How much is too much worldbuilding?

[JBCrowson]

This is intended as a light hearted thread...
You know you've done too much world building when:

You just plotted a dozen short stories to explain the back story of a character in the backstory of another character who appears in a plot arc you decided to cut last month.

You need to add an extra teratbyte of storage for your world notes

You visit Athens for the first time and feel like the Ancient Greeks stole your ideas

 

[pmmg]

When you world bible is 400 pages, and your story is 0.

When you know the equivalent of the whole history of China for a nation not even in the story.

 

[MSadiq]

When you get into the details of where the materials for the clothes each come from and you start giving them distinct names and each piece of garment gets its own name, too. Or when you get into details of what the houses are built from and their exact size.

Yeah, I'm restarting my whole worldbuilding project from scratch, deleting all the unnecessary bits and just focusing on 7 aspects that I need to write a standalone novel.

 

[skip.knox]

> You visit Athens for the first time and feel like the Ancient Greeks stole your ideas
So happens wife and I are headed for five days in Athens in May. I shall keep my eyes and ears open for story thieves. Always beware Greeks stealing plots.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

When you have Five Novels written about characters who died hundreds of years before the story actually started.
-and none of it is relevant to the main story whatsoever, problem? I don't have a problem, I swear!

 

[Demesnedenoir]

When the gods of your world say "Good Morning" as you roll out of bed.

 

[JBCrowson]

On a related note, you maybe talking about your current WIP too much when:

your friend asks you if you're bringing your MC as your +1 to their wedding...
...and they don't need to ask about dietary requirements

Your partner suddenly changes your nick name to the antagonist in your WIP

 

[pmmg]

You know its too much if you are trying to invent a con language.

 

[pmmg]

You know your world building is too much if you think Tolkien is a light weight.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Well, shit.

In fairness I have several languages, but they aren't fleshed out entirely, meaning you couldn't learn them and wander around speaking them, heh heh. In fact, I may have went too far on one because it uses clicks and such, so I have no prayer of pronouncing many of its words, LMAO.

You know its too much if you are trying to invent a con language.

 

[MSadiq]

Well, shit.

In fairness I have several languages, but they aren't fleshed out entirely, meaning you couldn't learn them and wander around speaking them, heh heh. In fact, I may have went too far on one because it uses clicks and such, so I have no prayer of pronouncing many of its words, LMAO.

I'm in the same rabbit hole, but more tame. Practically creating an English-Arabic hybrid and trying to making sounds shifts from South Old Arabic to Classical Arabic because I decided that semantics will play a role in the magic system, and it made everything 20 times more complicated.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Fortunately, words have no power in my magic system, LMAO.

 

[pmmg]

How do you write a name with a click in it?

 

[MSadiq]

I'd assume you'd just write the letter that's the closest to the click and mark it with a diacritic/accent, like an alveolar (the fleshy bit behind your upper front teeth) click might be written as t̂ or t̎. Or just come up with digraphs, like gh and kh.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Well, I was going berserk at this point using Zulu for a bit of inspiration with three clicks: dental, alveolar, and lateral. For now, I simply use letters C, Q, and X respectively, but to be blunt, I need to transition those to different symbols or my brain doesn't grasp the pronunciation in my head unless I'm REALLY thinking about it. I might transition to something like ˆ (Dental) ` (Alveolar) ¨ (Lateral) to help keep it straight. There's also some Swahili inspiration.

It really, really messes with my name creation, so I might nix the whole damned thing, LMAO.

EDIT: So, Aquoê (Water) would become A`uorê. Yes, this does help my brain sort things out, but still might be too much of a pain in the ass, LOL.

I will never try to learn Zulu, I guarantee that.

 

[pmmg]

I hate to say, but I would never read that as having a click without some instruction to do so. Thats a hard thing to convey.

 

[MSadiq]

Well, I was going berserk at this point using Zulu for a bit of inspiration with three clicks: dental, alveolar, and lateral. For now, I simply use letters C, Q, and X respectively, but to be blunt, I need to transition those to different symbols or my brain doesn't grasp the pronunciation in my head unless I'm REALLY thinking about it. I might transition to something like ˆ (Dental) ` (Alveolar) ¨ (Lateral) to help keep it straight. There's also some Swahili inspiration.

It really, really messes with my name creation, so I might nix the whole damned thing, LMAO.

EDIT: So, Aquoê (Water) would become A`uorê. Yes, this does help my brain sort things out, but still might be too much of a pain in the ass, LOL.

I will never try to learn Zulu, I guarantee that.

It's really difficult to try to fit another language with another script. I had to abandon adding pharyngeals (/ʕ/ and /ħ/) because I couldn't find a good way to represent them. I tried a diagraph, like hg and hk respectively, but more than just looking awkward, people would just ignore the H and read the G and K. For example, Ali isn't /æli:/; it is /ʕæliy/, so will I also respell it as hgali? No, and people would just read it as ga-lee. If I had used an apostrophe, I would've had to look for another symbol for glottal stops. I just dropped them.

Also, even if I found a way, there's no guarantee people will pronounce them exactly as I want. Take the Haligtree and the Scadutree from Elden Ring. People naturally pronounce them as ha-li-g-tree and skaa-doo-tree, but they're spelt like their original Old English forms, so they should be pronounced as ha-lee-tree (aka holy tree) and shaa-dow-tree (shadow tree), which are the intended pronunciations.

Now, I just try to simplify pronunciation to get as close to the intended pronunciation as I can. You won't have a hard time pronouncing Shanal-Qen, Ma, Bzaar, Erd, or Sima.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I haven't actually used it in text, and I don't really know if I will, but there would certainly be instructions for clicks if I go that direction... including don't bother if you don't want to, LMAO. I might also just use it for the "ancient" version of the language. I developed it mostly due to a major plot point where I wanted to know how many characters in a written alphabet my theoretical language would have because the characters will be dealing with a word puzzle. I might adjust it so that due to trade and other cultural influences their language shifted to eliminate the clicks.

I hate to say, but I would never read that as having a click without some instruction to do so. Thats a hard thing to convey.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I don't bother worrying about whether people will pronoucce the words right, because I know many won't. And that's cool. I give pronunciation for the hard cores who dig that sort of thing, but I've met many a reader who starts talking about the books and we just have to work our way around it even with simple names. It's weird to have people butcher the pronunications but you get used to it, and you just have to stare at them a few seconds to figure it out. "Meliu" is one that seems to get people, while "Solineus" most people I've met have no trouble with, while "Ivin" is almost always pronounce as "Ivan" unless the reader really paid attention to the pronunciation rules.

It's all good.

It's really difficult to try to fit another language with another script. I had to abandon adding pharyngeals (/ʕ/ and /ħ/) because I couldn't find a good way to represent them. I tried a diagraph, like hg and hk respectively, but more than just looking awkward, people would just ignore the H and read the G and K. For example, Ali isn't /æli:/; it is /ʕæliy/, so will I also respell it as hgali? No, and people would just read it as ga-lee. If I had used an apostrophe, I would've had to look for another symbol for glottal stops. I just dropped them.

Also, even if I found a way, there's no guarantee people will pronounce them exactly as I want. Take the Haligtree and the Scadutree from Elden Ring. People naturally pronounce them as ha-li-g-tree and skaa-doo-tree, but they're spelt like their original Old English forms, so they should be pronounced as ha-lee-tree (aka holy tree) and shaa-dow-tree (shadow tree), which are the intended pronunciations.

Now, I just try to simplify pronunciation to get as close to the intended pronunciation as I can. You won't have a hard time pronouncing Shanal-Qen, Ma, Bzaar, Erd, or Sima.

 

[MSadiq]

I don't bother worrying about whether people will pronoucce the words right, because I know many won't. And that's cool. I give pronunciation for the hard cores who dig that sort of thing, but I've met many a reader who starts talking about the books and we just have to work our way around it even with simple names. It's weird to have people butcher the pronunications but you get used to it, and you just have to stare at them a few seconds to figure it out. "Meliu" is one that seems to get people, while "Solineus" most people I've met have no trouble with, while "Ivin" is almost always pronounce as "Ivan" unless the reader really paid attention to the pronunciation rules.

I'm not that concerned with the actual precise pronunciation because that's impossible to communicate, especially with such wildly different phonemes. I'm more concerned about if a reader sees a name will he stop and struggle to pronounce it? Or even stop and wonder how weird and unnecessarily complicated the spelling is.

Also, ngl, I'm such a language nerd that I do this mostly for myself. I search for etymologies of suspiciously phonetically similar Arabic words for fun hahahah