Worldbuilding
segyegwan
Worldbuilding is the full set of rules, history, society and power systems of a story's world; the writer should know far more of it than the reader sees.
Also written as: setting · world setting
Meaning
Worldbuilding is the complete set of rules of the world where a story takes place. In fantasy that means magic systems, races, geography, history, currency and religion; in contemporary fiction it means the customs of a profession, the hierarchy of an organization, the feel of a neighborhood. The gate-rank-association trio of hunter fiction and the titles, marriage law and etiquette of rofan are each genre's standard world. Worldbuilding is distinct from the story bible (the document recording it), and the part shown to readers should be the tip of the iceberg. When the sense that the writer knows the whole world leaks between the lines, readers believe in it.
Why it matters
Worldbuilding is the rulebook for conflict. If magic has no cost, magical combat has no tension; if noble society has no etiquette, there is no way to blunder at a ball. The world's rules are the walls that confine characters, and only with those walls do their choices mean anything. The trouble is the order of revelation. Explain the world's history in episode one and readers leave. A rule should surface only at the moment it blocks or helps a character. Genre readers already know the standard world, so the one thing worth explaining is how yours differs from it.
Example
Turning an explanation into an event.
Explanation: In this world, every use of mana shortens a mage's life. So mages ration their magic.
Event: Erin reached for a light and stopped her hand. There were matches. She struck one. Rule one of the mages' guild is "no mana for candles", and Erin had learned why from her master's white hair. Her master was thirty-two.
The second version never states the rule (mana equals lifespan), but the act of striking a match and the master's white hair let the reader infer it. The world shows itself at the moment its rule changes a character's behavior.
Common mistakes
- Building everything first. After inventing twelve races and eight nations, the story itself never gets written. Build only the ground the protagonist walks in the first ten episodes.
- Rules with no exceptions. A perfect system has no story. The holes in the rules are where events begin.
- Explaining the standard world. Do not tell hunter readers what a gate is. Tell them only how your gates differ.