Stories containing too much World-building

[Svrtnsse]

I have to wonder, though, why it matters to anyone here, or elsewhere, whether I take three weeks to world-build, or five years, before I start writing?

Unless I want to read your finished story it doesn't matter one bit to me how much time you spend building the setting for it. The original thread about world-building was intended to point out the potential negative consequences of spending too much time worrying about the world and not enough on the setting. The discussion might have gone a slightly different way, but at the moment that's how I understand it.

The reason for highlighting these potential issues and creating a discussion about them was to make aspiring authors here on the site aware of them.

As ThinkerX pointed out, the issue with giving the world too much space in the story isn't all that uncommon here on the forums. It's something that happens, especially to new(/young?) and inexperienced writers. So creating a discussion around it may serve to highlight the issue and make someone think a little extra. Maybe they'll decide that the complete history of the entire world isn't relevant to the reader of a story about just one of it's inhabitants.

I don't think anyone tries to tell anyone how much time they should spend on world building. I think the message is to not let the world get in the way of the story - if completing the story is the goal.

 

[Incanus]

When Tolkien began developing his world, he was already a practiced writer. He had the skills to write and complete a story from start to finish.

I don't think this is strictly true. He started work on what would become the Silmarillion about 20 years before starting Lord of the Rings, and not with the plan of writing novels set in it. At the time he was not a practiced writer--he wasn't interested in current novels and hadn't written or published any (I think he published a few poems in the early, early days though). He was a language professor, and not a novelist. He was not making his world for the purposes of novel writing, which is one reason I think it is so unlike anything else, and unlikely to be duplicated. It was a labor of love, and the finished work (along with its myriad flaws) is a testament to that.

 

[Incanus]

Unless I want to read your finished story it doesn't matter one bit to me how much time you spend building the setting for it. The original thread about world-building was intended to point out the potential negative consequences of spending too much time worrying about the world and not enough on the setting. The discussion might have gone a slightly different way, but at the moment that's how I understand it.

The reason for highlighting these potential issues and creating a discussion about them was to make aspiring authors here on the site aware of them.

As ThinkerX pointed out, the issue with giving the world too much space in the story isn't all that uncommon here on the forums. It's something that happens, especially to new(/young?) and inexperienced writers. So creating a discussion around it may serve to highlight the issue and make someone think a little extra. Maybe they'll decide that the complete history of the entire world isn't relevant to the reader of a story about just one of it's inhabitants.

I don't think anyone tries to tell anyone how much time they should spend on world building. I think the message is to not let the world get in the way of the story - if completing the story is the goal.

Well said, Svrtnsse (wonder how to pronounce that screen-name (?!?)).

Might the final lesson here be something like: don't neglect world-building, for there are many opportunies in this stage to create the proper conditions for the theme and point of your story; conversely, don't continue world-building for the sake of world-building, when there's a story that needs telling.

This is a good point, something for every writer of fantasy to consciously consider, but I think there is a far more common mistake made by aspiring writers, and professionals alike, but that's a topic for another thread...

 

[Jabrosky]

I don't think this is strictly true. He started work on what would become the Silmarillion about 20 years before starting Lord of the Rings, and not with the plan of writing novels set in it. At the time he was not a practiced writer--he wasn't interested in current novels and hadn't written or published any (I think he published a few poems in the early, early days though). He was a language professor, and not a novelist. He was not making his world for the purposes of novel writing, which is one reason I think it is so unlike anything else, and unlikely to be duplicated. It was a labor of love, and the finished work (along with its myriad flaws) is a testament to that.

That approach to world-building actually sounds very appealing to me, and I can relate to it in a certain sense. While I usually world-build with the expectation that I'll write something set in that world, I have to say world-building for its own sake can be terrific fun.

Returning to the question of how much a writer should world-build, I wonder if the scope of a setting might have an effect on how much building one actually does. Judging from most maps of Middle Earth out there, Tolkien seems to have concentrated his interest on the region geographically equivalent to Europe. If he had attempted to develop his African or Asian analogs to the same depth as his European sector, do you think he would have overwhelmed himself in the end?

 

[Incanus]

If he had attempted to develop his African or Asian analogs to the same depth as his European sector, do you think he would have overwhelmed himself in the end?

Most likely! Maybe a word on his original intentions is here called for: He and his school-friends identified what they saw as a serious lack in English mythology--they noticed that the overwhelming amount of it was actually imported and adapted from mostly French, Norse, or other traditions; that there was very little 'truly english' myth. They wanted to try to add to it, but then, all but one of these friends were killed in WWI. He single-handely took up the torch, but I don't think he could have predicted the way it actually turned out. It is for this reason that everything in Middle-earth is English-y. And it makes a certain kind of sense--Greek myth is full of Greeks and greek-looking deities, Eygptian myth boasts Eyptians, etc, etc.

 

[Ryan_Crown]

I see it when writers ask me to read/critique their unpublished drafts.

I can't really think of anything, off the top of my head, that's been published and received the benefit of professional editing.

And I would imagine that "professional editing" is key, because one would hope that the instances where an author goes off track from the narrative to point out details of his world that don't further the story are something a good editor is going to help an author to get rid of.

 

[Ryan_Crown]

This is a good point, something for every writer of fantasy to consciously consider, but I think there is a far more common mistake made by aspiring writers, and professionals alike, but that's a topic for another thread...

As an aspiring writer, I'm curious about this more common mistake -- should you decide to start a new thread on said topic, I'd be very interested to read it.

 

[ThinkerX]

I can't really think of anything, off the top of my head, that's been published and received the benefit of professional editing.

Upon reflection...

...Erikson (Malazan series) does drop a lot of worldbuilding material into parts of his stories. Episode that sticks in mind was the captive academic who recited several pages worth of history.

Likewise, Sanderson, in his newest series (Stormlight Archives), also dropped in quite a bit of worldbuilding, mostly of a biological nature which I found tedious.

I have also read some SF books (Bova?) where he managed to include his character notes as separate chapters.

However, these are both best selling authors who operate under a different set of rules than newbies.

I have read a couple other SF works that not only went heavy into worldbuilding during the story, but included appendixes afterwards going into yet more detail. However, this was because the authors were not merely telling a story, but describing the science behind the story.

 

[WilliamD]

I believe world building is very important, before i begin any Fantasy Story, I build the world from scratch, details are everything. But there could be such a thing as to much. Just depends on how you're doing it and what exactly you're trying to create.