Is worldbuilding pointless?

[JDawg2.0]

Oh, but people do call that sort of thing an info-dump, especially when it goes on the same way for 200 pages. And whether you and I think that they know what they are talking about or not, it makes it very hard for a large group of readers and writers to agree on what is essential.

Those people are idiots. I mean, honestly! But I agree with you point, anyway. Nothing about this is universal.

It suffices to say that the conversation deteriorated from there.

Good for you! Seriously, people like that are just the worst. I knew a writer a while ago who had been published, but was bitter that he didn't have record-setting sales. He saw himself as being on-par with the literary giants, and condescended to everyone. He was just horrible.

Or perhaps you could claim that John Kennedy Toole, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning A Confederacy of Dunces, did not write fiction of high quality because he was unsuccessful

You don't call winner a Pulitzer Prize a success??

 

[iansales]

You don't call winner a Pulitzer Prize a success??

The author wasn't successful in his lifetime. The Pulitzer was awarded 12 years after he committed suicide. I suspect he didn't consider himself a success.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

I think that the most important issue for writers is that high sales figures are a huge measure of success (in fact, a survival issue) for publishers.

 

[magician2magici]

Hi! I'm new here, and I couldn't wait to post in this thread.

When pondering the question serving as the topic of this thread, I almost immediately typed "yes, it is pointless". I suppressed that urge, and thought on it some more.

It ultimately depends on what you are trying to do. Someone else in this thread wrote that the answer is dependent on what the reader is looking for. I believe that completely. Some readers want glorified summaries, with a lovin' spoonful of melodrama. And that's fine. Others want a rich world, full of places and people and creatures and kingdoms and castles and...well, convolution! And that's fine, too.

When talking about what is widely considered to be good fiction, the definition shrinks, generally, to tightly-written narratives. For my money, the best writers can pound out a great story in ten thousand words.

To be fair, there is something to be said for grabbing a sheet of scrap paper, and drawing the map of an alien world. I've done it as recently as yesterday! There is something very fatherly about creating your own universe, and the feeling is nearly god-like. It truly is.

In reality, however, to expect your readers to enjoy a story that is comprised of 1000 countries, 10,000 people, and 100,000 battles, equates to asking them to fund your "I want to build a robot out of empty Diet Pepsi cans" project. As others have already mentioned, info-dump is no one's friend.

And info-dump is exactly the cliff's edge on which we breakdance when we undertake world-building. In my opinion, world-building is best used for the author's purposes, and not meant to be revealed in full to the reader at any one time. If you want to build yourself an epic planet, full of strife and battles and drama, then feel free. Draw a map, write a thousand-page outline, hang both on your bedroom wall. Feel free to use it as a path to spinning your highly-complex weave of stories in the YOUniverse...but don't give it all away. It is a sound guideline, but never an entertaining storyline.

Just my two cents.

hi JD
how are you ?

first of all i apologize for my late reply here , i was too busy , but i used to follow you all here , so i have my point too to share..

i may accept part of your talk , and may not accept the other ..
for me , i see the world building a stage in my way of writing a good novel, epic , whatever , in this way each stage has its important role , i can't see the point in comparing between one and another to determine who is the best of both , this is for no one sake at all . it's like i make you to choose between sun and moon , both are important to me and to everybody , by different degrees from one to another , so why putting ourselves in such bad situation ?

info dumps , i'm with you all , it's a nightmare , it's really my nightmare , presence means threat of failure , i can't afford that , neither any of you ..

the story determines what to do , it's like a fact for me , when i first think of my new story , while thinking , i make my opinions about other stages , and feel how much i'll take from every one to help my story to look better , that's not by our choice , it's by story choice..

so , i have one comment on your words here , about making 1000 countries and so on .. for me i'm doing this right now , it may sound crazy , but i'm doing extensive worldbuilding process now , you may see me making huge mistake , but let me share you something..
as long as i make my huge process away from my main storyline and make them both away from my mind , i'm successful. my mind here is like the traffic officer , who says who passes and in which direction to go , here is the same.
what is the harm i get from planning these huge lines for my story and future epics and only tinny info mentioned at it ? you know i'm like building my own world history , it's awesome , and also crazy , but that's what i feel towards my epic , and so i did and still doing..
what i want to say here , is regardless what huge or tinny planning anyone does , the story still the main challenge here ..

i'm just doing like my great teacher tolkien did long tiem ago , i'm ready to make huge amount of hidden work to just make my own legend be a true legend .

and i'll come back to share you discussion here..

salam..
thanks for good info lies deep here..

el-saher>>

 

[Connavar]

Oh, but people do call that sort of thing an info-dump, especially when it goes on the same way for 200 pages. And whether you and I think that they know what they are talking about or not, it makes it very hard for a large group of readers and writers to agree on what is essential.

I was on a panel a while back -- oddly enough, it was a panel that was supposed to be about language and style and eloquence -- with a writer who will remain nameless (anyway, she sells a lot more books than I do) who proudly stated as part of her introduction that she doesn't have time for beautiful language. She gave me a very evil look when it was my turn to introduce myself and I said very emphatically that I did. She then said, very condescendingly, that maybe some writers might, but no reader has time. I replied that she should tell that to all the people who buy books by Joyce Carol Oates and John Crowley.

It suffices to say that the conversation deteriorated from there.

I think its very sad that a famous writer thinks so little of her readers....

 

[magician2magici]

I always do some worldbuilding before I begin, but after that the story and the background tend to develop right along side of each other. Often, I'm thinking ahead, and while I am writing Chapter Five I may be scribbling background information needed for Chapter Nineteen in my notebooks. Then, of course, I have to go back later to bring Chapter One and Two into line with these new revelations -- except that often I discover that they're already there, I just didn't realize it. As a result, I have learned that a lot of my worldbuilding goes on subconsciously, which tends to keep it from piling up on the page, since I don't even know it consciously until I need to. And sometimes I leave gaps in my knowledge, where it isn't important yet to fill something in. By the time I get to the point where an answer is necessary, the story and the background are already evolved to the point where I usually don't have to pull something out of the air, the answer is already there, somewhere, I just have to look for it.

But even though this is how I do it, I still have favorite authors who put an enormous amount of world-building on the page, and because they are great artists they do keep me enthralled with "pretty prose." I can't do what they do, but I can appreciate it.

WOW
what a great deep post , i'm the same like you in developing my own world , even i can't describe it as you already did..

 

[JDawg2.0]

for me , i see the world building a stage in my way of writing a good novel, epic , whatever , in this way each stage has its important role , i can't see the point in comparing between one and another to determine who is the best of both , this is for no one sake at all . it's like i make you to choose between sun and moon , both are important to me and to everybody , by different degrees from one to another , so why putting ourselves in such bad situation ?

Very well put. I agree completely.

so , i have one comment on your words here , about making 1000 countries and so on .. for me i'm doing this right now , it may sound crazy , but i'm doing extensive worldbuilding process now , you may see me making huge mistake , but let me share you something..
as long as i make my huge process away from my main storyline and make them both away from my mind , i'm successful. my mind here is like the traffic officer , who says who passes and in which direction to go , here is the same.
what is the harm i get from planning these huge lines for my story and future epics and only tinny info mentioned at it ? you know i'm like building my own world history , it's awesome , and also crazy , but that's what i feel towards my epic , and so i did and still doing..
what i want to say here , is regardless what huge or tinny planning anyone does , the story still the main challenge here ..

Again, a very good take on the process. I agree 100%! So long as you don't bog down your readers with the nuts-and-bolts of your worldbuilding, I think creating a huge universe for your story can ensure consistency within your story, and give the reader a rich, full environment. I don't think it's necessary to a great story, even in the sci-fi or fantasy genres, but if you want to write an epic story, you obviously have to have some plan, and you have to give the reader a lot of information. You just have to be careful in how that information is relayed to the reader.

 

[magician2magici]

so i guess planning is some sort of option for writing novel , but an epic , without doing it it's great risk?

another explaination after reading teressa post , for not seeing me as working without my mind , i only put general plan for my story , but i think only in the detail which my story requires in certain part of my world..

this situation happened as result of my thinking of this problem :
whem i started to think deeply and seriosly about my epic , i feared of inconsistency , as in long way epic - may reach 13 books- so i have two solutions here , a) i think only about what i need for each book and make the rest of the world vague .... b) mapping out everything in generla and detailed only what i need..
so i chose the second solution ..
that sounded reasonable for me ..

 

[Marvolo]

Your logic is flawed. You're saying that because some successful works are of good quality, then quality is an indicator of success. And yet the low quality of many successful works, and the lack of success of many works of high quality, indicate otherwise. In order to be successful - a best-seller, in other words - a book has to appeal to as large an audience as possible. And, let's face it, the criteria by which we judge the quality of a work of fiction are not the same criteria which lead to across the board success.

Obviously plenty of people thought it was good or better than good for it to be successful in the first place. Success is an indicator of quality, but it helps those who aren't successful to think that it isn't.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Success is an indicator of quality, but it helps those who aren't successful to think that it isn't.

A weak argument, Marvolo. I can remember when "pet rocks" were all the rage. The idea was bizarre enough to appeal to a lot of people, the hype set in, and the man who thought of it became very rich. Was his success, then, an indication of the quality of the product he was selling? They were just rocks, and it was just a fad.

 

[JDawg2.0]

Well, it depends, Teresa. Were the rocks quality? As in, did they make good pets?

I still believe success is some indication of the quality of the work. People bash Harry Potter all the time, but it was hugely successful, which means that a LOT of people thought it had quality. I mean, there are outside factors that can prevent quality work from getting published, but if it really is quality, it will sell. And if it doesn't, it means that it wasn't marketed right. But if it is, quality will sell.

 

[JDP]

Coming at this from a marketing perspective, I'd certainly have to agree with Teresa et al.

Success has loads of possible factors, one of which can be quality. For example, MacDonalds isn't reknowned as being the best quality food you can get, but they're certainly successful. In this case, convenience outweighs quality, so it depends what the consumer wants.

The Harry Potter franchise has been superbly marketed. It would be a gross oversimplification to assume that the power of the brand is entirely down to the quality of JKR's prose. Whether it's of a high quality or not is subjective, but the fact remains that its success does not automatically equate to quality.

 

[iansales]

Success does not indicate quality. There is living proof of this: Kevin J Anderson.

 

[Culhwch]

Well, quality is always going to be a subjective thing, isn't it? One person's The Lord of the Rings is another person's Eragon....

 

[iansales]

Whether you appreciate or enjoy a work of fiction is entirely subjective... but does that necessarily make the work "quality"? Clearly a lot of people like Kevin J Anderson, but I'm in the middle of Sandworms of Dune and it's painfully bad. It shows a paucity of imagination, an excess of cliches, a lack of characterisation, and a tin ear.

 

[Giovanna Clairval]

Whether you appreciate or enjoy a work of fiction is entirely subjective... but does that necessarily make the work "quality"? Clearly a lot of people like Kevin J Anderson, but I'm in the middle of Sandworms of Dune and it's painfully bad. It shows a paucity of imagination, an excess of cliches, a lack of characterisation, and a tin ear.

True! And K. Anderson built his low-quality story upon an already-existing world. No excuses!

And, going back to the subject of this thread, I never build a world before writing the story. As Teresa said, it must be lurking somewhere in the deep cellars of my unconscious mind because everyone thinks it took me years to invent a (they say) very consistent setting. Well, I just insert ideas as I go, and then copy-edit the whole thing until I can find no more contradictions, and any (uselessly) budding description is pruned before it can grow into sprawling info-dump. Of course, there's a huge amount of work there but, as I tend to edit my prose about a strabillion times, that's fine by me.

So, if you don't work before writing, you work afterwards. It is just about different ways of working.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

He's successful, Ian, because he stopped turning out original work and devotes himself to novelizations or collaborations in established franchises. He works very fast -- which tends to appeal to people who own franchises, because they like to see their authors turn out lots and lots of books -- when I knew him, he used to brag that he never revised at all. Not a page, not a word. I don't know if that was an exaggeration. Anyway, it does suggest that quality isn't a big consideration with him.

So, yes, he is a very, very good example of one way you can achieve success without worrying too much about quality, or even originality (since the main thing that is bringing in the readers, the world or the characters, isn't even his). He's a nice guy, loves what he does, makes a nice living while keeping his publishers happy, pleases at least some of his readers -- but I doubt that even the people with a great many of his books on their shelves would argue that he's a great writer. Most, if not all, are buying the name of whichever franchise he is writing in, not his name.

 

[iansales]

True enough. Apparently, he doesn't actually write - he dictates as he's hiking. And the following day, he checks over the typescript of his previous day's work. It shows in his prose. It's about the most inelegant I've ever had the misfortune to read...

His "original" space opera series, the Saga of the Seven Suns, is also apparently popular. I tried the first one... I'll not be trying the others.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Apparently, he doesn't actually write - he dictates as he's hiking. And the following day, he checks over the typescript of his previous day's work.

Yes, I remember him talking about that. At the rate he turns out books, he must be incredibly fit after all that walking.

But to return to the subject: obviously a writer doesn't have to do any worldbuilding if someone has already built the world. Still, someone has done the work.

 

[iansales]

At the rate he turns out books, he must be incredibly fit after all that walking.

Now that's what you call a back-handed insult