So for my Hound and Fox story, I've chosen to create an alternate earth where magic exists and so do Kitsune, though they're a bit different from the myths. While it's not relevant to the plot of the story, I do wonder if it's worth it to build up lore and other stuff about the Kitsune island that floats in the sky. Most of the story takes place on earth and only features maybe 8 or 10 characters total. Thing is, I don't know if said lore is relevant to the plot. Really all the reader needs to know about the female lead is that she's a Kitsune who left her island to become a thief and perfect her magical skills. Everything else feels 'extra' if that makes sense? There's also not much else special about this earth, it's a bit like tomb raider earth where the magical artifacts (most of them are made up of course) are really magical and beyond human understanding. I can't think of too many other things to add other than stuff about the Kitsune island. The conflict is also pretty small too, since it's about two rival thieves becoming friends/lovers by the end.
The best way to answer that is to write the story and see what you need to add or subtract if anything. The story with the world built is in your head and I think starting out a lot of us think the reader needs the world to understand the story. Sometimes that is true but other times not as much as one thinks. I had a lot of world building in my first chapter. Seemed to me the reader needed to see an exotic planet to set the stage. I changed it and changed it and in the end I cut all of it out and started with the inciting incident. Even then I cut one more sentence out that I realized was more backstory that wasn't needed. On the other hand some stories include a lot of world building and it pulls you into the story. Write it, see if it works, then edit.
@GingerCoffee I'm definately gonna write it out and see how much worldbuilding I actually need. I did post the first chapter of it here a while ago and one of the comments was that there was too much exposition. Hence me being hesitant to put too much world building in on outset. The only goal of the prologue chapter is to set up the villain and to show the main character doing her sneaky thieving things..
It kinda sounds to me like almost a fairy tale or folk tale story, with semi-animal people etc. Those don't use any world building, except maybe to say 'Long ago in a land far away' or 'In a distant kingdom' (something to set it apart from the here and now, the ordinary world). Note I am NOT saying you should start with anything like "Long ago in a land far away". Just let it have that whimsical feel to it so people understand it isn't set in a realistic everyday world but a more whimsical one.
Avoid exposition unless it adds to the story. Even then, be very careful how you build it in. It's one thing to have an idea in your mind of the kitsune world, it's another to litter the story with the details. Like an iceberg, we should probably only see a tiny fraction of what your world has to offer.
I haven't written anything with an extensive amount of worldbuilding yet, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but it seems to me that there are two important questions to ask: 1. How much worldbuilding do you need to do to understand the story that you want to tell? 2. How much of the world that you've built do you need to present to the reader so that they can enjoy your story? The answer to question 2 is likely less than the answer to question 1. For instance, you'll probaby want to have some idea of the "rules" of magic in your world, so that you can make sure that its behavior is consistent in your story (assuming you want it to be consistent!), but you don't need to spell them out explicitly for the reader; if you write the story well, they'll infer the important parts from the action. The same goes for things like your world's politics, economics, culture, etc. Figure out what you need to know, then tell the reader as little of it as you can and let the story speak for itself.
This is what I mean, it's in your head and you want to tell the reader that because it seems important the reader knows it. You need to know it, the reader doesn't at this point. Just leave that first chapter as is, set it aside, don't try to fix it just yet and keep going. Come back to it later. Exactly!
I've decided on a couple rules for magic in my world, though they aren't explained out to the reader directly unless it's relevant to the plot. Kitsune are the ones with magic, humans are not. EXCEPT If a human has a Kitsune parent in their bloodline, no matter how distant in the past, they can be at least sensitive to magic. (though most kitsune features fades after a few generations) lucky ones can be receptive of it. The number of tails a kitsune has is a signifier of how powerful they are. Comparing a one tailed kitsune to a two tailed kitsune is like comparing a pond to a lake. There are no binding rules with magic, a one tailed kitsune can still accomplish the feats a three tailed kitsune can, it just requires harsher training and more physical effort to do so. If a one tail and a three tail were to battle, the three tail would still likely win. Ninetailed Kitsune are so rare that they're believed to be a dead breed. (no kitsune in the story has nine tails) And Kitsune with more than five tails are only in legends. Two Tailed Kitsune can already manipulate time/space with a little effort (let that one sink in, if two tailed Kitsune can do that, imagine a five tailed one...) @GingerCoffee Yeah I've been procrastinating chapter 2 because I want to present my Male lead as a suave guy who's highly charismatic, I don't want him to seem like too much of an ass heh. I'm trying to go for a more Tony Stark brand of being an ass. The prologue scene is already nearly done, I might as well finish it and leave the rest of chapter 1 alone for now.
"Write about what you know" doesn't mean to write only about your own experiences. It simply means a writer should know what they are writing about so that, if asked, they can give a logical answer to the question, which is what the story should do. Based on the details shared, I'd say considerable world building is in order.
The conventional wisdom you often see in response to a question like this is: 1) you'll develop much more about your world than you'll want to share with your reader; and 2) give the reader only as much world-building information as they need to understand the story. #1 is generally true, in my opinion. #2 very often is not--it depends on what you're writing and what your goal is as a writer. The idea that one should give the reader no more world-building information/backstory than necessary to understand the story is advice I often saw years ago with respect to urban fantasy. As a general rule, it seems to hold true in that subgenre. If you're writing epic fantasy, on the other hand, it doesn't work as well. A lot of writers of epic fantasy share a great depth of world-building with the reader, far beyond what is needed to understand the story. A lot of readers of epic fantasy expect that depth of world-building and it is part of the enjoyment they get from the story. Reader expectations are something to think about. They're not controlling, though. There are works of epic fantasy that do not go all-in on world-building. Some readers like those works, others find the worlds created by those authors to be a bit thin. In the end, it really comes down to what kind of feel you want to impart to the reader with your story. If you want the story and the scope of the world to be tightly focused around your characters and the particular events they are experiencing, limiting the world-building to a need-to-know basis is one tool for maintaining that focus. On the other hand, if you want to impart to the reader a sense of the world as a living place with a vast scope and history, even though your story may only take place in a small portion of it, adding in world-building details is a great tool for doing that. Also, if you're looking to impart a mythic quality to the story, a certain sense of timelessness of the world, you can use world-building details for that as well. Outside of the need-to-know approach, the world-building you provide won't all be necessary to understand the story, but it may be necessary (or at least desirable) to achieve the effect on the reader that you intend. When you ask whether you're doing too much world-building...I don't know. What are you trying to accomplish in terms of the feel of your work? It's a question that can be best answered by reading the work--and even then, the answer is going to be more about whether you imparted the world-building effectively than whether you did too much of it. That is something you might follow up with your beta reader on. If you only have one person saying it's too much exposition, I wouldn't automatically assume that means you need to change something. If multiple people tell you the same thing, it's more likely you really have a problem. However, it is important to keep in mind that the problem is less likely to be that you're imparting too much world-building information than that you're not imparting it effectively. To the reader it can seem like too much whereas if the same amount of information was imparted in a more effective manner it might not bother the reader at all.
I read a book for the character's journey and I tend to write how I read. My focus is on character, plot and conflict. Once the story is completed and I'm happy with it, then I work on world-building and just adding some depth and colour to the setting.
@Steerpike Most of my stories tend to be character driven experiences so worldbuilding stuff seems to be excessive. I did receive the same comment multiple times. Although the comment was more that things felt too expositiony. One story I do plan to write after I finish the one in question is a fantasy epic though, and the opening prologue is, pretty damn confusing, the plot of that opening segment is simple enough, but after that opening scene it cuts to a fantasy like world eons after the events took place. So for Hound and Fox, I think I'm only going to build the world with as many 'bricks' as for the reader to understand the plot. For Otakus Save The World (yes, that's literally the title) though, I think I'm going to have a fair amount of world building, since the first bit of the story is literally a chaotic world ending scenario
Makes sense, @naruzeldamaster. Go with the approach that you feel works best for your stories. Best of luck!
Obviously do whatever you want to do, in the initial stages. (It's in the edits and beta-reading stages where you discover whether what you've done actually works.) But my own feeling is that it's best to write the story as if your readers already know the backstory and setting. Just dive in. Obviously you need to orient the readers with the usual who, what, where, when and why, but just do that briefly. By why, you don't need to delve into the entire history of a planet, or a dynasty, or a war, or whatever. Just deal with the immediate 'why.' (Your character has come to the planet because she thinks her father is still alive and wants to find him.) You may find that you don't really need to regurgitate as many background details as you thought you did. Of course you need to KNOW these details yourself, so the story doesn't logically fall apart, so there should have been a degree of worldbuilding going on behind the scenes. But I'd say just dive in when it comes to writing the story itself. After you're finished, then you can start to decide if there are gaps that need to be filled, so your readers can follow what's happening. And of course get beta readers to help you with this. But I bet you don't need to include as much background info as you think you do, at least right now. Your characters' actions, limitations, lifestyle, goals, friends, family, enemies, colleagues ...these things will all contribute to showing the reader what the 'world' is like. You don't actually need to lay all that out for the reader beforehand.
Yes, because a lack of depth will come through whatever you write, even if the actual lore never comes up. It's less about world-building and more about setting - your setting should inform your plot, otherwise why is it there, and often it will be the spice that adds flavour to an otherwise regular plot. If the lore doesn't impact your plot, think hard about why, because it sure as hell should, and your readers will ask questions. Trust me, I've made these same mistakes myself lol. Don't do be lazy. Do it properly because the rewrite will be a complete mess otherwise, and you will need to flesh this out if you're going for an agent.
I think that's why I'm not terribly focused on world building in-story, at least for the first half. Kitsune in my world are real, they have been since ancient japan, some watch over humans cautiously, some cause 'mischief' (though nothing terribly 'evil' in their eyes.) and some like the MC are somewhere inbetween. The world building for Meiji's homeland won't be needed until the second half of the story, featuring her daughter. I'm only building the world as much as I need to to move the plot forward. Maybe after I write the thing fully, I'll go back and add/remove stuff accordingly to keep things interesting, but for now I'm only telling the reader what they need to know.
You run the risk of lacking consistency and then having to work doubly hard to make things align, and some things might not align without you chopping half your plot (read: rewriting half the book). Having said that, there certainly are writers who fill out the world after writing their rough draft. It could work. It hasn't worked for me, personally, but then I'm fast moving towards becoming a planner rather than a pantser because I really struggle with fixing major elements in a draft that's already finished, since I despise having to delete 20-40k words at a time. If you're more of a pantser, yes, you can go back and rework your book to flesh out the world - just anticipate potentially having to change core parts of your plot. If you're cool with that, then you're good. I think it's more about knowing what to expect so when the work comes, you're ready and excited to get working, rather than feeling discouraged, as I did once.
Thing is there's not much world building TO do, lol it's just a basic bitch earth except magic is real and so are Kitsune, there's a few magical artifacts lying around that occasionally fall from the floating continent that the kitsune live on but that's about it. Including the emeralds of chaos (yes that's a reference, yes it's exactly what you think it is lol) and a few other things. There's lots of worldbuilding for the kitsune homeland, which I plan to do as I write it while the story is taking place in it, but as far as earth on the whole, the only fictional thing I've added is a group of things called the nice guys. (they're called that cause they always get the last laugh) This was kind of deliberate on my part to keep the story focused on the intentionally small cast of characters. The story is set up in such a way that I can add stuff as I come up with it after the rough draft is done.
I'd think about variety in your novel. If you have too much of the same thing, the reader will become bored. Worldbuilding can add to the variety. I'd try to avoid exposition though. You could have the chasteners tell each other humorous anecdotes, or have an inquisitive character who asks lots of questions which the others answer, preferably with stories. Each magical artifact can have a myth associated with it which gives insights on the world. Think of as many ways as you can of shedding light on your world, and then use all of them.
Yeah, exposition is what I'm trying to avoid, one of the comments I got on the rough draft of the first chapter was a lot of the dialogue seemed expositiony. That whole discussion actually spurred me to create a prologue scene showing the female lead doing her sneaky things. She bungles a little bit but that's kind of the point, she has talent and wants to show it, but lacks focus/training. After about two or three months procrastinating that prologue scene is nearly done. Might wind up posting it in the forums for feedback.
Hi, A good chronological and factual synopsis will clearly show if your story is beginning/ending in the right place - hence there is less confusion about what should and should not be included, especially in regard to world building and back story. More information on this has been posted in Resources by @Lifeline and I have found them extremely. ATB.
