The world-building conundrum

Every story takes place somewhere. The characters exist within a larger society with its own traditions and values.

In contemporary fiction, the author creates a world akin to what he or she lives in, a world similar if not identical to his or her own. It builds upon what's intimately familiar and to readers living in the same general time and culture needs not explanation.

Historical fiction clothes itself with the trappings of history. It almost always romanticizes the sheer drudgery and hardship of history, if only because the protagonists generally occupy the upper echelons of society. Hardly anyone writes about the fascinating life and times of peasants and serfs toiling in the fields. As such, the reader, too, acquires a rosy view of historical society where men were men, women were women, and the sheep were scared. Writers of historical fiction are obligated to ensure their fictional worlds are plausible. They accomplish this through research to understand what mechanical, technological, pharmacological, and other advances are accurate for the period as well as those legal and cultural restrictions that bound men, women, and children to their socially appropriate roles. That means no using telescopes in stories set in ancient Egypt and no routine vaccination against smallpox in modern stories taking place after 1972.

Dystopian fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and other genres generally assume either historical trappings or futuristic qualities. The author may imbue them with gritty realism or rosy romanticism, but those fictional cultures in which the stories take place often draw upon what's familiar the author. In such genres, traditional roles may be reinforced (that's familiar to readers) or broken (for variety and interest), with imaginative mixes of role expansion and constraint adding depth and verisimilitude. I say verisimilitude because social conventions don't necessarily make sense: they arise from a mishmash of tradition native and imported traditions as well as historical expectations and assumptions.

World-building becomes even more critical for those stories which take place outside our familiar environs. For instance, a classic example is the public lives of the ancient Romans. They had no word for privacy because their lives were almost entirely lived in public. In a time when few people could read or write, much less had access to writing utensils and stationery, business agreements, negotiations, and life's events were carried out with as many witnesses as one could manage. Witnesses meant people remembered what they saw and heard and that collective memory helped enforce good faith follow-through.

Writers bog down when it comes to world-building. Some write reams of intricate social mores and conventions, politics, geographies, cultures, legal systems, etc. Their imaginations become embedded in those fictional worlds where their characters will live and act. Unfortunately for them, world-building is not storytelling.

World-building sets the environment in which the story takes place. Whether that's in one's intimately familiar home town or an imaginary culture far distant in terms of time and/or place, the environment informs the reader and molds the characters.

A writer enamored of the world he or she creates may easily fall victim to the urge to describe and explain that world to the reader. That's a mistake. Paragraph after page of expository description of the world in which the characters exist do not make for good storytelling. The expository description may be interesting, but it's not a story.

The characters make the story. The story happens when the author plops an ordinary persona into an extraordinary circumstance and tells the tale of how that persona extricates himself or herself from that circumstance. Or, the author relates how events happening within the world act upon the character to force the character into action, then tells the tale of the character's actions. The better the author integrates the fictional world into the story, the more readily the reader accepts it.

When writing a story, be cognizant of the world in which your characters exist. Reveal its intricacies and quirks little by little, weaving them into the narrative. These worlds add depth, richness, and verisimilitude to your story, but remember, they do not comprise the story itself.

Every word counts.

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