Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[joeandsteve]

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid.

Sounds like an admonishment of Tolkien.

 

[Celebrim]

When the DM performs a half hour monologue detailing the history of Elven Tea, it's a bad thing. ((Yeah, wrongbadfun and all that, but, seriously, could you REALLY see a half hour monologue on Elven Tea as a good thing? ))

I see half hour monologues as a bad thing regardless of what they are about. I can't think of anything so interesting that it justifies the DM lecturing the players for a half-hour.

On the other hand, I can't see why elven tea is so uninteresting that it could not be made the metatext of a half-hour of interesting role-play. Perhaps I've an elfin culture in part inspired by Japanese culture, and the characters are engaged in a tea ceremony with a respected highly conservative elfin samurii who may just know who is responcible for murdering the geisha and who is behind the plot to kill the emporer but doesn't trust these uncouth human sell-swords and is - somewhat against his will - attracted to the female ranger and who happens to be the sort of person who is insulted by too direct speach.

That might make for an interesting discussion of 'tea', and the more thought that the DM has put into tea ceremonies and the cultures that produce them, the more things of substance the the DM has to use to enrich the conversation.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It would seem that professional authors disagree with your definition.

Well, one does.

"Necessary work" would seem to mean "writing." "Worldbuilding" is surrounding the writing with detail the reader never encounters. Even if it never gets onto the page, even if you end up discarding 90% of it...that useless detail is "worldbuilding" in the words of one professional writer of science fiction.

The term "useless" is prejorative.

The vast majority of professional writers do not regard working out details as "useless", even if those details never make it onto the page -- they inform what does make it onto the page. They give the novel more "life" than the average D&D novel....or game, for that matter.

And, of course, many writers -- even the most world-buildingest of them -- make up new details and change old ones during the course of the writing. To this degree, one could claim that Tolkein followed Mr. H's advice: He was certainly willing to change details of his background notes when the story of the LotR demanded that he do so.

Insofar as the thread is concerned for D&D, "worldbuilding" is composing reams of information that are largely irrelevant to what is happening to the PC's at the time. For instance, detailing Country X's government when the PC's are mired in Country Y.

It seems to be suggesting the economy of creation. A writer should always be concerned with the story being told over the world it is told in. A DM should always be concerned with the adventures being had over the setting it occurs in. What's going to make this more fun, what's going to give me an interesting scene, a nifty encounter, a breathtaking combat, an epic BBEG?

It almost seems as though you are suggesting that a DM use his leisure time in a way that best benefits someone else, regardless of what he enjoys doing himself. "Why are you worldbuilding, when you could be making me an adventure?" "Why are you fishing when you could be making me an adventure?" "Why are you playing ball with the kids when you could be making me an adventure?"

If it doesn't negatively impact the reader of the novel, and if it doesn't negatively impact the players of the game, what business is it of either reader or player how the writer/DM spends his free time?

 

[Hussar]

I see half hour monologues as a bad thing regardless of what they are about. I can't think of anything so interesting that it justifies the DM lecturing the players for a half-hour.

On the other hand, I can't see why elven tea is so uninteresting that it could not be made the metatext of a half-hour of interesting role-play. Perhaps I've an elfin culture in part inspired by Japanese culture, and the characters are engaged in a tea ceremony with a respected highly conservative elfin samurii who may just know who is responcible for murdering the geisha and who is behind the plot to kill the emporer but doesn't trust these uncouth human sell-swords and is - somewhat against his will - attracted to the female ranger and who happens to be the sort of person who is insulted by too direct speach.

That might make for an interesting discussion of 'tea', and the more thought that the DM has put into tea ceremonies and the cultures that produce them, the more things of substance the the DM has to use to enrich the conversation.

Ah, but now you've made world building subservient to plot. You aren't creating the backstory for no reason. It becomes integral to the story. This is precisely what Harrison is talking about. If plot triumphs, then you're golden.

Is there anyone on this thread who thinks both that

(1) World-building is a good thing, and
(2) World-building is not the development of coherent setting?

I think you've missed an important distinction though. You do not need to engage in world building to tell a great story. You may need to to tell a long story, but, that's a different beast. Short stories are predicated on the idea that you don't need to world build. It goes back to what I said about Star Trek or Conan. If you take each story as a complete and separate whole, then there is actually very little world building in any of them. It's only when taken as an aggregate that you get a larger picture.

 

[Reynard]

If it doesn't negatively impact the reader of the novel, and if it doesn't negatively impact the players of the game, what business is it of either reader or player how the writer/DM spends his free time?

But, but... if the DM is wasting time outlining the political relationsip between Dragons and Giants, he's not statting a 23rd level kobold fighter/spellthief/rogue/assassin for the PCs to kill and loot.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think you've missed an important distinction though. You do not need to engage in world building to tell a great story. You may need to to tell a long story, but, that's a different beast. Short stories are predicated on the idea that you don't need to world build. It goes back to what I said about Star Trek or Conan. If you take each story as a complete and separate whole, then there is actually very little world building in any of them. It's only when taken as an aggregate that you get a larger picture.

And I think that you miss an even more important one -- there is no way to tell exactly how much worldbuilding has occurred in the background by looking at the completed work. Worldbuilding doesn't have to mean that you see all the details in writing. However, it is usually evident by a self-consistent, cohesive setting that worldbuilding has occurred, even if it doesn't interupt the flow of the story.

Some people, of course, require more "prep" worldbuilding, while others do more "on the fly" worldbuilding. Most writers, and most DMs, do some combination of the two, weighted based upon their interests, strengths, and weaknesses. A writer or DM should always play to his strengths and bulwark his weaknesses, right?

Howard, BTW, was a worldbuilder in that he did enormous amounts of research, and then wrote stories based off that research. Not much of that research makes it onto the page, but the sense of that research definitely does. He also wrote notes for his own use, detailing aspects of his fictional "world history".

In other words, if you are using Conan as your example, you are not demonstrating anything about a lack of worldbuilding -- you are only demonstrating that the result of worldbuilding doesn't have to be boring. Which is something I, for one, agree with.


RC

 

[Mallus]

Sounds like an admonishment of Tolkien.

Hence the anger and self-serving fits...

 

[Celebrim]

It would seem that professional authors disagree with your definition. "Necessary work" would seem to mean "writing." "Worldbuilding" is surrounding the writing with detail the reader never encounters. Even if it never gets onto the page, even if you end up discarding 90% of it...that useless detail is "worldbuilding" in the words of one professional writer of science fiction.

You are adding to the text what isn't there. You might have a good point, but let's not pretend that it comes from anywhere but yourself, because it isn't in the text in question.

Insofar as the thread is concerned for D&D, "worldbuilding" is composing reams of information that are largely irrelevant to what is happening to the PC's at the time. For instance, detailing Country X's government when the PC's are mired in Country Y.

This is the exact sort of silly statement that I predicted pages and pages ago. So, "worldbuilding" is only "worldbuilding" if it is irrelevant and useless to the story? What a conveinent definition of worldbuilding. If only we could always be so Orwellian, we could prove anything. If you define something as negative and useless by definition, of course you can 'win' any argument about its usefulness. But if you are going to do that, don't be surprised if people don't take your argument as seriously as you think it deserves.

What that misses is making the reader (or the players) *care* about it. It becomes a useless blob of intro text, irrelevant to their experience, important only to the creator as an excersize in creating.

Yes, because we know that noone has ever been intrigued by a story or cared about a story or felt a story to have a powerful emotional impact because the story had world building elements to it.

By writing triumphing over worldbuilding, the suggestion is that your world bends to the need of the story...

I don't think that worldbuilding which doesn't bend to the needs of the story or the game is nearly common as you are claiming, but that is hardly the most important point.

The most important point is that if we discussing the essay you wrote just now, rather than the essay that was actually wrote, there would hardly be much contriversy because while you've said things that are quite true and maybe even informative for some people to read (when you haven't been defending the indefensible) you also haven't said anything which anyone is going to disagree with. Once again, what you are saying is what perhaps should of been said, but it bears no resemblence to what was actually said.

What was actually said was this:

"Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid." - M. John Harrison

That is a bit more strong than the simple platitudes you wish to make of it. Let me respond to it rather than waste more breath on peoples attempts to read what they want to read rather than what was wrote.

"Worldbuilding is not dull, nor is it unnatural. Worldbuilding literalizes the urge to create, which is a fundamental a laudatory drive of human nature. Worldbuilding is a thought experiment in which the author lays the foundation for the story that he wishes to tell and prepares his mind for that creative act. World building inspires the imagination of the writer and engages the mind of the reader and encourages in the active participation in the shared imaginary space that contains the writers thoughts and musings, because it shows the reader that this mental space is a serious and important one and that thought was put into it and that is worthy of consideration and even study. Far from numbing the reader's imagination, world building encourages the reader to match the consideration and effort the writer put into the story with consideration and effort of his own, whereas a story which does not have these features discourages the reader from exploring the mental space because it obvious that what is present is all that is there and that beyond those frames is vacuuity of substance or of thought.

While world building is not technically necessary, this does not actually tell us much of anything. Lots of things that are not technically necessary, such as food to be tasty or stories to be witty or inspirational, are nonetheless desirable at times - such as when we are hungry or when we are reading anything more interesting than a technical manual. While world building is not technically necessary, many technically proficient writers engage in it for good and sufficient reasons. Worldbuilding is the great motivation of a writer which is closest to love, especially when it is a survey of the thing that is there - such Joyce's exhuastive detailing of his beloved Dublin or Tolkiens epic paen to medieval literature, Catholocism and the English countryside. Writers which love things make worlds which reflect the things that they love, because they want to share these things with others. There is nothing in that which we need demean or fear. Since when are persons of devotion and scholars of life long study, people whom we must snear at? Those that would snear at and demean the worldbuilders, reveal more about there own character than they do about the objects of thier scorn. We should not fear them, because they will never build anything that will long endure, but we should regret thier wasted talents and pity thier need to hate and fear anyone different than themselves."

 

[Celebrim]

Hence the anger and self-serving fits...

It couldn't possibly have to do with the tone of the post we are responding to? I mean, "angry and self-serving fit" pretty much captures my feelings about the Mr. Harrison's post.

 

[Celebrim]

Ah, but now you've made world building subservient to plot.

You don't know that. You are talking about what motivates me to write or create when you say, "I have made world building subservient to plot." I might well be writing because of my fascination with the subject matter - say Japanese culture - or as in the case of Neil Stephenson's 'Baroque Cycle', early modern Europe. Why I'm writing has nothing to do with how skillfully I do it.

You aren't creating the backstory for no reason. It becomes integral to the story. This is precisely what Harrison is talking about. If plot triumphs, then you're golden.

This is incredibly tiresome, because I'm fighting not what Harrison wrote but what you wish he had wrote. I think that I'm done with it. But let me just point out, that I do not think it a given that creating backstory for no reason is a bad thing. Lots of writers do research and imaginative acts which never enter directly into thier story, and I'm not going to sit here and pompously claim that this is a mark of thier psychological deficiencies, nor do I think I'm going to waste anymore time on people that do.