Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[hexgrid]

This all would have been a lot simpler if the advice had been written more along the lines of: "don't get carried away in dropping extraneous details into your writing that bring the plot to a screeching halt. It's just self-indulgent and a sign of bad writing."

Yeah, what he's saying is actually pretty obvious not at all controversial. If he hadn't used such confrontational and absolutist language, it wouldn't have attracted attention or generated discussion.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Right, but that's all world-building with a purpose, because it's where the action is taking place. Now, take for example Corellia, which doesn't feature in the movie as a setting. What do we know about Corellia by the end of the movie?

We know that Corellia makes ships for the Empire, and that the Corellian ships are generally considered superior to the "local bulk-cruisers". That's it. And that's fine, because we don't need to know anything else. It's just part of a throw-away line meant only to emphasize Han's competence and the Falcon's speed in comparison to the competition they're up against.

We don't need to know about Corellian Whiskey, or Corellian Pirates, or even the fact that Han Solo is from Corellia, or that the Millenium Falcon was built there. We don't need to know about Corellia's culture, or the population, or the climate, or its politics. It can certainly be interesting to know those things, but they're also irrelevant to the adventure taking place.

Don't forget that there is a world of difference between world-building (which goes on before, during, and often after production) and the narrative itself. Every writer's book on my shelf suggests development of character, for instance, and suggests that you know specific things about your characters even though they may never appear on the page. It's generally the difference between characters that breathe, and those that feel like flat puppets on the page.

World building is the same. I define world-building as "The creation of details that move a setting from the generic to the specific".

The bit about the new model landspeeder, for example, or Luke's T-14, we know only from dialogue. And the landspeeder has no impact on the action at all.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Strangely this discussion caused me to enter Bizarro World.

I...am almost always in agreement with Raven Crowking.

In that case, you were already in Bizarro World.

Heh.

 

[Odhanan]

Simply because the players aren't told all of the history of the WLD, doesn't mean that the history doesn't inform play through the DM's treatment of the material.

Same thing about writing a story for readers, actually.

When you write fiction, you can engage in acts of worldbuilding that will not show up on the page directly, but will influence your treatment of the story the same way the treatment of the story influences the worldbuidling occuring de facto.

Let's say I'm writing a scene taking place in heaven. I need to find some element to evoke the feeling of heaven without forcing tangible descriptions on the reader. I happen to look by the window at that moment and I see the sun rising. I decide to use this as an image in my writing: the character arrives in heaven, and the sun rises in front of him. I describe the color, the warmth, the fresh scents all around, the feeling of spring and rebirth, so on, so forth.

Point is, people won't know I've been looking at the sunrise while writing this. They don't need to know in order to understand the story.

The same way, cultural materials, history, ethnicities etc I would create to tell a story won't necessarily appear directly in the story, but they will influence my descriptions of people, places etc in the story itself. They will affect my own familiarity with the elements of the fiction I'm writing. Sometimes for the better (depth, coherence, verisimilitude), sometimes for the worse (needless side-tracking, confusion of the reader, boredom). It all depends how you choose to use the tool.

The way Harrison is wording it, worldbuilding's always bad. It's dull. Unnecessary, an ENEMY of writing (and before there is any criticism of this, please read his statement again: he's not saying that "may" or "may not" be bad, that it "may be excessive in some instances". He's saying that's the antagonist of good writing. Period). It's just so shortsighted it's laughable.

There had to be an agenda behind this if we make the assumption the guy actually has brains. Looking at today's entry on his blog, it's clear to me there was.

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, what he's saying is actually pretty obvious not at all controversial. If he hadn't used such confrontational and absolutist language, it wouldn't have attracted attention or generated discussion.

Indeed.

Although it seems obvious, however, it's a well-documented trap that legions of writers fall into regardless. Even some--as have been mentioned in this thread **cough cough** Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, China Mieville **cough cough**--who are relatively successful at selling their books in the short term. Whether or not they will stand the test of time and still be popular in ten years or so remains to be seen.

 

[Mallus]

In the science fiction field, Larry Niven and his Ringworld/Known Universe stories build some of the most unique worlds to be encountered.

Niven's a good example of an author who kept the level of detail in his imaginary universe pretty low. Memorable, but low.

Look at the Known Space aliens, which can be neatly summed up with single adjectives; rash (Kzinti), cowardly (Puppeteers), blind (Kdatlyno), immobile (Grogs), enigmatic (Outsiders), xenophobic (Trinocs), which Niven does himself, repeatably. Which is also why his races tend to stick in readers minds. They're distinctive, immediately grasped, and essentially shallow --which in his case, shouldn't be taken as a criticism. He's using just enough detail to suit his needs.

Niven's a poster boy for the right, or at least the memorable detail, not exhaustive detail.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't think Howard's work is a good example at all. The details of the world are kept very sketchy in the stories, with emphasis on the atmosphere. We get just enough of Hyboria to understand Conan's place in the world.

Actually, though, Howard wrote for his own use other things to allow him to situate the stories, and to link ideas together, and these do find there way from story to story, regardless of which of his "heroes" Howard is portraying. For example, Howard wrote a "history" of his fictional Picts, which eventually devolve into the Worms of the Earth. He also created an ancient prehistory of snake-men. Both work their way into many stories, even those set in modern times.

There is currently being published a complete series of Howard's works in Weird Tales, as well as the complete Conan stories in three volumes, the Kull stories, the Pict stories (Bran Mak Morn), and the Solomon Kane stories. The extra bits and papers at the end are, IMHO (both as writer and as DM) as interesting as the stories themselves.

(It took me years to finally read the appendixes at the back of the LotR, btw, and I am very glad I finally did.)

And, Celebrim, that was a great post!


RC

 

[Odhanan]

And, Celebrim, that was a great post!

RC

Indeed it was. A pleasure to read your thoughts, Celebrim.

 

[sniffles]

Somebody probably said this better than I can, but this thread is too long for me to read all the posts now.

Originally Posted by M John Harrison
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.

I snipped this because the point that first caught my attention is this: We're on a gaming forum. He's talking about fiction writing. Worldbuilding for fiction is not the same as worldbuilding for a roleplaying game.

When you're reading a book you discover the world in which it's set along with the protagonist. It comes as a surprise. This can be true in a RPG also. But when the PCs climb the rise into the valley they've never seen before, it helps if the GM has some idea what lies beyond that rise.

 

[Reynard]

So, what, we ended up with the idea that Harrison was ranting against bad writers?

Yeah. Controversial, that.

Um... next?