Is worldbuilding pointless?

[Ursa major]

For me, an info dump consists of pages and pages of description that lack any narrative drive.

Imagine that your characters reach an abandoned city. You, the writer, spend many hundreds of words describing the buildings and their state of disrepair. One of your characters then explains the long and tragic history of the place, putting in as much detail, and as little action, as possible. Your readers fall asleep before your characters take another step.

Instead, let your characters and readers learn about your city as they go, together. You can't avoid description: no one but you and your characters would know what the city looked like, otherwise. But keep the consecutive long paragraphs of scene painting to a minimum.

If you do want to visit the past of the city, do so as you would the rest of the story, with characters to help your reader live the experience.

My personal view, of course, but I hope it helps.

PS. I've just seen Ian's examples: I agree with him (this is getting to be a bad habit) that these are things you ought to avoid.

 

[Connavar]

Very intresting disc.

Im no aspiring writer only a reader. Im a big fan world building, usually in my fav SF books i enjoy most when the author builds his world,its history etc I find the good authors work magic during world building.



I have heard of M.John Harrison. Many authors i like talk about him like he was/is one of the best.

I can see his point though , i have seen countless books that are famous almost only for their world building, many of them are uber famous epic fantasy.....

 

[iansales]

There are a number of shared tropes in science fiction and fantasy, most of which obviate the need for info-dumping. Examples include FTL, AI, cyberspace, elves, dragons, dark lords... But there are such to be objects in your invented universe which have no known analogue. So you're going to have give some clues as to what they are. And that means an info-dump. The VanGriff Mk29 Magnum Splurgifier might be the most powerful handgun in the galaxy, but if you want to know how splurgification works it's better to show the gun in action than to drop in a descriptive paragraph.

I think Harrison's point was more that, as a writer, you don't need to decide what splurigification is until the point in your story where your hero splurgifies an alien invader. If you want to write an essay on splurigification as part of your world-building, then there's a temptation to shoehorn all that invented detail into your story.

 

[Connavar]

There are a number of shared tropes in science fiction and fantasy, most of which obviate the need for info-dumping. Examples include FTL, AI, cyberspace, elves, dragons, dark lords... But there are such to be objects in your invented universe which have no known analogue. So you're going to have give some clues as to what they are. And that means an info-dump. The VanGriff Mk29 Magnum Splurgifier might be the most powerful handgun in the galaxy, but if you want to know how splurgification works it's better to show the gun in action than to drop in a descriptive paragraph.

I think Harrison's point was more that, as a writer, you don't need to decide what splurigification is until the point in your story where your hero splurgifies an alien invader. If you want to write an essay on splurigification as part of your world-building, then there's a temptation to shoehorn all that invented detail into your story.

Heh well put.

 

[lin robinson]

My understanding of info-dumping (which I would call "naked exposition") is not how many pages it runs, but the way it's handled.

You could put in 5 pages of exposition without a problem. For instance, an excerpt from The Cybernosticon that gives the set-up in peculiar language and images. People don't seem to mind that.

On the other hand, one line of ham-handed explainism is a dump (as in the more common usage of that word).

And it's not a particularly tricky thing or any masterpiece of artifice:

We came here in order to escape persecution on our beloved home planet.

vs

If we're going to hurt them for their beliefs, why did we even come here?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

What is and is not an info-dump is partly a matter of execution -- but also largely in the eye of the beholder. Take a book like Gormenghast or The Worm Ouroboros, there's enough exposition and description in either one of these for ten or twelve books. And they are wonderful books and acknowledged classics -- but they are not for everyone. Some readers love all of that lush, poetic description; others can't abide it. There is room in this world for both kinds of readers and the kinds of books they prefer.

Write the book that you would love to read if it were written by somebody else. Which is to say, put in no more (but no less) detail than you would enjoy reading about, if it weren't the child of your own brain. It's easy to fall in love with your own world and to believe that every detail that fills you with sheer delight will inspire a similar delight in tens of thousands of other readers. Usually, this is not the case.

But occasionally there are writers of genius where this is the case. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), most of are simply not capable of pulling off these glorious excesses -- and if you aren't drawn to them as a reader, the chances are even greater that you aren't going to be one of those writers.

 

[Marvolo]

I think a major point is being glossed over here. As he is setting up those scenes in Nova Swing, he is world building.

Some of the folks are likening world building to the huge amount of work done pre-writing. And that is one definition of it. But as your story unfolds in an alien world and the reader gets to know that world, you are also world building, and as such it is unavoidable in SF&F. Whether he likes it or not (and apparently he doesn't) he built the world that Nova Swing took place in, no matter if it happened spontaneously or if it was intricately detailed on notepads before he ever put the first word of the narrative down. The world was still built.

 

[iansales]

Er, no. If world-building is creating an invented setting - either on the fly, or in anorak-level detail beforehand - then there's not a great deal in Nova Swing that really meets that definition. Most of the locales pretty much map directly onto real world equivalents - such as the Black Cat White Cat bar. The detective, Lens Aschemann, even drives a 1952 pink Cadillac. The only real strangeness is the event site itself, which is described as something like an urban wasteland, something like a European city in the years immediately following World War II...

 

[Marvolo]

Er, no. If world-building is creating an invented setting - either on the fly, or in anorak-level detail beforehand - then there's not a great deal in Nova Swing that really meets that definition. Most of the locales pretty much map directly onto real world equivalents - such as the Black Cat White Cat bar. The detective, Lens Aschemann, even drives a 1952 pink Cadillac. The only real strangeness is the event site itself, which is described as something like an urban wasteland, something like a European city in the years immediately following World War II...

He is still creating a world for the reader to exist in. The novel is set in a future setting, with mention of K-ships taking off and landing, and takes the reader away to a new world that he invented. He world built.

 

[iansales]

To return to the original quote: "Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there."

Note the use of the word "exhaustively". And the suggestion that it's the anorak-level of world-building that is under discussion, not merely positing an invented milieu for a story. In Nova Swing, that's pretty much on the same level as Casablanca - after all, Rick's Cafe doesn't really exist. But it's like a lot of cafes that do exist. And so is The Black Cat White Cat bar.

If you're saying than any setting for a story is a product of world-building, then yes, Harrison is guilty of world-building. But if world-building is the process of carefully and consistently creating an invented setting for a story (with or without a map), then Harrison is innocent of the charge - after all, Saudade is really just a collage of real-world places.

 

[Ursa major]

I have a horrible feeling that we've descended into arguing about how many angels were pre-planned to be on a particular pinhead at a given time, and how it was done.

Frankly, I do not care whether a place is: a collage; the result of a life-time's nerdism; what you get from a genius of a writer who can pull things together on the fly; or a happy accident. All I want, as a reader, is that the darped thing hangs together so that inconsistencies don't pull me up and out of the story. The work the writer does to achieve this is up to them, although I would prefer it if the work did not show: a case of my preference for watching "effortless" grace over sweated-brow endeavour.

I rather suspect that, through lack of genius, most of us are destined to be perspiring, as well as aspiring, writers. (But we can pretend.... )

 

[iansales]

I have a horrible feeling that we've descended into arguing about how many angels were pre-planned to be on a particular pinhead at a given time, and how it was done.

Well, yes. But if we're going to accuse Harrison of everything from grumpiness to bitterness to hypocrisy, we ought to at the very least agree on what he said.

And while I agree that the act of creating an invented setting - whether a bar, a city, a world, or an interstellar empire - is world-building, I'd also suggest that the two important issues are: a) the degree of world-buidling undertaken, and b) whether or not the world-building comes before the story, or the world-building comes out of the story.

 

[Ursa major]

The story must come first: a beautifully created dead world is no less dead. (However, I'd still like the animated world to be beautifully created; but I'm greedy, that's all!)

 

[iansales]

No argument there.

 

[Marvolo]

No argument there.

I think everyone agrees that story is paramount. My biggest point is that if you're going to invent the melieu for the reader to travel through, whether on the fly or beforehand, you owe it to the reader to make sure it is coherent and adheres to the continuity of the story.

What he is ranting about isn't necesarilly world building, but just bad writing. Expounding on anything exhaustively is just bad writing, as someone mentioned earlier. It isn't the world building he is so vehemently against, it is the fact that bad writers appear in SF&F in such numerous quantities that folk believe those kind of stories are what SF&F is all about, when really it should be about the stories themselves. On that I completely agree with him.

I still think preplanning is important, for me at least.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'd also suggest that the two important issues are: a) the degree of world-buidling undertaken, and b) whether or not the world-building comes before the story, or the world-building comes out of the story.

I would disagree. Masterpieces have emerged from all of these approaches, and from no worldbuilding at all. So have books of less merit, and no merit. Worldbuilding is neither the solution nor the problem. It's just another facet of writing, particularly in the SFF genre.

If Harrison had left out phrases like "the great clomping foot of nerdism" I might interpret his remarks in a different way. But to me this is not at all ambiguous, and I consider him far too great a master of the language to say one thing when he means something else.

But whatever we think Harrison said or meant, I think it is safe to say that the consensus here is that, no, world-building is NOT pointless. We may disagree on how much should be done and how much should be shown, but the general opinion is that it's a valuable tool for an SFF writer.

 

[Marvolo]

I would disagree. Masterpieces have emerged from all of these approaches, and from no worldbuilding at all. So have books of less merit, and no merit. Worldbuilding is neither the solution nor the problem. It's just another facet of writing, particularly in the SFF genre.

If Harrison had left out phrases like "the great clomping foot of nerdism" I might interpret his remarks in a different way. But to me this is not at all ambiguous, and I consider him far too great a master of the language to say one thing when he means something else.

But whatever we think Harrison said or meant, I think it is safe to say that the consensus here is that, no, world-building is NOT pointless. We may disagree on how much should be done and how much should be shown, but the general opinion is that it's a valuable tool for an SFF writer.

Amen, it is a tool. Like any tool it doesn't fit every situation, but should be used appropriately.

 

[Giovanna Clairval]

Worldbuilding is more than just a tool.

The result can be reached through various techniques (the tools). Still, the field isn't the plough.

Characters and plot come first, we all agree. But what would a SFF novel be without a setting that enriches the all, darped thing with new and (metaphorically) unique colours? The background influences the characters' reactions. It doesn't matter if, reading Dune, we aren't told how oxygen is produced on planet Arrakis, if the Fremen have a culture that is completely believable, and consistent with life in the desert.

Taking the reader on a tour of the new world without dumping information about the world, that is a substantial part of our job as novelists.

 

[Marvolo]

Worldbuilding is more than just a tool.

The result can be reached through various techniques (the tools). Still, the field isn't the plough.

Characters and plot come first, we all agree. But what would a SFF novel be without a setting that enriches the all, darped thing with new and (metaphorically) unique colours? The background influences the characters' reactions. It doesn't matter if, reading Dune, we aren't told how oxygen is produced on planet Arrakis, if the Fremen have a culture that is completely believable, and consistent with life in the desert.

Taking the reader on a tour of the new world without dumping information about the world, that is a substantial part of our job as novelists.

You just said it yourself though. It doesn't matter about the oxygen, only the Fremen. Dune rocked because we loved Paul and we came to long for the Fremen's truthful way of living and their hard lined life. The rich atmosphere of the novel and the masterful setting enriched the characters that were drawn with great care. Herbert did what good novelist do, he used world building as a tool to make Paul's story ever more powerful.

 

[Sephiroth]

I agree with Giovanna.



For me, my work is like an iceberg, and the part above the water is the narrative.

And that part, I must not clutter with detail. But the detail is there, unseen, lurking beneath the surface (or between the lines).