You know how sometimes
you hear the same thing so many times you tune it out, and then somebody says
it a different way and wow! it’s brand new? That’s how I felt at last weekend’s
ArmadilloCon writers workshop in Austin about the world building discussion.
Hadn’t I memorized the Five P’s of World Building (people, places, problems,
practices and peculiarities) espoused by Jaye Wells ,(author of the Prospero’s World and Sabina Kane paranormal series), among
others?
Was there anything
new, I wondered, that the ArmadilloCon workshop leaders could say about world
building? And then they did.
The keys to world
building are to choose emotionally-charged, telling details that convey
information to readers without burying them under a pile of information and to
display those details through the characters’ interactions with their world
“Find the right
details that will show something that you may not think of,” said Amanda Downum, particularly sensory details – texture, taste and
scent. And, added Joe McKinney,
author of the Dead World series, “those
details have to come organically through your character.”
And as with any
information, the best way to reveal details is through our characters’
interactions. “It’s the characters’ impact on the world and the world’s impact
on the characters that world building happens without your readers knowing it,”
said Patrice Sarath.
An example
McKinney particularly likes is the tea ceremony in the City of Stairs series by Robert Jackson Bennett,
in which a character’s enactment of the ceremony not only allows the writer to
describe it, but to have the ceremony become an integral element of the plot.
That kind of
integration requires writers to have a grasp of the world their characters will
inhabit before starting to write. “Sometimes people get excited about a plot
and start writing before the world is fully formed in their heads,” cautioned
writing instructor Urania Fung . Right, Sarath
agreed. “Don’t retrofit your characters’ actions to fit something in your world
later. In romances, this is called ‘too stupid to live’. Readers will
understand when you’re playing them false.”
Is this starting
to sound very, very complicated? Maybe you’re saying, hey, I write contemporary
fiction set in the here and now, so do I really need to build a world? Isn’t it
already there for my readers?
Panelists said,
yes. Even when dealing with a real city, it may not be one readers are familiar
with. And consider that even the town you live effectively contains multiple
worlds, such as those within Austin, Texas. Is the story set in the rapidly
gentrifying version of Austin or the funky music and arts version – or a myriad
of others?
And don’t discount
the limits of that world, whether mostly real or wholly imagined.
“Think about
constraints,” Sarath said, including economic constraints – yes, even in
fantasy and science fiction. “When you tighten the screws on everything,
interesting things happen. When you take away freedom, you have an interesting
plot.”
And finally, leave
room for the readers’ imaginations as well, because their participation is
integral to a story.
Well, almost
finally, because there’s still a lot of brick and mortar help out there,
including those “Five P’s” of paranormal fiction writer Jaye Wells, which I discussed
at “Jaye Wells on building a world all your own” on this site.
