Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Hussar]

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

But, look at the article again. He's talking about worldbuilding in the text.

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.

Since he's included the reader in his little tirade, then it follows that he is only talking about the finished work. Since the reader never reads anything that isn't in the text, anything that's not in the text is irrelavent to the reader. If the writer spends many sleepless nights detailing the growth cycle of elven tea, yet never includes that in the text, even tangentially, then it follows that it isn't what is being talked about here.

Celebrim has accused me and a few others here of playing fast and loose with the definition of world building. If my definition is unnecessarily narrow, I would argue that his is too broad. If any act of creating setting is world building, then, well, world building is a completely unnecessary term. We can just say setting and be done with it. But, that's not the problem. World building isn't simply creating setting elements of fictional settings. World building is creating a setting for itself. World building is when you attempt to create a setting which is wholely or in part divorced from the plot.

It's when you spend several hundred pages detailing the geneology of characters that don't even appear in the text.

RC, you've now included simple research into the act of world building. If I look at a map of Chicago for my Vampire game, does that mean I'm now engaged in world building? Since when did the creation of every piece of setting become world building? Does setting=world building only become true because it serves Celebrim's arguement?

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim has accused me and a few others here of playing fast and loose with the definition of world building. If my definition is unnecessarily narrow, I would argue that his is too broad. If any act of creating setting is world building, then, well, world building is a completely unnecessary term. We can just say setting and be done with it. But, that's not the problem. World building isn't simply creating setting elements of fictional settings. World building is creating a setting for itself. World building is when you attempt to create a setting which is wholely or in part divorced from the plot.

I'm trying to break out of this increasingly pointless thread, but one thing gauranteed to tweak me is misrepresenting what I wrote, especially in threads where what I may have actually said is easily lost. Suffice to say, that my agrument is totally misrepresented here, and encourage anyone who cares - if anyone still does - to go back and read what I actually wrote when I defined world building. I believe I was quite careful to separate my definition from the claim offered by several others, that world building was the same as creating setting elements.

RC, you've now included simple research into the act of world building. If I look at a map of Chicago for my Vampire game, does that mean I'm now engaged in world building? Since when did the creation of every piece of setting become world building? Does setting=world building only become true because it serves Celebrim's arguement?

Since when do you need a map of Chicago to tell a story set in Chicago? Is a map of Chicago strictly necessary to telling a story there, or could we not hand wave the map and tell the story anyway? Why do you think that you need, or why do you feel a need, to look at a map? When you answer question honestly, I think you'll come a long way to seeing why my definition of world building is a good one, and Mr. Harrison's rant is so laughable - or would be if it wasn't so serious.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Since he's included the reader in his little tirade, then it follows that he is only talking about the finished work.

Oh, I agree that he is saying that worldbuilding results in a finished work that "numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain" -- but this doesn't actually require anything specific in the text. He didn't write "long monologues of detail numb the reader's abilitity to fulfil their part of the bargain" (a statement that I would agree with in a general, if not an absolute, sense).

There is nothing in Mr. H's quote that differentiates it from saying, for example, "The inclusion of self-consistent details numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain" and, from what I understand about the man's philosophy of writing, this seems more likely to be what he is saying to me.

But, if I were to accept that what he wanted to say was instead "long monologues of detail numb the reader's abilitity to fulfil their part of the bargain", then I will go with the general consensus and agree that he has said nothing controvertial or interesting at all.

It's when you spend several hundred pages detailing the geneology of characters that don't even appear in the text.

However could you include, in the text, the geneology of characters that don't appear in the text?

RC, you've now included simple research into the act of world building. If I look at a map of Chicago for my Vampire game, does that mean I'm now engaged in world building? Since when did the creation of every piece of setting become world building? Does setting=world building only become true because it serves Celebrim's arguement?

I think if you go upthread, you'll see that my position on this is consistent. Creating the specific details of a setting is worldbuilding. You could use generic details, but the results would be far less satisfying. If you then try to take that map and include actual buildings or features of the landscape (statues, whatnot), you are doing even more worldbuilding.

Also, FYI, Howard did extensive research. One might even say exhaustive. He clearly enjoyed that part of writing.


RC

 

[Celebrim]

There is nothing in Mr. H's quote that differentiates it from saying, for example, "The inclusion of self-consistent details numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain" and, from what I understand about the man's philosophy of writing, this seems more likely to be what he is saying to me.

But, if I were to accept that what he wanted to say was instead "long monologues of detail numb the reader's abilitity to fulfil their part of the bargain", then I will go with the general consensus and agree that he has said nothing controvertial or interesting at all.

QFT

 

[papastebu]

I've just had a revelation.
World-building is bad, because, where are you going to put it when you're done?
Where are you going to STORE it while you're working on it?
It's a WORLD, for Pete's sake!

 

[Mallus]

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.

None of that neccessarily follows. It's a statement of something you (and I, as a matter of fact), enjoy, that isn't shared by the majority of readers (though it is by an overwhelming number of Tolkien readers).

Worldbuilding, in the sense you mean it, engages readers who are looking for that out of literature, much in the same gay pornography engages those who enjoy it, and usually repels those who don't.

Worldbuilding of this kind is particular to the literature of the fantastic. It's a categorically different enterprise from Joyce's or Dickens's, or any writers who's thrown open a window and trying to puzzle out what's outside and their relationship to it.

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

Only if the reader cares to do so. If they're only in for "human drama", or, say for a more fetishistic engagment with genre tropes ("I like books with spaceman and dinosaurs!"), then all that careful considered worldcrafting amounts to a hill of beans, err words.

...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.

And clearly, the longer the poem is, the better.

It's like you've inverted the old addage about stories being like icebergs; only the tip is visible while the bulk lies unseen beneth the water. You prefer icebergs that have been hauled onto the land and dumped in your lap. Which is cool. I guess.

- such Joyce's exhuastive detailing of his beloved Dublin

But there's more going on there. It's not just a tourist map of Dublin, its also a map of Western civ.

or Tolkiens epic paen to medieval literature, Catholocism and the English countryside.

And there's decidely less going on here. There's so much missing from Middle Earth, so much basic human drama, human nature,so much of this world... while that doesn't diminish it as a triumph of the imagination, it places it in a whole other category than Ulysses, or the plays of Shakespeare, or even Grey's Anatomy, for Pete's sake.

Gah... I'm going in circles.

I find pleasure in the result of that kind of worldbuilding.

Harrison doesn't think it's a worthwhile use of the novel.

I don't agree, but I do note that its a very specific kind of enjoyment I get from immersing myself in the minutiae present of genre fiction. While the though of a whaling treatise bores me to tears, I'll gladly learn the name of the various Gundam units, or elf runes, or the weapon systems used by the Federation and it's enemies. I'm curious as to why? It's not rightly, fiction. It's related to it, but outside... like Tolkien's hobbit toast-buttering songs.

 

[Celebrim]

Gah. It's a shame that this thread is so interesting. Moth to the flame and all...

None of that neccessarily follows. It's a statement of something you (and I, as a matter of fact), enjoy, that isn't shared by the majority of readers (though it is by an overwhelming number of Tolkien readers).

I find your appeals to populist arguments very self-serving, because you have in this thread inclined to decry popularity as a test of fitness when it suits your purpose and adopt an elitist stance on what is worthy literature. But never mind that, just what block of readers are you claiming is larger than Tolkien readers? Harry Potter readers? Where are this great majority of readers that doesn't include people who don't enjoy what I refer to in my statement? It's not like I'm talking about small minorities of the readership here.

Worldbuilding, in the sense you mean it, engages readers who are looking for that out of literature, much in the same gay pornography engages those who enjoy it, and usually repels those who don't.

LOL LOL. I don't know who should be more offended by that, but it rather reminds me of Mr. Harrison's finale of 'World builders are like George Bush!' and its just as funny.

Worldbuilding of this kind is particular to the literature of the fantastic.

No it is not. It is more evident in speculative fiction, which Guy Gabriel Kay has pointed out in writing more eloquent than mine, is not that descriptive of a term since fiction is by its very nature speculative. But what it is really particular to is 'illusionism', which I what I call the desire of the writer to create the sense in the reader that the fiction is true on some level and not merely fiction (there may be some more widespread accepted term, and if so I'd be happy to hear it).

It's a categorically different enterprise from Joyce's or Dickens's, or any writers who's thrown open a window and trying to puzzle out what's outside and their relationship to it.

First of all, not only do I disagree that it is a categorically different enterprise, but Mr. Harrison's essay does appear to regard the two enterprises as being different - which is entirely what you would expect of a writer who is ranting against illusionism in general and not the use of the fantastic in fiction. And of course, this is what you'd expect of a writer who has used the fantastic to write novels exploring and attacking illusionism.

And for that matter, aren't modernists more noted for throwing open the window and trying to puzzle out what's inside and thier relationship to it? Do you seriously think that Tolkien is not trying to puzzle out his relationship to what is outside him? I baffled by that perspective.

Only if the reader cares to do so.

Well, yes.

It's like you've inverted the old addage about stories being like icebergs; only the tip is visible while the bulk lies unseen beneth the water. You prefer icebergs that have been hauled onto the land and dumped in your lap.

I believe that I in fact said the opposite. A story without world building is like an iceberg which is entirely floating on the surface. Everything to be seen is seen.

But there's more going on there. It's not just a tourist map of Dublin, its also a map of Western civ.

And the Lord of the Rings isn't? And for that matter, the claim that its not merely a map of Dublin but also of Western civilization is supposed to convince me less world building is involved?

And there's decidely less going on here. There's so much missing from Middle Earth, so much basic human drama...

LOL. Oh, dear. I hold a quite different opinion. Much of what you praise as human drama, strikes me as characters being dragged around doing things merely to serve the needs of the story, and not because it seems like something people are likely to do. Which is why, to bring them back up, the characters in the Great Gatsby seem so shallow and hollow and difficult to relate to to me. They have to be in order to serve the writers needs, which is to create a paticular bit of illusionism regarding what it is like to have been in aristocratic rural NY in the 1920's - even though we can feel fairly certain that it really wouldn't have been like that because real life is seldom so like a story. To use a modern example of this sort of 'human drama', in the 'Gillmore Girls' Lorelai, Luke, and Chris don't have these tempetuous break ups because the characters are real people acting in realistic ways (although the authors do alot of world building and other sorts of illusion making to create that appearance), but rather they do these things because it suits the needs of a romantic TV comedy series that its main characters never fully resolve the sexual tension between them. Like clockwork, as the seasons change so do the characters, and they don't say and do stupid things because people say and do stupid things (although people do) but because they need to have some excuse to break the characters. And this is typical 'human drama' stories, because in them, if people are honest and don't act preciptiously and speak to each other with consideration then you don't have a story. You don't have conflict, so you can't have a story. But rarely do these conflicts ever strike home to me, but rather they always seem as contrived as an Oscar Wilde play - which incidently I'd rather watch than most so called 'human dramas'.

I don't agree, but I do note that its a very specific kind of enjoyment I get from immersing myself in the minutiae present of genre fiction. While the though of a whaling treatise bores me to tears, I'll gladly learn the name of the various Gundam units, or elf runes, or the weapon systems used by the Federation and it's enemies.

It's funny, but I don't. I'm courious as to why you think that is all there is to see?

I'm curious as to why? It's not rightly, fiction. It's related to it, but outside... like Tolkien's hobbit toast-buttering songs.

A phrase you keep tiresomely using, even though said songs don't in fact exist and those Hobbit songs which do exist and are not disguised exposition, take up no more than about 2-3 pages of the whole work. Besides which, you'll get no complaints from me criticizing the quality of Tolkien's poetry, although its worth pointing out that most of his poetry is in fact disguised English folks songs right down to the tune.

 

[Mallus]

I find your appeals to populist arguments very self-serving, because you have in this thread inclined to decry popularity as a test of fitness when it suits your purpose and adopt an elitist stance on what is worthy literature.

Me, self-serving? Never...

I wasn't making a populist appeal, just an observation based on my experiences as a reader and cultural observer (I get to call myself that, I used to subscribe to the New Yorker ).

Fiction that involves meticulously-detailed, wholly imaginary worlds is in the minority. It's a niche, outside the bounds of 'mainstream realism'. Ergo, quite a lot of readers are looking for something else out of fiction.

And I've strenously tried to avoid elitism in my posts --unlike some people. Basically, all I've said with regards to literary merit was the Gatsby is concise, LotR is not, different works have different goals, methods, and thus resulting pleasures. And that Harrison's comments are more widely applicable than you claimed. Which, curiously enough, aren't value judgments.

I don't know who should be more offended by that...

I should be offended. You implied I wasn't funny!

Semi-seriously though, I know quite a few straight people, including the friend who I co-created my current game world with, not to mention my lovely wife, who'd gladly read gay pornography, but couldn't be forced into finishing Fellowship of the Ring, or Dune.

But what it is really particular to is 'illusionism', which I what I call the desire of the writer to create the sense in the reader that the fiction is true on some level and not merely fiction

It's not just a matter of trying to creative a convincing fictional space --the 'fictive dream' -- it's a matter of how you go about doing it. Maybe it's best to think of Harrisons as attacking a specific methodology common in F/SF

First of all, not only do I disagree that it is a categorically different enterprise

Why? How can chronicling Dublin not be inherently different from, say, Minas Tirinth?

And of course, this is what you'd expect of a writer who has used the fantastic to write novels exploring and attacking illusionism.

So your research includes actually reading Mr. Harrison's books?

Do you seriously think that Tolkien is not trying to puzzle out his relationship to what is outside him?

In an word, yes. Or if he is, he's doing so in a way that shuts me, as the reader, out. All I can see is the fantastic castle he's pulled out of his toychest. It's lovely, but it looks an awful lot like a retreat from the world around him, particularly the messy, dirty world of adult relationships (contrast this with the fantasies of Shakespeare).

A story without world building is like an iceberg which is entirely floating on the surface.

So long as the 'world-building' remains submerged and off the written page, I can agree with you.

Much of what you praise as human drama, strikes me as characters being dragged around doing things merely to serve the needs of the story...

What do you consider good human drama, aside from LotR?

They have to be in order to serve the writers needs, which is to create a paticular bit of illusionism regarding what it is like to have been in aristocratic rural NY in the 1920's - even though we can feel fairly certain that it really wouldn't have been like that because real life is seldom so like a story.

I can't for the life of me see your point here. We should eschew attempts at mimetic realism?

But rarely do these conflicts ever strike home to me, but rather they always seem as contrived as an Oscar Wilde play - which incidently I'd rather watch than most so called 'human dramas'.

Any storytelling mode has its limitations. Can you think of one that doesn't? Sure, TV dramas are contrieved. That doesn't mean that can't offer moments of meaningful drama. The enjoyment of any narrative form is predicated, in part, on looking past the obvious mechanisms flaiing about making it work. News flash: upset people don't really sing like they do in an opera.

BTW, I'm quite fond of Wilde, his embrace of the patently fake is exhilirating.

I'm courious as to why you think that is all there is to see?

I never said such minutiae was all there was to see, I said those kinds of things fascinated me.

A phrase you keep tiresomely using...

It amuses me to no end.

...take up no more than about 2-3 pages of the whole work.

I demand a recount!

(I'm going out now to have a proper talk about books. At a bar, with a copious amount of gin and finger pointing)

 

[LostSoul]

Really? Say we're doing a "Deepest, Darkest Africa" sort of campaign where the players are intrepid explorers cutting their way through vast tracts of jungle. Sounds like a fun campaign to me.

Do we really need massive detail about every animal, plant and monster they meet? Or can they just meet "Random meat eating carnivore #25" once in a while? Sure, some parts will need to be expanded, that's simply good gaming. But, again, it takes a back seat to the action of the game. A ten page treatise on the cultivation habits of the lizardfolk that the party will meet once is not the makings of a good game.

What if the people playing the game are interested in the fictional world - exploring different aspects of it, and how characters from that world would react to the things they find? If the people are into that kind of thing, then I think worldbuilding is good. The people playing would need to do some worldbuilding - of aspects that are important to them to discover in the game - in order to have fun (I think).

 

[Celebrim]

Me, self-serving? Never...

LOL. Normally at this point in a thread's life, I'm inclined to exit stage left and shut up. I'm still inclined to do so, and my 'better judgement' is telling me I'm a fool for still posting. Perhaps the reason I'm still posting is that the people seem to be much less stupid than the sort I'm normally going around in circles with.

I wasn't making a populist appeal, just an observation based on my experiences as a reader and cultural observer (I get to call myself that, I used to subscribe to the New Yorker ).

LOL.

It's a niche, outside the bounds of 'mainstream realism'. Ergo, quite a lot of readers are looking for something else out of fiction.

My impression is that what you call 'mainstream realism' is not very mainstream. Mainstream is more likely to be bodice rippers than literary realism.

I should be offended. You implied I wasn't funny!

I only implied that you were less funny than Harrison. But you are more deserving of a laugh, because you come off as far less of an ass.

Why? How can chronicling Dublin not be inherently different from, say, Minas Tirinth?

Well, other than the one big difference that you and I would be inclined to say that Dublin is real (though, in point of fact, I've never been there), the process need not be inherently different. Supposing I wanted to write a novel in 1950's Los Angeles. Well, 1950's Los Angeles no more exists than does Minas Tirith. I can't go to either one and produce it. I have to create a simulation of either one if it is to get to the page. And for that matter, I can't put the real Dublin or Los Angeles of today on the page either. It's still also a simulation of the real thing.

So your research includes actually reading Mr. Harrison's books?

(Again) No, but it does include reading what the man says about his works and self. I'd queue up one of his works, but the word of mouth thus far hasn't been very good. Maybe when I next get down to the library and can't find anything else.

In an word, yes. Or if he is, he's doing so in a way that shuts me, as the reader, out. All I can see is the fantastic castle he's pulled out of his toychest. It's lovely, but it looks an awful lot like a retreat from the world around him, particularly the messy, dirty world of adult relationships (contrast this with the fantasies of Shakespeare).

Well, I agree its a retreat from messy dirtiness in its own way, as he's something of a Luddite, but it isn't a retreat from adult relationships or any of thier messiness. With that I can't agree. I see a whole lot of adults acting with alot of adult responcibility and carrying alot of adult concerns. That is, unless you define adult relationships as inherently disfunctional and define adult as infantile (which seems typical of 'drama'), in which case I can kinda maybe see your point.

What do you consider good human drama, aside from LotR?

Now that is a very good question, as I generally dislike the sort of thing that passes for 'human drama' and don't generally think of what I like in those terms. Tragedy. Sure. Comedy. Sure. But drama? I usually think of drama as being a story in which there is nothing more at stake than something petty, usually solely because of the character's pettyness, and that the author rather than making light of our folly or madness as humans seems to be taking the whole thing far too seriously as if that sort of behavior was a thing to be considered normal or even laudatory. Drama is comedy without the punch line or wit. You mention Shakespeare, whom I like very much. Is he drama? If so, I like Shakespeare. Perhaps it is best just to list a few authors greatly I admire and let you decide if there is anything that meets your definition of drama in that: Hugo, Twain, Steinbeck, Jane Austen, Silverburg, Iain M. Banks, Tim O'Brian, Dickens, Kipling, Faulkner, Wolfe, Steven Pressfield. Expanding out to movies, I like very much Casablanca, The Sound of Music, Chariots of Fire, Sense and Sensibility, and The Incredibles. I'm not sure if there is any drama in that either.

We should eschew attempts at mimetic realism?

No, I believe that that was Harrison's point so far as I could understand it. Incidently, where Mr. Harrison and I may agree is that we should eschew the illusion of realism of a certain sort as a standard for judging the literary merit of a work.

That doesn't mean that can't offer moments of meaningful drama.

I didn't say that they didn't. I pretty clearly implied that I watched Gillmore girls at least on occassion and found something of merit there (jumped the shark several seasons ago though). I just implied that I find them at least no less fantastic, nor more relevant to my life, and no more realistic than Lord of the Rings.

(I'm going out now to have a proper talk about books. At a bar, with a copious amount of gin and finger pointing)

That sounds like a very good plan, though I generally drink whiskey rather than gin.