Have you ever contracted "world builders disease"?

[psychotick]

Hi,

I don't really suffer from this illness, but I do sometimes go too far in creating my worlds. However I have found a cure - my editor! She has this delete button on her computer you see and a love of using it - and then writing comments to tell me how much she loved using it!

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Aurora]

Yes. I don't know if it's curable. Sometimes I think I write more to explore the worlds than anything else.

 

[RequiemTales]

I have a problem like this, its not quite the same. Its more of an idea pops into my head, and then even when I try to avoid it, my imagination crafts a world around it. For one such project, it took up so much brain space I ended up writing it all up. My google drive regrets it.

 

[Viorp]

100% I have it.

 

[chrispenycate]

Is this a problem? Who needs characters, who needs plot, as long as you can stamp your feet on the environment without worrying if you're going to break through into the goo underneath?

I really enjoy building worlds (and bigger). They generally do what you tell them to, at least until they gain superstar status of their own, unlike characters who can never be trusted to stick to the plot, deliver the planned lines. Just as scenery is easier to work with than any actors but the extras, who recognise their replaceability. There again, I write more SF than fantasy, so the set often takes on a character of its own, as do devices and principles of physics. Gubbins writing, as my sister puts it. As that is what I enjoy reading, if I can find it, it isn't really all that odd that I should try to emulate it.

 

[Drakevarg]

I'm generally in the camp that disagrees that it's even an affliction. I don't create worlds to write stories in, I come up with stories to explore a world with. The world is the point, the story is just a lens of exploration.

That said, sadly my generally laconic disposition makes it difficult for me to create satisfyingly meaty prose (at least, enough to meet my own expectations), so I usually express these stories through games, be it video or tabletop in nature. It's still storytelling, but I find it easier because the direct involvement of the audience makes things more visceral.

 

[Chekaman]

My worlds vary. Some have stories of varying quality whilst one is little more then an idea at the moment.

 

[Devor]

I've been putting off giving an answer to this question.

The truth is I've had worldbuilding disease. I finished building the world, and I still didn't write.

As with anything, if you do your worldbuilding effectively, you can be rewarded for your efforts with a beautiful new world. But it's only one skill in the "skills bundle" that you need to be an effective writer. A world by itself doesn't get you anywhere.

You have to worldbuild deliberately with your story. "Filling out" a map or a pantheon or a hierarchy or a timeline is not the goal. You've got to build tension and seed story opportunities into your world. Otherwise you're just wasting time.

And you can't let your worldbuilding be an excuse not to write. Even if your world is a total mess, you need to be writing, because 90% of your success is going to come down to developing your writing process and, in turn, your writing skills. Worldbuild, sure. If you want to write three days a week and worldbuild the other two, knock yourself out. But you've got to have that no-excuses, must-write time, no matter what, or you'll never succeed.

 

[DMThaane]

I wouldn't so much say I have 'world builder's disease' so much as say that I'm a world builder first and a writer second. World building is just something I naturally do and always have done, to the extent I can give you the layout of over a hundred different factions in my Lego collection, the political history of my Gal Civ III custom factions, and I even had a 'story arc' for my random playing around in the Age of Empires 3 map editor. I have no intention of ever writing a story in any of these worlds (plus a half-dozen or so others) but I don't consider the time spent to be at all a waste.

In contrast, for the worlds I intend to write in I know exactly what story/stories I want to tell in them and most of the key things I need to tell them. The world and the story are usually constructed around one other and they tend to grow pretty in sync. Extraneous world building isn't so much done instead of writing as it's used as an excuse to not get around to writing. Sort of like saying 'I'll do it after I reorder my bookshelves' only it's 'I'll do it after I determine the staple crops and noble lineage of this region.' Except that I still also use the bookshelves excuse. I'm a world builder first, a procrastinator second and... eh, I'll get around to adding the rest.

 

[Gurkhal]

I believe that I am currently suffering from it.

 

[elemtilas]

I wouldn't so much say I have 'world builder's disease' so much as say that I'm a world builder first and a writer second.

Right. I think the idea of worldbuilding being a "disease" is simply a function of self-identification as a (professional / near-professional / earnest amateur) writer. Those of us who make worlds but not stories set in them, those of us who make worlds and stories, but not frequently enough to count as "writing", those of us who don't self-identify as writers --- it's not a disease for us. It's not a waste of time. In fact, it's quite the opposite. For a few of us, the world is the thing. If a well written novel is the masterpiece of the writer, then the heart-conceived and long-laboured-over world is the masterpiece of the geopoet.

For everyone else, writing and making worlds are just fun hobbies!

World building is just something I naturally do and always have done, to the extent I can give you the layout of over a hundred different factions in my Lego collection, the political history of my Gal Civ III custom factions, and I even had a 'story arc' for my random playing around in the Age of Empires 3 map editor. I have no intention of ever writing a story in any of these worlds (plus a half-dozen or so others) but I don't consider the time spent to be at all a waste.

Ah, Civilisation! If only one could integrate such worldbuilding into the actual gameplay...