224: Worldbuilding Advice I've Given Recently

 

I edit lots of fantasy novels, and I often give specific worldbuilding feedback to my clients. In this episode, I share five notes I've given to authors recently about improving the worldbuilding in their novels.

 

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Worldbuilding Advice I've Given Recently

 

Hi friend, welcome back to Your Big Creative Life podcast. Happy March. We're into March now and it's like 80 degrees outside right now in Charleston, which is amazing. We had like a heat wave. It's even hotter than it usually is in March, you know, this time of year. But of course it's freezing in here. So I have a sweatshirt on and a hot cup of tea to warm up because the AC feels like it's blasting. I don't even know if the AC is on. It just feels like it. But Anyways, let's get into our topic for this week's episode, which is related to world building. I noticed that over the course of the last month or two, I've given some pieces of feedback to fantasy authors specifically, that there are like issues or suggestions or things that I give to a lot of authors, not always, not all authors. But this is something I'm always paying a lot of attention to. So this is going to be like speculative fiction related specifically. Because fantasy, just to give a little background, fantasy is the most common genre that I work with. Probably... It would be interesting to look at the data and break down my clients, like the numbers of genres, of clients and different genres that I work with. And I don't know what percentage fantasy is, but it's a lot. It's definitely my most common. I would say romance, probably like contemporary romance is next. And then like general fiction would be third. I would say, and then thrillers after that. Anyways, so a lot of fantasy authors, a lot of world building. And so I want to touch on, let's see, how many do I have? Five suggestions or notes that I've given to authors recently. So hopefully this will give you some insight and give you an idea of things to look for when you are editing your work. And I just want to say that if you're still writing the first draft, don't stress too much about these things. I would much rather you focus on getting the first draft out before you go back to really like perfect all of these things that I'm talking about here.

Some of these might be good notes like, oh, I can course correct on this because I realized I've been kind of, you know, maybe handling this incorrectly or this is something that needs adjustment. So then like going forward in the rest of the draft, you can be mindful of it. But yeah, don't like overhaul or start over or just focus on getting that first draft out before you go back to really edit any of these things. And then of course, if you're looking for feedback on your world building or anything else and booking now for late spring, early summer for editing, I have a service called a manuscript evaluation that gives you feedback on all of this. And this is where this is coming from. These suggestions that I'm going to talk about in this book are from clients who have booked that manuscript evaluation service or for coaching clients. I also have a six month coaching program you can check out that includes multiple rounds of editing, feedback on your pages, coaching calls with me, et cetera. So you could head to the link in the show notes if you want more information about that. as well. All right, point number one, note that I've given to multiple clients recently. A lot of authors are aware of info dumping and why that is not a great thing to do. And info dumping just means that you are dumping all of this information about the world. on the reader, usually in the opening pages, opening chapters of the book where you are like stopping the action to give us pages and pages or even just paragraphs and paragraphs of backstory or like telling us all about the magic system, telling us about some military conflict that had happened before the events of page one, telling us about like the broad history of the people that like just any sort of information that you're just like throwing at the reader.

And why it's a good idea to avoid this is like, it's just not an effective way to open your story. If we're talking about the opening pages specifically, it's much better to sprinkle in that information slowly. Think about what the reader needs to know, what's absolutely necessary for them to know, and what's necessary for them to know right now, like in the opening pages, and to find a way to like show the reader a lot of that information through the action, through the character, through things that are happening in the plot, right? But here's the thing. I sometimes think that authors hear that, and they are so afraid of info dumping that they withhold too much information. And how I think about this is it's a spectrum, right? On one side of the world building and information conveying spectrum, you have info dumping, where you are just telling the reader all sorts of things. It's basically like a textbook, you're just explaining everything. But then on the other end of the spectrum, which isn't good either, you are not explaining anything to the reader. You're hardly, like, you're not giving them any information about the world. You're just like, oh, they'll figure it out, or they don't need to know that. So nothing gets explained. The reader's having to do a lot of work to figure out how all these pieces fit together, to figure out how the magic system operates, for example, trying to sort out like political movements. They're just, they're in the dark about things and they're trying to sort of like muddle their way through it because you haven't given them any information.

Now, again, I think authors are so, they can be so afraid of info dumping that they intentionally withhold too much information. And that can create a lot of frustration on the reader's part. It can, it can, there's a very fine line between like mystery and intrigue and straight up confusion or frustration. Because if you tell the reader nothing, They're going to make assumptions, number one. Number 2, it's going to prevent them probably from getting immersed in the story because they don't know what's going on. They don't know what all these terms mean. So there's got to be a middle ground where, yes, you are giving the reader some information, some context. It's okay to tell them a sentence, a sentence like a sentence worth of information about something to include a bit of a definition. Like it's okay to do those things. So this is the note that I've given to authors recently. Like keep in mind that this is a spectrum. And I've actually told multiple authors that they need to tell the reader more. Because I found myself, I can think of a couple of examples recently where I had to read something multiple times and like really struggle through it in order to grasp what was going on. And I'm not saying that you have to dumb things down for the reader and hold their hand with lengthy explanations about everything. I am not saying that at all. It is okay to challenge your reader. It is okay to have a dense novel. But again, just think about that line between like intrigue and mystery and straight up confusion or irritation or frustration that the reader's going to feel because they can't sort out what's going on. enough to suspend disbelief or just kind of accept like, okay, I might, I don't know what's going on, but I trust the author to get more information later. Like I trust that more will be revealed. They're not even going to get to that place. They're probably just going to stop reading. There's got to be a middle ground there.

So if you suspect that you were like so afraid of info dumping that you haven't given your reader anything, maybe it's time to go back towards the middle of that, of that spectrum. Next, the next note or suggestion is actually related to this, kind of. It's to give us context and stakes earlier. So I'm thinking particularly about like opening pages, opening chapters where something big is happening. And this is a great tool to use as for the beginning of your novel, because it's not always something that you need to do. this idea of dropping us right into the action in chapter one, but it can be effective because there's no like backstory and lead up and like we hit the ground running. It's great from a pacing perspective. It shakes things up. The reader's like, oh, this is an exciting scene, whatever. But if there's no understanding that comes even after that big, exciting scene about like why this is important, what's at stake here, why the characters are even involved in this thing in the 1st place, it's going to be hard to keep the reader invested or to even like get the reader on board with you for the rest of the book. So it's not that you have to explain every decision or scene ahead of time. Again, there's no dumbing down or holding your reader's hand to walk them through and explain in detail. Like the reader isn't dumb. It's more just that the stakes of something have to be clear. So if you have a big military conflict, let's say, or a big fight scene, some kind of battle, the reason that the characters are fighting in this battle, The reason that they care about it needs to be clear. And this is a note that I've given to multiple authors recently where, and this is kind of what I mentioned about like needing to read things a couple of times and really try to make sense of why the characters were even caring about this thing or involved in this thing in the 1st place. So just make sure that the context and the stakes are clear. If not at the beginning of the scene, like pretty soon after so that the reader knows why we're following, like why the camera is shining, focused on the events that are taking place. Like why this moment? Why does this matter to your character? And therefore, why should your reader care about it by extension, you know? Okay, remind readers of specific concepts from book one they might not remember. This has to do with writing a sequel and maybe, I can't remember when I did this. Maybe it was last fall or something. At some point I did. I'm just looking through my podcast list now. I thought I did an episode that was about writing book two or a sequel. Maybe not.

Maybe it was just something we've touched on in a Q&A episode. But basically, if you were writing book two of a sequel, and I'm talking again for fantasy specifically, you do not have to rehash everything. You do not have to remind the reader of every magical ability or kingdom or ruler or whatever. Again, the reader's not dumb. They can go back to book one if they want. But where it can get dicey is if you are not giving any bits of detail or reminder or context, it can feel a bit I don't know. You have to remember that if someone is picking up book two, first of all, they might just have not read book one. Second of all, it could have been months or years. ago that they read book one. So it's like you have to insert these very gentle, very subtle, very short reminders of like specific concepts, if it's something that's important or it's something important that happened in book one. And if you start to pick up, if you start to look at sequels, like published books, just to get examples of this, you will notice it. And it's the kind of thing that's so subtle, you probably aren't even aware of it if you're just a normal reader and you're reading book two of a series, because you're like, of course, you probably don't think anything of it, especially if it's been a long time since you've read book one. You might appreciate that, but not even be conscious of the fact that the author is doing that for you and just kind of reminding you of like setting the stage for you a bit. So that's something to consider. It's just like, again, you don't have to remind the reader of everything. You don't have to rehash the events or summarize it or anything. But if there's an important world-building concept or if the character made some big discovery, like just you can reference it briefly, include a half a sentence detail about it. That's all.

Next up is, okay, if you have a common trope or a common like concept or species or magical ability like vampires or fae or something, The reader will come into reading your book with assumptions made from previous books, or like they might just come into it with their own understanding of what that means and what the character's abilities are, even subconsciously. And they're going to assume that unless you tell them otherwise. So vampires are a great example of this. I mean, think about in popular culture and lore and media, Every move, every very well-known movie, book, series, TV show that features vampires, there's usually subtle differences in... their abilities, their powers, what they look like, what weaknesses they have. Like sometimes garlic's okay, sometimes it's not. Sometimes they can't go out in daylight, sometimes they can. It's all different. But if you are writing a vampire novel, the reader's going to have all of these experiences, or even if they've never like read vampire books before or watched vampire media before, there's still a cultural understanding from like popular culture of what vampires are, right? So they're still going to come to your vampire novel. novel with some of these assumptions. So if you have something different, like your vampires, I don't know, let's say like they can't go out at night. I'm just pulling it out of my ***. But let's just say that like in your world, vampires, it slipped on its head and vampires can go out in the day, but they can't go out at night or something. You need to convey that to the reader. You can't wait till halfway through the book to have a scene where a vampire goes out at at night and suffer some kind of consequence, or they're just like out walking around during the day in the sunlight, the reader's gonna be like, wait a second, what's going on? If you've never made that clear to the reader, that's the kind of like basic foundational stuff that should be clear. And it almost, it might sound like, well, of course, that goes without saying, but you would be surprised how many times I've encountered this. Or even like Faye, I mean, think about how many novels there are that deal with fairies or fae or witches or just things that we've seen a lot.

And it's beyond fine to write about those things, even though there are a lot of other books about them. I'm not saying it's like a negative. It just means that because there's so many, the person might have already like, experienced or read about these creatures before, if there's something different in your book about the power structure, the world, how these characters are treated, all of that needs to be clear to the reader. And it should be clear early on because it's going to inform their understanding of the world. It's going to inform their understanding of how the character operates and acts with the world. So all of that needs to be clear pretty early on in the book. And finally, this is sort of a, I guess this is like a summary point, but basically your job as a fantasy author is not to impress the reader with the breadth and depth of your world building. The world building is always there to support the story. I don't care what kind of fantasy novel you are writing. I don't care if it's epic. I don't care if it's romanticy. I don't care. YA, whatever. The world building, the magic system, the land, the power structures, the culture, all of that is to support the characters and the broader story. That's it. Otherwise, it would just be fun to like do an exercise and come up with an imaginary world and like play around with it on your own. And that can be fun just to develop a language and culture and all that stuff, sure, but you're doing those things because you're writing a book.

So there are novels that I have read, both in my job as an editor and a book coach, but then also just for fun, where I am so blown away by the author's attention to detail and the specificity and the, or even just the like, fun of their world building. I'm not always, it's not always that world building has to be super complicated to like impress me. Sometimes it's just like fun and interesting and feels a little bit new. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. It might not be super complicated. It might not be super in-depth world building. It might not be epic fantasy with a super complicated magic system. But if it feels new and fun, I'm like, oh, I like this. is great. I'm impressed by like the author's world building and how they put all this together. So your job is not to like impress people with the world building. All of it is there to support the story. And the foundation needs to be there. It needs to be clear. It needs to be consistent. The reader doesn't have to know everything. I mean, think of it like an iceberg, right? There's the part that the reader knows that's like above the water. And then there's a lot more going on underneath the surface that you might know, that you might have figured out as the author, but it doesn't mean it necessarily makes it into the book. I'm thinking particularly of like history of your world. If you've identified like Global, wars or historical things that have happened to sort of like set the stage for your world, the reader might not really, it might not really ever come into play other than just like a broad summary. That's fine. Again, that's just like the stuff below the water. That's the iceberg, the part of the iceberg that you just know that the reader doesn't see. So if you feel like you're getting a little too precious or like in the weeds with your world building, it can be fun to do in the research process. It can be fun to do in the brainstorming process. But remember why you're doing it in the 1st place. The ultimate goal is to accept the story.

And kind of an additional final thought about this. You do not have to come up with a world that no one has seen before. You do not have to come up with a magic system that no one has seen before. You don't get a gold star or a pat on the back automatically because of that. And on the flip side, it doesn't give you permission to just like recycle and regurgitate a couple of cool things you've seen in books recently, of course, but it's not, Yeah, you don't have to reinvent the whale. It's like fiction overall. It's like writing novels overall. There are almost no news stories. There are very few authors who are doing anything totally revolutionary or reinventing the novel as we know it. There are very few people writing that kind of fiction. So it's okay that you're putting your spin on something that we've seen before, seeing a type of story that we've seen before, but telling it in a fresh, exciting way. That's okay. And the world building can be the same. But the goal of it is just not to impress the reader. So just remember that. Okay, those are all of my notes that I've given recently. Well, not all, the most common, I would say, notes that I've given recently to fantasy authors about world building. Again, if you're interested in getting that manuscript evaluation and getting some feedback on the world building, it's always something I pay attention to with fantasy authors, in addition to plot, characters, conflict, pacing, setting, et cetera. But Yeah, you can head to the link in the show notes for information about that. Good luck with your world building. It's fun to do. It's fun to play around in an imaginary world. But again, just remember why you're doing it in the 1st place. All right, thanks for listening.

Katie Wolf