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How much is too much worldbuilding?

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
I don't believe there is such a thing as too much worldbuilding, but too much worldshowing certainly does exist. Your world may well be your primary interest, but in each individual story set in that world, the story must take precedence. If your display of the world unduly interferes with the reading experience, it's time to focus on the narrative.
 

MSadiq

Minstrel
You know you have too much world building if the AI cant keep up.
AI isn't even that great at present you accurate info. It straight up makes up information, gives wrong sources, and misidentifies information. A while back, I presented it with poetry, which it ascribed to a poet that lived around 300 years after the poem was composed and the styles are quite distinct of those periods. It's like conflating Brandon Sanderson with Edgar Allen Poe in terms of how different the presentation is.
 
Fortunately, words have no power in my magic system, LMAO.
If it makes you feel better, I 'kind' of invented a 'god' language in my story. But it's not really fleshed out either.
The stuff that the reader is meant to know (say two characters are speaking in it) is translated for reading.
The stuff that's irrelevant is just letters, numbers and symbols in a random, incomprehensible order, I thought of using a cipher but I don't want it to be 'cracked' (some swears will be made 'family friendly' with the god language, think Qbert when he dies.) so it's just random nonsense with no 'meaning' lol heck, the same symbol doesn't even equate to the same letter. The Joke is that god tongue is mentally incomprehensible to the human mind. (except for like, the three or four characters who natively speak it, but they aren't fluent in it like the gods are)
 
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