World Building Over-share

I said last time that I wanted to talk about unnecessary world building, so we can kind of think about this as a Part 2 of that rant.

Sometimes authors do world building that just isn't necessary.  I once heard the advice that when you're editing, any scene in your story should do two things (plot development, character building, setting the scene, etc), and if it's only doing one thing, you should cut it.  I like to think of world building the same way: if the world building isn't supporting the plot or characterization, then it's superfluous.

So for example, let's talk about languages.  Let's say there's a character that speaks a fictional language.  Now, this could do a lot of things to help plot and characterization.

• It could highlight cultural differences between the character and the people she has to interact with who don't speak the language.
• It could be a point of contention between the character and her mother.  The mother wishes our character spoke the language of her people, while our character is rejecting that culture.
• It could be a plot point in that two characters can communicate in secret to plan their escape from the villain's clutches.

However, if it doesn't do anything else besides "be there" or get a response of "well, that's kinda different, I guess", then it's it's only there because the author wanted to make up a language. 

And there WILL BE things in world building that don't help the plot or characters. 

Did you know, that in this alternate history story I'm writing, Thomas Jefferson didn't invent the hideaway bed???  How unusual!  I'm clever!

But does this fun fact in any way affect the story I'm telling? 

No.

Well, then there's no need to mention it.

You can, in fact, not mention a lot of things.  As long as your reader is not left wondering about them, you're good to go. 

Where did the first vampire come from?

Who cares?

That's not important to the story.  What's important to the story is the current culture of vampires and how they live their lives and how their presence affects the world around them.

We can black box that and no one will question it.

 
And this brings me to the main point I want to make: over-sharing the world building to the point that the story no longer makes sense.

"The Maze Runner" by James Dashner is a good example of this.  Now, usually I don't like saying negative things about books I've read, but this is a New York Times Best Seller and it has a movie in production, so my criticism on my little blog will not hurt anyone.  (Also, I'm about to spoil the end of this book, so turn back if that bothers you.)

In this story, kids appear in a labyrinth with no memory of who they are or what they need to be doing, and subsequently try to escape.  The world building of the maze is wonderfully done.  It's eerie and pervasive and everything you'd want out of world building.  The kids build a society for themselves, which is flushed out an organic, and catches art my attention because even though they bicker with each other, there are no pig heads on sticks.  The maze changes every night, and the monsters that wander the maze are really interesting.  The kids don't know why the maze is there or why they're in the maze or if there even is a way to get out.  It's a great book up until about the last chapter.

Then the mystery of the maze is reveled with further world building that makes absolutely no sense and spoils everything that has come before.  We learn that the kids were put into the maze because a solar flare (what?) caused the Earth to go post apocalyptic (what?).  In an effort to get the best minds working on the project, some scientists gathered the best and brightest children, educated them, and then gave them all amnesia and put them in a maze (what?), because when they made their way out of the maze, they'd be smarter and more prepared to tackle the problem of solar flares (what?).  What's even worse is that very few children survive to get through the maze, so several of their best minds (kids who found important solutions to problems within the maze) were killed off and could not contribute later to the solar flare problem.

This last bit of world building has so much that isn't working for it.  1. The science is just bogus.  2. It comes out of nowhere and is completely unrelated to the story I'd just read.  It's tonally jarring at the very, very end.

3. The response to the flare makes no logical sense.  There is no natural progression from "get smart kids to work on the problem" (which sounds good to me) to "put them in a deadly maze with amnesia."  No.  That is not even remotely a solution to the problem.  It makes the maze overly contrived, I don't see how it gives the kids better skills to solve their problem, and it drastically thins their pool of genius children even though they've learned from the maze that they do best pooling their intelligence an working together.

And 4. the world building is purely there for exposition.  It does not give us a better insight into the characters (because none of them remember this) and it doesn't even really help the plot.  This did nothing to support the story, and instead caused massive problems. 

I would have greatly preferred it if the "why" of their presence in the maze was left a mystery, if it were black boxed in the same way as "where did the first vampire come from?"  They could leave the maze into a white light, and the book could end ambiguously, and I would have loved this book.

World building done well: what we can learn from Tolkien

And we're back!

I've been having this ongoing feud (with fisticuffs and harsh words) with a friend of mine about world building.  My view of it is "If you're writing speculative fiction, you better be thinking about world building.  Reading lazy world building is one of the worst things ever."  His view (as far as I can tell) is "Thinking about world building is not what I like about writing.  Some people get carried away with it.  And I am disdainful of the whole thing." *

Which is a completely valid point.  Not liking something doesn't mean you're not going to do it on a finished product, and we all have our favorite and least favorite parts of writing.  And, yes, some stories get carried away with unnecessary world building, which I'm going to talk about in a later blog post.

But let's talk about why it's important, and what good world building can do for your story.

One of the great examples of world building, because there's just SO MUCH of it and because it's done really well, and often the first example people think of when talking about world building is The Lord of the Rings.  Now, I'm in no way saying that you have to do as much world building as this in order to have a good speculative story.  I'm saying that it does a lot of stuff right, and we can learn from it.



First of all, it's pervasive.  The history and culture of the different peoples of Middle Earth is sewn into every scene.  I've talked before about what a difference this makes, but it never hurts to have another example.

“It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.”

What do any of those words even mean?  So many proper nouns to parse through.  But the cool thing is that I don't really need to know.  It says, "This one group of people say this sea sounds like music, and it's kinda eerie," but it hints at a deeper history. 

• There is "the Music of the Ainur" which must be recognizable and unique enough to be singled out in this description, and we can get some idea of what it must sound like if it sounds kind of like a roaring sea.   
• "It is said by the Eldar" means that the Eldar have enough culture to have their own stories or proverbs or sayings.  They say this.  Other groups don't really.  And is there more to them saying this?  Is there a story there?  It implies something deeper.

Secondly, history set up in world building directly affects character's motivations and actions.  Part of the world building tells this story that back in the day, the king of Gondor and his descendants went into hiding because Sauron was after them.  This left the kingdom of Gondor without a king, so a steward took over and led the people, and his descendants have been ruling ever since.  Okay?  hat's the world building.  Now, that's all well and good, but what makes it great is that this event has direct reprecussions for characters in the main story.

When Aragorn (who is of the line of kings who went into hiding and is therefore heir to be King of Gondor) shows up, Boromir (who is next in line to be Steward of Gondor) says, "Hell no, you're not our king.  We haven't had a king in centuries.  The stewards have ruled over Gondor while you were off dicking around.  You've lost your claim, so GTFO."  Which makes perfect sense!  He's kind of a jerk about it, but he's got a valid point.  And his take on this issue reflects the point of view of a large portion of the people of Gondor.

On the other hand, there's Boromir's brother, Faramir.  He says, "The Stewards are stewards, and their job is to take care of things while the king's away.  That was the deal in the beginning, and the noble thing would be to keep his seat warm, take care of the people, and hand power back when the time comes and the king returns."  This makes sense too!  And again, it's the same point of view as a good chunk of the population of Gondor, who are like "Huzzah!  The king has returned!"

Now, what we can take from this is that this event from the past as part of the world building 1. informs the characters decisions in the main story of the book and 2. highlights differences in the two brothers' personalities.  That's great world building.




* He probably wouldn't start a sentence with a conjunction.  But it's my blog, so eat it!