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Seed Questions, or, Finding a Middle Ground

Drakevarg

Troubadour
One of the recurring issues I have with worldbuilding is, frustratingly enough, actually committing my thoughts to text. It's a world I'm building, after all. Worlds are big. Where do I start? I have the same problem whenever I write a review for a sufficiently massive RPG. Too much stuff happens in it, too many ideas and emotions pass by to really articulate anything beyond a vague overview.

As a result, all I'm ever able to write about is either the macro - big, sweeping notions that are too big to really play any role beyond a backdrop; or the micro - little, petty ideas that don't warrant any more attention than a margin scribble. I need a middle ground.

Taking a bit of an inspiration from the in-game books found in Elder Scrolls games, the approach I'd like to take is to express concepts through articles - written from either a Watsonian or a Doylist point of view, doesn't matter - and let the world grow organically in the gaps. But just like any other article, a subject isn't enough - it needs a thesis. I can't just grab a header like "Country X - Religion" and write a page or two. It's too vague.

So getting to something resembling a point, does anyone have some good ideas for questions that can supply a direction to write in? Having specific, limited concepts to explore is going to produce a lot more usable thought than broad categories.
 

SpaceAmoeba

Acolyte
Maybe what your looking for is an outline? Try focusing on a specific region/country/kingdom in your world. Think about the geography. What's the landscape like? The climate? How do these things effect the way the people in this place live? How would they govern themselves? From there you can come up with a rough outline of what that particular region's culture is.

If you're having trouble with inspiration, or are having trouble figuring out what the hell to put in x or y, try taking inspiration from other media, and broaden your horizons. The books in the Elder Scrolls games are a good start, but maybe draw some inspiration from a book, or even from history and folklore.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Open a folder for the world. Create a file for the planet. How large is it? How many continents? How many moons? Quick one or two paragraph descriptions of each.

Next, pick a continent or region to focus on. Open up a folder for it.

Inside that folder, create the following files:

1 - an outline description of the major features - nations, key cities, rivers, forests, mountains. No more than one or two paragraphs per location.

2-? Overviews of specific nations within that region, one file per nation. A few paragraphs each for religion, history, economics. Expanded description of key cities.

3?-? Typical characters for each nation covered in point two. Mix it up - elites, soldiers, priests, beggars, merchants. Again, a couple paragraphs each. Concentrate on what they wear, what they do, who they associate with.

At this point you have something to work with. Start writing short stories centered on events and locations in the other files. A history or geographical work is bland; put yourself in the shoes of somebody who was there. This fleshes out (that part of) your world even more.
 

Drakevarg

Troubadour
Maybe what your looking for is an outline? Try focusing on a specific region/country/kingdom in your world. Think about the geography. What's the landscape like? The climate? How do these things effect the way the people in this place live? How would they govern themselves? From there you can come up with a rough outline of what that particular region's culture is.

If you're having trouble with inspiration, or are having trouble figuring out what the hell to put in x or y, try taking inspiration from other media, and broaden your horizons. The books in the Elder Scrolls games are a good start, but maybe draw some inspiration from a book, or even from history and folklore.

I suppose I should clarify: I don't need inspiration for ideas, I was referring to the books in Elder Scrolls as an inspiration for how to articulate those ideas.

What you're suggesting is just more overviews. Wiki blurbs. I've tried those, they're too open ended to direct any sort of line of thought. They're just screenshots in the form of words. What I'm looking for are some kind of thesis questions work off of. I can sit back and think about what a place is like all day, it's translating a dozen overlapping trains of thought into a concise narrative that can be rendered in text that I find difficulty with.
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
What I'm looking for are some kind of thesis questions work off of.
What question would that be?
You have to work that out and then write the answer.
If you have too many questions to ask, then pick one and start there. It almost certainly, probably, maybe won't be the right question first time, but you will only know when you've tried writing the answer.
My Question will not be Your Question.
I love working out as things ebb and flow, how that affects and effects everyday life.
So when I have a story idea, my first question is usually something like:
What has just changed here?
or
What is about to change here?
 

elemtilas

Inkling
One of the recurring issues I have with worldbuilding is, frustratingly enough, actually committing my thoughts to text. It's a world I'm building, after all. Worlds are big. Where do I start? I have the same problem whenever I write a review for a sufficiently massive RPG. Too much stuff happens in it, too many ideas and emotions pass by to really articulate anything beyond a vague overview.

As a result, all I'm ever able to write about is either the macro - big, sweeping notions that are too big to really play any role beyond a backdrop; or the micro - little, petty ideas that don't warrant any more attention than a margin scribble. I need a middle ground.

Taking a bit of an inspiration from the in-game books found in Elder Scrolls games, the approach I'd like to take is to express concepts through articles - written from either a Watsonian or a Doylist point of view, doesn't matter - and let the world grow organically in the gaps. But just like any other article, a subject isn't enough - it needs a thesis. I can't just grab a header like "Country X - Religion" and write a page or two. It's too vague.

So getting to something resembling a point, does anyone have some good ideas for questions that can supply a direction to write in? Having specific, limited concepts to explore is going to produce a lot more usable thought than broad categories.

Ya. Writing about a whole world is a tall order indeed!

Writing articles is a really good way of delving into aspects of a world in reasonably approachable chunks. And yeah, just "religion" is rather broad. Try to focus that a little. Perspectives in Bwandovian Religion: Throne Veneration During the Sixth Republic or perhaps Maranderi: a Cross-Cultural Examination of Temporary Tattoo Application Among the Daine of the Eastlands.

If these are too narrow, just broaden the scope a bit: Notes on Sandhian Religion: the Slow Decline and Fall of the Old Gods During the Yavannic Wars, an Historiographical Perspective.

If you're looking to write short articles about a variety of cultural aspects you could try this questionnaire.
 

Russ

Istar
World building for its own sake can be unproductive.

Why not just write your tale and only commit to paper or screen the stuff about the world that it requires?
 

elemtilas

Inkling
World building for its own sake can be unproductive.

That I can't really agree with! It can certainly be unproductive if you're writing for someone else, being paid by someone else and doing it all on someone else's schedule. And you're behind schedule...

Generally speaking, more worldbuilding = better story telling, the way I see it. If you tell a story set in ancient Rome, you have the whole of primary creation for your background information, plus all the history and culture leading up to and informing your story. The real and the fictional mesh like fine toothed gears and the whole is an organic unity.

A writer whose setting is fictional, but can't be bothered to sort out those details, ends up writing something that doesn't quite mesh and isn't quite an organic unity. The reader can tell and will be suitably unimpressed with the work as a whole, if not with the storytelling itself. Maybe not enough to put the book down, but maybe so! I've certainly put down enough books because of this issue. And I've kept and read over and over again those whose authors have done a stellar job of it.

Also, not everyone makes worlds as part of the process of writing a novel or creating a game setting. Some of us do this simply because there's a world in our heads & hearts and we want to explore it as fully as we can.

Why not just write your tale and only commit to paper or screen the stuff about the world that it requires?

Why not just tease out as much as you can about the whole world and tell all the tales you want! :)
 
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skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I agree with your difficulty, Drakevarg. You are looking for themes, and those have to come out of some place within you. Even if the ideas come from outside, they have to resonate inside you in order to carry very far. Here are some notions, more or less random, to see if this is the sort of thing you mean.

Cataclysm. It could be all at once, like Atlantis, or slow like a speeded-up climate change scenario. However it goes, every one of your cultures is going to have to face fundamental shifts in how they react. Then you can create three to seven civilizations, each organized in a different way, and see how things play out.

Another form of change would be to have a world in which magic is entering or in which it is dying. Same corollaries as above.

Alien invasion. Introduction of tech, or destruction of same.

Mongols. That is, you have six civilizations living in close proximity, in delicate balance. Then along comes a seventh. Make them advanced, or the only magic users, barbarian nomads or regimented armies. In any case, they look to sweep all before them. How will the world respond?

Then there are SF-type scenarios. That short story (Asimov? Clark?) about a civilization that has sunlight for a thousand years, but then, regularly, darkness comes and chaos breaks out. Maybe magic dies every twentieth generation, or some such. Some regular catastrophe. Or even a regular boon. Or a Childhood's End scenario, where all the people everywhere have to come to terms with the end of the world. Hard to make a series out of that one. :)

Is any of this sounding like it's in your ballpark?
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Everyone's needs are different, but I'm in the camp of figure out enough to write your story.

There have been times where I've written pages and pages of world building notes and I've forgotten about them during the course of writing the story because they're unimportant, or I end up tossing them away because I think of better things as I write. Sometimes it's a combination of both.

I usually think of the story first and build the world around supporting that story. There are three questions I ask myself that only need to be answered partially that I find are enough to give me a base to work with.

What are the major religions of the world?

What are the major cultural divisions?

What is considered right and wrong?

Sometimes these are simple to answer. Sometimes they're more complicated, but they're enough to get me going on the story and avoid world builder's disease.
 

Drakevarg

Troubadour
Everyone's needs are different, but I'm in the camp of figure out enough to write your story.

There have been times where I've written pages and pages of world building notes and I've forgotten about them during the course of writing the story because they're unimportant, or I end up tossing them away because I think of better things as I write. Sometimes it's a combination of both.

I usually think of the story first and build the world around supporting that story.

...

...and avoid world builder's disease.
World building for its own sake can be unproductive.

Why not just write your tale and only commit to paper or screen the stuff about the world that it requires?
That I can't really agree with! It can certainly be unproductive if you're writing for someone else, being paid by someone else and doing it all on someone else's schedule. And you're behind schedule...

...

Also, not everyone makes worlds as part of the process of writing a novel or creating a game setting. Some of us do this simply because there's a world in our heads & hearts and we want to explore it as fully as we can.

I'm in Elemtilas' camp here. Oftentimes worldbuilding can be its own point. Sometimes the purpose of the story is a lens to look at the world, rather than the world being a framework to build the story around.

I agree with your difficulty, Drakevarg. You are looking for themes, and those have to come out of some place within you. Even if the ideas come from outside, they have to resonate inside you in order to carry very far. Here are some notions, more or less random, to see if this is the sort of thing you mean.

...

Is any of this sounding like it's in your ballpark?

It's inevitably going to sound picky when you come asking for a Goldilocks zone, but these questions are still a bit too big. They're natural for telling exciting stories, but they're describing moments of upheaval rather than just finding out what the world looks like. It's difficult to explain just what it is I'm looking for, as if I knew exactly what it was I wouldn't be here asking.

I guess the best way I can articulate is I have a giant pile of currently-shapeless answers looking for questions to give them form. Questions whose answers can produce a few pages on sporadic, sometimes esoteric subjects that can nonetheless shed light on related topics from angles that might not otherwise be considered.

A big difficulty in finding these questions is sometimes they need to be asked in regards to specific concepts already broadly understood, meaning it'd be easier to be asked them from someone who already has a partial understanding of the matter. Which in my case is a fairly small audience consisting mostly of myself. But I'm too much in the thick of it to see a direction to walk in. Paralysis of options, y'know?
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Hm. I guess you need to provide more information. Maybe provide some of those currently-shapeless answers, or a few of those esoteric subjects, so we have some idea of where your thinking currently lies. Give us some of that partial understanding.
 

Russ

Istar
That I can't really agree with! It can certainly be unproductive if you're writing for someone else, being paid by someone else and doing it all on someone else's schedule. And you're behind schedule...

No matter who you are, there are limitations on your time.

Generally speaking, more worldbuilding = better story telling, the way I see it. If you tell a story set in ancient Rome, you have the whole of primary creation for your background information, plus all the history and culture leading up to and informing your story. The real and the fictional mesh like fine toothed gears and the whole is an organic unity.

While you may see it this way some of the foundational writers of modern fantasy wrote exactly this way. Even Rothfuss didn't other with many details he thought unnecessary. For storytelling world building should be secondary to the story. I quite like a well built world, but I don't want to spend my leisure time reading an atlas or travel guide for a place that does not exist.

I would quote you some Mieville or Moorcock on world building but you might find it too shocking :D


Also, not everyone makes worlds as part of the process of writing a novel or creating a game setting. Some of us do this simply because there's a world in our heads & hearts and we want to explore it as fully as we can.

I have no doubt about that. But since this site is about writing and storytelling I took the question in that context.

My caution about excessive world building is based on a lot of experience. A lot of people around here, that I know in my personal life, or have taught, have gotten bogged down in unnecessary world building to the detriment of their development as a writer or storyteller.

As you will note the OP is struggling with excessive or non-useful world building. He seeks a focussed middle ground and wisely so.

I am simply suggesting one way of finding that focussed middle ground is to world build from the narrative out.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
No matter who you are, there are limitations on your time.

Death is the only limitation. That's everyone's deadline! ;)



While you may see it this way some of the foundational writers of modern fantasy wrote exactly this way.

No doubt. My way isn't the only way, and may not be the best way for everyone. As a réader, I appreciate when writers work from the world out to the story: the story comes from the place and is part of it. I can certainly see why a wríter might not want to do it this way!

Even Rothfuss didn't bother with many details he thought unnecessary. For storytelling world building should be secondary to the story. I quite like a well built world, but I don't want to spend my leisure time reading an atlas or travel guide for a place that does not exist.

De gustibus. I rather enjoy reading atlases, travel guides, encyclopedias and so forth for otherworldly places. :)

I would quote you some Mieville or Moorcock on world building but you might find it too shocking :D

Try me. I don't shock easily.

I have no doubt about that. But since this site is about writing and storytelling I took the question in that context.

Well, not everyone who writes writes novels! Some of us do actually write atlases, travel guides and so forth... ;)

My caution about excessive world building is based on a lot of experience. A lot of people around here, that I know in my personal life, or have taught, have gotten bogged down in unnecessary world building to the detriment of their development as a writer or storyteller.

Fair enough. Just wanted to interject a differing opinion on the matter!

As you will note the OP is struggling with excessive or non-useful world building. He seeks a focussed middle ground and wisely so.

They didn't seem to be struggling at all with non-useful worldbuilding so much ideas on how to go about writing about that world --- how to "articulate" the ideas they have about it. Looking back, "excessive" worldbuilding seems to have been first mentioned by yourself!

And I don't actually disagree with you ìf the point of one's worldbuilding is to write a novel or create a game setting ánd one is working on someone else's schedule and for someone else's dollar ninety-eight.


I am simply suggesting one way of finding that focussed middle ground is to world build from the narrative out.

Fine indeed.
 

oenanthe

Minstrel
When I was writing WITCHMARK I didn't fuss that much about world building. I barely wrote any of it down outside of the story. I agree with Russ that there's a point where worldbuilding crowds out storytelling.

And I kinda think that's where you're at, right now.
 

Russ

Istar
Death is the only limitation. That's everyone's deadline! ;)

How can I resist an opening like that one. Moorcock's great book on writing is called "Death is no obstacle." I highly recommend it.

Moorcock on world building:

I think the notion of worldbuilding is a failure of literary sophistication... I only invent what's necessary to explain the mood of a character. I haven't thought about an imaginary world's social security system; I don't know the gross national product of Melniboné. If worldbuilding is a sophisticated working-out of how a world interacts in and of itself, I don't really have any of that... That's why I don't see myself as a worldbuilder. The world unfolds in front of the character as the story develops. If the story doesn't need it, it's not there.


Mieville on world building:

Worlds are too big to build, or to know, or even, almost, to live in. A world is going to be compelling at least as much by what it doesn’t say as what it does. Nothing is more drably undermining of the awe at hugeness that living in a world should provoke than the dutiful ticking off of features on a map. ‘World-Building’, at its worst and most compulsive inexorably means the banalising of an imaginary totality. How ****ing depressing is that? Surely we want culture shock, which is about not understanding, rather than understanding. And we can get culture shock at home, too. Hence the greatest moment in world-creation ever, that opens M John Harrison’s The Pastel City. “Some seventeen notable empires rose in the Middle Period of Earth. These were the Afternoon Cultures. All but one are unimportant to this narrative, and there is little need to speak of them”. That refusal to speak of them is one of the most awesome and confident moments of scare-quotes world-building scare-quotes ever.


In fact, while we’re on a Harrison tip, I think one of the most productive things anyone interested in World-Building can do is to go straight to his now notorious, and magnificent, diss of the whole project, here, and read and reread it and be troubled by it. Not that you have to agree with it, of course. (though you can.) But I think that rather than starting with a kind of chippy denunciation with which that passage was greeted by many when it emerged, it would do us all good – especially those of us fortunate enough to look down and see the targets on our shirts, and look up and see one of the most important, savage and intelligent (anti-)fantasists of recent times aiming down the barrel of his scorn-gun at us – to start from the presumption not that he’s wrong, but to try to figure out how and why he might be right. Why does the ‘internal consistency’ of a world matter to us? What does that even mean? How can we map every corner of a non-existent place? Why do we want to? Why are we so anxious when writers contradict their canon statements? What is going on? What kind of urges are these? Again, none of this presumes that the only honourable path is to throw up the project, necessarily – but it can only be bracing to force us to think about it, whatever our ultimate direction, because it’ll make us think about what it is we’re doing, or should be doing. Which is fiction, which is, we should probably hope, literature.


De gustibus. I rather enjoy reading atlases, travel guides, encyclopedias and so forth for otherworldly places.

Which are almost never published except to serve or support a great story or story telling.





Well, not everyone who writes writes novels! Some of us do actually write atlases, travel guides and so forth... ;)

Which is probably not story telling.
 

Drakevarg

Troubadour
Hm. I guess you need to provide more information. Maybe provide some of those currently-shapeless answers, or a few of those esoteric subjects, so we have some idea of where your thinking currently lies. Give us some of that partial understanding.

This in and of itself is something of a seed. Doesn't really prompt me to articulate anything new, but at least it's a reason to compose an overview of basic elements that are obvious to me but not organized in any way convenient to an audience. I was busy today but I'll see if I can't cobble something together tonight or the next few days.

While you may see it this way some of the foundational writers of modern fantasy wrote exactly this way. Even Rothfuss didn't other with many details he thought unnecessary. For storytelling world building should be secondary to the story. I quite like a well built world, but I don't want to spend my leisure time reading an atlas or travel guide for a place that does not exist.

You're hardly all audiences. To go back to an Elder Scrolls example, much of its fanbase has as much fun reading and discussing the lore of the world as they do playing the actual games, if not moreso.

I have no doubt about that. But since this site is about writing and storytelling I took the question in that context.

My caution about excessive world building is based on a lot of experience. A lot of people around here, that I know in my personal life, or have taught, have gotten bogged down in unnecessary world building to the detriment of their development as a writer or storyteller.

As you will note the OP is struggling with excessive or non-useful world building. He seeks a focussed middle ground and wisely so.

I am simply suggesting one way of finding that focussed middle ground is to world build from the narrative out.
They didn't seem to be struggling at all with non-useful worldbuilding so much ideas on how to go about writing about that world --- how to "articulate" the ideas they have about it. Looking back, "excessive" worldbuilding seems to have been first mentioned by yourself!

Elemtilas is correct. The middle ground I'm searching for is not "how much worldbuilding is sensible?" but more "what is a sensible scale to articulate upon worldbuilding?" That is to say, not the Big Questions, but not minor details that belong scribbled in the margins (which are still important in some contexts, such as art direction). In other words, topics big enough to discuss but not so big that you can't get your mouth around it.

Let me ask you the most basic question then Drakevarg. What is your story about?

I don't have any specific story in mind. I just enjoy worldbuilding, and I like having a solid and fleshed out world in which I can tell stories if I choose.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
I don't have any specific story in mind. I just enjoy worldbuilding, and I like having a solid and fleshed out world in which I can tell stories if I choose.

From what I'm gleaning here, this is a question that can't be answered. There is no Goldilocks zone. Every story demands something different in terms of world building. Some stories are narrow in breadth but very deep in depth, while others are wide in breadth and shallow in depth.

You will always run into circumstances where your world won't be deep enough to tell one story or wide enough to tell another.

To me, this is akin to research in the real world. If I were to shift the perspective, and correct me if I'm wrong, to me it seems like you're asking how much research you would have to to do to gain enough of an understanding of the world in breadth and depth to write any story you wanted.

But like I said every story has different demands. But if your only desire is to create a world without necessarily telling a story, then just have at it. There is no Goldilocks zone that makes a world wide and deep "enough". So just follow your muse so to speak. Write about everything and anything that interests you, because does it matter how wide or deep you go as long as you're satisfied with it?
 
You're hardly all audiences. To go back to an Elder Scrolls example, much of its fanbase has as much fun reading and discussing the lore of the world as they do playing the actual games, if not moreso.
You're right. Skip is not all audiences. But they DO provide proof that highly successful authors in the fantasy and science fiction genres, people who were trend setters in their day, find the type of World Building you're discussing to be absolutely useless.


I don't have any specific story in mind. I just enjoy worldbuilding, and I like having a solid and fleshed out world in which I can tell stories if I choose.
And herein lies the problem. If you don't know the story you can't know the world. Without a story in mind, you don't know what type of world you need. You can't even begin to build without some instructions- the instructions are the story concept.

I'm of the belief that the story dictates the world building, not the other way around. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love world building. I can spend days tinkering there. But I wouldn't get lost in building the world if I didn't have a story to tell in that world. If you lack a story concept, you lack even the most basic piece of information you need to dive into how that world functions.
 
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