Getting lost in the logic of it all

[BenSt]

Hello all,

I have been writing for many years now, not published just for my own amusement and fun. Something I seem to get caught up in a lot when it comes to fantasy writing is getting lost in the logic of the world I am writing. For me, half the fun is to create back history of how things came to happen and what caused certain elements to evolve in certain directions. The issue isn't that my ideas are not creative or that I find it difficult to

For example, the story I am currently working on started as an idea of a classic style Whodunnit mystery, but set in a world inhabited by Gods and spirits of all sorts of varieties. The idea was fleshed out that the Gods of old travelled to this otherworld and founded a massive city where they lived out their lives quite domestically, doing all manner of everyday activities similar to what we do in this world. I developed a character that could introduce us to this world by being lead about it, a backstory of how this otherworld is connected to our world now, and how innovations here eventually made their way to there. So as I was coming up with this, my characters began to make themselves known to me and I felt quite good. Then, I started to get lost... things didn't seem logical to me because I think I was comparing it too much to modern reality. The fun was being sucked out of the creativity because I was relying too much on logic as based in our world, instead of creating world rules.

Anyways, I could go on and on. If any of you understand that mass ramble, what are you perspectives or advice on not getting trapped like this? How do you stop logic from stealing the creative spark, whilst also making your work logical?

I look forward to your posts.

Thankyou

 

[J Riff]

Well, logical consistency is certainly an important factor, but the more detail you supply, the less imagination the reader requires... the trick is to write a good story, however much 'world-building' or backstory goes on.

 

[Tecdavid]

As J Riff says, the world-building shouldn't take priority over the story itself. What's most important is that the logic and world rules you create aren't the foreground of the story, but rather the background. So maybe spending less time on the world's backstory and rules, and spending more on the storyline itself will help. Maybe, as you write, the specifics you want your world to have will come more naturally to you, you'll realise what sort of logic best fits your story, and you'll decide just how much of your world-building you'll need to showcase in the story itself.

 

[SciFrac]

I know what you mean Ben. I find myself doing the same at times, and it's really frustrating because there are plenty of books I love that don't always follow a logical path, but are completely entertaining nonetheless. Riff and Tec are correct about story. That should always come first. I try to use world-building to break reader-expectations, so maybe look to see if you're doing that too.

 

[Gumboot]

Ultimately all that matters is story-logic; that is; the rules by which the world of your story operates. If they're the same as our world (as they are in my WIP) it's fairly easy, but if there's significant differences it's imperative that you adhere to the story logic and forget real-world logic.

Quite aside from getting bogged down in things which are irrelevant, if you start changing things to match real-world logic you're in danger of your work violating story-logic, and if that happens you'll destroy the suspension of disbelief. That's the very worst thing that can happen in your WIP.

 

[sknox]

Everyone else emphasizes the importance of story, but I've been in the same boat as you. There's not a sure path out. What happens with me is at some point I have to stop worldbuilding and write a story. It doesn't have to be a whole story, but I do need to get down to the detailed level of Person X walking through Village Y at a particular time and date.

As I do this, I find that I have to fill in stuff. The village maybe is near an abandoned castle, which was built by King ... oh crap I have to make up a king. And a kingdom. But not one that fits into the overall world logic, one that moves this particular story forward.

That's the key, or has been for me. It's the interplay between the needs of a specific story and the needs of the overall world-building. I write more story and sooner or later I have to sit back and build more of the backstory. I do that long enough and I find I have to return to story-telling. I bounce (some would say lurch) back and forth between the two.

It's all very well to say the story must come first, and that's true from the reader's perspective. But from this author's perspective, both are necessary and both have to come first. Just at different times.

 

[jastius]

its easy to get lost, but sometimes getting lost is a good thing. perhaps there is more then one story waiting for you in your world and you simply cannot yet determine it. why not free write for a time on just one part of the muddled bit and see if it is pointing in a different direction. there can be such a thing as a happy surprise.

 

[mosaix]

J Riff is right. Leave something to the reader's imagination. 'Show don't tell' is part of this. Imply some background to the story and let the reader fill in the blanks for themselves.

 

[Toby Frost]

If you ask me, which you sort of did...

World-building and writing a story are two different things. You could have an entire story set within one square mile (take Alien for instance), which only hints about the outside world ("Damn company set us up!"). There's no need for the audience to see beyond that, or to know the name of the company, or when it was set up, or whatever. The story just doesn't require it - and besides, you can imagine the sort of people it's talking about and the institution they'd create.

My own view is that while world-building is fun, it has to be resisted to a certain extent to get the story written. I suspect this is even more so where the setting is fairly generic (space federations, Medieval Europe-type fantasy lands etc). Also, approaching it from the viewpoint of the characters does tend to highlight the interesting differences rather than the similarities. This also has the advantage of not requiring you to explain the vague stuff and forcing you to pin your colours to the mast (where does the Space Empire stand on the political spectrum? etc).

How to do it? I think the answer is to tell the story first, from the perspective of the characters. If X buys a ticket to the next star system, will he spend the flight thinking about how hyperspace engines work? I don't think about internal combustion when I drive to work. It's that limited perspective that you have to keep in mind - and even if writing from a wider viewpoint, does the reader need to see how the machinery all works? Most of the time, probably not.

 

[BenSt]

Hello all,

I must admit I havn't had a lot of chance to be online over the past few weeks but thankyou all for your advice and suggestions, they did help. I've had a chance to get into the writing more and the problem I was facing doesn't matter so much now.

You see the issue I was facing was this: My character is Human form of a God who visited Earth. In my world, Gods from the otherworld can visit earth in two forms: as visions or in reincarnated human bodies. There is a reason for this, but the problem I was facing was: I wanted to make puns and jokes about ancient gods buying domestically things like John Wayne DVDs, or a Goddess of Time like the Fates having a poster of Doctor Who on their walls. The question I was facing was how can I explain this, just for my own head, if Gods can't physically go into the world and bring things back with them? I think I resolved it, but your points about not letting world building get in the way of the story are well met. It's a happy spectrum isn't it? Go one way or the other too far and you don't have the focus to write.