On Relevance

[skip.knox]

We hear the advice all the time: it's fine to add backstory and worldbuilding in your novel, but it needs to be relevant. Readers hate endless paragraphs of worldbuilding that don't matter to the story.

True enough, as far as it goes, but it doesn't go near far enough, especially for the new and newish author. Which readers are meant? What constitutes relevance? How many paragraphs is too many? How do I make it matter? I mean, it *all* matters, or I wouldn't have invented it!

This little essay may not go far enough either, but it will go a bit further and maybe that will prove helpful. Use what you find useful and ignore the rest.

First the reader. That's an easy one. You don't care about the reader, mainly because you don't know who that reader is. What you do know, what you can absolutely count on, is that there are many different kinds of readers and some will like what you do and some won't. That's it. No matter how much or how little backstory you write, no matter how well you write it, some of your readers will say you've gone on too long and it was dull.

Forget about the reader, at least for now. You yourself are the first reader, and you must pass your own critical review before you ever show your work to someone else, so we'll concentrate on developing your own standards.

How much is too much? That is almost as easy. Quantity is not the significant factor here. It's quality. It's not the quantity for a couple of reasons. One, the point made previously; what's too much for one is not enough for another. There just ain't no pleasing some folk. The second reason is that most of the time when someone complains that there's too much backstory, they are really complaining that the backstory as presented seems to have too little to do with the story. More specifically, it has too little to do with the plot and the characters of the story.

Ah, now we're closing in on something useful. Let's suppose we have a team of three heroes in pursuit of a villain, and something swoops down from above, allowing the villain to escape. Where might the worldbuilding appear and what forms might it take?

Where? Beginning, middle, or end. As we come into the scene, you might say this world has flying orcs that can shoot death rays, and these are demons sent by a rogue godling cast out the Ethereal Realm by the High Council of the Gods.

Or, you can start the scene, describe the demonic orcs, and one character cries what is that, and another gives the backstory, right there, in the midst of the pursuit.

Or, after the scene ends and the villain escapes, either a character or the narrator can provide the information.

The placement of the backstory is going to affect the pacing of the scene. If the scene is our heroes camped in a peaceful field viewing strange shapes in the distance, that's one thing, but in the chase scene the effect (and effectiveness) will be quite different.

Your job, Dear Author, is to make the choice. Placement matters, so think about it. One thing should occur to you early on. If the backstory passage is placed without relationship to any scene, if it's "filler" in between, then you've got it in the wrong place. It's comparatively easy to tell where the wrong place is. It's quite difficult to find the right place. That mainly takes practice, which is a word that usually means "I did it wrong a bunch of times".

That's part of the lesson. The other part concerns not where the worldbuilding takes place but what is actually said. Take my example above, clause by clause. Is it necessary to say the orcs fly?

Probably. It would help explain why our heroes keep looking up. Do we even need to say they're orcs? That's trickier because this is fantasy, and maybe we just describe them. That, though, might require several sentences to make clear, and that would certainly slow down the narrative. On the other hand, maybe you want to make it clear that your orcs have a particular physiognomy.

Something similar goes for the death rays. Maybe they shoot rays from their eyes, but maybe they have guns. Either way, the fact that they have lethal weaponry is pretty directly relevant to the scene. Our heroes' reaction wouldn't make sense otherwise, nor would the villain's escape.

It says here they're demons sent by a rogue godling ... et cetera. Now we're wandering a bit. It might very well be that this particular godling has importance to the plot. Maybe it's a major player. In that case, what about its status matters to our heroes (or the villain) at this particular moment? It's hard to judge an unwritten story, but I'd say that the fact that there is a godling who can command flying orcs is something that should be established earlier than this scene. The death rays could be added here as a surprise, or could be something known to the reader and thus feared in the moment. What you want as Dear Author will dictate where you place that information.

As for the High Council and the godling's history with them, I hope you can see that none of that is "relevant" to the moment. Knowing this isn't going to add anything to the scene. It's somewhat as if the camera in a movie was following a chase only to swing aside to show us a pretty sunset. The more irrelevance you add, the more readers you will lose.

Which is not to imply that none of that backstory matters. It might matter to the story (and therefore to the reader), which means the High Council needs to be worked in there somehow, somewhere. One guideline you can adopt is that the more important an object, a setting, a character, a whatever, is to the story, the more times it needs to appear or be mentioned. Another thing you'll notice is that "useless worldbuilding" sometimes will appear once and never again for the whole novel.

The backstory also might matter not to the story but to you, Dear Author. It might be very important for your understanding of the world you have built, and absolutely deserves to be fully developed. But that does not win it a place on stage. Learning how to tell the difference between worldbuilding that matters to you and worldbuilding that matters to the story, is another one of those things that needs practice.

There you have it. A handful of frustratingly vague tips that you can rely on occasionally. I'm not going to summarize it. You need to do that, because you need to put it into terms that make sense to you at this particular point in your work as a writer.

Me, I got work of my own to do. I only wrote this to get out of having to do it for a while.

 

[Rexenm]

Let's suppose we have a team of three heroes in pursuit of a villain, and something swoops down from above, allowing the villain to escape.

That is something I have in my story that is, lacking. There are heroes, and there are villains. There are many times in my story that there is only one lonely fellow. It is not clear who is at fault but they show all sorts of magic in the pursuit of clarity. This hero mostly ends up in some other place away from his previous confusion among different characters.

As we come into the scene, you might say this world has flying orcs that can shoot death rays, and these are demons sent by a rogue godling cast out

Of course this is the matter at hand. There are different levels of recourse you can imagine in a scene where there are fists swinging. It might seem like an overextension to someone whom is, lacking. There are plenty of times I have scaled the violence in my story and gotten rid of the backstory.

. If the scene is our heroes camped in a peaceful field viewing strange shapes in the distance, that's one thing

There is a peaceful nature to a bar with weapons, in a whore house or guild in a story, but then you get the minstrel who will suddenly whip you into a morose mood, and there are plenty of times a bard will do that. I think scenery is made for storytelling. There is something serene about them. They will bring a peaceful mood, much like a thunderstorm on a tin roof, but it is all about clarity.

Take my example above, clause by clause. Is it necessary to say the orcs fly?

There are a few things you can’t do in storytelling that you can do in backstory. Explain a Time Machine. Topple a Dynasty. Dethrone a King. Terraform a Map. But in story telling, we like to go along for a ride, just to avoid misunderstanding.

 

[Prince of Spires]

It's difficult. Brandon Sanderson has said that conveying worldbuilding in an interesting way to the reader is the grand skill of writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, and it's what set these genres apart from the other genres out there. And I agree with him.

It's a fine and difficult balancing act. I think for a beginning author, especially if he has received feedback that his pacing is slow or the tale is uninteresting, the advice to only convey what is relevant at that time is decent. This is mainly said about beginnings, where the reader isn't as invested in the story. First you need to establish interesting characters for the reader to care about. Once he does, then you can start adding in small bits of worldbuilding.

Also, later in the story, you can start adding in bits that aren't relevant to the story at all, as long as you do it in moderation. One of my favorite lines in a novel and strongest bits of worldbuilding comes from Lord of the Rings, from the council of Elrond. Frodo has just declared to the council that he will take the ring, though he doesn't know the way. In response, Elrond mentions:
"I will say that your choice is right; and though all the mighty Elf-friend of old, Hador, and Hurin, and Túrin, and Beren himself were assembled here together, your seat would be among them."

This line is pure worldbuilding. It has no plot or character relevance at all, there's no conflict in there. We never learn who these characters are or what they did. Except for Beren, they're never even mentioned again. It's only worldbuilding. And it's a beautiful line (in my opinion). It hints at a depth to the world in a way a chapter about some random battle never could. It's speaks of a heroic past and of great deeds.

It could be taken out, and the chapter would be the same. Nothing in the story would be any different. Tolkien could leave everything the same and the reader wouldn't know he was missing this bit. But it's this little nugget, and similar nuggets spread throughout the story, that makes the Lord of the Rings what it is. Removing it would diminish the story.

Two things are important to note about it though. Firstly, it's short. The above sentence is all we read about it. Nothing more. Elrond says this, and afterwards the story simply moves on. It doesn't linger on the worldbuilding. It's also in a reflective scene, meaning it doesn't break the pacing of an action scene. This means it doesn't slow the pace.

Secondly, this is around the halfway mark of The fellowship of the Rings. We already know these characters and care about them. This line helps us care about the world. It's characters first, world second.

 

[pmmg]

I think I can sum all of this up as 'its an art and not a science'. Working on the art is a lifelong pursuit, and takes a lot of practice.

It's difficult. Brandon Sanderson has said that conveying worldbuilding in an interesting way to the reader is the grand skill of writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, and it's what set these genres apart from the other genres out there. And I agree with him.

I don't know that I can wholly agree with Sanderson. I think, with some scrutiny, I might be able to blur the lines as to what really sets things apart. I dont see too many other genres wanting to take on Mt Olympus and the pantheon of Gods, for instance. That seems like something that sets fantasy apart.

It's characters first, world second.

Couldn't have said it better

(Okay...we'll, I am really back to 'give the story what it needs'. World first if it happens to need it, but...characters matter more IMO).

 

[Mad Swede]

I'm translating from the Swedish now. My editor sums relevance and balance up as "show don't tell." By this she means that your worldbuilding (or scene setting if that's what you want to call it) should be described in terms of what the characters see, hear, smell, taste and do. That experience needs to be relevant and set the scene for the story/character arcs ahead.

As an example from my editor, you as the author could simply state "it was a very poor district with hungry people" and in doing so you'd be telling. But she says you can and should show, by describing the scene as seen by the characters, e.g. that the locals are dressed in ragged clothing, live in ramshackle homes etc etc. In this way you convey that the area is poverty stricken without saying so directly. Another of the examples she uses (based on one of my books, oddly) is a couple of paragraphs describing the panorama/vista ahead of the characters. This sets both the type of terrain ahead and its scale, so hinting to the reader that the journey could take some time and involve things like bears in forests (or whatever).

In short, your descriptions should build the world and its inhabitants, giving reasons for people to speak and act as appropriate to the story and the scene(s), and set a framework for what is to happen.

 

[Incanus]

I'm translating from the Swedish now. My editor sums relevance and balance up as "show don't tell." By this she means that your worldbuilding (or scene setting if that's what you want to call it) should be described in terms of what the characters see, hear, smell, taste and do. That experience needs to be relevant and set the scene for the story/character arcs ahead.

As an example from my editor, you as the author could simply state "it was a very poor district with hungry people" and in doing so you'd be telling. But she says you can and should show, by describing the scene as seen by the characters, e.g. that the locals are dressed in ragged clothing, live in ramshackle homes etc etc. In this way you convey that the area is poverty stricken without saying so directly. Another of the examples she uses (based on one of my books, oddly) is a couple of paragraphs describing the panorama/vista ahead of the characters. This sets both the type of terrain ahead and its scale, so hinting to the reader that the journey could take some time and involve things like bears in forests (or whatever).

In short, your descriptions should build the world and its inhabitants, giving reasons for people to speak and act as appropriate to the story and the scene(s), and set a framework for what is to happen.

This seems to be addressing description, narration, and pacing more than world-building. A forest with a bear in it isn't really a world-building element, since most everyone already knows what those two things are. That's a story development decision, using description.

But when a reader can tell me what the difference between two cities, Dossnar and Atledon, in my secondary world are, then they have picked up on my world-building. I don't need any special info to understand a forest and a bear, but to understand the differences of those cities requires knowledge specific to my world.

I consider world-building to be a collection of unique facts about the secondary world that has been created. Description is just one of several ways that readers will gain that info.

 

[Mad Swede]

This seems to be addressing description, narration, and pacing more than world-building. A forest with a bear in it isn't really a world-building element, since most everyone already knows what those two things are. That's a story development decision, using description.

But when a reader can tell me what the difference between two cities, Dossnar and Atledon, in my secondary world are, then they have picked up on my world-building. I don't need any special info to understand a forest and a bear, but to understand the differences of those cities requires knowledge specific to my world.

I consider world-building to be a collection of unique facts about the secondary world that has been created. Description is just one of several ways that readers will gain that info.

You've missed the point. My editor would tell you that getting the reader to know and understand the differences between two cities in your setting should be done through the eyes, ears and mind of the characters (showing) and not through a potentially tedious narrative description (telling). As she puts it, make it gradual, draw them in, let them build it in their minds from the crumbs of information you provide as the story develops.

 

[skip.knox]

> a potentially tedious narrative description
Isn't this measure completely subjective? What is tedious to one person is not so to another--which is hardly a profound statement. But what is a new author to do?

I encounter this feeling all the time. Is this scene sufficiently exciting or poetic or sad or horrifying? Every one of those are human sentiments and so will be judged in wildly different ways. When I'm sitting there, pen in hand or fingers on keyboard, do I rewrite the scene or leave it be? Indeed, as I'm considering the scene in the first place, is it a good idea to write it, or is it superfluous or ... well ... tedious?

The judgments, it seems to me, are rendered in some cases by an editor, or else by the reader (always the reader, of course), which is to say the judgments are relevant only long after the poor author has already written the scene. To put it another way, they're no help to that author with pen in hand.

Except, they kinda sorta are. They're an ideal. I encourage the new author to become their own editor/reader. Not only to exercise judgment themselves first of all, but to cultivate their judgment, to work consciously to improve and refine that judgment. I find it incredibly difficult and tedious <g> because there's not really a methodology for that. It's just practice and paying attention (that latter is the one often neglected). I offered a few tips I have found useful: thinking about where your backstory is placed within a scene, for example.

One other point to raise here, though it's a bit of a tangent. It regards "the reader". As in, getting the reader to recognize and appreciate something, or not boring the reader. Any advice involving that sort of phrasing. What are we talking about here?

If it's some specific reader, how in the world are authors supposed to learn how a scene or any aspect of a novel strikes the reader? Even if they knew, it might be the fault of the author but it might also be the fault of the reader. If I protest that we're not really talking about some particular reader but readers more generally, then I raise the matter of statistics. Is it ok if one reader in a million thinks my setting descriptions are tedious? What if it's half the readers who think so? I figure most of us would agree that if *all* readers find my writing tedious, then I need to admit I've failed with the story. But of course, we can never know proportions. So what's the point of worrrying about this?

Surely it cannot be there's no point in thinking about the reader, just as there's little profit in believing we know "the reader" in detail. But is there any genuinely useful way of considering the reader, in a way that I as author can actually use while writing? Here again, my own choice is to consider myself as my primary reader, the one I am most earnestly trying to please. If I were in traditional publishing, I'd add my agent and editor, but those are out of the self-pub picture. In their stead I place beta readers, but I admit I do not always use them. Beyond that, though, I tend to regard any completed novel as dice already thrown.

 

[Incanus]

You've missed the point. My editor would tell you that getting the reader to know and understand the differences between two cities in your setting should be done through the eyes, ears and mind of the characters (showing) and not through a potentially tedious narrative description (telling). As she puts it, make it gradual, draw them in, let them build it in their minds from the crumbs of information you provide as the story develops.

I guess we are talking past each other here. I didn't miss that point at all. At no point in my story is there a direct comparison made between the cities, and no blocks of pure information that simply 'tell' about them. I don't use 'info-dumps'. The places are encountered in large and small ways throughout the story--'shown'. I'm saying that by the end of the novel, a reader would be able to summarize the differences in their own words, based on what they've experienced in the story. But I wasn't talking about the difference between telling and showing. I thought world-building was the topic.

You didn't seem to acknowledge the difference between description and world-building as I tried to lay out above. Might you have missed my point?

You don't have to read my story to understand about a forest or a bear--those already exist in the real world. However, you do have to read my story to understand the differences of the two fictional cities that exist nowhere else. The first requires zero world-building, the second requires plenty of world-building.

 

[Mad Swede]

I guess we are talking past each other here.

Maybe. But then I'm not writing in my first language...

I didn't miss that point at all. At no point in my story is there a direct comparison made between the cities, and no blocks of pure information that simply 'tell' about them. I don't use 'info-dumps'. The places are encountered in large and small ways throughout the story--'shown'. I'm saying that by the end of the novel, a reader would be able to summarize the differences in their own words, based on what they've experienced in the story. But I wasn't talking about the difference between telling and showing. I thought world-building was the topic.

Wait one. World-building is about creating the setting for the story and then conveying this to the reader as part of the story. The question which skip.knox raised was how we convey this in a relevant way.

My editor is pretty insistent that conveying the setting in a relevant way means showing rather than telling since this gives a better flow to the story. She does want a well thought out setting since this gives depth to the story and more particularly to the characters. She doesn't want this word-building dumped as descriptive text of any sort unless absolutely necessary (so no telling), what she wants is for it to emerge through the characters (showing) as the story develops. I guess you can see this distinction as one of writing style. I wasn't at all sure she was right when we began working together to get my first novel ready for publication (this was after I got my publishing contract) but having seen the end result and how much of an improvement it was I now know she was right. Not that it needed much re-writing, but it did need tweaking. My subsequent novels have been much better for her guidance, they have had a better flow right from the start.

We're probably aiming for the same end result, that the reader understands the setting and can in some way describe it as part of the story. We might even be doing it in the same way...

You don't have to read my story to understand about a forest or a bear--those already exist in the real world. However, you do have to read my story to understand the differences of the two fictional cities that exist nowhere else. The first requires zero world-building, the second requires plenty of world-building.

You need both to build a complete setting which the reader can immerse themselves in. They're two sides of the same coin. If you setting has forests, what sorts of trees and animals are there in those forests? What do these mean for any nearby cities? Do they explain why a city grew up in that particular place? And so on.

 

[Mad Swede]

> a potentially tedious narrative description
Isn't this measure completely subjective? What is tedious to one person is not so to another--which is hardly a profound statement. But what is a new author to do?

I encounter this feeling all the time. Is this scene sufficiently exciting or poetic or sad or horrifying? Every one of those are human sentiments and so will be judged in wildly different ways. When I'm sitting there, pen in hand or fingers on keyboard, do I rewrite the scene or leave it be? Indeed, as I'm considering the scene in the first place, is it a good idea to write it, or is it superfluous or ... well ... tedious?

The judgments, it seems to me, are rendered in some cases by an editor, or else by the reader (always the reader, of course), which is to say the judgments are relevant only long after the poor author has already written the scene. To put it another way, they're no help to that author with pen in hand.

Except, they kinda sorta are. They're an ideal. I encourage the new author to become their own editor/reader. Not only to exercise judgment themselves first of all, but to cultivate their judgment, to work consciously to improve and refine that judgment. I find it incredibly difficult and tedious <g> because there's not really a methodology for that. It's just practice and paying attention (that latter is the one often neglected). I offered a few tips I have found useful: thinking about where your backstory is placed within a scene, for example.

One other point to raise here, though it's a bit of a tangent. It regards "the reader". As in, getting the reader to recognize and appreciate something, or not boring the reader. Any advice involving that sort of phrasing. What are we talking about here?

If it's some specific reader, how in the world are authors supposed to learn how a scene or any aspect of a novel strikes the reader? Even if they knew, it might be the fault of the author but it might also be the fault of the reader. If I protest that we're not really talking about some particular reader but readers more generally, then I raise the matter of statistics. Is it ok if one reader in a million thinks my setting descriptions are tedious? What if it's half the readers who think so? I figure most of us would agree that if *all* readers find my writing tedious, then I need to admit I've failed with the story. But of course, we can never know proportions. So what's the point of worrrying about this?

Surely it cannot be there's no point in thinking about the reader, just as there's little profit in believing we know "the reader" in detail. But is there any genuinely useful way of considering the reader, in a way that I as author can actually use while writing? Here again, my own choice is to consider myself as my primary reader, the one I am most earnestly trying to please. If I were in traditional publishing, I'd add my agent and editor, but those are out of the self-pub picture. In their stead I place beta readers, but I admit I do not always use them. Beyond that, though, I tend to regard any completed novel as dice already thrown.

Might I suggest that we as authors should intially follow C S Lewis' advice on the subject: write the sort of stories you would want to read. We ourselves know what sort of world-building descriptions we like best in stories.

What literary (and other) critics think is always a bit subjective, starting with the books they select for critical assessment... Maybe all that matters is what our readers think and sometimes tell us in e-mails and in person?

 

[Incanus]

Thanks, Mad Swede, for the clarification and continuing the discussion. Skip's original point about relevance is a good one, and well illustrated.

But I got interested in the idea some people have where the term world-building simply just means 'setting'. Why have two terms for the same thing?

I think world-building means something much more specific than just any setting. By your definition, all fiction employs world-building. By my much more narrow definition, I'd estimate that maybe1-3% of fiction employs world-building (I'm just guessing).

I'll try to re-state my definition once more.

If your setting is New York City, and you describe that place as it really is in your story, you have not done any world-building at all. You are reflecting what has already been built.

If you are Tolkien and working on LotR, and invent Mordor, you are engaged in world-building, as it did not exist anywhere else before, unlike New York City.

This is all true no matter the techniques used to get it across in a story. Whether you show or tell about New York, you didn't build it.

Going forward, I'll have to ask people what they mean when they say 'world-building'.

 

[Rexenm]

If your setting is New York City, and you describe that place as it really is in your story, you have not done any world-building at all.

There are plenty of books that have tried. That counts as development. I have a book or two. There is fictional representation. There is fodder.

If you are Tolkien and working on LotR, and invent Mordor, you are engaged in world-building, as it did not exist anywhere else before, unlike New York City.

Why is Middle-Earth the only world-building deemed, wanted? I can imagine plenty of tropes, wanted... Not that you can change the past for future reasons.

 

[skip.knox]

> Maybe all that matters is what our readers think and sometimes tell us in e-mails and in person?
Agreed, but that's of small help to the new author, and those are the ones who most often seek advice on this point. If you haven't yet written your first book, it's hard to have readers (save for those beta readers I mentioned before, or one's editor and agent).

For those newbies, the frequent advice is: just write; you have to do that first. And I agree with this as well, but the prospect of writing a full novel is daunting enough. Far more so is the prospect of "wasting" one's time writing thousands of words only to be told none of it should be there, or ought to be done entirely differently. Worse still, the path of self-pub is always open, so the new writer risks sending out the door a child so ugly only its author can love it, thereby doing irreparable harm to one's marketing potential. Trad publishing has this to offer: the badly-written story will be seen by only a few eyes, whereas the self-published disaster will be paraded up and down the streets (at least for a little while).

Anyway, I try to keep an eye out for actually useful tips aimed specifically at those who have yet to complete a story. I've seen a number of such tips here on Scribes, but they're scattered. Maybe somebody ought to write a book. <g>

 

[Mad Swede]

Thanks, Mad Swede, for the clarification and continuing the discussion. Skip's original point about relevance is a good one, and well illustrated.

But I got interested in the idea some people have where the term world-building simply just means 'setting'. Why have two terms for the same thing?

I think world-building means something much more specific than just any setting. By your definition, all fiction employs world-building. By my much more narrow definition, I'd estimate that maybe1-3% of fiction employs world-building (I'm just guessing).

I'll try to re-state my definition once more.

If your setting is New York City, and you describe that place as it really is in your story, you have not done any world-building at all. You are reflecting what has already been built.

If you are Tolkien and working on LotR, and invent Mordor, you are engaged in world-building, as it did not exist anywhere else before, unlike New York City.

This is all true no matter the techniques used to get it across in a story. Whether you show or tell about New York, you didn't build it.

Going forward, I'll have to ask people what they mean when they say 'world-building'.

Yes, I do think that all fiction employs word-building even when using real places as a basis. Take Frederick Forsyth's The Dogs of War as an example. It starts in Africa (in fact in Nigeria and more specifically Biafra, if you know your military history), switches to Paris and moves to London. Then the action moves through Europe and parts of west Africa. All these places (countries and cities) are real and so are some of the people mentioned, but many of the places (streets, restaurants etc) within the countries and cities are not. Finally the story moves back to a fictional place in Africa. So where, with your definition of world-building, does the setting description end and the world-building start?

 

[Incanus]

Yes, I do think that all fiction employs word-building even when using real places as a basis. Take Frederick Forsyth's The Dogs of War as an example. It starts in Africa (in fact in Nigeria and more specifically Biafra, if you know your military history), switches to Paris and moves to London. Then the action moves through Europe and parts of west Africa. All these places (countries and cities) are real and so are some of the people mentioned, but many of the places (streets, restaurants etc) within the countries and cities are not. Finally the story moves back to a fictional place in Africa. So where, with your definition of world-building, does the setting description end and the world-building start?

I'm not familiar with the story you mentioned, but from the description, I would say there was no world-building involved. I would use the term 'setting' for all of this.

I admit it gets a tad tricky when dealing with fictional streets or restaurants in a city that exits in the real world. But, wouldn't those cities have things like streets and restaurants? They don't require any special knowledge to understand. Did the book need to provide an explanation of what a restaurant is so that a reader would know? I'm guessing not.

Something like the Harry Potter stories use a combination. England and London are real; Hogwarts is not. The first requires no world-building (London has already been built), the second one does.

World-building, to me, means it is pointing to an aspect of the setting that does not exist in any other story.

So--forests, bears, streets, restaurants are all real things that exist in other stories. No world-building.

Some world-building examples: The Islands of Earthsea, from Ursula K. Guin's books. The Dothraki from Game of Thrones. The palantir from Lord of the Rings. The 'stupify' spell from Harry Potter.

Anyway, I suppose this is just my own interpretation of the terms. It feels right to me. The term 'world-building' is relatively new, I think. It comes from genre fiction. The term 'setting' has been around a long time. If there is no distinction between the two, why have the different terms? And why did the term 'world-building' only appear after the rise of the popularity of fantasy fiction?

One last note--one isn't any better or worse than the other. Very clever and fascinating things can be done using only setting. I'm a huge fan of John Steinbeck, but he didn't use any world-building by my definition.

Hope this helps, or at least doesn't hurt very much---

 

[skip.knox]

First, I freely admit I've not used the term in the sense I'm invoking now. I get to change my mind. It's like changing my shirt; sometimes it just makes me feel better, even if I don't smell better. <g>

Worldbuilding is all behind the scenes. It's what the author does off-stage. It can involve setting, but it usually involves much more than that. I mean, is history setting or is it plot? Sort of both, I reckon. Anyway, setting is what happens on-stage. It's description, because setting doesn't exist (for the reader) unless it's described.

That's as clear a demarcation as I care to make. Stuff outside the story, what's in your story bible or your reference file or whatever, that's all worldbuilding. Stuff that's between the (virtual) covers of the (virtual) book (oh what a world), that's all setting. OK, now everyone follows that and all is well. Yep.

To take the Swede's Forsythe example, even the bits that are invented for this or that town, they're all setting if they're in the book. Whether real or fictional isn't relevant in this context. After all, many of his readers won't know anyway. But I'll give you eight to five that Forsythe had a ton more notes than ever made it into the story. That was worldbuilding.

Aside: for some reason I feel it necessary to state that Dogs of War is on my TBR list. The masters of adventure fiction have much to teach us over here in the fantasy realm.

 

[Incanus]

Very good, Skip. I think I can more or less get behind those definitions, sort of. I think I may be a tad hung up on the part of the term - 'building'. To me that means creating something that was not there before. A place like New York has already been built, so no 'building' is required to use it. Some research, perhaps, but that's not the same thing.

Anyway, apologies if this got to be a distraction. Carry on-----

 

[skip.knox]

I don't mind juggling words. How about "inventing"? I think this has already been pointed out, but even in well-established real-world places, there's considerable invention on the part of the author. Moreover, there's more to worldbuilding than just the setting. There's the creation of social relations, hierarchies, political systems, even languages.

Come to think of it, the discussion of what constitutes "info-dump" could benefit by a shift of focus away from such things as physical setting or history, over to something like coinage or astronomy or such. Something on which more people could agree was further in the background than, say, politics or religion. How much does the reader need to know about your economic system before they can enjoy the story? At the same time, how much of the economic system(s) do you the author need to know before you can begin--or finish--your novel?

And to return to your point, Incanus, how much of that would be "building"?

Just as an example, in Altearth I postulate that the Roman Empire never fell (a wonderfully wiggly phrase, that). So, even if I keep a system of solidi and talents, does that constitute invention? It's more like riffing, and even more so in that I allow for marks, pfennige, sous, and any other bit of coin I care to borrow from IRL Middle Ages. I lump it all as worldbuilding. Anything that goes into my world reference, whether or not it appears in a given story.

At the same time, I don't regard character notes as worldbuilding. That's character background. Perhaps that's more word juggling, but somehow noting that my elf has blue eyes--no, gray eyes (a virtual nickel to anyone who gets the reference)--does not feel like worldbuilding to me. It's too individual. The lines are blurry, but authors deal with blurry all the time. We're way more flexible than musicians or painters. <gdr>

 

[Mad Swede]

I've been having a fascinating discussion with my editor about this. In her words, world-building is when you, the author, create the setting for the story. It may be wholly imagined (as in a lot of SF and Fantasy) or it could be a combination of real places (like cities) and imaginary places (as in a lot of thrillers). As skip.knox writes and as my editor says, those parts of the setting you present to your readers should be relevant to the story.

My editor expects a detailed setting which is internally consistent, which requires quite a lot of research and world-building on the part of the author. Yes, she says, you do need to know how things work in your setting. Trade, coinage, money transfers, politics, the law. As she puts it, it's these things which set the limits for what you characters can do, and how they can do it. She also notes that decent world-building provides all sorts of starting points for plots, sub-plots and those incidental events which give depth to the story. In conjunction with good character building it all makes for a good story.