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…)
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…)
[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum, MuseHack, and Ongoing Worlds]
So you’re world building, but the world is basically like ours, or like a given historical place and time. You’d start building religions, but . . . you’re dealing with real religions that people practice and live right now (or the ancestors or descendants of those religions). You’re not so much creating them, but asking where they fit into your setting, what’s “real” and what you have to write.
There’s more “about” than “building.” Sounds easy, right? Not when you realize that when it comes to religion you have to . . .
- Treat as a functioning part of your setting.
- Know what you’re writing about.
- Write/describe/handle it in a realistic way (or a way that seems realistic).
- Deal with annoying people.
So you’ve got to design your “real” world, but also deal with ‘real” religions. How do you handle these challenges?
Let’s address them one by one . . . (more…)
[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum, MuseHack, and Ongoing Worlds]
(As noted in my past columns, this discussion of religion is focusing on the with some metaphysical or theological elements).
When I worldbuild, I confess building religions and so on are some of my favorite things to do. This of course is part of my own inclinations and interests in people, psychology, culture, and religious experiences. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm.
Fortunately, as I have such enthusiasm, I’ve got plenty of advice to share. Here’s a few things I’ve found help in doing religious world building. (more…)
[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum, MuseHack, and Ongoing Worlds]
So let’s talk about creating and writing religions in your world. You may now start panicking.
Creating religions is challenging,as we all know. That sense of challenge, the burden, the awareness of all the effort it takes can bring us down in our world building efforts. Chances are even mention this is giving you flashbacks.
So before we explore writing religions and creating religions, I want to cover the challenges we world builders face – and discuss overcoming them. Will I cover all possible cases? No theres only so much I can do or remember, swear to . . .
. . . er anyway, lets’ go on and look a some of the challenges facing writing religion and common traps.
But First . . . (more…)
[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum, MuseHack, and Ongoing Worlds]
There you are, innocently writing along, and you look back on some of your published stories, perhaps to review, perhaps for fun, perhaps to see what past atrocities you committed on your language of choice. While doing this, you then see that which we all fear, the specter that haunts so many writers.
A continuity error.
Maybe it’s a spell working differently than it does later in your narrative, or you got a location wrong in some dialogue, or whatever. Something didn’t happen the way it should, its a violation of your continuity, and its been written and you can’t really take it out because its buried in the rest of the story and the world. Perhaps even your current works rely on that error, which is exceptionally humiliating and terrifying.
If you’re a continuity/setting fanatic like me, itís like having someone pour icewater over your heart. You violated your world, you messed up, you forgot, and probably you botched up future plots. Itís a terrible feeling of impotence, stupidity, and dread, a real cocktail of anguish.
Sure it happens to everyone, but right at that moment everyone is you.
In the words of a certain computerized book, Don’t Panic. Here’s some techniques to help you deal with what you do when you find you got your world wrong.
Did You Actually Make A Mistake?
First of all, you may find your mistake wasn’t one. Review your continuity, review the story. You may have written something that you knew subconsciously and forgot consciously. Or it may not even be a mistake when reviewed.
If you’re a jumpy writer, you can easily make the wrong assumption about things. I’ve seen it happens.
Make sure you’ve actually got a problem because trying to fix a non-problem can make things worse – like running off to fix the error that isn’t in your next story or game and building a huge plot around it. You’ll only complicate matters, and probably make real mistakes.
Is It A Matter Of Perspective?
The problem may be a problem – but only in a matter of perspective. A character may have said something wrong, but maybe that was their way of looking at it, or they mis-spoke (or could be assumed to mis-speak), and so on. The error may be there but it may be appropriate – or at least explainable (or ignorable until the next edition or a patch release of a game, if that).
The “error” may be a bit fuzzy. So maybe you can just ignore it or make a note of it if somehow it comes up again.
Can You Explain It?
OK, you determined there’s a problem. It’s not a mistake on your part, it’s not due to or explainable by perspective. You botched something in your setting.
It may not be that bad. Maybe it’s a character issue, like above, only a bit more pronounced than a simple “probably perspective” answer.. Maybe you can decide someone read something wrong in a textbook. Maybe the robe was green due to some peculiar superstition as opposed to the purple it was supposed to be.
Now if you can explain something, you may not have to go “fix things.” Keep a note in your worldbuilding journals and documents or something. If it’s not a big thing, then you may not need to worry. You’re covered just in case.
Can You Fix Something By Changing Things?
If you can’t explain (or hand-wave) away your problem, you may have to go fixing things in your setting. So maybe it’s time to tweak your world – if the error is big enough to require making some changes.
This is a pretty easy way to do things; slightly alter continuity to make up for errors. You’re probably doing this a little bit every now and then anyway as you tweak and poke ideas into shape or solidify them. This is also an effective but unradical solution.
Maybe a spell is less powerful than you wanted, so you decide “hey, that is the case” and you need to alter how someone survived an encounter (“after using magic then, I just managed to escape with a good run”). Or perhaps yeah, there was an exchange rate error (“man, remember how many credits I paid on that planet? Right before the rates went down?”). You get the idea. A little bit extra, a little tweak, can work wonders.
Just fixing things often leads to adding on new continuity, and it’s hard to distinguish the two. In fact . . .
Can You Fix It By Adding Something?
Look over the error. Maybe your continuity isn’t damaged, but needs something a bit extra to explain it. Take a look at what is supposedly wrong, and ask what addition to your continuity could make the wrong thing right. It may even turn into an interesting extra story element.
Perhaps you explain some dialogue errors by deciding a character is bad at geography, and over time confronts their poor educational background. Maybe your inconsistent writing about money can be explained by having fluctuating galactic exchange rates, which could be an interesting subplot if you’re writing an interplanetary war.
This isn’t much different than the above solution of making a change, except you’re deliberately grafting on a “patch” to your continuiy with something new.
Do not go throwing in something new into your world due to blind panic. It can create more problems down the road when your additions, included due to fear, create more continuity errors because they were created in a rush. Besides, you can get a kind of “mission creep” where you keep adding and adding ideas to fix problems, some caused by new additions, and it all spirals into a kind of perverse image of a creative rush.
Can You Fix It By Subtracting Something?
OK, maybe you can’t fix your error by adding something – perhaps there is a part of continuity that, when removed, fixes the problem and maintains continuity. After all, some parts are more necessary than others to your world.
Personally, I don’t like doing this, its a chance to create more problems, even moreso than adding elements to your continuity. A story universe can unravel quickly if you start yanking out threads of ideas, slowly becoming an unstable skeleton of it’s formal self.
I include it as an option, because it can work. The heroes weren’t ambushed by orcs that one time because, well, their tribal lands just don’t reach as far as thought. Or maybe there is no cure for that disease in the story (which means you get to throw an invent-a-cure subplot), or the cure was a fraud.
It can work. Use it with caution.
Retcontinuity
This is the Big Enchilada of correcting continuity mistakes. Its not for amateurs, and in some cases, not for professionals. This is correcting a mistake or mistakes (and big ones) by making them part of the story and the continuity. In short, the problems become part of the world.
We’re all too familiar with this happening in comics, where every few years someone decides to press the “Reboot universe button.” DC’s infamous “continuity collapse” in Zero Hour is perhaps one of the greatest examples, but your changes don’t have to be that radically. Actually they probably shouldn’t be.
But you could run with this and in the right hands it gets interesting. That little flaw can become a cornerstone to something greater. Decide that the time you got some important history wrong in your own world indicates a conspiracy that has altered historical records. A bunch of spells didn’t work right due to a hideous building magical fluctuation.
As you can see, this could quickly get out of hand. But, it is an option.
This is not an option I recommend unless you’re very, very sure you can do it right. I’ve seen ambitious undertakings like this, and its definitely not easy. However, it is an option, and it has the added advantage of turning a mistake into a whole new story idea and hopefully a firmer continuity.
I’m not exactly a fan of this method, but with great challenges come great possibilities.
One warning however is that if anyone asks, be the heck honest about it. Don’t act like you have a plan, just note you found a flaw, and in the effort of figuring it out a greater story emerged.
Besides, people will know.
Conclusion
A flaw in your continuity isn’t the end of the world so to speak, and in some cases isn’t worth worrying about. But when the time comes that you must address one, use the appropriate solution for the problem.
– Steven Savage
[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum and at MuseHack]
A lot of what I write about worldbuilding is at least partially technical. It’s about breaking things into areas of analysis, questions, outlines, and more so you can make your world. Good worldbuilding is about thought and techniques and keeping track of things – well, half of it is.
The other half of worldbuilding is those wild ideas, those crazy thoughts, those “what ifs.” In many cases you’re either doing good with those moments of creativity, or organizing what thoughts you do have. Of course, not all of these moments come at the right time – sometimes you want to get organized and your brain won’t shut up, sometimes you want an idea and feel like a book-keeper.
Then where there’s those times that your worldbuilding comes together, when you grasp the big picture, when you get both the “wow” and the numbers behind it. That moment when you have A Vision and it all comes together.
Those moments you “get” your world, and those are the moments that are beautiful and powerful.
You probably know what I’m talking about and wish you could get into that state more.
The fact that I’m writing about this means I’m betting a good chunk of my readers can’t. (more…)
