World-Building
Or, things that make me pull out my hair.
I've been told my world-building is, generally, pretty good. But there are always questions. Like, "how did Character A do that [insert random supernatural ability here]?" or "wait, so what's the power structure here?" or "Why did Character B do this weird thing if the rules from before say he could just do [simpler thing]"
My answer is usually this:
*shrug*
Not because I don't care to know-- mainly because it's usually either my crit group or my mother or Jess asking me, and they're reading a first draft. And with a first draft, well, I have no idea what I'm doing until I'm at least a few chapters in (and even then, it's kinda iffy).
But at least when I get those questions, I have somewhere to start. When I'm already 160ish pages into a draft, most people don't want to take the time to sit down and play Setting 20 Questions with me so I know (or rather don't know) what's going on in my world.
My usual tactic when I hit a wall on a topic like this is to find the appropriate writing book to flip through. But I have almost as much trouble finding a good book/article/worksheet on world-building as I do actually doing the world-building. Everything I've found is either too science fiction or Big Picture oriented (I'm sure it's great for me to know the imports/exports for Darlington, but they don't much matter to Marna at the moment-- what matters is which Baddie might eat her next).
So, here's where you come in. (If you want.) Basically, I want to know what you want to know about a world when reading a story set elsewhere*. What details do you find interesting? What details do you usually skim/skip over? If the world is Obviously Different, do you assume certain things are the same unless told otherwise, or do similarities jar you?
If you can't think of anything in particular, what fictional worlds do you love & why? Or, conversely, which ones couldn't you get into, and why do you think that is?
Thanks for any help, or any commiserating on the Annoyances of World-Building :)
*Yes, I realize pretty much every book is an elsewhere. Moving on...
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Have you ever seen this? http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/
It was tremendously helpful to me when I was revising Garolass, especially the People & Customs and General Life sections.
I have seen that! I forgot all about it, probably b/c the SFWA site drives me nuts (why are two left columns necessary?!? I want to see the actual content!). I'll check it out again-- probably more helpful for Darlington than some of the other things I've looked at it for! :)
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I get a lot of reviews that are disappointed that I didn't explain better how magic works in Magic Under Glass, which I have to admit makes me scratch my head. I don't really care how magic works, beyond that it's consistent and not really bizarre without explanation. I had chalked that up to "boring, unimportant detail"...but apparently there are people who really REALLY wanna know how magic works.
I don't really care myself, though, so I'm not sure I will ever fully indulge that audience... And of course I also get reviews praising the world-building. Soooo who knows.
Last time I was world-building I also happened to be reading a book on Thailand called "Very Thai"...it was kind of a substantive pop culture book, one might say, with chapters on things like how in Thailand there is such a thing as a friendly or romantic sniff (moreso than a kiss), or how there are a lot of tangled masses of power lines, and lots of lights everywhere, and colorful sweet drinks in bags instead of cups...
It was very fascinating! I realized these were the kind of things I never thought of, and I actually used that book for a bit of world-building, using the chapters for jumping off points just to ask myself weird questions like "Do they have street food?" or "What are the decorating motifs of houses and shops?" or "Do they kiss? Do they kiss in public?"
Which is apparently why the people who want lengthy magic descriptions will continue to be disappointed with me...
Perhaps more than any other aspect of writing, world-building can get me really stuck. Because I just want to write, to know my characters and my plot, and sometimes I don't really want to stop to figure out how it is that there can be an all-female race of fae, or how the portal system works, etc.
But then I think of Tolkien. Lovely, fantastic, detail-oriented Tolkien, who could probably tell you what Gimli's great-great-uncle ate for breakfast on this day fifty years ago. Somehow, Tolkien's world breathes on the page. Middle Earth captivates me, as it does a lot of people. My novels are very different from LOTR and The Hobbit, and I'm no linguist, so I probably won't be creating my own language anytime soon. But I often think about or turn to his books when I get stuck. It pushes me to look deeper into my own world.
The more drafts I write, the more time I find to answer all of those detailed questions. I really like the world I'm currently working with, and I hope to write more than one or two stories based in it. Once I figured out my characters and who they were and had a basic plot down, I'm finding it easier to pause to figure out those details I wasn't considering before.
I get bogged down by description easily. Steinbeck and Tolkein drive me bonkers. When it comes to physical setting/geography, I like just enough information to get the general idea, then I can go from there in my own head if/when I need to. I loved that about the Hunger Games. She gave enough to figure out in general what part of the US had morphed into which District, but not any more than was necessary for that. I really like the maps in Graceling and in the Chronicles of Narnia. I recently read a book about a girl from a war torn country who was adopted by an American, and it drove me crazy because she never gave enough info to know *which* war torn country. The author did it on purpose, but I felt very ungrounded until the story moved to the US.
Food is important. Power structures are important. Anything different in how people interact with each other is important to me. If there's a different language, I'd rather just know that and have everything translated for me. How things work is not usually important to me if it seems consistent, but a power suddenly appearing needs some explanation. This is one definite strength of Harry Potter. Rowling does a fabulous job of just mentioning the things that are the same in a way that lets you know they're the same (like the Ministry of Magic, the non-Magical food, school houses, etc.) but going into really fun detail on the things that are different.
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