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A unpredictable world, or a consistent, believable one?

So, I have been pondering this debate for quite a while. When examining my current world, I find myself divided between two strains of thought when it comes to worldbuilding.

Either I, throw ideas at my fantasyland, picking mainly on whatever is most interesting. This allows for unique scenarios, at the cost of perhaps making the world feel disjointed. Think Elric, a lot of Sword and Sorcery, basically.

Or I create a world based off of one unique premise, and try to apply that premise across the every aspect of the fantasyland. Think Stormlight Archive or most Sanderson works.

I wanted to know which philosophy you guys tend to skew for, and which philosophy you think is most easily polished into a presentable product in the long run? I enjoy both kinds, but find my tendency to be toward the latter. However, I find that I have an easier time immersing myself into the books that follow the first philosophy.

What are your thoughts?

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Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
Consistent, believable world for me. However my worldbuilding starts off as chaotic. At first I just mix and mash topics that interest me. For my main project this was organised crime, sci fi, 1950s, geopolitics, epic fantasy, cyberpunk, migration and more. Once the basis is down, I build everything off of these core concepts. I had these concepts written down as more coherent and precise "laws" somewhere, but I can't find the paper right now.
 

Simpson17866

Minstrel
I would start with two ideas that don't look like they fit together, then make them fit together anyway. I've always felt that the most important part of storytelling is to surprise the reader in an interesting way, and being the first to create a clear connection between two ideas that other authors would have rejected for being disconnected seems more interesting and surprising to me :)
 
Yes, no and maybe? Heh.

Sometimes when we discuss "fantasy world," I wonder if we might be discussing two different things. There's the whole world at large—the map, the ball of dirt and other elements orbiting a sun, the physics/magics of that ball, all the countries and peoples—and then there's the world of the story which is only a small slice of that larger world.

So in my latest projects, I have a kind of mish-mash.

The source of magic is the same for all the lands of the globe, but the way magic is used within different countries and by different peoples is different. Plus, so far no one on that ball of dirt realizes that the source of magic is the same. So magic can have many weird and different manifestations on the planet. I have two main stories in development, but they take place in different areas. Mostly, each story has a "consistent world" because it's isolated in one general region—but, there is some cross-pollination as peoples from other lands or traditions come into contact within the story. For a reader, this might give a sense of odd, unexplained chaotic variety. I'm hoping for a sense of wonder, mystery, and even some dread and horror elements within the stories.

So currently:

Whole world is consistent—for me; I also plan a story eventually that will pull back the veil somewhat for readers.

Story worlds are a bit more random seeming, at least as far as magic goes. Plus, individual cultures, peoples, and governments are rather different from one another, largely due to the different use of magic but also because of differences in geography and prior interactions between peoples in those regions. However, I do try to stick to mostly in-region consistency.
 
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Simpson17866

Minstrel
Yes, no and maybe? Heh.

Sometimes when we discuss "fantasy world," I wonder if we might be discussing two different things. There's the whole world at large—the map, the ball of dirt and other elements orbiting a sun, the physics/magics of that ball, all the countries and peoples—and then there's the world of the story which is only a small slice of that larger world.

So in my latest projects, I have a kind of mish-mash.

The source of magic is the same for all the lands of the globe, but the way magic is used within different countries and by different peoples is different. Plus, so far no one on that ball of dirt realizes that the source of magic is the same. So magic can have many weird and different manifestations on the planet. I have two main stories in development, but they take place in different areas. Mostly, each story has a "consistent world" because it's isolated in one general region—but, there is some cross-pollination as peoples from other lands or traditions come into contact within the story. For a reader, this might give a sense of odd, unexplained chaotic variety. I'm hoping for a sense of wonder, mystery, and even some dread and horror elements within the stories.

So currently:

Whole world is consistent—for me; I also plan a story eventually that will pull back the veil somewhat for readers.

Story worlds are a bit more random seeming, at least as far as magic goes. Plus, individual cultures, peoples, and governments are rather different from one another, largely due to the different use of magic but also because of differences in geography and prior interactions between peoples in those regions. However, I do try to stick to mostly in-region consistency.
That sounds perfect :)

I've always found that completely "consistent" worlds are unrealistic and unbelievable, myself ;) You ever hear the term "Planet of Hats"?
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
I built a lot of worlds decades ago, each revolving around a specific theme.

Then, upon closer inspection, I realized that their similarities outweighed the differences by far, so I took t combining them. Helping me with this realization was that these 'worlds,' were, in truth, but *parts* of worlds.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Also consider that we all live in one world, but look how much diversity there is. There are literally billions of stories. Do we live in a consistent world? In one sense yes. Physics works the same everywhere. The "laws" of our world are consistent. We don't have magic. Yet, we have millions of people who believe they have experienced something beyond those laws.

There's plenty room within a single world. After all, Hugo found a career of writing just from Paris.
 

RedAngel

Minstrel
I think that you should have a consistent predictable world as a primary focus with unpredictability as a secondary focus. That way you can shake up the mundane consistency with random events that fit in with your primary focus to move things along.
 

Gurkhal

Auror
I'd pick a consistent world every day of the week. But I also understand that it depends on the kind of stories you have in mind for your world.
 
That sounds perfect :)

I've always found that completely "consistent" worlds are unrealistic and unbelievable, myself ;) You ever hear the term "Planet of Hats"?

I wasn't aware of the trope "Planet of Hats," but reading about it on TV Tropes, yeah, hah. One of the things that always bothered me about the various Star Trek television shows was the way most planets they visit have only one city or at best a few cities in close proximity. These are huge planets with multiple continents, climates, etc., but there's only one city or country? Heh. That would be another symptom of "Planet of Hats."

OTOH...One of the reasons I created the world I'm using was that I wanted to break myself from the Epic Fantasy rut. My mind does tend to gravitate toward a whole-world scenario, perhaps because many of my favorite reads were epic fantasies. But I found that thinking about writing epic fantasies pushed me toward trying to make everything fit together neatly, consistently, and the worlds I considered using ended up having a kind of sameness across the board. I grew bored with them and frustrated. I wouldn't suggest that this happens to everyone, but it happened to me. So I started thinking about smaller scope scenarios for stories while placing them on the same map, and ended up with a world that has more variation. It was freeing for me.

I do think that humor and horror especially will benefit from incongruity or the appearance of the unexplained mish-mash. Lots of story archetypes can benefit from the use of apparent incongruity; a lot of plots could be summarized as a movement from the arrival of incongruity to a resolution that fits the incongruous elements into a new picture of consistency. Plus, I think that normal Earthly experiences often have absurd elements, or elements that would seem absurd if we actually gave them much thought.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I agree with FifthView. With my world of Altearth I have an entire continent (I ignore the rest of the world) and two thousand years with which to work. Rather than try to create consistency beforehand, I try to use individual stories as a way to explore that world.

For example, the first story I wrote was a vaguely Gothic, macabre tale in which a mad scientist discovers phlogiston. Now, I only had the dimmest notion of how magic works in my world, but that story locked in certain ideas. I now of phlogiston as a real element, creating a consistency with which I must live for all the other stories.

In another story, I wrote about a house that had been built and maintained over centuries by magic. A coterie of wizards who were too lazy to do their own repairs and too cheap to hire artisans. The magic comes unraveled, creating a nice House of Usher sort of ending. Rather on a whim, I made the main character a sprite, and his ally an ogre. This made me create some cultural background for both. Now, if I write about sprites or ogres, I have to live within the parameters set in that story.

I find this process to be more interesting and more satisfying as a writer. It feels organic, and it lets me sort of surprise myself. For example, I had the ogre, John Golly, call his partner Quinn-the-Sprite. But in a scene I needed to introduce Quinn more formally and the phrase Clan Five popped into my head--mainly, I think, because I was in mid-sentence and didn't want to take the time to do name research. Clan Five stuck. Which made me imagine sprites as being numerate, analytical, pragmatic--in short, it broke me out of the easy stereotype for sprites. There's no way I would have planned that at a world-building stage.

By analogy, I think of landscaping. One approach is to take a bulldozer, flatten everything, then design from scratch. Another approach is to take the contours of the land and work with that, retain the flora that grows in that place, and see what emerges. Both have their advantages and shortcomings.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
So, I have been pondering this debate for quite a while. When examining my current world, I find myself divided between two strains of thought when it comes to worldbuilding.

What are your thoughts?

I tend more towards a Schrodinger's Cat, both/and, can't tell which at the moment approach. So, perhaps, consistently unpredictable? Or unpredictably consistent?

Sure, The World has got physics and all the forces there of. Gravity and magic and quantum. But that doesn't mean everything has to be the same everywhere and everywhen. You might walk along the same short-cut through the Old Forest every day of your life, but you never know. On the 2433rd time through, you might just find yourself on the road to the Land of Story, where narrativity sneaks up behind you when you least expect.

After a while, you just kind of get used to disjoint and unpredictability being entirely normal and consistent factors of daily life.
 
As a reader, I like the setting within a given story to be self-consistent. That's not to say there can't be surprises, but the surprises must be of the variety that when one occurs, I'm saying to myself that it makes sense in the context, and I should have seen it coming.

As a writer, I want to set up that kind of experience for the reader. So in my WIP, I'm showing each unusual (e.g., magical) aspect of the setting at work in a less important situation before putting it to work in a more important situation. I consider how these different unusual aspects of the setting can and should interact with and impact each other and normal (e.g., non-magical) aspects of the setting. Then I demonstrate these interactions and impacts to the reader. I want to build up to something distinctive (as close to unique as I can make it) at the end, involving several different unusual aspects of my setting. I'm at the 62%-point in my WIP, so I'm starting to show more and more of these unusual aspects of the setting working with and against each other, and it's rather exciting. The good gal is starting to show some ingenuity, but the bad gal is proving to be well-equipped to handle the worst the good gal can throw at her at this point in the story. Such fun. ;)

Note that although I have an outline for my WIP, I sometimes discover more exciting mashes than what I have planned, and I'm not above changing my outline to accommodate them. I do stay mindful of the needs of story structure.

To bring this post back to point, I love having a variety of unusual aspects in a story, but I also want everything to form one self-consistent whole. I'd also apply this to all the books in a series. There can be apparent differences, but the differences need to have some explanation, either stated or implied.
 

RedAngel

Minstrel
In my writings I like to think of the consistent predictable nature of my world as the mortals building societies and civilizations as they progress in the physical world. I see that as a normal progressive force that builds tension in of itself trying to maintain its grip on the forces of nature and magic in general as they try to survive and flourish.

My unpredictable side of the world comes from the supernatural and the divine. The divine are the source of magic and expect offerings, sacrifices, and prayers in order to give their followers the gift of magic in general. So when they aren't getting them they tend to grow angry when their creations or followers fail to do so. Or jealous if other gods are taking them and so they tend to act out to inspire mortals to turn to their faith as their wrath is laid down upon them with higher magic. They do so because they fear the most that they will grow powerful enough to overthrow them like in past ages as the combined power of mortals rivals that of their own. So they do things by an invisible hand to keep them down.

I think the contrast between the physical world and the supernatural world around the two make for a good balance of consistent and unpredictability. The link between the gods and the mortals is the tie that binds so to speak through the gift of magic and faith. The imbalance in either causes things to become unpredictable.

The other factor is that the gods have been banished from the mortal plane by a long vanished creator being who sought to protect the mortals from the gods. The barrier itself can be pierced by them during certain times or periods but for the most part they can only manifest in the mortal plane for small periods of time. Primarily their minions and followers are not bound by the same barrier and do most of their dirty work for them in converting and religion.
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
As long as the world is internally consistent then I think you can get away with just about anything.

Look at the Discworld.
It is so steeped in magic that almost anything is possible and even more could be believed.
I'd even believe that luggage can walk!
Or that Death rides a horse called Binky and loves a curry [Death not the horse, Binky's food preferences are unknown - unless someone knows better].

If on the other hand you have built a world that has NO MAGIC and your main character is a Magician, then some part of the story better be about why they are the only Magician and not that they've lost their "lucky socks"...
 
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