Hello! Gabrielle here!
It starts simple enough. A writer wants to create a vibrant world for their stories and characters, so they set about creating a culture. But to create a culture, you have to understand their cuisine. But to create a cuisine, you have to know what foods grow there. But to know what foods grow there, you have to know the ecosystem and the weather patterns. And before you know it, it’s 3:00 A.M. and you’re researching the growing cycle of goji berries. For all that spiraling and insanity, all you’re left with is a document full of notes that might get a sentence’s worth of time on the page. While this can be a fun exercise, sometimes it leads to writers sacrificing story for the sake of worldbuilding. But it’s also hard to start writing if you don’t have a foundation to build upon. So what should writers do? How do they know when enough is enough? Today, I want to walk you through some concepts and questions to help you understand when you should keep building and when you should step back and begin writing.
What’s the Point of Worldbuilding?
…to build a word.
Okay, but on a serious note there are three main points to worldbuilding, and for the sake of clarity and because it’s suddenly relevant again, I’m going to use the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender as an example.
First, worldbuilding creates the foundation of your story. Especially in high fantasy or sci-fi settings, a lot of the conflicts and characters emerge from the worldbuilding. In Avatar: The Last Airbender, the series’ conflict emerges from the world’s unique politics and the solution arises through the way the world’s unique magic system works.
Next, worldbuilding allows writers to show ideas and themes in a unique way. New worlds allow writers to explore culturally relevant themes with a degree of separation or put a new twist on familiar ideas. Going back to our example, in the show, the air nomads are pacifists. As a member of that culture, the protagonist Aang doesn’t want to kill anyone even though the world expects him to defeat the evil tyrant who’s been waging war against all the other nations. As the series progresses, the audience gets to see him struggle with seeing the horrors of war and feeling like he has to choose between his morals and the good of the world. This isn’t an idea unique to this show, but the unique setting allows the writers to explore it in a new way.
Finally, we worldbuild because it’s fun. It’s fun to create a cool magic system or develop an interesting idea for a culture or create a brand new race of aliens. It’s the thing that makes speculative fiction so unique and memorable. Yes, Avatar: The Last Airbender used bending and the different cultures to explore some complex moral questions, but they also used those concepts for fun things. Like air scooters.
Everything Serves the Story
When you’re worldbuilding, every piece of it should serve your story. This applies to any kind of development—every character trait, every setting, every subplot, and everything in between should all serve the story. Ultimately, you’re not writing a textbook, you’re writing a story. Sure, details that just exist in your mind are a lot of fun and can help you portray the world, but they aren’t essential to the story. Eventually, worldbuilding is for the author and not the reader, and that’s going to distract from the story. So before you bury yourself in more research, here are some questions you can ask yourself about your process.
The “Are You Over-Worldbuilding?” Questionnaire
For the sake of proving my point, I’m going to use the Shire in The Lord of the Rings as a case study. Tolkien spends the whole prologue describing this culture, so he certainly didn’t shy away from extensive worldbuilding.
How does this element intersect with daily life?
The more it impacts the characters' daily life, the more time you should spend on it. In-depth religious rituals might not be especially relevant if none of your characters are religious, but the different customs around eating are going to pop up in conversation or action more often.
In The Lord of the Rings, the hobbits begin the story entrenched in the Shire’s culture because that’s the only home they’ve ever known. So the calm, meandering atmosphere of the Shire needs to be strongly developed so the audience can understand the characters’ starting point.
Do the readers need to understand this element for them to understand the characters or plot?
Will the audience be confused about how the characters are behaving or the stakes without this information? Does an existing political situation act as the foundation for a character’s backstory or the main conflict? If so, definitely develop it thoroughly.
When Frodo and Sam trudge through Mordor, they often lament how homesick they are or even forget the things about home that they used to love. Without the context of the Shire, these things wouldn’t hit as hard. But because the audience got to experience these things alongside Frodo and Sam, they can miss them too.
What do you want the audience to really focus on and remember?
The caveat here is that the more you add, the harder it may be for readers to remember everything. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, random details, but you need to prioritize what’s really important. The important things are the ones that should be repeated and paused for so the audience notices and remembers them.
The simplicity of the hobbits is emphasized many times throughout the story. The Shire is described as a simple place filled with simple people. Because this idea is so central to the themes of the story, the worldbuilding reinforces it multiple times.
What do you enjoy most about your story?
Some writers really do enjoy worldbuilding, and that’s awesome! But some writers prefer plot or characters, and that’s also awesome! So if you prefer writing things that aren’t worldbuilding, be careful how much time you’re spending on them. That’s a great way to burn yourself out. Remember, this is supposed to be fun. If it’s not, you may be in a little too deep.
What do you want your readers to take away from the story?
Again, the thing you dedicate the most time on is the thing that the audience is going to remember the most. So what do you want them to remember? What is the most important thing about your story?
In the case of The Lord of the Rings, the worldbuilding of the Shire directly supports the theme of hope and power being found in small and simple places. That’s one of the most important things about that story, and the worldbuilding serves that.
Conclusion:
Worldbuilding is great, but you can’t make a story out of just worldbuilding. It’s the same way you can’t make a house out of hammers. Worldbuilding is an excellent tool, but it will only work for you if you use it well. Don’t let it use you and send you down a crazy 3:00 A.M. cycle about goji berries. Your story and your sleep schedule will thank you.
We’re almost done with our worldbuilding series, so finish strong and join us in two weeks for Emily’s post about practical tips for integrating worldbuilding details into your story. And in the meantime, bee brilliant!
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