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Do you find immersive and in-depth world-building tedious in written novels?
- Thread starter Ricconi
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Dreamer
Incanus
Auror
Speaking only for myself, in general, I would say no. I find it immersive.
But I'm a picky reader, and if I don't like the story or storytelling, I won't enjoy the world-building either.
My story has a lot of world-building, but I'm not going out of my way to include it all.
But I'm a picky reader, and if I don't like the story or storytelling, I won't enjoy the world-building either.
My story has a lot of world-building, but I'm not going out of my way to include it all.
My team writes Urban Fantasy at a thriller pace, while our fancy pants drafter - me - drops random lyrical descriptions here and there. I find description to be tedious when it's just bloat. I don't care about the different barks on every bloody tree on the way to the evil castle... unless it's needed. Unless it has a plot reason to be there. I do agree that atmosphere and tone and whatnot contribute to the plot, enhancing the experience for the reader. Our fictional city of Seahaven is almost a character on its own, as is the house where most of them live.
But! we don't need seventeen pages describing the freaking grasses while crossing a primeval plain. (Jean Auel, looking at you.) I know a lot of people do like to meander through the narrative, and I am always delighted to introduce them to Tolkien. But as for me, I've got a high speed sportscar-driven wizard battle down a crowded highway to choreograph.
But! we don't need seventeen pages describing the freaking grasses while crossing a primeval plain. (Jean Auel, looking at you.) I know a lot of people do like to meander through the narrative, and I am always delighted to introduce them to Tolkien. But as for me, I've got a high speed sportscar-driven wizard battle down a crowded highway to choreograph.
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- #6
thank you for the insight!
Challenge accepted.
Chapter Grass
Chapter More Grass
Chapter Is This Different Grass?
Chapter MORE Grass? Can We Get Some Sex or Something?
Chapter If I Ever See Grass Again...
Chapter OH FFS
Chapter We Gather Together to Honor the Memory of Author What Was He Thinking?
it comes down to a question of relevance vs pacing. Technically, the reader shouldn't notice what you're doing when you make adjustments to descriptions on the fly. Language itself changes as well when you shift from slow and descriptive to fast and active. As my team's drafter, I make flagrant use of pacing to vault emotion into high gear. I also use it for when something of terrible violence is happening on screen, but there is much that I would rather leave to the reader's imagination. I find that in these situations, slowing the pacing will do more to add to the emotion of the moment. This bit is from Ties of Blood and Bone: The Second Book of Binding...
~~~
Magnus’s hands shook with rage, clenching the head of his cane with a white-knuckled grip.
Bastian hummed cheerfully along to his damn earbuds as he poured the last of the sand, oblivious. Idiot.
Arariel crouched by the support post and crumbled a bit of incinerated rope between his fingers. He snorted with amusement. “Well, this is a complication. So close to the finish line, too.” He stood. “Oh well. It’s been very entertaining working with you, Magnus.”
Magnus snarled. “We’re not done, yet.” He struck Bastian across the back with his cane, eliciting a yelp of pain, and then flung him backward to the ground by his shirt collar. “Where are they?” He threw magic at the complex geometric pattern, fixing it in place and preventing it from being damaged.
Bastian looked to where the two wizard women were—had been—and his eyes widened with panic. “They were just here! I bound them well. I’ll find them for you, I swear it.”
Magnus put his foot on Bastian’s chest. “No. You’ve failed me for the last time.” He looked to Arariel. “My lord, let me call a Legion Commander. We’ll find this girl before your deadline.”
Arariel raised an eyebrow. “You’ll need quite a sacrifice to bring them here and you seem to be a victim short.”
The look Magnus cast on Bastian was devoid of pity. “I see one that should suffice.”
Bastian paled and struggled to get away. “Magnus, no! I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked of me. I’ve been your partner in this. I killed my first Mulcahy when I was twelve! You can’t!”
Magnus ground his heel into Bastian’s sternum, causing a small pain noise. “I have given everything to this geas. I gave my daughter to Arariel. My son betrayed me and will be dead soon enough. I have nothing left. What makes you think I won’t use you?”
Bastian’s eyes filled with tears. “Magnus… Master… please! I love you.”
Magnus turned to Arariel. “My lord, may I present your sacrifice?”
Arariel’s grin was a thing of menace and teeth and laughter. “Sure. Why not?”
Magnus swung his cane. “Goodbye, Bastian.”
Bastian screamed as the steel head of the cane struck his face.
Arariel was a demon of blood and pain, and so while a simple offering of a soul would technically suffice, he gained more power—and more pleasure—from offerings that ended with bloody, agonizing, death. The more violent the death, the more power generated, and Magnus had a particular Legion Commander in mind.
One that required quite a bit of power to summon, indeed.
By the time Bastian was finally dead the Demon Gate fairly hummed with power, and Magnus could again see the blasted hellscape that was the native realm of both demons and angels. He paused for a moment to contemplate what they had done to their own home in their unending war and was grateful that they could not pass so easily to the Mortal Realm. It was enough that the strongest of them chose to come here and use mortal souls as some sort of point system in their conflict. The demons wanted to collect them for their personal power, and angels sought to set them free.
He wondered if sweet, soul reading, angel-eyed Winter Mulcahy knew that. He wondered if she even knew about the damn guardian in Seahaven’s Historical District. Magnus had spent twenty years avoiding the tenacious son of a bitch.
On the other hand, it really didn’t matter. She wouldn’t live to see sunrise. He caught the power of the Gate like reigns and sent out his summons. “Setheus, hear me. Your lord requires the service of you and your demons.”
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- #9
hahaha its already my favourite book !Challenge accepted.
Chapter Grass
Chapter More Grass
Chapter Is This Different Grass?
Chapter MORE Grass? Can We Get Some Sex or Something?
Chapter If I Ever See Grass Again...
Chapter OH FFS
Chapter We Gather Together to Honor the Memory of Author What Was He Thinking?
Dearest Author i wish to express my honour for your.... wonderfully Green ... book? about grass ?
You Shall not be forgotten !
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- #10
thats how i did it before ... but then I got critique saying it was draggy ... sadly ! so I changed the whole layout to honour and manage the critique in order to fix it !
Gurkhal
Auror
To make it short I agree with this sentiment.
I haven't seen the before and after - and did you do this to your whole book? Was it a complete manuscript or a partial? Did you save a copy(ies) of the book before making changes? Sorry, I'm not trying to be nosy. Well, okay, I am, but it's not a malicious nosy. It's a writerly nosy.
Was the change in response to someone in the game, or just a good reader? There's a quote I'm going to butcher here, by Neil Gaiman I think. He says that if a single beta reader tells you something is off, read it out loud. They're probably picking up on a reliable, and relatable, grammar issue. But, if you have several beta readers pointing to the same issue, they are probably right and it would behoove you to at least look it over.
Mad Swede
Auror
My editor used to have a go at me (and sometimes still does) for not including enough background detail in my stories. By this she means that I don't always include enough description of the setting/world around the characters to make the writing immersive. What she want to see is short descriptions of smells, sights and sounds, things in the background as the the characters move around. She wants to be iommersed, but she also points out that this can be a way of hiding significant details (Chekov's whatever) from the reader so that you as the author can create surprise without cheating the reader. My editor says this last point is important, in that you can't have something happen or appear out of the blue but what you can do is ensure that only those readers who pay attention pick up the key things...
I must admit, sometimes I get called out for being a bit too lean in descriptions. And then five people will say it's the rich descriptions and the complex characters that kept them in the parking lot at work, trying to finish the book before the went in. I'm trained in poetry. It wasn't my idea at the time, but now I think that education was worth its weight in paperbacks. I use those lessons every single day.
Only, a bit sparse. lol
Descriptions slow pace. Done wrong they can smother tension. As I like to grab the reader and just pull them through a grand steeple chase from one end to The End, I have to keep a careful eye on my language. Long words and poetic turns of phrase have the potential to bog down the narrative. It's one of the things that make Tolkien and Lewis and their lot a bit of a slog. I don't slog. But that's just me.
pmmg
Myth Weaver
I think this is one of those things were you will just find some people like it one way, some another.
Personally, I hate passages that waste my time. I dont need long winded explanations of mountains and trees, I know what they look like. There are no passages like weathertop in my own writing.
I'll be one that says 'get to it'.
In a more thought out answer, I'll also agree with any who say the right tone for the right spot in the story, give the story what it needs, and sometimes this is the right thing to include and sometimes it drags. Its always more of an art than a science.
But for me...if you are telling me things like the denseness of the forest, or the purple majesty of the mountains, I am probably skipping past it.
Personally, I hate passages that waste my time. I dont need long winded explanations of mountains and trees, I know what they look like. There are no passages like weathertop in my own writing.
I'll be one that says 'get to it'.
In a more thought out answer, I'll also agree with any who say the right tone for the right spot in the story, give the story what it needs, and sometimes this is the right thing to include and sometimes it drags. Its always more of an art than a science.
But for me...if you are telling me things like the denseness of the forest, or the purple majesty of the mountains, I am probably skipping past it.
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An in-depth background makes the setting feel real. But, it can be overdone.
There are a lot of descriptions and worldbuilding in my books, especially in the initial drafts. One of the things I do in the final drafts is go through that stuff with a machete, reducing pages to paragraphs and paragraphs to pages. Even then, there are still a lot of descriptions.
The reviewers seem split on the matter. One complained about 'so many details,' but others loved it.
There are a lot of descriptions and worldbuilding in my books, especially in the initial drafts. One of the things I do in the final drafts is go through that stuff with a machete, reducing pages to paragraphs and paragraphs to pages. Even then, there are still a lot of descriptions.
The reviewers seem split on the matter. One complained about 'so many details,' but others loved it.
Karlin
Sage
did you ever read Moby Dick? much of the book is a detailed description of whaling
And much of the debate surrounds a single letter in a single description, a "soiled rope" as opposed to a "coiled rope." That's academia in action, reading so close you get lost in the details. Or, as my mentor put it, "mental masturbation." All I can say is I wasn't a student of American Literature, and since I once called Sir Gawain of King Aurthur's court a "nancy boy," in a plot summation, that's probably for the best for all.
pmmg
Myth Weaver
It was soiled.
