Digging Deep into World-Building: Asking "Why?"

Photo by Alyssia Wilson. Unslpash

Whether you're starting a brand new project or maybe revising one that's been sitting in a drawer for a few years, there are two things you need to start with: world-building and characters. As a developmental editor and writing coach, one of the questions I have writers ask themselves constantly for both of these elements is: why?

For this blog, let's look at your book's world-building so that your readers feel right at home!

What is World-Building?

When you think world-building you think places, times, clothes, food, transportation. If you're writing fantasy maybe you're including magic or magical animals. For science fiction you're thinking about space stations and how the shuttles might work. Are you creating only some things—like psychic powers in a world that is otherwise thes same as ours— or going full Urban Fantasy with shifters, elves, and orcs walking down Main Street with regular humans?

Remember that every writer builds worlds, even if you're writing a contemporary fiction. You're showing your reader the city, shops, cars, etc. of the characters in your books. Did you ever read Lillian Jackson Braun's The Cat Who series? They are cozy mysteries where she built up not only her characters but the little towns, histories, foods, tourist traps, and weather problems her characters encountered until her readers felt like reading one of those books was like returning to a familiar place. That's world-building.

You can make it as easy or as complicated as you want, as long as you keep it the same throughout the book (or series), and know why some of these things happen.

If you want to get inspired, entertained, and into the world-building weeds, I highly recommend the podcast WorldBuilding for Masochists.

What's Your Why?

Now you've gotten your world-building skeleton built. How deep do you want to take it? That's where the "why" questions start to come in. Maybe you don't want to explain why you made certain choices for why people eat certain things or your town has five bakeries and none of them bake bread. Maybe those are "just because" in your world. That's ok if it's something small. But know the "why" for the bigger things and see if you can work them into your story without just dumping the information on your reader.

For example:

Question: In my world, people ride oxen, not horses. Why?

Answer: Horses never got domesticated, they run feral and are vicious.

Question: Why?

Answer: Here they are much smarter than cattle, so very difficult to catch or try to tame. Therefore very expensive. They kill people who try to catch them so only a few will try it. My main character dreams of becoming one of them, so I can create these imaginary feral horses and my readers can learn why people don't use them through his experiences.

Question: Supernatural beings are real. Why don't they take over the world?

Answer: There aren't very many of them

Question: Still more powerful than humans, right? Why aren't they in charge?

Answer: In Lynsay Sands' Argeneau series vampires limit their population because of risk of discovery and food limits (number humans to vampires); in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series they don't seem focused more on power among their own people, not humans. Other writers have their supernatural beings hiding, or in uneasy relationships with humans. But often the sheer number of humans and their weapons, combined with specific weaknesses among supernatural beings (or just a tradition of not attempting a power grab) keeps it from happening. What is the reason in your book?

Question: Aliens bomb Earth and start trying to take it over. Why?

Answer: They need another world for expansion

Question: Why Earth?

Answer: When seeing how fast humans are developing technology, the aliens decide humans are too dangerous. Taking over Earth lets them expand their empire and take out a potential future threat. (This is part of the plot of Out of the Dark, David Weber's sci-fi thriller. Spoiler: it does not go the way the aliens think it will)

Ask yourself "why" at least twice to get behind the reason you've made this world-building decision—because once is usually a surface level answer. (There's a great essay in Traveling Light, that explores this with even more examples, if you're interested)

Genre Expectations

Remember your genre expectations! Read plenty of books in your genre so you know what's expected—and where you might be able to get away with something different.

An example of world-building genre differences that comes to mind for me is Martha Wells' Murderbot Diary series. It's a science fiction series at a level that you'd normally expect to be reading some rather technical things. But the books are told from one character's point of view—and that character doesn't know about terraforming planets or high tech science. So when those come up, instead of getting a heavy sci-fi dump of technical information, Murderbot just tells the reader "I have no idea. Why? Because I don't care" (or something along those lines). And it works brilliantly. After all, that's what any regular person would say, right?

Gotta Have a Gimmick?

Sometimes the first answer to why you did something unique is because you want it to grab your reader's attention. You want something to stand out from the rest ot the books currently popular in your genre. But remember: readers know a gimmick when they see one. Take it the next step. If your small town likes to celebrate St. Patrick's Day all year long, your first "why" may be because no other small town cozy series does that, so yours will stand out. What's the next "why?" Why does the fictional town do it? Why do individual characters like (or not) to continue this tradition? How do local shops or restaurants play with the theme? Weave those world-building pieces into what else is happening in your plot and let your readers feel like they are living in that town with your characters instead of experiencing a gimmick.

Are you looking for a developmental editor, manuscript evaluator, writing coaching, or marketing coach? Contact me and let's talk about your project!