On several of the forums I frequent, I see new writers become embroiled in time-consuming pitfalls that are writing-adjacent, but tend to produce nothing of real value. The two largest offenders within science fiction and fantasy seem to be excessive world building, and deep, detailed magic systems of little real consequence. If world-building itself is the goal for its own sake then that’s fine, and this post probably doesn’t apply. But if the goal is to actually complete a book which you hope for people to read, but are struggling, then this might be for you.
I’ve seen multiple novice authors make the claim that they’ve spent years developing the intricacies of their world, or the deeply entwined parallels of their sorcerous systems. Such efforts are wheel-spinning at best and, more often then not, simply a form of procrastination as these authors struggle with the far more daunting prospect of writing an actual story of any extended duration. As many of these authors try and fail to form cohesive narratives within that world, they retreat deeper into its idiosyncrasies looking for a solution that simply isn’t there. You’ll very rarely find gold hidden in the bowels of something you pulled from your own ass, no matter how tightly you’ve woven the strands of bullshit.
The simple truth is this: When a reader is presented with two books: The first with a rich, interwoven history behind it detailing the genesis of society and law which the author spent years on, versus a world that was made up and detailed in a few hours, or even on the fly? In most cases readers are not going to accurately assess which is which, nor do they particularly care about such meta information (though the most popular works sprout fandoms interested almost exclusively in such details).
So long as a book reads well and keeps them entertained, readers will get the same benefit from both books, but one of those authors will have wasted years more effort writing it that they needed to. At the end of the day, both are completely made up anyway, and the reader’s limit in the investment is determined more by the author’s ability to suspend their disbelief through prose and story and good characterization, none of which you’ll find in building background and designing magic systems. Even worse, writers with extensive, intertwined worlds can find themselves pigeonholed and inflexible, to the point where changing any single aspect causes the whole system to collapse. Inflexibility is anathema to completing long-form fiction.
In a guest blog I wrote for Science Fiction & Fantasy World, I mentioned that I use the concept of a three-tier world building philosophy as a way to determine what aspects of pre-conceived systems within science fiction and fantasy writing will actually affect the reader’s experience. I use the metaphor of picturing your world-building as an opaque pool in which the reader is treading water. In this metaphor, the ideal depth of the pool is just below the reach of your reader’s toes. If your reader never skims the bottom, then conceptually the pool is infinite depth.
The problem I see, is that far too many novice authors place far too much credence in the space between the reader’s toes and the actual bottom of the pool. But an author’s only interface with most of their readers will be the words printed (or digitized) on the page. The majority of my body of work (With the possible exception of the Dragon’s Banker, in which I relied a little too heavily on the existing crossover world building of the Sorcerous Crimes Division) has been praised for clever, unique, and detailed world-building. But in truth the majority of it was developed on the fly in a very ad-hoc way. I begin with the distilled concept, and then keep a rolling system of notes (in Notepad, go figure) of the story and an outline, adding to it as necessary.
For example: my flagship science-fiction series, The Union Earth Privateers spans a trilogy of novels that cross a decent chunk of the local galaxy wherein humans find themselves embroiled in interstellar conflicts and political intrigue between numerous factions, with story threads that reach from the first novel all the way through to the conclusion. Other writers are usually shocked to learn that the entirety of the compiled notes on backstory and world building over the 5 years of writing UEP would struggle to fill as many pages. Most of what I reference is already on-page, established and codified as it became necessary. Interestingly, to a reader this fact is of generally no consequence. The work reads like a cohesive universe of depth far beyond what’s present on the page, simply because everything on the page suggests that this is the case. Again, their toes never skim the bottom of the pool.
So what is the solution to a bloated setting so detailed and reliant on itself that it prevents flexible storytelling within it? Well, the pulling-off-the-bandaid approach is to simply delete everything and spend about an hour coming up with something new and fresh. Trash the genealogies, throw out the careful layers of geological strata that lay beneath your capital city, ditch the origin story of how your pantheon came to be, and erase the lineage of generals whose myriad campaigns lead to the current political boundaries. If it’s not present in the outline or represented on the page, and it’s not simple enough to hold in your head, chances are it’s not something that will ultimately benefit the end user. If, in the course of writing a book, you need those extraneous details? Fill them in as you go, and develop some background information then if you like. But the key to breaking these progress-halting bad habits is to not touch that which does not touch the reader. Focus on your main interface: What you strictly need to stuff a story between the two covers of a book.
Give it a try, you might find find that the only thing standing in your way is a prison of your own self-imposed rules.
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