My world's history of kings and conquerors may be too ambitious

[OnumVeritae]

When I think of the landscape I have in my head, I wonder if I'm thinking too big. The mythical land I came up with is called Veritas, basically Ireland turned horizontally. And this place has four provinces (just like Ireland has through most of it's history): Ordnan, Concordia, Marthoum, and Dovari. Each one has it's own history and reason for it's name. To keep it simple, the history of this place is connected to kings and conquerors of several surrounding nations. I'm just wondering if I'm creating a back story that's too big. Since I'm new to writing in this genre, as I am a journalism major, I'm not sure how much depth is expected by readers.

I have a very detailed history going back thousands of years for Veritas, but the histories of the surrounding nations are vague because the story focuses on this one place.

Any suggestions or opinions about how important that is?

 

[Amanita]

I'm just wondering if I'm creating a back story that's too big.

No, you're not.
I wouldn't say that something like that is absolutely necessary but it surely won't hurt. (As long as you don't spend too much time on it rather than on your writing.)
In general my opinion is that the writer's own knowledge about their world can never be too detailed. This doesn't mean that everything can or should be part of the actual story though. Some events might have influenced your nations but will never be mentioned in the story. You know what they were however and therefore you have stringent reasons as to why things are the way they are and this will show. Others might not matter at all but they're still interesting for you and might offer ideas for future stories.

 

[Dan]

You may need only the most major events from the surrounding nations, and perhaps only events that directly effect your main nation.

If you build up a timeline of events in which external nations have perhaps attacked, or settled down in one of your provinces of your nation then you can attach that to specific bits of research for your writing; A specific people may come across the seas and settle in a small area of your nation, and these people could bring certain technologies (Imagine Roman technology coming to Britain) or certain methods of fighting, and this can add solidity to your writing.

You may never mention it in detail that a specific area, and/ or people were responsible for the invention of, lets say, a type of fighting in which heavily armed men formed a wall of shields around archers whom marched forward as they shot. (Bad example I know heh).

But you may briefly mention it originating from a place within your world, or from a certain people in the very smallest way possible within the book, but that small bit of information, which seems like historical information, will add so much grounding to your story, or stories.

That's just my two-cents anyway, and that is what I aiming for.

Having a big treasure trove of invented facts, events, and so on really gets your creative-juices flowing while writing.

 

[ThinkerX]

What you are doing is providing a solid framework for your stories, something you will find really useful. It is - this event back then is why these people have such and such an attitude towards these people. And this ceremony exists because of this past event.

 

[LOCOFOOL]

I think the more detail the better. Maybe write all the details and history down? I'm sure writing it all down can help with your writing, building a great framework like ThinkerX said. Being the avid reader I am I love reading up on details that shaped my favorite fantasy worlds.

 

[StorytellerGrl]

I don't think your back story is too complex at all. Having a detailed history of your world helps to make it feel more real for the reader. Writing out a detailed history for yourself can be a good exercise, as well as helping you to feel more comfortable in the world.

Just don't try to include all of this wonderful history in your actual story, as it can bog down the plot and make your epic fantasy read more like a dry history textbook. You can reveal pieces of the backstory bit by bit, as they relate to the current action. For example, if King So-and-so killed Lord Such-and-such 500 years ago, at the same time that Princess Whats-her-name was doing something at the other end of the country, those important facts don't have to be revealed at the same time in the story. Gradually revealing the rich history that you've created as the story progresses helps to keep the reader's interest and makes them want to keep reading to discover more.

 

[Hulb2]

This idea will only work if you're into this sort of way of writing, but maybe create your story into a series?

in doing so, you could maybe create short stories showing different aspects of your world, and then maybe create one main novel?, just an idea

Hulb2

 

[J. S. Elliot]

Personally, I love well developed worlds. While info-dumping is enough to pull me out of the story, gradually slipping in what the world is like with the story would gain you consistent readers, I would think. As StorytellerGrl said, just offer little tidbits at a time. Enough to make the reader go "hmm ..." should be enough, before you continue with your story. Just keep doing that.

 

[Vinegar Tom]

There is such a thing as obsessing too much about background - don't hold your breath while you're waiting for Peter Jackson's Simarillion trilogy! Your land of Veritas - by the way, are we supposed to translate that as "Truthland", and if so, are you intentionally flagging the Veritans as incredibly arrogant for calling it that? - is similar to medieval Ireland. Yes, the Irish could trace their royal family back for a ridiculous length of time, but after a while it all got a bit mythical, and included incredibly bizarre royal ancestors like Bran, who had a magic cauldron and a lot of relatives with random superpowers, and ended up as a living severed head.

Obviously at some point in the not immensely distant past, the kings of Ireland had been illiterate barbarians who didn't know their own history, but that isn't terribly glorious, so they just invented a more exciting past. Similarly, most medieval English kings could trace their family tree back about 3,000 years to the almost entirely mythical King David, mainly because that meant they were distantly related to Jesus Christ. Some of them could trace their roots right back to Adam! Needless to say, the scholarship involved was doubtful to say the least.

Unless you're going with the fantasy cliché of royalty genuinely being special people by virtue of blood alone, therefore the humble stable lad is destined to rule the land by Divine Right instead of that nasty fellow who currently does so, royal family trees don't really matter to anyone except obsessively scholarly monks and monarchs with an inferiority complex. And unless the history of Veritas has been extraordinarily stable for a very long time (and therefore very dull), almost all of the genealogy - and history in general - from more than about 300 years ago at most, and probably less than that, gets more and more unreliable, until once you're 1,000 years or more in the past, it's almost pure myth.

If your chronology goes back thousands of years, we're probably talking about well over a hundred monarchs, the great majority of whom will never, ever be mentioned in the story at all. If bards sing epic ballads about the legendary deeds of ancient kings, they'll probably all be about a handful of especially legendary people like King Arthur. Whether tales of things that happened a thousand years ago are literally true, or whether these characters ever really existed, is irrelevant to the story, unless bits of it take place in those ancient times. The only real point in having a list of every single ancestor the current king ever had is if that king is a pompous but painfully insecure little fellow who needs to prove to everyone that he really is the rightful king, and has his heralds read out huge chunks of his lineage every time they announce him (see Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky for an example of this), boring the entire court rigid. It could be a good joke if these lists get more and more absurd because even the scholar who was paid to do the "research" got bored and started inventing kings with silly names.

The risk with this level of detail in the backstory is that you end up trying to cram the whole lot into the tale to justify coming up with it in the first place, slowing down the action and boring the reader, even though there's no good reason for the protagonists to be discussing these things at all. Tolkein got away with including a detailed scholarly discussion about pipeweed before the action proper of The Lord of the Rings even starts, just in case anyone is wondering how a bunch of made-up midgets on a pretend planet who can't possibly have been to America are apparently smoking tobacco, but I very much doubt that anyone ever would have worried about that if he hadn't drawn their attention to it himself. Also, you can't get away with that sort of thing unless you're J. R. R. Tolkein, and since he's dead, I assume you aren't.

And then there's the even worse risk that you get so bogged down in getting every little detail of an entire fictional world worked out in advance that you're never quite ready to actually write the story. So bash on with it, whether you've finished inventing 10,000 years of history or not - any continuity errors that may arise don't matter, because different sources tell it differently, and it's probably all made up anyway. And even if it isn't, it only has a direct effect on the hero if some of the characters happen to be immortal. And even then, they could be senile, lying, or just overwhelmed by all those centuries' worth of memories - how well do you remember what it was like to be five?

 

[Chilari]

I think there are two questions you need to answer here.

1. Do you enjoy worldbuilding? If so, why shouldn't you do as much of it as you like? If not, then how did you get to this point in the first place?

2. Are your worldbuilding activities detracting from your novel? This includes the question of time - if you're spending so much time worldbuilding that you don't have time left to actually write the novel then perhaps it would be best to cut back, but it depends on your priorities. If it's solely for your own enjoyment, then do what you enjoy. If you aim to finish and publish your novel then managing your time more effectively, by holding back on worldbuilding that you don't need to do, is probably the best route. But it all depends on what you want from it.