With yesterday as the first day of spring, I continue my look into beginning certain parts of literature. This week, I look at the basics of world-building.

Before that, I have good news for my own series. I have already finished the first major story for The Cases of Inspector Marshall, Volume II, and have made progress with a couple other ones. Plenty of new content on the way.

Returning to the subject of the post, it is important to understand that world-building is done in two methods, which often feed back into each other. The first is the broader brainstorming, the pool of information about the world and its general principles. The second is the specific application of these principles in the text or onscreen, which information is shared as is relevant.

Both are vital. The general aspect is used to determine what is used in scenes, and the specific use refines and expands the broader knowledge.

All genres rely on world-building. Fantasy, sci-fi, and alternate history are the most looked at, as there is the speculative aspect, with timelines and universes often coming from scratch. But, other genres use it in subtle ways. Hence, this is still an important skill for authors to learn.

Historical fiction uses the past as a backdrop, which needs to be constructed properly. The atmosphere and tone derive from the how the setting is established, vital for determining if a romance is bright and cheery or down to earth; whether an action film is bombastic and cinematic or jarring and gritty; and if a drama encompasses a small town or stays in one house.

If a town is your setting, it should feel rich enough to stand out and be memorable, its history or routine playing into the plot. It should feel like its own character, unique and relatable to the reader, brought to life through its denizens and events transpiring.

And if you are going for the bold move, creating your own fantasy/sci-fi world, here are some general tips I learned when crafting mine:

  1. Water the plants, don’t drop them in the pool. Info-dumps are rarely helpful, trying to flesh the world out in such a short time with an inorganic fashion. Creating lore is fun, as is sharing it with others; and to make it better for everyone involved, giving it as needed provides a more natural way for readers to process the information.
  2. Write as much of the lore as you want – and switch back to writing the novel when you’re stuck. And, vice versa, in whichever starting order works for you. This allows you to use ideas and events from one to craft the other, like both sides of a handcar driving themselves forward.
  3. Don’t use the body text as your almanac. Keeping your world-building compiled in a separate file/document/section lets you record everything where you can easily access it. And, it reduces temptation to share lore where it doesn’t quite fit. The document I did this with evolved into the Appendices at the back of my book, an effective solution to establish lore while avoiding info-dumps in the body text.
  4. You don’t need to know everything about your world to write your story. And, the world-building should not come before writing a good story. It is better for you to leave some blank spots in the lore for later works to fill in, if it prevents snags in creating the novel itself.
  5. Show when it makes sense to. Tell when showing does not make sense. If something is told, it should weave naturally into conversation (when applicable, and considering what the participants should know as people in the world), or be narrated in a way that engages the audience.

World-building is fun, and is arguably fiction in its rawest form: creating something new, outside our current existence. And since it has the largest scope out of other writing tools, it can be unwieldy when not in capable hands.

And whether it’s a studio apartment or a cosmic war-zone of gods, the setting should be deep enough for the readers to immerse themselves – while not dragging them down to drown.