Lecture 06: Worldbuilding Part Two
why worldbuilding is cool?
- the impossible made plausible
- play with themes
- sense of wonder and/or exploration
- sheer coolness
- cultural butterfly effect
- ability to address real world issues in a fresh way in a different world
- talk about issues in a disconnected way from reality which removes the baggage and makes it less polarising
- like the sims - play god
Worldbuilding should serve the story, not hinder or interrupt it.
The single most important thing in SCIFI/FANTASY is the skill of conveying information about worldbuilding in way that is not boring and that is not info dumping.
Find a way that conveys the worldbuilding through the eyes of a character.
Metaphor of putting spinach into a smoothie. Wow all the characters are so cool, but now through exploring their stories I know about the world.
Avoid maid and butler dialogue, it sounds stilted.
Give the reader less info than you think they need.
pyramid of abstraction
imagine your descriptions as a pyramid
the base of the pyramid is concrete language in the book in the setting
before giving and info dump, first ground the character in the setting so it doesn’t sound like a lecture.
abstract |———-| concrete
show don’t tell
“suddenly” is overused
get rid of the passive voice and too many adverbs
any time you can go down to more concrete description by using less words this is good (say irate instead of very angry)
If you want the reader to believe you about a big problem, ground them and show them through a small specific experience with the character.
Character wants something and is proactively trying to get it.
have a character walk into a room and describe a glass of water on a table, this description through their eyes should give more info than an encyclopedia entry
Mistborn
first time the character uses magic, it is off screen because it would need so much worldbuilding up front.
stormlight
prologue immediately dumps all the magic information