Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[apoptosis]

Actually, it has a lot to do with worldbuilding verses no worldbuilding, insofar as Harrison's point is concerned. He didn't say "don't do worldbuilding". He said "don't let worldbuilding interfere with the story".



And, in doing so, you have, to a large extent, followed Harrison's advice. The story triumphed over worldbuilding. What would be counter to his advice would be if, instead of mentioning the swamp muffler once, you introduced a character named "Mike the Swamp Dude" who spent an entire chapter talking to the main character's about the swamp muffler, and none of that information was useful to the story in any way. That's an info-dump, and it is fairly common in mediocre science fiction and fantasy. The author has some cool background detail that he really, really wants to use, so he contrives a circumstance to tell you about it.



And that isn't what Harrison is criticizing. Go back and read his quote again. He's saying story should triumph over worldbuilding. I don't think you are disagreeing with him.

That is exactly what i thought Harrison was saying as well.

It is not that details are not important as they can give life and versimiltude to the story, but that authors that are focused on worldbuilding end up visiting the department of extraneous backstory often enough to the detriment of the writing.

The point that setting and worldbuilding are different, I completely agree with and I think is a very important to this discussion.

The difference for me would be, the details in the town that the story takes place in are part of the setting and can bring it to life, an info dump in the story about the nearby capitol that has little impact on the story is part of the worldbuilding problem.

When reading fiction I can really tell the writers who are focused on worldbuilding in their writing, you can see where they have this powerful desire to show you the world that they created regardless of any substantial connection to the story that they are creating.

Strangely this discussion caused me to enter Bizarro World.

I almost never agree with Storm Raven or Hussar and am almost always in agreement with Raven Crowking.

and now I fully agree with both Hussar and Storm Raven (of course all involved dont know that because I am a chronic lurker).

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

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.

I think the kind of world-building Harrison rants against would be represented by a five-minute monologue by Solo about how he was born and grew up on Corellian, how beautiful/ugly it is there, and how Corellian ships are the best damn ships in the galaxy, certainly better than those flimsy things built on Alderaan, since everybody knows that Alderaans can't build ships worth a damn, he was on Alderaan once, it was a real dump and he was glad to be away from there, but that's where he met his first Hutt, and that helped him get into the smuggling business under the greatest smuggler before him...

That kind of world-building.

 

[Greg K]

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.

However, for a rpg, if a PC could come from a given culture, then some info about the culture is, imo, going to be necessary. It may not come out in the game or the player of the character may reveal bits as the game progresses (e.g., when character b acts in a way that differes from Character A's cultural expectations). Regardless, it does give the player at least some understanding what it means to be from the culture, info that may be incorporated for back story, and, if desired, a reference to diverge from the cultural norms or to play the cultural stereotype. Finally, if you are using PrCs then Corellian Pirates may need some details if it is something that he has heard of and needs info to decide if his character wants to join.

 

[Storm Raven]

Lord of the Rings, as others have noted, is as much history as action and is both hugely popular and critically claimed, and successful, and influential.

Howard's Hyborian Age follows suit. Perhaps better than any other example, Howard's fame for action amply demonstrates how such yarns can benefit from world building and how the two can productively coexist. Indeed, without Howard's worldlbuilding in the form of the Hyborian Age, Conan might as well be just some guy.

In the science fiction field, Larry Niven and his Ringworld/Known Universe stories build some of the most unique worlds to be encountered. On the small screen, the Star Trek franchise has made a fetish out of worldbuilding to great acclaim. No better example may be had than that of the Klingons, whose government, politics, religion, philosophy, military, sports, mating rituals, pets etc. have been explored for dramatic effect.

The examples contrary to the quoted author within the realm of literature are legion. The quoted author appears to offer solace to merely adequite or neophyte authors (to say nothing of the hacks) unable to move much beyond who is doing what to whom, right now. Put another way, in the spirit of the author's loaded vernacular - twaddle.

This said, tastes vary and there is certainly a place for the penny dreadful, potboiler, Harlequin Romance and simple tale of daring do. The is also a place for Melville, Tolkien, Howard etc. The latter are justifiably remembered, while the former are just creatures of the moment.

I think that you have proved Harrison's point. Look at the books you have cited in counterpoint to his. Sure, they are popular genre novels, but with the exception of Tolkien (and Melville, but Moby Dick's weakness is the inordinate amount of time spent telling us about how whalers work, what makes it last is the revenge story), they are all consigned to the literary ghetto. These aren't "good literature", they are books adored by science fiction and fantasy afficionados - and those who get whole hog into the worldbuilding aspects can, in large part, be decribed as nerdy.

For example, the "world" of Star Trek is entirely irrelevant to the typical viewer (and self-contradictory to boot, which makes it not a good example of world building) - it is only really relevant to the guys who buy the technical Starfleet manual and similar products - and they are rare. And in the actual series, we get relatively little world information compared to the volume of story.

 

[Ourph]

But that's just setting. The OP isn't talking about that and neither is the article. It's pretty obvious that every story (or campaign) needs a setting. Of course it does. What it doesn't need is for the setting to be made more important than the plot.

That's not what I got from the linked article. What I got from it was that the author shouldn't know any more about the setting than what makes it into the story. That's something I totally disagree with and, honestly, can't understand how any author could write fantasy or science fiction under those conditions.

 

[Celebrim]

While I'm normally a fan of applying a most charitable interpretation to what someone said, I think some of Mr. Harrisons defenders have gone overboard and are now substituting what they wish he had said for what he actually said.

In particular, as I said before, Mr. Harrison's argument only works if you assume a straw man definition of 'world building' - something along the lines of 'world building that gets in the way of the story' or 'world building that exhaustively details things that aren't relevant to the story'. But of course, the former is a circular definition that tells us nothing that isn't trivial, and the latter doesn't actually occur often enough in practice to be of concern.

So let us settle down and say what world building is.

World building is any imaginative process of detailing a setting that creators of fiction use which does not directly create a story, but which is preparatory to the story and designed to aid in creating versimilitude, emmersiveness, and internal consistancy within whatever story that the creator is setting out to tell. So for example, creating a scale map of any sort is world building. A map is not necessary to a story. You can tell a story just fine without any sort of scale map and without worrying about the travel times between any two places. However, many authors do create maps, either as illustrations so that readers will understand the imaginary geography, or else as illustrations so that they the writer will understand the imaginary geography. For example, Tolkein famously created highly detailed scale maps so that he could plot out the travel times of the various characters in the story so that he would know where each character was on any given date and that it would be reasonable within the story that they had arrived at that point in the time described. Now, that might not strictly be necessary, but it doesn't get in the way of the story. Instead, it enhances the story IMO, by helping the reader understand what is in fact a very complex story with very complex and diverse goals.

(I should note that I'm of the group that says that Tolkiens writing is very efficient indeed, and I found the mention of 'The Great Gatsby' particularly funny, because when I teach Tolkien's LotR's, one of the devices I've employed is putting pages from the LotR side by side with 'The Great Gatsby' so that the writing styles can be compared. This is generally a revelation to anyone that actually wants to learn and doesn't have there minds pre-made up and set by LotR's reputation as difficult to read, ramblilng, or 'inefficient'. Anyone that thinks LotR is 'inefficient' simply isn't looking very closely. I also consider this a pretty bizarre criticism of the story considering how much story Tolkien crams into the work in the space he uses, compared to modernist stories like Joyce's 'Ulysses' that are hailed as triumphs of the literary art. I know whose writing strikes me as more 'efficient', but for that matter I don't think that efficiency is a very good standard for judging a story anyway. In a story, I don't care how quickly you take me from point A to point B; I care how much I enjoy the ride. Air travel is very efficient, but not nearly as fun as canoeing, hiking or even a leisurely car trip if the area you are travelling in is interesting. I'm generally inclined to think that most critics of Tolkien's writing are basically peeved that the public could care less about Joyce after they invested so much emotion in praising Joyce, etc. They certainly show no sign of having actually read Tolkien. But, I digress.)

It should be really obvious that RPG's need a bit more world building than fiction. Every DM that ever drew a map engaged in enough world building to make Mr. Harrison question the psychology of you and your 'victims'.

But there is more to world building than drawing maps and computing travel times.

Everyone that invented flora and fauna and set out to justify its role in the ecology or the physics of its body plan has engaged in world building. Setting a gargantuan red dragon in a room with no gargantuan exits at the bottom of a dungeon of 5' corridors doesn't involve much world building, but creating a plausible food source and means of egress for the dragon does. Thinking about consequences of dragons like bones, piles of dragon offal and dung, beetles crawling in the waste, and reeking dragon musk is more world building.

I dare say that DM's that didn't worry about the fact that the gargantuan red dragon had no means to leave the little lair he was in would be frowned on by most modern gamers if the game or story was meant to be taken seriously at all.

Everyone that has ever described a history of how the society got to where it was has engaged in world building. Everyone that has ever created a creation story and described a cosmology has engaged in world building. Everyone that has ever invented a technology and made some attempt to make it seem plausible has engaged in world building. Everyone that has spent time imagining what the impact of a particular technology might be on society has engaged in world building.

Heck, everyone that has spent time researching before writing a story has engaged in world building.

Science Fiction and Fantasy writers do this all the time, and a I dare say its on the whole a good thing to do, or least there are alot of good authors that have done so.

But, try as you might to twist his words around, that's not what Mr. Harrison said. Mr. Harrison didn't merely say that world building could be wasted effort or could when inserted without reason detract from the story and render it stale. Mr. Harrison used much stronger language than that, and it is IMO more insulting to Mr. Harrison to assume that he did not at all say what he meant than it is to say that what he said was incorrect.

I've already wrote alot about what I think about what he actually said, so I'll just stick with "Utter crap", and move on.

Researching Mr. Harrison though, I find he is famous for writing stories which are deliberately internally inconsistant, which deliberately break versimilitude, and which turn out to be settings about settings and stories about stories. He writes stories in which the first assumption of the reader, namely that there is meaning to be found in the fiction, turns out to be false and that it is all revealed as merely fiction in the end. In other words, Mr. Harrison's rant is entirely consistant with the philosophical position he's staking out in his works, and it is entirely consistant with what we know of the emotionalism of people who hold that political position that they would be frightened of the psychology of people who do not hold it. So let's do Mr. Harrison at least the respect of taking him seriously and not pretending that he said something more easily defensible and comfortable to hear.

 

[Imaro]

[size=-2]Psst! Hey, Imaro! It's in the original post--it's exactly what the last six pages have been talking about.[/size]

Psst, hey Hobo. I already gave my views on assumptions. Maybe that's what you're talking about but it has nothing to do with the original post or worldbuilding in and of itself.

 

[buzz]

Howard's Hyborian Age follows suit. Perhaps better than any other example, Howard's fame for action amply demonstrates how such yarns can benefit from world building and how the two can productively coexist. Indeed, without Howard's worldlbuilding in the form of the Hyborian Age, Conan might as well be just some guy.

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.

On the small screen, the Star Trek franchise has made a fetish out of worldbuilding to great acclaim. No better example may be had than that of the Klingons, whose government, politics, religion, philosophy, military, sports, mating rituals, pets etc. have been explored for dramatic effect.

I was under the impression that these are the aspects of Trek that get lampooned the most.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Really? When is that word actually used in the movie. All we know is that Obi Wan made a loud noise and it scarred the Sand People away.

Even if I am incorrect on that one point (and I am not sure I am; I'd have to rewatch the movie), all the others are ample demonstration that there is more going on in Star Wars than you originally supposed, right?

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

That's not what I got from the linked article. What I got from it was that the author shouldn't know any more about the setting than what makes it into the story. That's something I totally disagree with and, honestly, can't understand how any author could write fantasy or science fiction under those conditions.

Even if they wanted to. Even when I write short stories, I create all sorts of stuff that never makes it onto paper (or screen, as it were) and shouldn't. But little details, backstory, whatever, give a character depth to the author, and that will show on the page one way or another. It's like detecting planets by how their gravity affects other planets; the fact that the character's mother was killled by orcs may not make it into the story, but it should affect how that character behaves. Call it 'method writing' if you will.