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How Much Worldbuilding is Enough?

Mindfire

Istar
I like to think of myself as a somewhat extensive world builder. Its one of the most fun parts of writing for me, personally. I have pages upon pages of notes, maps, flags, charts, and tables for different characters, cultures, magic, etc. And most days I feel quite proud of this accomplishment.

AND THEN.

I look at the work of other authors and they have more characters, locations, histories, religions, noble houses, cultures- essentially more everything than I can even count. Literally. I tried to count them and gave up. My work seems hopelessly shoddy by comparison. My world feels too... abstract. To clarify, I'm not aiming at anything nearly as "grounded" as, say, A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm trying for something a bit more like Avatar: The Last Airbender the Codex Alera* Inkworld Trilogy** Imaginarium Geographica*** Chronicles of Narnia**** Avatar: the Last Airbender*****, which I think has a great balance between the concrete and the whimsical. But I'm at a loss about what to do. Do I just need to make MOAR STUFF? I was starting to think my world was close to completion but now it seems rather small. But I'm not sure what else I can add while staying true to my vision and without "disrupting the balance" of the world, so to speak. Should I just go into more detail? I admit I'm more of a big picture person so some details may be lacking in my work. But what details do I need and how much is enough?







*My work does have similarities to Avatar, but I realized that a book might be a more helpful example than a television show, which has somewhat different creative principles.

**I realized that the Codex Alera might be a somewhat obscure reference and decided to choose a different book as an example.

***I then realized that the Inkworld Trilogy might be even more obscure than the Codex Alera.

****It occurs to me that my references are getting more and more obscure with each try. So I decided to pick something everyone has heard of.

*****It occurs to me that while the books are good, Narnia is not the best example to use as far as careful and extensive world building is concerned, so I'm going back to Avatar. Screw different creative principles.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Are you just building a world or are you intending to tell a story? Both are legitimate activities. Whichever it is, just get on with it!

At least with a story, you know when you're done. Or can hope you'll know!

With worldbuilding, I see that almost like a hobby--there's potentially no end to it, and the fun is in the endless doing of it. So you're never done and it's never enough and that's great.

If you intend to tell a story, though, just start writing it. As you go, you'll need to have details. Character goes to city. What sort of city? Independent? Part of a kingdom? Let's say it's independent. What sort of government? What's its economy like? What races live here? Do they live in their own districts?

You do your worldbuilding only in response to the questions for which your story demands answers, at least ideally. In fact you'll find yourself filling in all sorts of background that you don't wind up using, but that's okay.

To put all this more succinctly, there's no way to say how much is enough. More is always possible. But if you're aiming to tell a story, the story and the writing of it must always be the most important.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
You should have no more than fifteen pages of notes. :rolleyes:

Really, if you're not sure, you should focus more on your characters and your plot, and figure out more about where your story stands, in order to get a better image of whether your world does enough to support it.

That said, one trick I found useful sometimes was to take an item on my map or in my notes and conceptually split it in two. A country becomes a collection city states, loosely united. A king's leadership becomes split with a council of lords or merchants. Then you might realize that each city-state needs a capital, or that members of the council might need some land inside the kingdom which adds even more to your world. I find that kind of thing adds depth to the piece that exists and gives me more story potential than expanding outwards on the map.


You do your worldbuilding only in response to the questions for which your story demands answers, at least ideally. In fact you'll find yourself filling in all sorts of background that you don't wind up using, but that's okay.

Yes and no. Your setting is a part of your story, and it has a tremendous potential to affect your story. At least brainstorming in your world can be really useful for understanding your characters and your story.

Of course, spending a lot of time on things that don't become relevant isn't helpful for your writing, so I do think that you should mostly hold off on filling in most of the details until you know that you'll need them (which could be early on depending on how you write).
 
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Mindfire

Istar
Well, I suppose my real problem is that I live in perpetual dread of the question.

"I really liked the book, but why do all the characters speak the same language?"
"About how long did the dragons hold the proto-Mavarians in captivity?"
"What's the average size and lifespan of a hyloth?"
"When was steel invented?"
"What's the linguistic origin of the name Meeka?"

"Um... Actually I haven't really given much thought to-"
"AND YOU DARE CALL YOURSELF A FANTASY WRITER? HACK!"

Some of my world building has actually been done in response to the thought, "Oh crap, what if someone asks me this and I don't have an answer?"
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Some of my world building has actually been done in response to the thought, "Oh crap, what if someone asks me this and I don't have an answer?"

N'ehh. Maybe the first one - why does everyone speak the same language? - sure, valid enough. But the others, don't even worry about that. Just tell readers, "The answer is in the books if you look hard enough," and if you have any fans, they'll find it for you.
 

Nebuchadnezzar

Troubadour
I have pages upon pages of notes, maps, flags...

Flags? Wow. Man, I just make that s**t up on the fly.

E.g: The militia of Coleridge Town marches under the...uh...the red and gold! Yeah, that's it, the red and gold banner. And on that banner flies the...uh...uh...well...they're on the coast, right? The ship and crowns? Yeah, the ship and crowns!

Wait a minute, wasn't the Ship and Crowns the name of a tavern from one of Gary Gygax's stories about Gord of Greyhawk? Screw it. No one on earth made it through one of those stories except you.

So that's it: the militia of Coleridge Town marches under the red and gold banner of the ship-and-crowns.


Assuming my fantasies come true and some day I'm the center of attention at a big con, someone may ask, "What do the crowns stand for on the Coleridge Town banner?" And I'll say: "Glad you asked. There's an interesting story behind that. I may tell it someday."

Then I'll launch into the William Shatner "get a life!" speech from Saturday Night Live.

In short, feel free to do as much worldbuilding as you want if you enjoy that as a hobby. But for purposes of your story, I'm guessing you've already done more than enough. If you absolutely need something that you've forgotten, you'll notice that lack very quickly, and in that case you can easily invent it as you need it.

I'm willing to bet big dollars that GRRM makes up a lot of his s**t on the fly too.
 

Mindfire

Istar
I'm willing to bet big dollars that GRRM makes up a lot of his s**t on the fly too.

Yes, he's admitted that he often does. But when you see it all laid out in wiki form... it's pretty daunting. And then you remember that Tolkien did all this stuff too, except he did it all with deliberate planning. I'll likely never be half the world builder the two of them are/were, but it never hurts to try.
 

Alexandra

Closed Account
Flags? Wow. Man, I just make that s**t up on the fly.... I'm willing to bet big dollars that GRRM makes up a lot of his s**t on the fly too.

George Martin!?! Of course he does... s**t on the fly that is. I've designed sigils, flags, banners, shield devices, et al for my world and most of this detail likely won't receive more than a mention in The Songs.... I do it because tis fun and a way to rekindle old ideas, plans, and characters.
 

Nebuchadnezzar

Troubadour
I'll likely never be half the world builder the two of them are/were, but it never hurts to try.

True -- as long as trying to match them doesn't get in the way of actually sitting down and writing the story (not saying that this is a problem you're suffering from).

Congratulations on becoming an Istari by the way, and I like the new pic!
 

Mindfire

Istar
True -- as long as trying to match them doesn't get in the way of actually sitting down and writing the story (not saying that this is a problem you're suffering from).

Congratulations on becoming an Istari by the way, and I like the new pic!

Thanks! I think I might adopt it as my personal sigil. :D
 

danr62

Sage
Mindfire flew the banner of the golden pheonix on a field of red and black. The pheonix represents the kingdom's rise from the ashes of a province Artur Hawking's empire.
 

Meyer

Minstrel
I think a very important thing to do is record details as you include them into the story into a database you can refer to in order to insure internal consistency.
 
It's impossible to create a world as exhaustive as our own from your imagination. If it's not possible to write down or to memorize everything there is to know about our world (let alone one country or even a single person!) than it's impossible to create something that complex and intricate from scratch.

If you want to write a book - you only have to flesh out the parts you'll need for your book. And even then - if you're a discovery writer (a term used by Brandon Sanderson for those writers who build the plot and sometimes even the world as they write) you'll probably have to do a lot less.

However for lots of people, world-building is just as important as writing books. It's a hobby in itself. Lots of writers create worlds but never write (or finish) a book. Some people even detest writing fiction but enjoy fleshing out "what-if" scenario's or creating new cultures in a pseudo-scientific way.

Let's take J.R.R. Tolkien as an example. He did some amazingly extensive world-building but truth be told, he didn't have to write all that lore to provide a setting for his book. Building his world was his pride. I myself enjoy writing but I enjoy world-building too.

So unless you're hellbent on using your world as a setting for a book (or two) and then dropping it, you can be very minimalistic. You'll probably continue building your world as you write (and you notice the gaps). But if you enjoy world-building and you're not on a personal deadline to publish something, you can spend decades fleshing out your world.
 
"I really liked the book, but why do all the characters speak the same language?"

Same reason I speak English - it's the lingua franca of that particular region.

"About how long did the dragons hold the proto-Mavarians in captivity?"

A thousand years! No, seven thousand years!

Or... some other number that sounds impressive but doesn't really mean anything.

"What's the average size and lifespan of a hyloth?"

Depends. If the hyloth dies of old age over the course of this story, does it actually matter?

"When was steel invented?"

Also, who actually cares?

"What's the linguistic origin of the name Meeka?"

Franch-Latin, variant of Dominique.

"Um... Actually I haven't really given much thought to-"
"AND YOU DARE CALL YOURSELF A FANTASY WRITER? HACK!"

Look, it doesn't matter because unless you actually sit down and write your damn story, you're not a real writer anyway.

Some of my world building has actually been done in response to the thought, "Oh crap, what if someone asks me this and I don't have an answer?"

See, this is called "intrusive thoughts", and it might be a sign of a budding anxiety disorder. It's unhealthy. Stahp.
 

Mindfire

Istar

I didn't realize that was an actual name. I just kinda made it up.

Look, it doesn't matter because unless you actually sit down and write your damn story, you're not a real writer anyway.

Valid point, I suppose.

See, this is called "intrusive thoughts", and it might be a sign of a budding anxiety disorder. It's unhealthy. Stahp.

Planning ahead is associated with anxiety disorder?
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
Write little short stories describing a day/hour/moment in the life of an average inhabitant of your world. You'll soon have plenty of more questions to ask yourself and whose answers may or may not be important or relevant.
 
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