OK we covered the biology of sex, which if I did my job, proved to be completely unarousing unless you have a major science fetish. If you do, then you’re welcome.

The thing with writing sex in your settings, with creating and understanding the sexuality of the beings and creatures in your setting, is that it goes beyond biology. Think of it as a continuity – the biology is just the start, but it leads to other things.  Biology is the foreplay, if you want to dangerously skirt metaphors I have no intention of expanding on.

Once you have creatures reproducing, be they human or otherwise, once evolution kicks in (or the gods take charge or whatever) then you may have sentient creatures dealing with sex. That’s when things get a lot more complicated and less scientific.

Sex is part of our minds. For some of us, an extremely large part.

Now things get personal. Literally. (more…)

And its time to talk about sex and worldbuilding. Which, if you think is going to be exciting and arousing, indicates you are either sadly deluded, or really into worldbuilding to a level few are. You make the call, I won’t judge.

Sex in many ways is like air, and not in that it’s part of life and sometimes involves wearing a mask. It’s more the fact that it’s so omnipresent that we can miss out how important it is. We think we know how important it is because we just assume we do – until we really think about it.

Sex is part of being human (it’s why you’re here to be human), so we can get used to it like we do seeing and smelling and touching. That of course means we can miss its complexities, and that means we miss it when creating our worlds.  When you miss something so important in your worldbuilding, you’re far worse at it.

So even if you never delve much into sexuality in your settings and stories, it’s probably there in the background, and it might be in the foreground and you don’t know it.

So first of all, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of sex and worldbuilding – biology.

And let’s take a look at three basic things you may face – sexual biology that is familiar, sexual biology that is similar to our world, and completely different species.

But first, let’s remember what sex is for.

The Purpose Of Sex

Sex is about information – progenitors are able to transmit information about themselves in a way that allows it to be used to create new life.  In the case of humans, the DNA of the parents provides the blueprint for a new person to develop in the body of one of the partners.  No matter what kind of creatures you build, sex comes down to information being used to create new life – even if in the case of simple creatures its the information being copied in simple cellular division.

Sex in many ways is like a conversation, though in the case of the aforementioned simple animals, it’s rhetorical.

So when you start thinking about the biology of sex in your setting, always remember it comes down to information.  However it gets more complicated . . .

. . . really, when you think of it all life is about information.  It’s locating food or holding a rally that leads a country to victory in a war.  It’s about smelling out a predator or about listening for the right tone to tell you your significant other is cheesed off.  Life is input and output and retention and processing of information.

In turn, we can also see how living creatures don’t really have distinct boundaries among their organs and instincts and thought processes.  Someone seeking out a mate or a good meal will rally every resource they have to find it.  Our desire for an adrenaline rush can make us seek out thrills skydiving – and in turn someone had to actually rally their mental abilities to invent skydiving.

Now when you add in sex, the core “conversation” of life, you can realize how complicated writing it can be.  That’s the original part of life – the ability to pass itself on.  It’s affected every part of our lives as humans, and ties into our familial instincts, our habits, or ability to form social relations, and even our boundaries.  Sex is everywhere in its own way.

Thus, even from biological points of view, writing about sex becomes complicated because it’s at the core of a living being and because its likely to touch on far more than simple reproduction.

In the end, I find that when writing about sex and designing its point in your world it keeps coming back to these lessons:

• Living creatures propagate themselves.  At the core a species is about transmission of information.
• Living creatures lack boundaries among their component biologies – which is understandable because why should they be there?
• Because of this it is likely that sex for any species you may write will go beyond the boundaries of reproduction and into all aspects of life.
• This in many ways makes sense as, again, sex is a form of communication/transmission and that is what life is about.

Now with that being said, let’s move on to the three basic kinds of sexuality you may end up designing in your worlds.
Situation Normal

First of all if you’re writing about people that are for all extents and purposes human, i may seem pretty easy to write about sex and ignore it all together. It’s just standard. It’s normal. It’s background noise, though perhaps with an uninspired soundtrack.

This is where things tend to go wrong because we don’t pay attention.

The biology of sex for humans introduces any numbers of complicators that may play into your story. Just a few examples:

• Issues of contraception.
• Issues of social diseases.
• The duration of pregnancy.
• Complications of pregnancy.
• Biological issues due to sex organs, from ovarian cysts to enlarged prostates.
• Biological transformations such as puberty and menopause.

If you’re going to do any kind of setting with regular people, the biology of sex is likely to come up, even if it’s just figuring someone hauls off and kicks another character in the junk. They may be minor, but they may be there.

In most cases, writing “humans like us” and sex really focuses not on the biology (with which we have passing familiarity) but psychology and culture. That may lull you into a false sense of security.

So when worldbuilging “normal” humans, take a moment to inventory any issues of sex that may come up. A quick list is:

• What diseases exist that are sexually transmitted or involved? This will also affect culture.
• What areas of sexual transformation are affected by the setting. In an era of malnutrition puberty and pregnancy will be aversely affected, for instance.
• What other environmental or setting factors may affect sexuality biologically. This can radically affect your setting – if a virus is causing sterility in your setting, you need to design it to explain why there is a population left in your setting.
• How do cultural and psychological and even metaphysical elements affect sexuality – attitude, access to contraception, etc. Biology is a powerful thing, but these other factors will affect it.

Even in writing a real-world setting, don’t always assume you know enough about sexual biology to write. A little research is in order if it’s remotely part of your story. Because of many issues (psychological and cultural) you may know less than you think.

 

Sex And The Possibly Single Almost-Human

Then you get into settings or setting elements where you have almost-humans. Your standard fantasy races, the thing-on-the-forehead-but-human-otherwise aliens, and so on. You know, the beings in the setting that are are for most intent human but a bit different.

It’s often tempting in dealing with almost-humans to do two things:

• To make their sexuality just like humans.
• To throw in a twist or something extra, but treat them just like humans.

Both approaches are a mistake. The first is to ignore all other factors that make your species different – unless you’re quite sure there aren’t any (then you may be OK). The second is to forget that small changes can have vast repercussions, especially when you deal with reproduction.

Imagine a human-like race where the gestation period was half the time, completely changing the effect it’d have on the role of women. Lower the sex drive of a species and it might limit their spread (as often seems to be a trope of fantasy dwarves thanks to Tolkein). A few minor changes to your “almost human” races and you have major repercussions to deal with.

In handling the biology of near-human species I find a good way to deal with it is to stop thinking of them as near-human and focus on them as species that has familiar elements. These familiar elements provide you a lot of useful reference points, and from there you can extrapolate on what the differences mean.

Think of it as having a known path, and that makes it easy to figure out where you deviate from it and what happens when you do. This isn’t my favorite method (see below), but is useful.

A few examples:

• Maybe you have increased fertility due to a hostile environment. In turn as a species tames its world population may be a problem quicker. There’s something to deal with in your story.
• Perhaps you do limited gestation periods. That would affect the role of women in society as they’re less limited. It also would probably increase fertility for obvious reasons.
• What if species have no case of menopause or reproductive limits in their lifespan. If couples can easily have children until death it’ll change ideal ages for marrying and conceiving.

However, remember you are creating a different species. Past a few minor changes here and there, you may really be inventing a new species. When things get different from regular humans to any degree, you’re really just designing a completely new species . . . and you might just want to start here to begin with.
Loving The Alien: The Sexual Biology of Non-Humans

And this is where it gets complicated. More complicated – creating a totally new species in your setting and dealing with their sexuality.

In designing a species from scratch, in not having a “human with funny ears” you’re going to enter into a very crazy world. Designing your own species can be tough as is, and when you get to sexuality it’s going to be a challenge because, as noted, sex is so complex and connected to other things in the case of living beings.

Just think how complex sex is for humans, biologically. Now inventory all the non-human species you know about and think about their sexual biology. Now realize you’ve got to create something like that. It’s enough to make you loose interest in sex.

Welcome to the cold shower of world building original species.

So I won’t lie, if you’re going to populate your world with definite non-humans it’s going to require some thought. There is some advice I can provide:

1. Remember sex is about transmission and propagation, but it is likely to tie into other elements of any species, as noted above.
2.  Read up on the sexual biology of other creatures and note how they work. It’ll give you ideas, and in some cases probably horrify you beyond words.
3. Determine how far you have to go. Building realistic species (or building species realistically) can be very addictive and you can go pretty far down any rabbit hole of biology, be it sex or something else.

The key to designing good sexual biology is, like many things, to know how much you have to do then take it a little farther to make sure you know enough.

I’ll just have to leave that up to you.

Sex Is Important

Hope I haven’t scared you off, but sex is a complicated issue, as we all know, however it’s incredibly important to do in your worldbuilding.

It’s why there is a population to experience it.

It’s a part of our own lives so readers will notice its absence.

It’s part of life itself.

It might just be one of your biggest challenge as a worldbuilder. But if you’re able to tackle it, you’ll be rewarded with a very believable world.

Of course once we talk biology, we have to talk about psychology, and that’s next . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum, MuseHack, and Ongoing Worlds]

(Compliments to my friend Scott, whose essay on adaptions and history inspired this)

Genres, as I have heard it said, are reading instructions. We have certain expectations and mental toolkits that, when we read something of a given genre, we use to make sense of them. Wether this is good or bad is perhaps up for debate, but I think the basic truth is there – if only a truth of human nature of needing expectations.

I think this is why “genre mashes” are so popular. They engage two sets of expectations and combine them together, giving us both recognizable elements as well as a rush of the unusual, of ideas colliding. It’s that sense of things being both recognizable and different, which can bring inspiration, horror, humor, and other intense reactions that we seek.

However, genres are influences in worldbuilding as well. Because we are aware of audience expectations when we build our worlds and settings, when we tell our stories and code our games, we adjust what we do. Genre is also a set of worldbuilding and writing instructions to meet expectations.

In a way this makes genre a bit insidious as it may limit us – and in some cases we just start regurgitating tropes which is not so much worldbuilding as quilting. However I’d like to address a different issue, having focused on trope-piles before.

Genres hide within genres. When you adapt a certain genre consciously or unconsciously, you might be actually adapting a genre inside it – or surrounding it. If you’re not aware of this you can quickly suffocate your own worldbuilding under the weight of the things you’ve dragged in.

Consider The Western

This concept of genres within genres came when I was contemplating the role of Westerns in the above column. As I write this in 2014 it seems Westerns are often failed or are darkly-re-envisioned but most examples I saw were a genre fusion – the Space Western.

The Space Western at this time is nearly it’s own genre. It has it’s roots in early pulp SF and is obvious in the “Wagon Train” elements of Star Trek TOS.  However in the last few decades it’s become it’s own thing.  Just a few examples that come to mind:

• The movie series Oblivion.
• The frontier is referenced strongly in the Buck Rogers RPG from TSR.
• Firefly and Serenity
• Cowyboy Bebop (which has several other genres grafted on)
• Wildstar (which has a gunslinger type class).

The fact we even have the term “Space Western” to throw around says that it is Indeed A Thing.

Now I’ve got nothing against that. In fact I’ve rather enjoyed many Space Westerns, especially self-aware ones. But what I want to discuss is why SF would be bonded so closely with the Western – as it reveals the dangers of genre-mapping in worldbuilding.

Westerns, simply, are about frontiers. As SF itself is essentially about frontiers in many formats (especially explorational/people on a spaceship stories) the fusion fits perfectly. In a way, Westerns and SF share a similar “inside genre” – that of “people on the edge of the known” – and thus Space Westerns make perfect sense.

However Space Western as a genre – and indeed a bit of an overused ones, and thus a good example – also shows the danger of overfocusing on genre.  Consider:

Maybe your SF story has a frontier element, but Western tropes don’t fit it – but if you drag those in unawares (or figure “this just must be a space western”) then you’re affecting your worldbuilding. Your world is getting buried under tropes and ideas that have nothing to do with your own ideas – that of the Space Western.  You may, in short, figure (perhaps unconciously) that “my setting is a frontier” and then suddenly you’re using a genre (Space Western) inappropriately, and dumping in elements that really don’t fit your setting.

And this is the lesson. Sometimes you don’t want a genre – you want whats inside of it.  You just may get confused over certain genres.

Sometimes It’s What’s Inside That Counts

Many times we choose or are inspired by various genres and incorporate them into our world – but what we may be looking at is a genre inside the other genre.  If we’re not aware of that, however, we might pile on parts of the “container” genre inappropriately:

• Maybe you want to do a story of honor and revenge.  Thus you are inspired by Samurai stories – but the elements of such tales may not fit your world as it has few cultural equivalents.  You wanted honor and revenge, not the cultural complexities of Japanese culture.
• Perhaps you want to do a dark mystery in your fantasy setting, and certainly film noir wizards sound cool – but grafting on classic detective elements may not work in a world where you can use necromancy and interrogate the murder suspect (and you may realize this too late into your worldbuilding). You wanted the mindbending puzzles and betrayal of mysteries, not the film noir elements.
• Perhaps you like the Man Created Monster genre and want to work that into your realistic nanotechnology story – when you realize that when you have micromachines a giant stompy bad thing is inappropriate.  What you wanted is to give the threat a personality.

Thus when you choose your genre or genres of your world, you may want to ask what you’re doing and why. Is it the genre or genres that you want to write – or is there something inside it that you’re really aiming for.

Food For Thought

So when you’re deciding on your genre(s) ask yourself these questions.  What are you?

• Trying to say. Do/does the genre(s) make sense to what you’re writing or are you trying to use what’s “inside” one to communicate something.
• Really writing. What is at the core of your world? Why are you dressing it up in a given genre? Is it getting buried under the associated tropes??
• Trying to communicate to the audience. Genres can provide shorthand to the audience, but is what you’re saying actually served by the genre in question?

Closing

Genres may be instructions, but they can be limits – and even traps.  But sometimes genres hide in genres, so you might not know just what you’re doing and why in your worldbuilding.  Self-awareness – and genre-awareness – can help you greatly.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

Now and then in my writing I discuss the benefits of Worldbuilding in real life, such as improving record keeping and the like. Truth be told there are other benefits than the more technical and procedural skills, but I never really thought about it much or where to put them. Then I realized, I could write a column on it.

Yeah, I know. Should have thought of that early.

So, let’s take a break from good and evil, science and technology, politics and religion, and discuss just why all these elaborate setting-creations, timelines, and notes benefit you beyond your ability to create a good game or comic or story. This is how Worldbuilding improves you and your abilities in general ways, ways of insight and dare I say it, character.

This may sound a little weird. You may truly enjoy that giant mecha slam-bang universe you created, but you hardly think transforming robots really is going to make a difference in who you are or how you see things.

Actually, you’re wrong. Having done world building myself (in complete and far more unfinished projects), having analyzed it, having talked to writers and artists, I’ve been amazed how the act of world building actually improves people as people. They become, in a way, better and more insightful.

If you’re aware of it, of course, then you can appreciate it, use it, and enhance it. I’m not saying everyone should sit down and create an epic sci-fi universe or fantasy epic, but I’m noting that it does more than you may think.

If you know it, you can use it.

Here’s where it helps. (more…)

We’ve talked Utopias, their rarity, and how and why to create them in our worlds. We’ve talked Dystopias, their commonality, and why to create them anyway despite their near-omnipresence. I’d like to discuss a related, similar issue in worldbuilding – what happens when “good” and “bad” parts of the setting meet.

It’s an area near to my heart because stories and games, tales and legends, are often written on the borders, the liminal spaces, the transitions. It’s where the richness grows, when things cross over.  Even a conflict or a difference is a chance for rich worldbuilding and storytelling.

Also because mostly when the Good and the Bad collide it’s often implemented in a manner that’s terrible.

So, let’s start out with what often goes wrong when Light and Dark decide to unload a can of whupass. Sometimes you have to put up the warning signs before someone goes off the worldbuilding road. (more…)

Previously I discussed Utopias. They’re not always popular, often poorly done, and are best handled by doing real world building first. Seeking to force a Utopia into your world tends to be about as successful as forcing it in real life.  If you don’t get that joke, please avoid any participation in politics until you do.

So now we’ll talk their opposite, Dystopias. You know how those go – they’re awful, terrible, explore the darker parts of human nature. A few even roll post-apoclapytics into the Life Sucks Stew for a complete course of misery.

However while Utopias don’t seem to be that popular for a variety of reasons I covered, it seems that a lot of worlds I see these days are just overloaded with Dystopias.

Which makes building good ones a bit more difficult . . .

Dystopia-A-Go-Go

I often wonder why Dystopias are so popular in fiction, at least modern fiction and modern popular fiction. As I write this in 2014 it seems like the shelves are filled with terrible worlds, often but not entirely in the realm of Young Adult Fiction. I’m starting to think adults might want to speculate what kind of world they’re leaving to young people here, but let’s focus on why there’s so many.

So why do we have so many dystiopias? I’ve been thinking about that one for awhile.

• Conflict and challenge are important to getting interest in fiction, so Worldbuilding with a dystopia means instant conflict. Conflict means interest.
• Dystopias also appeal to people’s morbid curiosity. When you see something horrible you wonder how bad it can get.
• Dystopias also appeal to curiosity since there’s almost always the mystery of “how come this is so awful.” Curiosity is a powerful thing.
• People may have trouble visualizing a better world, but can easily visualize a bad one. They may thus find Dystopias more believable – even when they’re not.
• Dystopias may also seem more believable to people because of real-world examples – human history has had quite a few terrible societies.
• That set of historical examples also provides plenty of material to use in building dystopias, so you have a pretty big construction set.
• Dystopian settings may be seen or portrayed as “more realistic” because of the above examples – and the strange tendency in Western culture to believe “dark” is “realistic” or “mature.”

Finally, there is one thing that differs Dystopias from Utopias. Both may be written with agendas (as I noted with Utopias), but I believe the above factors mean that agenda-created Dystopian worlds may seem more believable and the agenda of the author may not be visible. It may even be welcome because it came in a “mature” manner (in short as part of a horrible setting that some may see as realistic).  Dystopias let you get away with more.

Now this popularity may make it easier to create a Dystopia and make it part of your setting, your game, your book, etc.

That’s the problem.

A Warning On Dystopia

Because Dystopias are so popular, so common, they’re actually a danger for you as a writer. Thus, a few warnings for you, cultivated from my observation over time of how many of them are in literature and games (and poorly executed).

If you are thinking of creating a dystopian setting, keep these things in mind:

• These are easy to do because there’s so many. It may be tempting and easy to make one in a setting for no good reason.
• Dystopias are also tempting as people see them as “realistic.” That temptation can lead you to taking your setting in a dark way believing its realistic – and it may be anything but.
• There are so many accepted tropes on Dystopias that its all to easy to pile a few on, meaning even an attempt to make an effective Dystopia can fail if you resort to tropes – which is very easy unconsciously.
• Dystopias can conceal agendas that you’re accidentally working into the story. Readers/players may detect them easily while you may not see them, combining embarrassment with poor world building.  Yes, you may see how other people put agendas into their Dystopias – be aware you may do it too.

So now with these warnings, let’s ask a question . . .

Why Build A Dystopia?

The simple answer – do it if it’s appropriate. Just as I mentioned in Utopias.

In a lot of cases it just works. I’m no fan of the overload of Dystopias in today’s media, but sometime your setting and world building may lead you to conclude that “yeah, this part of the setting is going to be awful.” Run with it – in fact this is the best way to run with it as you reached that conclusion honestly.

I also find that, much as building more ideal settings, building a good Dystopia is a real way to expand your world building skills. Making a good one as opposed to a pile of tropes is a real challenge. Extremes are educational.

Dystopias are also fascinating because if you can build a believable setting that is believably terrible, then you’ve really achieved something. Bad Dystopias are just as ridiculous, just as able to remove believability, as bad Utopias or general bad settings. Good ones? That’s a challenge.

Dystopias are also interesting to explore historically – namely, how did something end up being so awful? This is always great fun to explore as a world builder because you explore so many different options, histories, and psychologies.

Finally, extremes are just fun to explore as a world builder, good or bad, high-tech or low-tech.

So if you decide it’s time to make your setting an awful spectacle of misery then what happens now? What should you do?

Of course I have an answer.

Putting Together Dystopia

So, if you’re going to build a Dystopia (as much as one designs suffering and misery). What do you do?

Just like Utopia, you need to sit down and do some work and make a real setting. Good, bad, neutral, whatever world building is world building, a creation of thinking things over, tying things together, and figuring out how things work. It’s all good world building

Yout biggest barrier will likely be the tropes and cultural issues mentioned above. Don’t take those for granted, because they seem to be bloody everywhere. Take it from an old geek, it’s like those bad post-nuclear games and tales I saw over and over in the 80’s.

But as for specific advice:

• Dystopias can be intentional or untintentional – and indeed one person’s Dystopia may be another’s Utopia. It’s important to ask how it came about – and how conscious or unconscious it was. In a few cases you’re really writing post-apocalyptic stories, which is another kettle of dead fish.
• A real Dystopia is identifiable – it has an identity and a duration and is not a transitory state. That’s another distinction from post-apocalyptic which often has a strong transitory element.
• A Dystopia, as terrible as it is, has to be sustainable for it to be identifiable and have duration. You’ll have to figure out how such an unpleasant setting exists and maintains itself by resources, social cohesion, etc.
• Dystopias also require you to explore the psychology of people in them. People may not be happy, but they’re likely contributing to the situation somehow or maintaining it aware or unaware. Because a Dystopia needs to be distinct and somewhat sustained, its likely people are contributing it or at least not opposing it.
• Dystopias also present the interesting question of how they react to change. Change may be embraced or resisted, but how does your terrible/unpleasant setting deal with it?
• Did the people making this society know what they were doing or not? How do those who maintain it now react to it?

Dystopias take some work to do. Good dystopias are just about as difficult as building Utopias.

Go Build The Worst

Hopefully that’ll help you in creating lousy and horrible worlds for your characters/players.

I think having seen so many bad/dervitive utopias, readers and gamers and such want something that’s really good. Applying good world building to Dystopias makes you a good world builder – and gives people something they’ll appreciate.

Even when it’s awful.

On purpose.

– Steven Savage

Let’s talk Utopias in the worlds you make.

Utopias seem to be less popular in fiction of all kinds as I write this in 2014. Sure we’ve got plenty of dystopias; it seems that there’s always a fire sale on at the Life Sucks Dystopia Department Store. But Utopias, not so much.

However, sometimes your worldbuilding is going to involve Utopias or at least Utopia lite. I’d like to address how to design good utopias, but first a little detour into just why I don’t think we see them. (more…)

So let me be honest upfront. I love timelines in worldbuilding, in writing, in game design. I love history in general, so I’m biased, but there’s many reasons to love them in your creative endeavors.  Mine is probably just a bit more irrational.

When I write, I often create timelines as a form of writing, and in worldbuilding they’re very important to me. So I wanted to cover their value for you as worldbuilder, writer, game designer, and so on. Also it sort of justifies my love so I don’t feel weird.

(Oh, and yes, I’m a Program Manager so you can guess I’m really biased towards Timelines professionally).

So here’s why I love Timelines . . . world building wise, that is.

You Know Your History

Having a timeline is pretty integral to worldbuilding because stories happen in a place that has a past. Recent events have one impact, past events another. Two people interact because their timelines intersect, two empires come to blows because they are competing for the same space at the same time. Your world was made at a certain time and the gods will return at another.

It’s actually too far out to say that worldbuilding is a way is all about timelines.

The value of timelines therefore is making sure you know what’s going on, why, and when. If you’ve ever read a story where the history was all too “timey-wimey” you know what I mean – imagine as a writer keeping track of that . . .

Provides Realism

Having good timelines also means that your readers/players will find the worlds more believable. Think of what a timeline brings:

• A sense of cause and effect – and in turn a sense of stakes that cause can have effects in the future.
• A sense of believability. Good understanding of timelines means a solid, believable world because of the cause and effect. An unrealistic setting can be very realistic when its history makes sense.
• A sense of empowerment. Especially important for gaming worldbuilding. To see the past in turn is to believe you can influence the future or know why the characters in a game are doing what they do.
• Proper conversation. Ask how many of our conversations are about the past. Just think of what it means in writing/creating conversation in your settings.

Good timelines means believability.

They Stabilize The World You Build

I strongly recommend reviewing your world (and story, see below) timelines now and then. When you have good timelines and good continuity, a review can also help you polish your world, head off issues, and in general write better.

We’ve all made writing mistakes. But when you have a timeline, regular review can polish, strengthen, and improve your world. That timeline itself is a powerful tool.

Even if you don’t think you need the review . . . well it’s there in case you need it. You always have it there just in case . . .

Timelines Prime Awareness

Building timelines as part of your world-setting also makes you aware. The very act of contemplating interactions and so forth helps you become more intimate with your setting. Even f you don’t enjoy timelines, they are ways to truly know your world.

I find that taking time for timelines means that you develop awareness of so much more. Much as it’s good for readers/players you believe the world, for you it means a sense of what it’s all about.

Helps You Create Tales

The flipside to the centuries, aeons, and more of history that you have created is that when you’re good at doing timelines (say, in worldbuilding), that it makes storytelling easier.

I use timeline based storytelling when I write or run RPGs. I figure out what’s happening, how things interact, and what happens. I actually have even kept timelines of various characters/groups an then looked to see how they intersect. Literally, the story just unfolds as the different “timelines” interact.

This can be great for adding structure to your writing or creating a cause-effect chart for a game:

• Determine what happens when.
• Move the “timeline” along and determine how events intersect.
• Those events that are important to the players/readers/etc. are the ones that become prominent.
• Write/implement what’s important (and track what may be unseen).

Over time I find this method just becomes habitual. Which is good if you’re doing a complex tale or one of those mega-multi-ending visual novels.

Timelines Jumpstart Your Imagination

Well you may have all sorts of things going and your story is easy to write. Except for those moments where your imagination locks up and you’ve got a world with nothing happening.

This is where your Timeline keeping helps.

Read over the timelines in your world, review unused elements or hanging lines, or events tat had wide repercussions and see what they inspire. It’s playing “what if” or “what may happen’ with your own world, and can quickly result in many ideas.

Provides Good Organizational Skills

Working with timelines also teaches you good organizational skills. I’m not joking here – good worldbuilding needs good organization, and timelines are pretty much all organization.

Making the effort to keep good timelines (as needed), write with them, etc. just makes you better at keeping your ideas organizing and your worldbuilding. It develops good habits because you put a lot of work into this.

It might even help you elsewhere. I know a few cases where my world building record keeping was educational in my career, teaching me about writing and organizing documentation.

Timelines Reveal Flaws

Working with Timelines is also a way to find out where you have, are, and will screw up.

First, having good timelines reveals, when reviewed, where you made mistakes and need to fix continuity.

Secondly, having good timelines lets you double-check what you’re doing and think about current writing or active game development in an appropriate cause-effect manner.

Third, reviewing timelines keeps you primed (as noted) so you’ll be less likely to mess up. When your last review reminded you that the Dwarves are facing ecological catastrophe, you’ll make sure to mention it and eventually have it happen.

Timelines Let You Stay Productive

You don’t want to write, code, or do art. But you want to do something with your world.

Go flesh out some timelines. Go on, figure out what happened in the Boring Century, or work out the exact details of the Rival Band’s early days. It lets you be productive when you’re not up for heavy lifting, its fun, and it provides all of the above advantages.

Timelines Can be Fun

If you’re like me, messing around with Timelines is also just plain entertaining. Sometimes we need a break and want to come up with the history of an obscure wine in our setting because.

Again, though, this IS me.

Closing

I love Timelines, as you can tell. The advantages are really profound.

I also find that no matter what methods of the above appeal (or don’t appeal) to you the very exercises of some making you better at all the others. Writing with timelines makes you a better note-keeper, fleshing out timelines during writer’s block inspires you, etc. Working with Timelines in any extent improves your skills in all.

Plus, of course you have something to stick on a wiki or a blog or in a guide later.

. . . where your fans will catch errors or come up with fanfic that you never expected. But that’s the risk you chose . . .

– Steven Savage

Previously I discussed how pandering to your audience was a bad thing. It would break your world, confuse your technique, and risks humiliation – as well as the fact you’ll compete with people far better at selling out and far less ethical than you. i noted It’d be better to chose marketable premises or pick appropriate “views” on your world if marketing was important – and those can be rewarding approaches.

Having covered the danger of pandering to other people, I want to focus on the one person you want to avoid pandering to.

Yourself.

See it’s bad enough when you try and bound and twist your imagination just to tweak other people’s buttons. But when it’s yourself you’re pandering to, you enter a whole world of conceptual hurt. If you’ve ever read a book where the author was clearly writing with one mental hand down their psychological pants, you know what I mean. You how how their world (and their games or books or comics) look – a pile of wish fulfillment and personal delusions.

For some authors, you wonder if they didn’t even need you as an audience, – they were just going over their own fantasies. And when they do have an audience for their self-pandering creations . . . you’ve probably seen those.  The kinds of audiences people look at and just wonder if they know how they look.

Sure, sometimes self-pandering sells. It may cultivate an audience because you hit the setting sweet spot for people like you. But my guess is that’s probably not your ambition.

(Or if you want a fanatic audience, you want one of a good quality).

But the pandering worlds where the author lives their own fantasies trundle out. Let’s look into just what’s going on.

Why People Do This?

I’ve seen many a book, movie, comic etc. that was really just mental masturbation and personal pandering. It’s honestly something that’s fascinated me for some time – just why do people do this, especially because it can end in humiliation?

I’ve found these reasons:

• Ideology. Some books and tales are meant to express or support a given ideology. They’re really tracts, manifestoes, or rants with characters. Or things close to characters.
• Wish fulfillment. The author is basically enjoying living their fantasies. Sometimes this can actuallybe engaging if it’s done in fun, but can take weird or odd turns.
• “Told you so.” Some worlds are built as “counter settings” to something people disagree with. They want to respond to ideas, other works, etc. by building the opposite. Usually because their ego is involved – though I’m not going to argue with the idea of just exploring the opposite of an idea.
• Double down. Sometime people take an idea and then double down on it to make a point. ever read a book that seemed to be a previous pock turned up to 11? you get the idea.
• Assumptions. Some people think that what they like everyone likes, and pour themselves into their world. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re just humiliated.

You’ve probably seen these yourself, and seen some particularly humiliating examples. However, when you think about it, Self-Pandering is not only bad, it can be even more painful than regular pandering . . .

Where Self-Pandering Collapses

You’ve seen that book or game that just seems so . .. self-indulgent. They have a particular sense of disaster about them that’s often worse than the usual results of pandering to others.   Regular pandering, after all, at least thinks about the audience, but self-pandering has a particular way of blowing up.

These are the things that plays into those particularly incandescent explosions of bad continuity:

• Self-delusion. It’s easy to think that other people feel the way you do and want the same things. In turn, you may not see that you’re pandering to yourself and no one else.  This lets you get awfully far along before your worldbuilding collapses.
• Invisibility. People may not be deluding themselves about their own self-pandering, but they may not see it. They can’t see how they’ve projected their own wants and needs onto the world because they’re so used to them. Cases like this are actually a bit sad because they honestly don’t mean it – and I’m sure we’ve all done this.
• Obviousness. Self-indulgent world building is often so . . . obvious . . . that it’s outright humiliating. You may not see it due to the above two factors – and it can be crashingly painful when you do.  You may be the last person to see how you’re pandering to yourself.

I’m sure you can think of several painful incidents like the above.  Hopefully none you’ve experienced – or at least experienced publically.

Avoiding Self-Pandering

So how do we avoid doing this to ourselves?  How do we avoid self-pandering and thus self-destruction in worldbuilding?

The prime rule I found is this – your world building should surprise you.

If while creating your world your conclusions shock you, if you find unexpected results, then you’re on the right track. If what you’ve made isn’t what you expect, that’s a sign that a world is truly evolving from your efforts, as opposed to being your desires codified in world format.

In fact, this is a good policy anyway – you don’t want your world to meet any kind of expectations. You want to find your imagination has brought it to life. you want it to transcend expectations. You want to be shocked.

Look for those moments of surprise. If you don’t see them there’s a chance you’re really not diving into your world. If you do see them, then it’s a sign of both good world building, but also a sign you’re either not pandering to yourself (or others) . . . and if you are you’re breaking through it.

I’ve had this happen several times in my worldbuilding and after awhile it’s delightful.  You know you’re onto something when things make you go “where did that come from.”  I find in time that such shocks are almost addictive as each one is a sigh that your setting is alive.

Shocking is what you want. In a good way.

A Few More Tips

Beyond the rule of “be shocked” there are a few more tips I can provide to help you avoid self pandering:

• Be aware. Just keep an eye out on your world building to look for self-pandering.  Be on the look out for regular pandering, but chances are if you’re doing that you’re aware of it.  And, hopefully, a bit ashamed.
• Learn to let your world be itself. As noted, a good world comes to life on its own – give it a chance.  Trust your creation.
• Disagreement is progress. When your world doesn’t work the way you expected, when it doesn’t always line up with itself, that’s progress. It may be that you’ve surprised yourself or found a flaw to fix.
• Run with your inspirations. Go on and explore and play with ideas. That fun, that joy, can keep you from getting dragged into pandering to yourself – and others – though it can backfire at times and become self indulgent.

Closing

Self-pandering is perhaps a greater enemy of good world building than pandering to others – as it plays into your ego and is missed due to a variety of reasons. Fused with other forms of pandering and it could be quite destructive.

But when you look for those shocking moments, those moments that surprise you, and when you practice good world building, you can avoid it.

– Steven Savage

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum, MuseHack, and Ongoing Worlds]

Let’s talk pandering and worldbuilding.

You want the game to sell, you want the book to be read, you want the game to be exciting. But you also want to build an interesting world and a consistent setting. However, if you did just a few things you might just sell more, just a little fan service or . . .

Don’t. Don’t do it. (more…)