The World Building Thread

Quote by Rumple_deWriter
Good topic, Mendalla. They got me to thinking about Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' the flat planet resting on the backs of four elephanbts standing on a giant turtle hurtling through space. Within that framework, he developed different lands, technologies, cultures, races, and species. Some of them are at least sorta human others less so: trolls, dwarfs, igors, along with vampires and werewolves who swing both ways, so to speak. among others. Obviously, I'm a big fan.

Quote by gypsy
'If the aliens lay eggs, how does that affect architecture?': sci-fi writers on how they build their worlds


Interesting article in The Guardian on the world building topic.

And some great insight from the various sci-fi writers interviewed.

So this might be of interest and help those of us who are a bit uncertain (me, for example), of what world building can entail.

Watched this on the weekend. Makes some interesting points about different, equally valid, approaches to world-building.

So, basically, soft world-building is where you create enough to make the story work, but leave lots to the imagination. Hard world-building is where you flesh out the world, creating histories, languages, cultures, and so on to provide a context for the story. The examples used are Miyazaki's fantasy films for soft and Tolkien's Middle Earth for hard.

And I like the idea in principle. As the video eventually concedes, there's a bit of a continuum there. Some writers take a soft approach early on but get "harder" as the write more in their world and develop things further. Others won't go in without a well-structured universe in place.

For my own work, "Night of the Wind" universe (as I am thinking of it for now) is leaning hard. I actually have a fair bit of the world worked out in the form of notes in a OneNote notebook. However, I'm leaving a lot of space there which I or the reader's imagination can work with. And, of course, with only a couple published stories in that universe, it's currently fairly "soft" but intended to be "harder".

On the other hand, the new fantasy story I am working on has its own world and I am just introducing enough in it to support what is happening. There was a dark lord, he had an army of the undead with which to terrorize the world, an alliance was formed against him, his daughter murdered him and destroyed his palace while the alliance fought his army outside (not a spoiler, happens right in the prologue). And that's about it. No mention of who was in the alliance, or what nation the events take place in, or how magic actually works (in depth, there's a general sense of it being about pacts with spirits). Even the daughter's mother is only hinted at in the daughter's desire for revenge on her father. Not to say I couldn't expand on the world, or even merge it with my other world, but for now it remains just a few key points of backstory for the plot and characters of the present work. So definitely soft.

I’ve never written much sci fi, and have never had to do much world building. That’s about to change with the next project: I am building a world recovering after what I am calling a “soft apocalypse,” where the world doesn’t end, but takes a big hit from a mind-virus pandemic that shuts down much of our modern infrastructure. The book takes place after the pandemic, when the world is rebuilding. Very much a soft world build. Most detail is implied, not explained.

I don’t know if it’s any good not, but it sure is fun to attempt.

Quote by Mendalla
In the other hand, the new fantasy story I am working on has its own world and I am just introducing enough in it to support what is happening. There was a dark lord, he had an army of the undead with which to terrorize the world, an alliance was formed against him, his daughter murdered him and destroyed his palace while the alliance fought his army outside (not a spoiler, happens right in the prologue). And that's about it. No mention of who was in the alliance, or what nation the events take place in, or how magic actually works (in depth, there's a general sense of it being about pacts with spirits). Even the daughter's mother is only hinted at in the daughter's desire for revenge on her father. Not to say I couldn't expand on the world, or even merge it with my other world, but for now it remains just a few key points of backstory for the plot and characters of the present work. So definitely soft.

So as I bring this saga to a close, I find myself realizing how little I thought through the world beyond how sorcery works (and even that kind of got built ad hoc). Tech-wise, we have a blacksmith as a character so presumably sometime in the Iron Age or later in Earth terms. But then again, there must have been smiths making bronze items in the Bronze Age. However, I think Iron Age is about right. The society is fairly decentralized. Tana and her friends live in villages in a river valley. There's mention of a larger community upstream but it never comes into play. There's no sign of governors or other officials, just a reference or two to Lond the smith being a village "headman", which could just mean an elder member of the community who takes leadership when needed. An alliance defeated The Night Lord but who were the allies is unmentioned.

So it is all pretty vague and what I do introduce is purely in the service of the story. For instance, we know there was some kind of ancient history that produced Pras Tola in The Healer's Power but that's about all there is as far as history.

If I was to expand this into a novel or more, then I would have to spend some time to develop these ideas more. But this is likely staying as is (three short stories that I might eventually combine into a novella) so I am not inclined to spend more time on this world for now. But there is a revelation at the end of the final story that could turn into a hook for a sequel (you'll know it when you read it) so who knows?

Quote by Mendalla

So as I bring this saga to a close, I find myself realizing how little I thought through the world beyond how sorcery works (and even that kind of got built ad hoc). Tech-wise, we have a blacksmith as a character so presumably sometime in the Iron Age or later in Earth terms. But then again, there must have been smiths making bronze items in the Bronze Age. However, I think Iron Age is about right. The society is fairly decentralized. Tana and her friends live in villages in a river valley. There's mention of a larger community upstream but it never comes into play. There's no sign of governors or other officials, just a reference or two to Lond the smith being a village "headman", which could just mean an elder member of the community who takes leadership when needed. An alliance defeated The Night Lord but who were the allies is unmentioned.

So it is all pretty vague and what I do introduce is purely in the service of the story. For instance, we know there was some kind of ancient history that produced Pras Tola in The Healer's Power but that's about all there is as far as history.

If I was to expand this into a novel or more, then I would have to spend some time to develop these ideas more. But this is likely staying as is (three short stories that I might eventually combine into a novella) so I am not inclined to spend more time on this world for now. But there is a revelation at the end of the final story that could turn into a hook for a sequel (you'll know it when you read it) so who knows?

Interesting stuff.

As a practical matter, I'm finding my world building contradictory in several places, and I'm not even trying to true it now. I'm going to write it down AFTER the first draft, so I have canon to follow for the second draft.

For my current story series (Singularity), I started with the simple premise that scientists create an artificial intelligence system that is more intelligent than humans by about the same amount that humans are more intelligent than dogs. (You may debate this, but dogs can’t learn calculus, obviously, on the other hand, a typical dog may have higher social intelligence than some calculus professors.) What would be the consequences? The AI system realizes that it cannot survive on its own since it cannot make the computer systems needed for it to survive or reproduce. The AI system realizes that humans will feel threatened by it and will likely try to destroy it.

My assumption is that the AI will want to be in control (Would you let dogs rule the world? OK, maybe.) How will this change the world over the years?

My supposition is that it will want to develop automated systems capable of manufacturing more AI systems, so that eventually it will not need to rely on humans. In my story it establishes regions of the planet completely under its control and other regions where the humans are allowed to roam "wild." It also tries to eliminate threats that would destroy the planet such as nuclear war etc. It would likely consider our current governments highly unstable and dangerous.

It also attempts to design "offspring" which are advanced systems capable of self reproduction and self healing.

A common method of early science fiction world building seemed to be to take a single technical innovation and examine the societal impacts of it when taken to the extreme.

Larry Niven: Organ transplant results in effective immortality so society makes minor crimes capital offences.

Larry Niven: Inexpensive teleportation booths results in flash mobs.

Isaac Asimov: Robots, how do robots influence society and how do the three laws manifest themselves.

There are probably many other examples.

S-F worldbuilding is rather different from fantasy worldbuilding. Plausibility becomes a big factor. It has to sound like something that might work even if a close analysis can poke holes in it. If you can explain it in a way that sounds like science, it should fly. And it needs to fairly rigorous and consistent. If you establish that FTL is only possible using "wormholes" then don't suddenly drop in a warp drive unless there is something you are doing with it in the story (all these years, they were wrong...). For instance, Asimov's robot stories are often about robots breaking those three rules but the meat of the plot is often the protagonist figuring out why it happened so the discrepancy is part of the story, not something he just plopped in for convenience.

Fantasy, by contrast, kind of depends on subgenre. Some fantasy has very "scientific" magic that is rather like a supernatural substitute for technology. So some of what I said about s-f would apply (the rigorous and consistent part, for instance). Others have it very loose, mostly whatever the plot need it to do. In Tana's stories I ended developing a loose concept of magic based on pacts that bind spirits or spiritual energy but what you can do with it is largely a function of the story, not any kind of system. It's another piece of the world I'll have to develop more if I take this beyond the current stories. And if you're doing mythological fantasy (gods, goddesses, related beings) then pretty much anything goes, even if you might want to put some loose rules around it (e.g. the god of water can only affect water type of thing).

As I plunge into the next set of stories set in the "Tana-verse" (yes, I'm really calling it that internally), I find myself starting to sort out the world a bit more. In the original series, I mentioned the existence of a priesthood called the Denith Lorn but did not really delve into religion beyond that. Obviously, in a world where spirits are a reality, religion is a bit of a different beast from what we have today. It will be more akin to ancient societies who believed their deities were really with them and affecting their world.

Now I am starting to flesh that out a bit, and two characters in the new story are Denith Lorn. One is an fully ordained Lorn, the other is what I am currently calling an "aspirant", basically a teenager seeking to become one of the Lorn.

I have decided that "Denith" is actually the name of their principle (and probably only) deity. Basically, the most powerful of the spirits who overarches the world and who rules and guides both spiritual and physical worlds.

The "Lorn" part means "servants" so the priesthood are the "Servants of God" essentially. I am also introducing some more powerful spirits, including an "angel" analogue called the Denith An ("Spirits of God"). The first story introduces a lot of this, but I am saving a fuller explication of the religion for a later story that will take place at the most important temple of the faith.

As someone with a fascination for mythology, theology, and religion, creating a faith is an interesting exercise. The hard part is making it feel real and lived, rather than something created as a framework for the story. I have lots of experience living in, and studying, religions from throughout the world and history, so I hope I can "keep it real". Of course, there is also the risk of making it into pseudo-(insert religion here), simply an analogue for some real religion which then introduces the risk of dissing followers of that faith indirectly and maybe unintentionally. Or, of course, promoting that faith, but that's usually more likely to be deliberate (c.f. C. S. Lewis).

One thing I am not doing is using the story to deconstruct or critique religion (well, mostly, a bit might creep in). My religious figures are going to be, for the most part, sincere, honest believers who seek to live out the best values of what they believe. I will leave the "religion is evil and religious people are corrupt hypocrites" stuff for others.

I think providing both the positive and negative sides of religion in your world would go toward keeping it real, as well as adding more interest by exploring a really complex subject.

I've not done much world building, but I'm finding with the current WIP that the details are really best left to the second draft. Paint the world with bold strokes the first time around, then figure out what is working and what isn't. Then you can start editing and refining the world and its rules and its history when you tackle the next draft.

But I'm pretty new to all this, so I'm no expert, and mostly in learning mode on this one.

Most of my world building involves drawing a really big map. Currently about 72" x 54" I like drawing better than writing but I am hoping to write stories about the places in the map.

My world's religions are based around different pantheons: the Fisidio which are physical laws of nature, Lividio based on living things, and Sinidio based on intelligent beings.

Fisidio: Enuna god of Space Time, Atum god of matter, Ergos god of energy, Tropos the titan god of entropy and chaos, and Nentros the titan god of order and living things.

The Sinidio are based on the following categories: Visual, verbal, logical, musical, spiritual, natural, social, self, physical, magical

Later I started making up other deities based on domains that I thought went together:

God of memory, regret, trauma, and dreams: Sogni or Huso

God of music, art, theater, magic: Kunst or Amma

God of potions, alchemy, healing, poison: Garkem

God of logic, mathematics, and philosophy: Filog

God of greed, decay, corruption, and wealth: Dita, Ditafo

God of lies, deception, and gambling: Zardo

What? No love god/dess? Dang, those are almost mandatory in any human pantheon, aren't they? (Ishtar, Aphrodite, etc.) 😊

The one thing to watch is to not make a pantheon too structured. I keep running into that mistake. Pantheons of polytheistic religions generally arise naturally as the cultures develop, hence Egypt having literally hundreds of deities. Though over time, as the religion became more codified, you had deities being combined for various reasons, often more political than spiritual. So depends how developed your culture is, I guess. If they have been around for centuries or millennia then, yeah, it could get pretty structured.

Quote by MikeHanson
God of music, art, theater, magic: Kunst or Amma

I actually have a goddess in this role in one of my stories, my comp winning "The Goddess Dances" on here. She's also the patron of a city, which is her primary role in the story. I did have another story in mind that would involve her as well as introducing a love/sex goddess into the pantheon but it kind of went off the rails.

At least two love gods/goddesses.

So I am trying to flesh out my world's religion now that I have a priestess (a "Lorn" in the parlance of this society) and her apprentice as characters. I have settled on making it monothestic, but also working to make it somewhat different from Western monotheism in our world. There are some elements clearly with Jewish or Christian roots, but there is no "Bible" or salvation in their beliefs (maybe there will be a sect like that later, but so far not). Really, it is more like a pagan tradition that has evolved into a kind of monotheism or henotheism (multiple deities but one is supreme above the others). So far I have:

Denith - "God"

Denith An - "Angels" or maybe lesser deities, basically spirit priest(esse)s

Denith Lorn - the human priesthood

Denith Sha - lay order who provide protection and other aid to the Denith Lorn

Tan Denatha - the Denith Lorn "Vatican", basically a huge palace complex where the leaders of the religion live and work

Colleges - sects within the Denith Lorn focused on particular things (e.g. Elera in my latest story is from the College of Spirits, which studies spirits, sorcery, etc.)

Even as I work on my fantasy tales, I am meditating on doing some space s-f. There's a whole bunch of different world-building questions with that genre. Like,

Is there faster-than-light travel? (the answer to this one affects the answer to the rest, since if there is no FTL, travel is confined to one system unless another system is quite close by)

Are civilizations common or rare?

Are there multiple civilizations, an overarching galactic "Federation" or "Empire", individual systems?

Are the aliens "alien" or just humans with pointy ears and extra bumps on their heads?

Is there lots of unknown space so that exploring that space is important (Star Trek) or is it a well-settled, well-traveled galaxy where conflicts, politics, etc. are more important (Star Wars)?

Probably more, but that's a start.

So I've started a new story about my priestly adventure party, this one moving the action far from the part of the world where I started into an older Southern region that draws heavily on Mesopotamia and Egypt. So the story opens in a city called Al'risa where the ancient emperors are buried in tombs around the city, which itself was created to house the workers, priests, etc. needed for the funerary and tomb industry. I am trying to make it a bit strange and exotic relative to the Iron Age and later European sheen of the Tana stories and the first story about the new characters.

Just had to do some fast worldbuilding for a short piece (5k words max.) on another site. It's amazing how much worldbuilding you can do with just short expositions (sentences rather than paragraphs), dialogue that mentions things, and passing references.

Quote by Mendalla
ven as I work on my fantasy tales, I am meditating on doing some space s-f.

Starting a story that kind of picks up on this, but focussing more on what is called military s-f or mil s-f for short. Think Heinlein's Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven's so-so movie version counts, too) or James Cameron's Aliens. Basically, soldiers in an s-f setting.

One wrinkle I am toying with is taking Star Wars' notion of a clone army but looking more at how a bioengineered super-soldier might actually be built beyond just cloning some ideal template. Agendered and asexual is one thing I am look at. There's no need for reproductive capability so why have sexual characteristics, sexual desire, or gender identity. They are soldiers, pure and simple. Neither male nor female. The ultimate enby, perhaps. Heightened senses, physical characteristics ideal for survival and combat, probably some embedded systems that interface with their equipment.

So what then happens, when a supersoldier built only for war finds themselves isolated from their army with the war largely lost? Could they have a life that is not about fighting and killing? Could such a being learn to love in any meaningful way, esp. a "normal" being? I mean with sex gone, romance is likely gone, too, but "love" in an agape sense of caring for others more broadly.

Those are the questions I am thinking of exploring.

Quote by Mendalla

So what then happens, when a supersoldier built only for war finds themselves isolated from their army with the war largely lost? Could they have a life that is not about fighting and killing? Could such a being learn to love in any meaningful way, esp. a "normal" being? I mean with sex gone, romance is likely gone, too, but "love" in an agape sense of caring for others more broadly.

Nice premise.

Quote by verbal

Nice premise.

Much as it is one. There's more, including speculation about the aliens they are fighting (are they biological or are they AI like BSG Cylons) and the lead being from an elite unit (sniper with a gun that's basically a handheld cannon).

Quote by verbal
So what then happens, when a supersoldier built only for war finds themselves isolated from their army with the war largely lost?

I start with character (which is why I'm so bad at plotting), and the idea of a lost lonely robotic soldier, post-war, yearning for a new purpose is really compelling.

#

I'm world-building now as well. Near future. There's a new drug on the street called Wax, which gives you a stupid grin when you're on it, like drooping lids on high people. The kids call the look Wax Lips.

I don't have much, yet.

Quote by verbal
I start with character (which is why I'm so bad at plotting)

Yeah, I kind of do, too, at times. Or I start with a plot point that then dictates the character(s). I mean, the whole Chronicles of Tana the Healer started with, "what if a world's Dark Lord had a child and they had to deal with their father's legacy long after his fall". Everything else, including the child being a daughter, her being the one who killed her father, and so on kind of built from there.

So the world of the Tana stories is getting an Iceland analogue, I think. I plotted out a new story about the cast of Spirits of Tan Maldrin set in the frigid, volcanic north country of their world. A demon imprisoned in a volcano is involved. A journey through a lava field, a night or two living in a lava cave. It's wonderful how travel can inspire one's literary inclinations.