Worldbuilding: Your Novel's Genesis

So you want to write a novel, eh? That is great because writing a novel is a worthwhile goal, but you will need to get your head fully into the game as everybody can type a bunch of words and call it a novel. The idea though is to write one which is good enough to be published.

Writing fiction is rightly called an art form, but unfortunately, artistic talent does not fully suffice. It is also a craft and requires developing a raft of technical skills. Fiction writing is about giving your reader a powerful emotional experience and to do so you will need to master several main aspects of fiction, including: constructing a believable setting, filling it with interesting characters and developing a well-structured plot. Most writers excel at only one or two of these pillars of fiction. This essay is focused mainly on worldbuilding (although you must become reasonably competent at all of them before you are likely to get your novel published, of course).

Your novel doesn’t happen in a vacuum, right? It is set somewhere. The story world is like the skeleton of your story and if it is boring, the reader will be bored. So to improve your novel, you should either know the fictional world better, or show it better. Now I will show you what goes into constructing a great story world and will give you a checklist of key concepts you need to nail down to have a fully defined setting.

Firstly, every novel takes place in its own universe, which the author creates. He or she is the god of this world and has complete control over everything that happens there. However, this doesn't mean that just anything can happen because every story needs to have an inner logic that drives it. In other words, you can´t ignore scientific laws even if they are made up by yourself. You should add some communities with their cultural drivers. Your world must also be capable of having a conflict because otherwise there is no story. To do all of this you will have to research every single detail of your story so you can properly bring it to life (which is to be covered later in the article).

Your goal, as a fiction writer, is to create a story world that comes fully alive in the mind of your reader, which is called creating a sense of place and it can be quite difficult when you have a limited word count. You need most of the words in the novel for telling your story, not only for describing your world, so you can´t waste a single word. The way of saving some words and making your story even more compelling is to avoid static descriptions. This is a lot like a still-life painting because nothing happens there - no motion, no feelings.

For example, in the past authors occasionally took one or two pages describing every single detail of their story. Back then readers enjoyed static descriptions because they created images in their minds, but the modern reader has seen hundreds of movies and wants things to happen now, at the very moment. As a writer, you cannot afford to bore the reader with such long descriptions of every street, house and tree. Every image you write about should give the reader both a powerful emotional experience and keep the story moving, so if you can't describe it from the point of view of one of the characters or have no other story reason to do so, just don't. The idea is to make every description personal and use concrete details that evoke your character´s senses so that it can conjure up a place or a mood in the reader, let him/her see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

Yet don’t let anyone tell you that you must ALWAYS ‘show, don’t tell’ because it would be exhausting enough to show all the minute details of a character’s life with action, dialogue, monologue, flashback and whatever. A narrative summary can be used like a glue to hold all these elements together; you don’t need much glue, but you can’t live without it altogether.

Secondly, each of the characters in a novel is a unique individual but is also a part of a larger community, a cultural group with common history, language, religion, mythology, science, etc. All these things are under the name of cultural drivers. Some genres such as historical and fantasy require showing the reader a more complex picture of the cultural drivers, but you should never spend too much time describing those unless it means something to a character or it affects the storyline.

One of the biggest challenges for a writer, for instance, is to show the cultural drivers through action, thoughts or speech because otherwise it usually seems unnatural. It is pretty easy to show a result of this driver but much harder to explain the reason in the first place. To do it, you need words - dialogue. To put in some explanation of a cultural driver in dialogue you need an outsider character or perhaps a child who does not understand the culture. This way the character asks believably all the questions your reader is asking. Think of Harry Potter who knows nothing about the wizarding world until his eleventh birthday. So from that moment he starts exploring the community’s habits, history, abilities, etc. You can also use a narrative summary to explain cultural drivers to your reader and it is pretty efficient, but is often boring. You can’t just stop the story for a three-page long lecture on the history of Scotland, can you? If you use narrative summary remember to keep it short and interesting.

Thirdly, your story begins when change begins. What change? From the status quo. As a writer, you should know what the status quo of the certain community is and communicate it clearly to your reader and also explain the weak point in the system that makes things ripe for change. This is called a backdrop and is the political, cultural, religious or interpersonal climate that makes the conflict possible.

Additionally, in the role of the literal god of your fictional world, you should at least try to have total knowledge of how this world works like, what it is like to live, eat, have a job, go on a holiday, celebrate and many more. Note that some genres require enormously complex story worlds. For example, if you are writing a novel about your hometown, set in current day, then the most of world building is already done. But in historical fiction, sci-fi and fantasy you have to work much harder. In either case, the author should know the fictional world inside out. Not knowing enough about your world can lead to that dreaded disease called writer’s block.

Moreover, my main concern here is to tell you what sorts of things you actually need to research about your story world in order to write your novel like a pro, creating a convincing sense of time and place.

Things to consider:

Geography or the physical layout of your world- continents, oceans, rivers, lakes, mountains, etc. The amount of research on geography depends on whether your story is taking place on multiple planets or in one country, city or house.

Climate or the long-term weather patterns of your story world. Is the region sunny all year or perpetually frozen? Do you even have four seasons? Is there a dry and a rainy one? The climate can form a very important role in your story. For example, in G.R.R. Martin’s epic series A Song of Ice and Fire the winter can last for decades. People live differently in zones with different climates so it is very important to think about the climate of your story world.

Animals and plants: What kinds of animals and plants are there? Do some plants have healing properties? Are there some animals that endanger the human beings? What is the wildlife on land and at seas and rivers?

Cultural groups: Think of what races of people or other intelligent beings inhabit your world? How are they clustered together into families, tribes, nations, empires and federations? Are there any conflicts that create tension between/in these groups?

Language: What languages do your various cultural groups speak? Are there any dialects? Do some groups speak more than one language and what is the reason for this?

History: How long have the cultural groups been keeping track of their past? Do they keep an oral or written history? What’s that history? What wars have they fought? When were the periods of peacetime? What cultural developments have marked progress?

Politics: What is the government like? Is the world divided into various countries? Is the particular country a republic or a monarchy? What are the laws and who writes them?

Culture: What is the cultural world of the groups? What do they eat? What do they wear? What are their homes like? How do they ensure their livelihood? What jobs do they have? What are the different types of entertainment? Do they play any sports? What art do they create? What kind of literature do they write and read? What are their rights and obligations?

Religion and mythology: How do they explain their origin? Are they religious and if yes, what do they believe in? Are there any rituals they perform?

Science and technology: What is the level of scientific development of the different cultural groups? Any technological accomplishments? Do some groups have a technical advantage over others?

Magic: Does magic exist in your world and what is it like? Can anyone do it or only ‘the chosen ones’? Is it used as a weapon?

It is a must to know your world very well but you also have to quit researching at some point. If you don’t, you will never finish your novel. It is true that Tolkien constructed the Middle Earth over several decades, but he eventually did sit down to write LOTR and Hobbit.

The amount of research then depends heavily on the genre. The world building in fantasy and sci-fi novels is the hardest job because rather than looking things up in a library, you use your own mind to invent them. If you love research, the painful truth is that you will never know enough about your story world to make you fully happy. You’ll always be discovering cool new things. If you take time to write a novel this year, you may find out something next year that proves you wrong in this year’s novel. You have to take that risk. Life is short and research is endless. Whether your story is set in your hometown or in an imaginary country, remember that you should never ever tell everything you know in a single novel. You should tell only 1 percent of all the information.

After all this, you’re probably feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of effort it takes to build a whole world. Nevertheless, remember that a good enough story world significantly increases your chances of writing a great story. Your readers desperately want one thing from you when they pick up your novel: a powerful emotional experience. They want you to make them live in that world, to feel deeply and fully what your characters do. They want this story to be so compelling and engaging so it doesn’t let them put it down for a minute. For sure, constructing a believable world isn’t something you can do in fifteen minutes obviously, but Rome wasn’t built in a day so make a nice cup of tea, find a comfortable seat by the window and let the creation begin!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi! My name is Radoslav Balev and I am 16. Storytelling has been one of my greatest passions so far. Therefore, I have always dreamed of a career in writing and now I am working on my very first fantasy-adventure novel called Dark Hedges. In addition, languages are what I enjoy studying the most so I am currently learning 4 foreign ones, including: English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. I also love reading and traveling. My motto is JUST KEEP WⒶNDERING... You can find me on Instagram and on Facebook.

#writer #becomeawriter #thewritingwitch #RadoslavBalev #worldbuilding #novels #blogger #author #fantasy #guestwriter