Hello, Writing Forums! I'm still new, but so far you guys are my heroes. So I'm hoping you'll help me out again. I've been writing a novella for some time now. Alongside it I have a world detail book that I've been composing in equal (actually probably greater) measure. It chronicles the history of the world, the cities, beasts, magic, gods etc... What I'm looking for are creative and emotive ways to bring the detail of my world building into my much more casually written story. I'd love to make people feel as if they were taking a walk through this world I spend so much time with and love more than I should. How do you do it in your own works? What methods have you seen that really made a world just come to life? Sorry for the vague question and thank you for any response you decide to give!
I think just enough details that the reader doesn't feel overwhelmed and wants more. Too many they start to skim for action. I love in Willy Wonka in the Chocolate factory that he created a wish that we'd seen other rooms. We didn't see it all. When I create worlds I'd rather utilize clever glimpses of it then try to showcase everything. In a book I was working on several years ago I created a prison system in underground caves, the prisoners had a very strange way of making their own electricity, there was a history to the place, and the local town would dump their trash down a hole for the prisoners to recycle and utilize. Although I enjoyed the odd 'world' it wasn't the thrust of the novel. And to showcase it's strangeness I alternated pov's between a new prisoner, Noir, who arrives, and an old prisoner Ivor. That way Noir can walk the reader through the new world, and Ivor can scoff it. I also put pressure on the characters especially Noir by making his leg crippled thereby forcing him to depend on untrustworthy prisoners to help him around the prison -- upscaling the danger factor of this new 'world.' Likewise I make Noir guilty of being highly manipulative, a future crime, which puts Ivor in just as much danger. Both had different ways of viewing this world one was to control it. The other to find a way to rectify his lost life. It depends on your pov really how you can showcase your world -- what does the world mean to each character? Who offers the richest conflict and contrast? Who is going to be most affected, offended, frightened, delighted, scared, intimidated, changed by this world? You take Charlie and the Chocolate factory, the tour was more precious to Charlie because he was starving both physically and culturally.
I like to sprinkle in details that help give the reader an idea of the culture. Food, scents, colors, architecture, etc. Even the climate. But it's always important not to do "info dumps" and instead spread out nuggets of information about history and such over the course of the story, for as long as it is relevant.
Yep. Random thought/example: Let's say that you put a lot of effort into how glorious and desirable and insanely expensive WidgetFruits are. You could have a paragraph about them, or you could amble through your existing events and find that scene where Jane is declining to talk to Wilbur about a job that Wilbur wants to hire her for. Jane said, "No. Forget it. Nice seeing you, but I have things to do." "I understand," said Wilbur, looking down to reach into his satchel. "But let's just walk and talk for a few minutes, in case I can change your mind. I brought breakfast." Jane took two steps away. "No. Did you not hear me say no? I--" She broke off as Wilbur extracted two Widgetfruits from that satchel. Not just local fruits, either; these were the pale yellow-green oblongs from South Gadget. Jane hadn't tasted one since Grandma stopped throwing her harvest season goat roast. She found that she had, without intending to, retraced those two steps, and now she could smell the perfume. The scent of childhood. Wilbur extended the larger of the two, his eyebrows questioning. "Fine." Jane snatched it. "Five minutes." She was already peeling it. "That's all I need."
Let the characters interact with the world. Instead of "The Hound of the Baskerville was a really big and scary creature." you can show a scene where the characters meet the creature and they are scared because it towers over them (= big) and it's face looks demonic ( = scary) . It's supereffective!
It makes me think of the difference between Brandon Sanderson, who uses the description of environment almost in the place of action sometimes, and someone like Patrick Rothfuss who uses the characters thoughts of his environment to describe it. [WHERE'S OUR THIRD BOOK PATRICK?!)
Well think of it in this aspect, there is so much in our own world we don't know. We're learning new things all the time so characters should be the same way. Depending on what your story is about you can have the characters pursue that greater knowledge themselves and thus the reader learns alongside them. Or you can fold it in by creating scenes and instances where that information is used, such as in a conversation, like for example bringing up a war that was fought before the story took place, you can have your characters look over the landscape and see the remnants of bones, tattered banners, an almost wasteland look and as they pass make a comment about the war. I like to think of it as going to visit an older relative and them talking nonchalantly about times long before you born and events that happened, you can leave just enough so the reader can get a glimpse but not put in every little detail. You can do something similar with lore, you can bring up the lore in passing as in "You mean that old tale about -" or "the legends were true, did --- really happen?" or just give context clues via character observations like paintings in an old temple for example. There are a lot ways you can fold in the bigger world building aspect. World Building is by far my favorite part, I've always enjoyed creating entire civilizations, cultures, and my absolutely favorite is creature building. I adore it, and I will always have a billion different critters that exist in my worlds however many of them don't even make any physical appearances they are mentioned in passing or if they do appear it's brief and leaves a lot to the reader's imagination. When you create a world very different from the one we currently live in description can be very important because you have to point out the differences, but you can also make everything seem normal to the character because it is, something that might make us double take the character will be unphased by. It's just a matter of picking out information that doesn't bog up the story. If there is a ton of interest in the world you've created you can come out with a guide later. Primarily focusing on revealing the information that can move the story forward but still braids in the lore and history of your world is an important part of any build.
I really like the idea of talking to an older family member. The way you suddenly learn about the world as a different place. Sometimes it even feels completely alien. Like my great grandmothers use of the n word with her black neighbors and them thinking that was a normal thing. I just couldn't even imagine that happening in any other context. Maybe its a crass example, but it strikes me that maybe sometimes world revelations in fiction should be the same. I don't know.
I'd say, first and foremost, avoid a history lesson. Pick your POV character and let us see what he or she sees, hears, feels, thinks and has to contend with. Let the reality of the world evolve. This is where I'd suggest you utilise movies. Most movies dump you straight into 'the world' So when the scene opens, what do you see going on, and what's the setting like and what are the characters whom you can see doing? Except in those kinds of movies (and this can work, if it's brief—but it's still a tad risky) that gives a recap of the world situation before the actual story starts, most movies begin this way. Even if they are set in very weird places with very weird characters. (I often wonder what effect that infodump introduction to the Lord of the Rings movie had on people who were unfamiliar with the story and the book. I suspect a lot of it didn't make much sense, till we get to The Shire, and meet the Hobbits.) Start with what matters close-up. How ever many times I've seen the original Star Wars movie (still my favourite movie of all time) I can only remember certain things about that opener. The fantastic music. The sight of the huge star cruiser chasing the smaller ship. And the fact that the words on the screen recede into space, which I thought was pretty cool. However, after 'Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away ...' I have no memory whatsoever of the rest of the words on that screen. Until the story kicks in, this kind of information usually doesn't register. It especially didn't register the first time I saw it, because I had no idea what they were talking about.
- Wide range of sensory information. - Less is more. Don't overdo it. - Think about essence vs. identities -dualism and go towards essence. Try to avoid focusing to identity world and it's shallow and narcissistic nature.
I kinda throw like some "info dump" at the end, almost like an epilogue, and maybe something like a "cast" at the beginning if it's a very sprawling setting, to get some idea of who and what is happening. Like have four pages maybe at the end, after the actual story, as a kind of appendix that explains and includes terms referenced but not delved into in the story. Like if the term "AM Cannon" comes up and the term "antimatter munitions", but you don't want to explain what that is just in a big plop of info, have a part of the appendices mention that an AM Cannon is a weapon that fires a beam of antiparticles at a target, and like mention the yield and if they're common or not almost as an afterthought. It's like one sentence, like: "AM Cannon: a common but extremely powerful directed-energy weapon that relies on magnetic fields to focus streams of antimatter registering in the multi-gigaton yield at a target, usually within the light-second ranges." So as soon as they skim through and see that in the "info" section, they then know from that moment on what it is and see it and automatically go "OH! Yeah right, an AM Cannon is like a beam or something but it shoots antiparticles!" That may work better with sci-fi than with a fantasy story though. IMO, the "cast page" at the beginning is just made for fantasy though, with the kind of sprawling character lists and settings and dynasties and such that would immediately be valuable, especially in something like a Game of Thrones type setting. That's just my idea though.
Oh and side note: I kinda wrote something for a story I made which I guess serves as a kind of a "series bible" but from the perspective of being more of a compilation of "modern historians" looking back on the novel, which is directly referenced, but said to be "excepts from the personal diaries" of a certain character or something so it gives the idea the novel is kinda a modernized teen-oriented drama based on actual events--but this also gives a chance to delve deeper and deeper in the series bible into terms only brushed over or barely mentioned in the actual book. THAT WAY if something did take off, and like fans really like something referenced, you have a whole backstory to go into in another story like a prequel or something.
Same problem comes up in historical fiction, though our world is already built for us, and instead of world building, it's our research folder. We have to always remember to impress the reader with out story, not our research/world building expertise. Remember, while the imaginary or historical is new and extraordinary to you the writer, and to the reader, it is perfectly ordinary to the characters in the story. Let them tell the reader about the world, in bits and pieces, enough to intrigue but not overwhelm. In mine, I had a chapter scene in Alexandria @100AD, when that city was its splendid best, the center of learning for the entire Mediterranean, with its library and academia and the Pharos lighthouse. I originally wrote that as exposition, which would have been nice if I were writing a history book. I changed it to dialogue. One character was taking two soldeirs in his carriage to visit his ship, moored in a port on Pharos Island by the lighthouse, and those two were seeing the city for the first time . So I let the Senator describe the city a bit, how wide the main street, the Canopic Way, was - 100 yards - moving with an orderly flow of traffic never seen in Roman streets. The lighthouse is flashing brilliantly in the daylight on a periodic basis, so the newcomers ask about that strange thing. The Senator describes how he had been up once to see how it worked, a rotating mirror and a second that tracked the sun - both rotated by one man leading a donkey around the periphery at the top, timing himself against a waterclock so the mirror did not get out of step with the sun. And at night, a fire in the base, reflected through the same fixed mirrors led by the night shift donkeys. Did it work like that? Did it flash? Who knows, but it could have been done that way. And not too much detail at all, enough to get the reader thinking. Then by the high class beach, the boats and yachts of the rich and famous in the water offshore, the centurion distracted by the bare-midriffed lovelies playing what seems to be beach volleyball, and his asking if those "sir, are they -er, perfesional women?" No, they weren't, or if they were, probably outside his price range. And yes, they did have bikinis then, I have a third century mosaic in my file to back it up. I just had to bring that to life. When they get to the ship, opposite its berth is a fleet of trireme galleys, all moored nose-in, very big, bare-chested men (rowers) working on in-port maintenance, coiling ropes, tending sails, etc., what sailors have done in port for thousands of years. Then something unusual. A gong starts sounding on just one ship, everyone turns to, to start getting read to get underway, the captain coming up to take command from the cybernetes (officer of the deck). All this being watched by soldiers who have very little knowledge of what everyone is doing, but admire the speed, organization and discipline that goes into getting a very long slender boat out of a nose-in dock and underway in short order. It was a "launch the alert-five galley" exercise triggered by the commander of Classis Alexandrina (Alexandrine Fleet) from his headquarters up on the second deck of the light house base, using signal flags, something he did daily, selecting a ship at random. I wanted the reader to see, hear and smell Alexandria, not only beautiful spots, but the smelly alleyways and warrens off the main streets, where bad things happened on a daily basis. And the ocean lapping between the pier and the immovable hull of a very large Roman freighter, amidst the dead fish floating belly up in the floating weeds. There are always dead fish between the pier and a big ship, I don't know why, but always there, then and now.
