Fantasy Book Club discussion

How do you like your world-building -

Thick or thin? Enhancement or detraction?

What books had worlds that worked for you, haunted you, made you think, or if you felt the concepts dragged the story down, why, and what would you wish for the ideal?

How important is the setting of a story to a critical state of immersion. Do you have favorite worlds, favorite passages, places you would like to live, or that are too vivid to bear?

Post away, use specific books and/or authors to support your POV as readers.

We have three invited authors for a panel to assist with this discussion - Karin Lowachee, Joshua Palmatier, and Gail Z Martin. Bio details will be posted lower in the thread.

Hello everyone! Nobody's posted so far so I thought I'd toss myself into the hopeful fray.

I personally like the kind of world-building that is less of a travelogue and more of parajump into unknown territory. You learn as you go. This sometimes puts off readers because there isn't a lot of time spent on 'establishing shots' (to borrow a film term) ... but I do this consciously.

Anyone else like this?

Karin wrote: "Hello everyone! Nobody's posted so far so I thought I'd toss myself into the hopeful fray.

I personally like the kind of world-building that is less of a travelogue and more of parajump into unkno..."

Me! Definitely. I want the world to be built seamlessly into the story. Please don't give me a big info dump! So many new(?) writers seem to fall into this trap. I need to watch a silver sun rise into a purple sky instead of being told that this world has a purple sky and a silver sun. Also, the world needs to be (at least for me) somewhat rational. If it's a society that has crazy (at least to me) rules, I want to know why they're there.

And since you've jumped in, let me introduce you!

Karin Lowachee - Karin was born in South America, grew up in Canada, and worked in the Arctic. Her first novel WARCHILD won the 2001 Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. Both WARCHILD (2002) and her third novel CAGEBIRD (2005) were finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award. CAGEBIRD won the Prix Aurora Award in 2006 for Best Long-Form Work in English and the Spectrum Award also in 2006. Her second novel BURNDIVE debuted at #7 on the Locus Bestseller List. Her books have been translated into French, Hebrew, and Japanese. Her current fantasy novel, THE GASLIGHT DOGS, was published through Orbit Books USA in April 2010.

Welcome to the topic, Karin, and thank you for posting!

The world building in The Gaslight Dogs, for instance, unfolded seamlessly in the story. It is a strange world, and yet a familiar one. It has elements of the supernatural enough to be slightly disorienting, and yet you put our feet back on the ground just in time to keep me, at least, from floating away in bewilderment.

Let me introduce Gail Z. Martin who will also be joining this discussion.

Gail is the author of The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven and Dark Lady's Chosen (The Chronicles of The Necromancer series). A new series set in her world of the Winter Kingdoms, The Fallen Kings Cycle, debuts from Orbit Books in 2011 with Book One: The Sworn and Book Two: The Dread. For book updates, tour information and contact details, visit www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com

And the third author who has agreed to join us is Joshua Palmatier aka Benjamin Tate.

Joshua is the author of four fantasy novels--The Skewed Throne, The Cracked Throne, The Vacant Throne, all part of the Throne of Amenkor series, and Well of Sorrows (written under the pseudonym Benjamin Tate). He has managed to produce a few short stories as well, including "Mastihooba" in Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, "Tears of Blood" (an Amenkor story) in Beauty Has Her Way, and "An Alewife in Kish" (as Benjamin Tate) in After Hours: Tales from Ur-Bar. In addition, he has turned his hand to editing anthologies. Watch for After Hours: Tales from Ur-Bar in March 2011, and The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity sometime in 2012. Beside writing, he teaches mathematics at SUNY College at Oneonta in upstate New York and spinning classes at the local gym. He is an avid collector of books (of course), crackle glass, and Lego Star Wars sets. Find him at www.joshuapalmatier.com and www.benjamintate.com.

I was particularly impressed with the extremely tactile feel to the world created in Karin's The Gaslight Dogs. The details she chose to show immersed me, not just in the setting, but shaped the mood with vivid clarity.

It's been months since I read the story, and yet, I can still picture scenes and places in my mind with vivid clarity.

I truly love that sense of deep immersion - when coupled with the storyline - when it adds to the impact of the scene, it transports me.

It's a delightful skill when done with this level of competency. I'd put Guy Gavriel Kay, Barbara Hambly, Carol Berg, C. J. Cherryh and George R. R. Martin on this list for sure; to name just a few of many. Also Patricia McKillip.

I dislike fantasy told with TV script style dialogue and little beauty to the prose. The mood and atmosphere of a story add that extra degree of vivid impact; imagination in full color with an edge sticks with me. I don't want just a pale shadow of this world, but to come away with an experience that shakes the envelope a bit.

I prefer as much immersion as possible in a new world, preferably as seen through the eyes of the characters. I'm less interested in a history lesson or data dump. However, if I'm not given enough history, I do feel cheated. So it's a fine line, and, as Janny mentioned, few authors can walk that tightrope and excel.

I also prefer to be dunked right into the world, to be bombarded with veiled references to a hundred names and places and ideas and sort things out as I go.

For example, I really enjoy the sprawling world of A Song of Ice and Fire (George R.R. Martin) because almost every chapter introduces more throwaway characters, and ancient places, and strange cults, and minor rituals, and songs, and on and on.

Even as the story gallops forward, you're constantly shown that the world is immense and detailed and complex.

A series that did NOT work for me is the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. The first half of the first book is almost entirely info dump. And yet, I still did not have a feel for the world. Each book builds to a huge fight scene that always leaves me cold. The magic gets way too out of hand and over the top until I just leave, mentally.

I like fight scenes. Some particularly exciting ones that occur to me are in Janny Wurts Wars of Light and Shadow series. There are great fight scenes in the Song of Ice and Fire series. There are great fight scenes in Brandon Sanderson's new tome, in spite of the fact that the magic in that book did not work for me. I have to be able to imagine in my head what's going on. Now how some writers do that and some don't is a puzzle to me. All I know is that some I can picture and some I can't.

My favorite obverse immersion into a world, with tremendous immediacy and suspense, is Nine Princes in Amber by the legendary Roger Zelazny. Amnesiac exposition with quick *suspicion* that colored everything that follows. And yes, it got funny too. :-)

I'll chime in now as well. (For some reason, I thought we were supposed to wait.)

As was pointed out earlier in the thread, I think there's a fine line between too much and too little and finding that balancing point is tough. I don't like fantasy where the world itself overwhelms the characters. One series in which this happened (for me) is Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time." I like the story, and I like some (not all) of the characters, but I feel that reading each book is like slogging through mud because there is SO MUCH detail about the world that it's hard to sort through it all to the story and characters.

But I also don't think that it works if there is little described of the world either. One of the main reasons I read fantasy and science fiction is to be taken to a strange new place. I want there to be a sense of WOW and wonder in the world, and in order to make the world different and wonderful, you have to describe WHY it's different and wonderful. So at some point you have to have some setting. I will admit that it's much easier to think of fantasy novels where the author gives us TOO MUCH, rather than not enough.

That space in the middle, that's where my favorite fantasies live. AS some have said, I don't want the info dump about the world. I want to experience the world as the characters experience it. The best way to do this, IMO, is to have the characters actually LIVE there. You don't think to yourself that your using a toaster and this is the history of the toaster and this is how it works. You just use it. The same should be true of the characters in a fantasy world. If they use the item every day, there shouldn't be a long paragraph about the object and what it is and how it got there. It should just be used. I just finished "Inda" by Sherwood Smith, and the characters use magic there to clean up (dead bodies, dog sh--um, waste, etc). She never tells us this is how it's done, she just has the characters do it as part of their daily routine (or as a punishment).

And I also had some issues with Ilona Andrews' "Kate Daniels" series. I remember reading the back cover copy and thinking, "This is such a cool world, a cool IDEA." And then I read the first book and realized that what I was envisioning in my head was in NO WAY close to what Ilona Andrews had envisioned.

So here's a potentially controversial comment: Urban fantasy is hogging most of the shelf space at the moment. Do you think that since most urban fantasy is set in the "real" world--places like NYC, Seattle, London, etc--that the writers don't have to work as hard at the worldbuilding? Does setting the fantasy in a well-known city give the author a "cop out" on worldbuilding? Is it harder for the "brand new world built from scratch" fantasy author to write his/her book, than for an urban fantasy author?

Thank you for introducing the topic. I believe for fantasy, effective world-building is essential for storytelling. The world defines the mood and tone, the rules under which characters interact, nature and its role in the story, and physical descriptions of locations, whether real or imaginary. I enjoy worlds based on our own world, worlds that are an allegory of our own, and worlds that are completely imaginary.

My favorite fantasy series of all time is the Forgotten Realms series written by many authors, including R.A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, Elaine Cunningham, and Douglas Niles. For those unfamiliar with the Forgotten Realms, it is an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons brand that novelized RPG modules. The first novel I read was Pool of Radiance by James M. Ward, which I bought after the AD&D module Strategic Simulations, Inc. Games: Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Sword of Aragon - I also played the video games on my Commodore 64 - Forgotten Realms Video Games: Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures, Pool of Radiance, Icewind Dale Ii, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Icewind Dale.

In each new book I read, I was able to explore a new locale in this great universe called Faerun (or is it Toril? - one is the Realms and other is the planet, I think...). Faerun is an allegory of our own world in the Dark Ages through Renaissance, and it includes regions similar to the British Isles, Ireland, Scandinavia, Mongol Steps, Spain, the New World, Japan, China, the Sahara Desert, and the Congo, yet with names like the Moonshae Islands, Icewind Dale, Khar-Tur, and Maztika to name very few.

What also intrigued about their world-building was their incorporation of many gods and goddesses belonging to various pantheons, and of course the nine hells and its demons and various minions. Many of the races of Faerun (drow, drarves, and so forth) believe in their own deities (Lloth and Clanggedon respectively), though humans had their own deities, some based on their culture (people of the Moonshae Islands worshiping the Earth Mother or people of the North worshiping Tempus), while others were based on their trade (thieves and gamblers worshiped Tymora, while mages and sorcerers would worship Mystra). Readers familiar with our own world's belief systems and mythologies would find many parallels (Venus, Thor, Vulcan for example) within the world of the Forgotten Realms.

I also love the maps that draw out the physical locations in relation to one another. The game module maps tended to be on a larger scale than the book maps, but all of the maps helped me visualize the journey and the terrain within the story.

I love that I can get lost in Faerun, but that it feels familiar to me, grounded in history and mythology that I can look up in this world. It is also a world that evolves and is ever changing. It is my favorite fantasy series, and it is my inspiration.

Cheers!

Christopher

Joshua wrote: "So here's a potentially controversial comment: Urban fantasy is hogging most of the shelf space at the moment. Do you think that since most urban fantasy is set in the "real" world--places like N..."

I am not a big urban fantasy fan, but I can think of a few I really liked, War for the Oaks being one of them. I would think it would be easier to write about a known place and tweak it here and there to make it magical. The idea of building a whole new world just blows me away. And yet so many do it so well.

And I do like being carried away to a whole new place and time.

I think one of the ways writers - urban fantasy or not - can avoid the 'cheating' when you're in a real world setting is to do like what Janny says: use setting to create mood (Janny's work does this too, but I think we all know that ;). Setting isn't just to see the world or even just for the characters to interact with or experience. The 'how' is just as important as the 'what', to me, when I write. The way language is used to describe something as mundane as a door all goes toward the mood and tone of the book, and to me all of my favorite books/writers know that and implement it (that list Janny gave...most of those writers are ones I admire greatly and have read industriously). Language has to work on multiple levels for me, and thus the story and characters do too. I don't think there is any reason why an urban fantasy writer who is setting their book in NYC or anywhere 'real world' should give short shrift to world-building, when how you build the world is a huge part of how the reader experiences your book - in more than just information-wise.

Also, like Joshua, I prefer people in SFF books didn't contemplate how things work when you know they are things these people wouldn't think about. I definitely try to approach all of my writing like that.

And thank you for the cool comments about my book, y'all. :)

Karin wrote: "I think one of the ways writers - urban fantasy or not - can avoid the 'cheating' when you're in a real world setting is to do like what Janny says: use setting to create mood (Janny's work does th..."

Exactly! Too many authors I beleive use a real world city as a 'crutch' and end up selling their vision short. I grew up in Minneapolis, so when I read War for the Oaks I had issues with some of her place usage (not all just some) I would find myself thinking 'Why would they go there?' and it distracted from what was otherwise a great story.

No body likes info dumps, or too much detail, but you can go the other way and be too confusing as well. While I love love love Erikson's Malazan Books of the Fallen, his total lack of exposition in such a huge world makes for too much work for a lot of people who just want to read a book! I love the whole 'putting the pieces together' thing, but understand that some people would rather just read a book!

S. Eric wrote: "Joshua wrote: "So here's a potentially controversial comment: Urban fantasy is hogging most of the shelf space at the moment. Do you think that since most urban fantasy is set in the "real" world..."

Nice point; but if Urban fantasy is done extremely well, it will give the future reader a very clear shap shot and an immersion into a PERIOD culture (happening now/read in the future) - but figuring out exactly What typifies a local place, and managing to capture the cultural pop of the moment in a way that is meaningful, later - and not so tied to insider reference - that takes a gift!

There are, say, many books written in past settings by their contemporaries that work very well in this regard: Dickens, Austin, Hemingway, to name a few...

I think the challenge for today's urban fantasy writers is to capture a dual shot: make you THINK the veil between the ordinary here and now is so thin, the supernatural elements creep in naturally. That is every bit as much of a tightrope walk.

If I have a huge BEEF with worldbuilding it would be this: total and complete lack of research and extrapolation.

Naming by case:

Maps where the geological land formations do NOT match the coastline (as in, mountains abut the sea with a smooth, flat shoreline) - rivers running where rivers couldn't...

Past time setting fantasy that does not account for No Refrigeration/slower transport - example: nobody eats fish in a shoreside tavern, instead it's the ubiquitous MEAT STEW.

Horses or animal transport that go like cars with no care, no penalty, and no awareness of distance.

Incredible civilizations/set in a desert or waste land with NO regard for food production/curing.

Fantasies where all the 'villages' and 'towns' have the same character; you have no sense of individuality/no character to the setting - no sense of past history.

This kind of total disregard for the degree of effort required to live in a civilization or world without our sophisticated technology blows me STRAIGHT out of the story.

The skill after that lies in making such detail fit seamlessly into a tale.

The rule of thumb that I find works for me (why I loved this/was disenchanted by that) is, IF the detail adds: tension/mood/OR character that connects to the story - builds on story tension/mood/or character in a direct fashion, it works. If it's set floating just to 'show' what the setting is and that bears no relationship/OR no contrast to the story at hand - it fails.

Congruency is not necessary.

A setting that is happy set against a character in a dour mood graphically offsets/snaps into focus that character's maladjustment. A few words say a very great deal, and hammer home an impression.

For me the most important thing about the worldbuilding is the different cultures. Alot of authors are not good enough in creating believable cultures. Most books have the same norms and ethics as the modern North American and European one. I don't like that. Especially worlds where all the countries have the same beliefs, that has to be the worst.

Wheel of Time is my favorite fantasy world. The Aiel with their honor concept, the cultural moral of not "losing face" in front of others resemble the beliefs of people in East Africa and the Middleast,
(i have lived there).

The best authors blend different cultures in the real world and create something unique out of it.

My general overall opinion matches what seems to be the consensus thus far - I like world-building which is built into the telling. I don't like info-dumps, nor do I like a lot of extraneous details which paint a picture, but don't really add to the plot, the character, or the mood.

An example of a story where world-building killed me is The Naming: The First Book of Pellinor by Alison Croggon. In it, the lead character would come across a garden with varied types of flowers, but then she would go into what I call a grocery list of the types of flowers. Ditto, she's going through a forest, and has to name tons of trees. It wasn't relevant to the story - she wasn't learning about the trees and their properties or anything, for instance - it was just one of those things which I see as useless detail which others consider to be a depth of world-building.

I'd also like to say, as others have commented on, that world-building isn't just descriptions of time and place. For me, the more important aspects of world-building are about the society in which the characters live - their culture, and politics, ethics, religion/mythos, and general ways of life. Not where they live so much as how they live, and the ways of life offered within their world.

Also the physics of the place, particularly in relation to sci-fi stories, or, for magical ones, the principles of magic. How does magic work? Why does it work? Is it internally consistent? Does it make sense?

To borrow a word which has been bandied about - authenticity. Does that magic/science work in the foundations that we've been given? Does the character act authentically within their society?

Unless the setting effects character or plot or mood, then it's just a backdrop - and I don't need to know that the curtains are purple, if it's not relevant, and I definitely don't want the story to be put on hold to fill me in on details that I can fill in myself - like what a garden may look like with multiple kind of flowers in it.

That aside, to a specific issue that was raised:

Does setting the fantasy in a well-known city give the author a "cop out" on worldbuilding? Is it harder for the "brand new world built from scratch" fantasy author to write his/her book, than for an urban fantasy author?

I think this question raises a false dichotomy because, in my opinion, nothing is built entirely from scratch. Certainly no story I've ever read as been - though, admittedly, I'm not as wide read as others.

A lot of fantasy takes place in a sort of feudal society, for instance - and we already know what this society is generally like. What needs to be defined is where the fantasy world differs from the "normal" notion of the society.

In the Study series, by Maria Snyder, which I'm in the process of reading, there are two type of cultures: one which is militaristic and generally socialist, and the other is sort of tribal and aristocratic. Because the main character goes to both countries, we see her thoughts and views on the societies - but we don't need them defined in elaborate detail, because we already know the gists of these societies.

Even worlds which are created to be alien to ours are still defined based on what we know, being as they are designed to be antithetical to our own own experience.

In a way, you could say that urban fantasy has a harder time in making itself believable - because there has to be the level of plausibility that this stuff is happening in the here and now, and yet we, the general public, remain unaware of it. Much easier to plug your story into a world where such constraints don't exist.

Though, ultimately, I wouldn't say that either is really easier or harder than the other, for they all comes with their built-in presumptions and restrictions.

Machavelli wrote: "For me the most important thing about the worldbuilding is the different cultures. Alot of authors are not good enough in creating believable cultures. Most books have the same norms and ethics as..."


Excellent point; though I'd add: if there is a world with a monoculture, the book had better include a plausible reason for it.

I like my world building as a reader at about AAA Guidebook level—enough to know what I’m looking at and appreciate its value but not a PhD dissertation on every cornerstone and fountain. As a reader, while I appreciate the fact that an author has thought through a world to the point of having dozens of binders on the shelf going into every last nugget of history, I don’t want the action to slow down long enough to be told every scintilla of information. As a reader, I like a good balance between believable and multi-dimensional characters, a world that seems realistic and that I feel like I could step into and explore, and action/plot. Since I started writing to write books that I personally wanted to read, those preferences certainly color my writing, and form my self-critique framework as I edit what I write. What turns me off on a book? One-dimensional characters that don’t have any network of human relationships, dissertation-level detail on the world/culture/food/etc. and long lapses between action sections that advance the plot.

That's what works for me--what works for you?

S. Eric: You stated that writers of urban fantasy have to spend more time making the magic fit the real world setting, so perhaps it's harder for them to worldbuild than if they built a new world from scratch. I'm not so sure I agree with this completely, since in order for a completely made-up fantasy world to be believable, it still has to have enough of a realistic grounding for the reader to suspend their disbelief and "believe" in the world as whole. In other words, you can't just have a fantasy world with unicorns and magic and whatnot. You've got to have the peasants and the government and all of the other "real" stuff as a foundation, or no one will believe the world exists long enough to enjoy the story.

I do agree that urban fantasy novels are going to be dated after a while.

S. Eric wrote: "I like my world building to grow with the characters. I don't like it all up front. I like the world building to be meaningful. I don't like throw away details that are never brought up again. ..."

Ah, you're my type of reader. I don't like throw away details either. I thought I had some throw away details included in my first novel, but discovered that they were incredibly important plot points for the second in the series.

Janny wrote: "S. Eric wrote: "Joshua wrote: "So here's a potentially controversial comment: Urban fantasy is hogging most of the shelf space at the moment. Do you think that since most urban fantasy is set in ..."

And this, Janny, is how urban fantasy writers should be handling this. I've read a few where I don't think they'll last beyond a certain point, mostly because of inside cultural jokes that won't survive. I'm reading Anton Strout's "Simon Canderous" novels right now and there are many, many references to television shows and other geek culture that I don't expect future generations to remember. They won't survive the test of time.

But you're right, if the authors take the time to center the stories around the time period, what makes that time period special, then the urban fantasy won't end up dated in the long run. As you say, it will be a view on the world as it was at that time . . . well, with vampires and werewolves and zombies mixed in. *grin*

Machavelli wrote: "For me the most important thing about the worldbuilding is the different cultures. Alot of authors are not good enough in creating believable cultures. Most books have the same norms and ethics as..."

I agree that the best way to create a new culture is to blend some of those from our own world. You have to be extremely careful doing this, of course. You don't want to be offensive to a culture in our world, and not all cultures will blend well. It has to be well thought out in the long run.

Colleen ~blackrose~ wrote: "My general overall opinion matches what seems to be the consensus thus far - I like world-building which is built into the telling. I don't like info-dumps, nor do I like a lot of extraneous detai..."

HA! You caught me. *grin*

I agree that even the "world built from scratch" fantasy isn't really built from scratch. I've created such world in my books, and when I say the characters walk into a TAVERN, I don't go on to explain in details exactly what's in the tavern. I expect the reader to have a mental picture of what a fantasy-world tavern is like (feudal, as you say) and may point out a few things that are relevant to the plot later on (point out the huge hearth fire, twice the size as usual for such a place) or something that makes the tavern different than what the reader might expect . . . but otherwise I just call it a tavern and move on.

Writers from both urban fantasy and created-world fantasy use the same principle in their books. When an urban fantasy authors says the characters walk into Times Square, they don't go on to describe it in detail. They rely on the "tavern" image that the reader has for Times Square.

OK, so here's a question for the writers on the thread: HOW DO YOU CREATE YOUR WORLD? And for the urban fantasy writers, HOW DO YOU BLEND THE REAL WORLD WITH THE FANTASY? What's the process that you use? I'm betting that we have a wide variety of methods to our madness here.

I for example, start with only a vague idea of the world and how it works and then discover it as I write along with the characters. Sometimes I have to go back and rewrite in order to make the rules and limitations work out as I discover them, but I've found that I really can't "create" the world ahead of time, writing copious notes about how everything works and such. That process just kills the creative drive in me that makes writing fun. So my process of creation is much more "seat of the pants" than most. (And yes, it's gotten me into trouble in the past, but it seems to be the best way for me to work.)

I like my worlds in all shades of green, gloomy with distant sources of light- something like mystical wood with fairies. I'm not sure I have found it in any book by now, but I think the atmosphere is similar to the one in Prefects' bathroom in Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire, or Cair Paravel after Pevensie's return to Narnia.

If someone has seen a forest like this in any book, please let me know =)

[P.S I apologize for my bad english]

Like most people, I hate info dumps. I dont mind if you learn things along side a character (like when a person is dumped form our world to a new world and another in-character is explaining things that the other character comes across while going through the book that don't make sense). Generally I love just learning about the world as you go, espeically when you can get a feel of the history just by reading the story. You dont need info dumps for that. I haven't read most of the authors' books on this disuccusion, though I have read Gail's and I love the way you've built your world.

Joshua wrote: "OK, so here's a question for the writers on the thread: HOW DO YOU CREATE YOUR WORLD? And for the urban fantasy writers, HOW DO YOU BLEND THE REAL WORLD WITH THE FANTASY? What's the process that..."

I'll chime in at this point, because my Parsina Saga was built because the worlds I was seeing weren't exotic enough for me. At the time I conceived it (late 1970s), many of the fantasies around fell into one of two categories: either Tolkien ripoffs and Western European mythologies, or Howard ripoffs of nameless barbarian cultures. I thought back to the days of my (then not so far-off) youth, when Arabian Nights adventures were exotic and mysterious. So I attempted something different.

The immediate problem I faced was that I found Islam perhaps the most boring religion in the world--so I tossed it out and went back to its roots: Zoroastrianism. I did my research on that, and on Persian mythology. I found one of the most interesting religious precepts I've ever encountered right in the middle of some of its holy writings: As much as you possibly can, do not bore your fellow man.

I read the entire Burton translation of the Thousand Nights and a Night, plus the Supplemental Nights, to get the feel of the story flow. I got books on the clothing and cooking of the area, and made up some of the world out of whole cloth. And I populated my world with interesting characters that I cared about (because I knew that if I didn't care about them, neither would the reader). And the result is 4 books I've gotten some compliments on, even if they didn't become huge bestsellers at the time.

If the entire book or series is contained inside a certain geopraphical area, then it's ok if there's only one culture. But in a world with different countries, the sosial norms,religion and culture should be different from place to place.

The cultures have to be realistic, they can resemble the real cultures in our world, but should not be exact copies. The best is to blend, for example in a A Song of Ice and Fire the Dothraki seem like a mix between mongolians and native americans, but they are also significantly different from both these groups.

I've always been suspicious of an entire world with only one culture. When I think of how many different cultures we have on our single planet, it seems quite unrealistic that everyone would be the same on some other world.

On the other hand, it's a lot of work creating a believable, consistent culture, and then you have to describe it to the reader and make him at home with it. A writer has to strike a compromise between the reality of pluralism and the time and energy he can put into the project. We don't want to confuse the reader by introducing a different culture every time the hero crosses a street (even though that may be the case in some of our contemporary urban jungles).

Is 'world-building' a technical term that authors learn about in writing school? Or, is it something we readers use to engage in discussion about our reads? …a serious question.

I'm thinking about what Karin said about travelogue vs parajump and Sandra's comment "I want the world to be built seamlessly into the story", and Janny's comment "The details she chose to show immersed me, not just in the setting, but shaped the mood with vivid clarity.". I have not read Karin (but now will), but this reminded me of an all-time favorite of mine, Dhalgren.

World-building is not the 1st thing to come to mind when thinking about Dhalgren, but the memory of mood is. Bellona is a world that is constantly changing, impossible to map and though one can build up a picture of places, their relationships to each other is not clear and may vary from time to time. It is much more the moods of Bellona I remember. It is more an emotional world with emotional buildings and forests and streams, than an anatomical/geographic place. But still it is a world, but also a character. The moods of the places stay with me always, but nothing about their geography is clear. All this is just one level of this masterpiece. I suppose entering Bellona is moor like entering a rather unbalanced mind. Although clearly placed in the US, I find American Gods rather like this too.

In contrast another favorite book, At Swim Two Boys a modern masterpiece, IMO, takes place in 1914 Dublin with most of the places important to the novel extant today. I was interested enough to do some image captures from Google Earth of Dublin to get a better feeling of the anatomy of the parts of Dublin described. This book is an 'urban' historical fiction in a sense, but will not become dated for various reasons, one being the use of historical monuments, buildings, parks etc. I don't really like urban fantasy, perhaps have not read the best, but suspect they could be written so they are not only of contemporary interest, like At Swim, Two Boys.

I cannot talk about world-building without considering Tolkien. Like many of us war babies and boomers, he was our 1st exposure to epic fantasy, a master world/universe/race builder of which is 2 novels are but a subset of his universe. Being a professional anatomist (which is geography by another name), I pay close attention to worlds like Tolkien—worlds with maps, where the anatomy is set, and where consistency must be maintained. I like these worlds. I used to not read fantasy unless they had maps, that in the days when I was trying to recapture the joy of Tolkien. But if the fellowship if walking north on the west bank of a river, the river better be on the right! Maps are no longer a requirement.

Other favorites with maps, either real or with consistent enough geography, that I can build one up in my mind, include Cherryh's SF and fantasy works, Stephen Erikson's mangus opus, Pern, Valdemar, Riftwar, especially the Empire series from Riftwar, and I know Janny's WoLaS will be, even though I am only about a 3rd of the way thru book 2. Janny's series is becoming in my mind a literary masterpiece beyond being an epic fantasy. Such prose!

I find it more difficult to build up a picture in my mind of a 3 dimensional universe as created in an epic space SF. I am quite good at 3D anatomy and geography, but when trying to develop a picture of numerous planets widely separated in space (and perhaps time), I find it difficult. And maps, if included, are not sufficient to the task. The Honor Harrington series is like this, though one gets beyond these deficiencies, as the anatomy is not that important to the series. OTOH, in Cherryh's Company Wars and Union-Alliance series, I long for a galactic globe, so I can see where all the planets are in relationship with each other. It is not necessary, but being an anatomist, I want to know.

A final author world builder is Hal Clement, arguably the father of Hard SF. His novels are stand-a-lones, and generally about 200 pages or less. Nothing epic about these. But he builds actual worlds with strange physical properties, and imagines how alien life would evolve and how humans could survive on such worlds. All this is done to be consistent with known science of his time. This is an entirely different sort of world building, but one I really appreciate. World building can be done succinctly.

I realize 'world-building' is much more than geography. Cultures, history, language, religion, evolution, personalities are all part of world building, perhaps the more important part. But, I would suggest that the anatomy, geography of a world or universe underlies these more human characteristics that carry a story. Function depends upon form.

Kernos wrote: "Is 'world-building' a technical term that authors learn about in writing school? Or, is it something we readers use to engage in discussion about our reads? …a serious question.

I'm thinking about..."

LOL! Honestly? I wonder if the term 'world building' may have been coined by role playing gamers, swiped by reviewers, made a label, and so on down the line...

Anybody have a clue?

I think it all comes down to a single word, Kernos--consistency. If the world is internally consistent, it will feel real. If details don't match, the reader's suspended sense of disbelief will be shattered. The writer must keep everything straight in his head if he's going to make the world believable, And even if there's no map, as you say with Dhalgren (which I admit I haven't read), the world will still feel right.

Janny wrote: "Kernos wrote: "Is 'world-building' a technical term that authors learn about in writing school? Or, is it something we readers use to engage in discussion about our reads? …a serious question.

I'm..."

"World building" is a highly technical term which, in practice, involves much scaffolding, a hammer, at least two screwdrivers (straight-edged and Phillips), a yardstick, and the sacrifice of a goat at some time between eleven thirty-two pm and twelve oh six am.

Stephen wrote: "Janny wrote: "Kernos wrote: "Is 'world-building' a technical term that authors learn about in writing school? Or, is it something we readers use to engage in discussion about our reads? …a serious ..."

Hot damn! Missed that...didn't go to Hackworts. Do they time that with an hourglass or a digital clock?

Depends on whether you're doing fantasy or sf. And for barbarian s&s, you use a sundial.

Stephen wrote: "Depends on whether you're doing fantasy or sf. And for barbarian s&s, you use a sundial."

Unless of course your beings can sense the time of day or night... A sun's positioning in the sky may work as well for telling time, hence phrases like "high sun". Telling time may get more complicated, of course, if you have more than one sun for a planet.

Cheers!

Christopher

I like my world building to take me to another place so I can forget the real world for a while. I like an immersive world that feels realistic in the context of where the story is taking place. Obviously a world with dragons flying around doesn't exist, but the author should try to make it feel real.

As far as the actual building and background goes, yes it can get bogged down if there is way too much detail. I like my books to have a good balance between the world building and the plot. Giving the reader a feel of the world is good, but as long as it's not to the detriment of the plot.

Some good examples of world building I like, one is the Study series by Maria V. Snyder, which I'm currently reading. I feel I can really get lost in the world she creates.

Also A Song of Ice And Fire is a really believable world. Then there's The Neverending Story by Michael Ende for a highly imaginative world. I think it's the world a lot of fantasy readers dream about. It's sheer escapism.

So, that's what I really want, a world where I feel I've traveled outside the realm of my own reality.

I think this topic may be too complicated for me. All I can think of is "I know what I like when I read it". I do know that what tends to get to me, is when there isn't enough. Yes, I can see how too much exposition/detail can bog down the story. However, not enough exposition or detail leaves me with frustrating "howw...", "wha...", "why..." banging around in my head.

Tracy wrote: "I think this topic may be too complicated for me. All I can think of is "I know what I like when I read it". I do know that what tends to get to me, is when there isn't enough. Yes, I can see ho..."

Yes! I do think if not careful, I can get carried away into headiness and I like your down to earth approach.

The writer must be able to convince the reader that he knows what he's talking about. But, that said, the writer doesn't have to tell absolutely everything he knows. It's a delicate balance. Not enough detail leaves the reader unconvinced. Too much detail slows down the story.

Good writing is hard work.

Thank you, Stephen. I'd like to hear from Karin and Gail, as Joshua invited the writers on the thread to express their thoughts.

Sandra aka Sleo wrote: "Thank you, Stephen. I'd like to hear from Karin and Gail, as Joshua invited the writers on the thread to express their thoughts."

As would I. I would also like to ask them, from an author's point of view, who have been the best world-builders? Or, what books have the best built worlds?

Sandra aka Sleo wrote: "Thank you, Stephen. I'd like to hear from Karin and Gail, as Joshua invited the writers on the thread to express their thoughts."

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting this, but am I correct in saying that no one else should comment on the thread except for our three invited authors - or, at least, the two others?

Colleen ~blackrose~ wrote: "Perhaps I'm misinterpreting this, but am I correct in saying that no one else should comment on the thread except for our three invited authors - or, at least, the two others?"

That's how it came across to me as well, I was pretty confused by it...