Jan 13 2009
Worldbuilding (Literally)
Every type of writing requires a degree of worldbuilding, but only sci-fi and fantasy authors call it that. Even in a realistic novel the writer has to create the world of his story— the places, whether they are real (like Chicago) or made up for the story, and many other aspects.
In speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror) everything is up for grabs. For example— your main character comes downstairs to say hello to his wife. But does he have a wife? More than one wife? A temporary rental wife? A husband? More than one husband? Does he even have a downstairs? On what planet is it? Is there likely to be a dragon that needs slaying in the garden? As for saying hello— what language does he say it in? Or does he use language at all? Perhaps he’s a telepath.
There is a great deal of worldbuilding that might be done for any given story. But worldbuilding is not the story. You need to find out what the story is, and do the worldbuilding which is essential to the story. Just as you are not necessarily going to mention the existence of the gazelle in a realistic story, there are large parts of your story’s world that won’t get mentioned, and which you therefore don’t need to create. Excessive worldbuilding can stop you from writing the story.
I currently have two novel projects going. One is a fantasy story currently titled ‘Among the Lost’ which has something to do with vampires. The other was formerly titled ‘Gems of Kolbe’ but is now ‘Kolbe’s World’, and that one involves worldbuilding in the literal sense— terraforming.
Terraforming is the process of transforming a planet that humans can not live on into one that is Earth-like. As terraforming has been envisioned, it can take thousands of years. Or it can happen in an instant in the movie ‘Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan’. It can be horribly expensive to a society, or it can be done on the cheap.
Besides the web references below, the book ‘The Writer’s Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe’ has a section on terraforming, as well as many other useful references to use in your worldbuilding. I highly recommend it. Don’t, however, treat it like the Bible. If you have read widely enough in science fiction (and in science) you may not agree with everything the authors have to say, and that’s alright.
One science fiction book that deals with a terraformed world is ‘The Shadow and Night’ by Chris Walley. (This is actually volumes one and two of the series in one volume). The setting, Farholme, is a Made World, and the first section of the first book contains a brief description of the terraforming of the world. (Visit Chris Walley’s blog, News from Farholme
As for my own project (feel free to skip this part): it takes place on a world which has undergone a preliminary stage of terraforming— it has water and atmosphere— and is awaiting the next stage, in which soil-building pioneers are sent to the world. But when nine families of soil-building pioneers arrive, they find the world already contains a man marooned there from his starship for an unspeakable deed, and he claims there is a mysterious and hostile life-form on the world— but he may be insane from the isolation.
As for my progress on the work, well, all I got to yesterday was to write out a list of characters in my master notebook I am planning to use software I have called ‘New Novelist’ to write this book. I was going to add my character list there as well, but I was too busy blogging (and promoting the blog) to do it.
Worldbuilding Links:
Ecology for World-builders
Worldbuilding — Rollicking Rules of Ecosystems - Holly Lisle
Writing Workshop: How Much of My World Do I Build? — Holly Lisle
Terraforming: Wikipedia
