exclusive, an either-or choice between using a weird novelty and using cultures, history, and detail.

 

[Miskatonic]

I just had a little fun while bored this morning and popped up a preview on Amazon of a Sanderson novel and a paragraph glared at me... so I did a little counting. 60 words, 6 uses of had. 10%. Not to just pick on this guy, GRRM is also a haddict, heh heh.

I myself am a recovering haddict. A very common mental illness in fantasy writers, because of the depth of history and world building. Now back on topic a bit.

Someday I will pick a Sanderson book and read all of it, but my general perception follows Miskatonic's view from what I've perused. The writing excuses stuff is, well, ok, and apparently it works for some folks so that's great. As an exercise some of the suggestions, such as one gee-whiz weird thing, is borderline useful, IMO. I could see this working particularly well in short-stories, and of course, now and again it could conjure a truly inspired concept. But only if it provides the inspiration for an in depth run of world building is it really useful.

I will take cultures, depth of history, and a wide array of detail over one weird thing any day. Really, the one weird idea notion is simply a variant of "high concept", a dead horse well beaten over the years. Not useless, but certainly no revelation if you've been around the writer block a few times.

Not trying to be overly negative in this thread, but Writing Excuses is give or take for me. Some good ideas sprinkled in among a lot of generic advice and self-congratulatory book promoting. Might be smart marketing but I really don't need to hear about the books you have out and why you think your ideas for them were so great. You can use your books as an example without patting yourself on the back at the same time.

Being a hardcore outliner/planner, like Sanderson is, can hurt the story if you are too methodical about everything and are constantly weighing literary devices to decide which is most effective from a theoretical standpoint. At some point it has to start to become organic.

I like some of his rules on magic from a starting off point but even then it can be overkill if you spend a significant portion of your book trying to get the reader up to speed on everything related to magic in your story.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Of course not. It's a variant of the high concept mantra which drives so much screenwriting.

The notion is neither good nor bad in and of itself, but either way, it's a rehash of the old high concept idea. The high concept model is fraught with story-telling peril.

I don't think the one weird idea notion was meant to be exclusive, an either-or choice between using a weird novelty and using cultures, history, and detail.

 

[Heliotrope]

Of course not. It's a variant of the high concept mantra which drives so much screenwriting.

The notion is neither good nor bad in and of itself, but either way, it's a rehash of the old high concept idea. The high concept model is fraught with story-telling peril.

Hey Dem, I'm interested in this.... Can you explain how it is "fraught with story-telling peril"?

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Not trying to be overly negative in this thread, but Writing Excuses is give or take for me. Some good ideas sprinkled in among a lot of generic advice and self-congratulatory book promoting. Might be smart marketing but I really don't need to hear about the books you have out and why you think your ideas for them were so great. You can use your books as an example without patting yourself on the back at the same time.

Being a hardcore outliner/planner, like Sanderson is, can hurt the story if you are too methodical about everything and are constantly weighing literary devices to decide which is most effective from a theoretical standpoint. At some point it has to start to become organic.

I like some of his rules on magic from a starting off point but even then it can be overkill if you spend a significant portion of your book trying to get the reader up to speed on everything related to magic in your story.

If Sanderson's writing excuses is hit and miss, I've only noticed misses in the few times I glanced at something. Self promotion is pretty much what I jot it down as. Which is neither good nor bad in itself, and if his stuff is useful to others, that's great. I won't argue that.

I can't judge his stories because I have not read them as a whole, but as a writer in general, use of words etc., I've pieced together an impression with several free samples and I'm unimpressed. Not that story-telling and world can't overcome his writing style (which again is my personal taste, I'm not insulting folks who like Sanderson's novels) but it's unlikely to work for me. When I was in my late teens or early 20's I might have enjoyed his works. Now? It's pulp to me. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not what I'm going to pick and read and get all excited about. So many ways to waste my extra these days, I'm going to be really finicky about what books I read. If I've got time to read, I should be writing, LOL.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Hey Dem, I'm interested in this.... Can you explain how it is "fraught with story-telling peril"?

Wow, that's a long conversation, with a lot of back and forth with pros and cons, LOL. It's probably far less dangerous in fantasy/sci-fi novels than it is in screenwriting. But there are pitfalls that can drag a writer down. And in a sense, if you write 120k words to discover the ending sucks, it's worse than a screenplay, in that sense.

The most familiar world where high concept becomes a problem is in screenwriting, writers can just be beaten over the head with high concept. I've read many unproduced screenplays based on HC ideas. But this will also apply to many purchased and produced high concepts... High Concept produces great taglines or hooks, they get people's attention. Heck, a great high concept has sold screenplays without the thing being finished with a good pitch. HC ideas litter the shelves of production companies, with most never getting made. Okay, trailing off a bit here... back on point.

In high concept stories there is a deadly trend... really really interesting tagline, really interesting story beginning, the middle bogs down, and the ending falls flat or just belches in your face, heh heh. When encountering a screenwriter and hearing they are working on a high concept piece, the odds are high that the middle and particularly the ending are giving them hellish fits... and if not, they just don't realize that they should be having hellish fits. Mind you, middles and ends are a pain anyhow, but high concept fails are more spectacular and often more difficult to fix than a more standard story. High risk, high challenge, high reward.

About a decade... oh heck, close to 15 years ago, damn I'm getting old... I was reading a HC screenplay WIP, awesome idea, great dialogue, story just lit up the first 20 or so pages. The trouble came when the middle just couldn't sustain the heat. Okay, here's an analogy:

The start was a stick of dynamite, trouble was the writer lit the dynamite and then the fuse burnt from there and ended on a ladyfinger bang. A beginning that burns bright tends to fizzle. The writer spent 6 months or more on that screenplay and couldn't find an ending that was both emotionally and intellectually satisfying. That spells trouble, and it is common with HC in any format. Next time they came to me with an idea, the first words out of my mouth were "great! How's it end?" I got the blank stare, and said come back when you know, LOL. Novels have the advantage of being unlimited in length and scope, but it can also lead to trilogies (or god forbid) a giant series without a real ending. Pantsers with big ideas will often get muddled down in this situation, and it can last years in novel writing... been there done that.

Tomorrowland is a good, recent HC example that didn't totally fail, but demonstrates the lack of satisfying ending on both an intellectual and emotional level. 50/50 movie on rotten tomatoes with a 90+ HC that failed to retain its momentum, and finished with an "that'll have to suffice" ending.

Game of Thrones/SOIAF, to me is actually low concept, if there is such a thing, LOL. Its basis is semi-realistic medieval setting with a dragon queen and some undead thrown in, oh and gee, there's this winter thing. Martin's execution of the story gives a high concept feel, but at its root, low concept.

My personal thinking is HC is great, but if you're rummaging for ideas, look for High Concept endings, and work backwards, rather than the all too common High Concept beginning that struggles to launch.

This is just rambling, because again, its at least a short book worthy topic.

 

[Miskatonic]

Unfortunately for GRRM, he's a pantser that is likely going to end up like Robert Jordan did.

I'm glad I have my ending pretty much down. Helps me sleep a little better.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Unfortunately for GRRM, he's a pantser that is likely going to end up like Robert Jordan did.

I'm glad I have my ending pretty much down. Helps me sleep a little better.

I gave up on Wheel of Time before the fourth book came out... or somewhere around there... Thank goodness. A fine example of a writer I could enjoy in my youth, but even then, he droned on and on and on until all I could think of was a wheel going round and round until I fell asleep.

I've got the ending to a trilogy written before I'm done with the first book. Trouble is, stories just seem to expand and expand, keeping book one under 120k words is going to be tough. Just hit 100k, which was my goal, and said oh higgly piggly! Can easily cut about 6k on one POV and move to book 2 to make book 1 more stand alone, but still got a ways to go, and I know when I go back I am description light, so there's more words... Writing is a B... I mean SO much fun!

If I lived long enough I could write a hundred books in the world, but every series would be self contained. And hey, the end of the world is written in my head, I know exactly how and why, but there's a lot of gaps in between, LOL.

 

[Chessie]

Game of Thrones/SOIAF, to me is actually low concept, if there is such a thing, LOL. Its basis is semi-realistic medieval setting with a dragon queen and some undead thrown in, oh and gee, there's this winter thing. Martin's execution of the story gives a high concept feel, but at its root, low concept.

And still, he's a very rich man. Low concept seems to work better than anything else, imo. Take a look at Twilight, or Harry Potter. Books that have made their authors a respectable name along with a killing. Low concept ideas there, too. Readers don't necessarily want complicated. They want to be entertained.