World-building?

[Ashiakin]

M. John Harrison wrote an entry about world-building in his blog recently:

"Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid."

It's generated quite a bit of buzz on the internet for such a short post. This coupled with the Speaking Out thread (which I can't post in due to a weird technical glitch) got me thinking about the project of world-building on Althanas and world-building in general. I'll post my own opinions in a little but, but first I'd like to get a better idea of how people on this site feel about it.

Do you agree with M. John Harrison? How do you feel about world-building in regards to fantasy writing in general? On Althanas? Should Althanas be a rigidly structured, carefully defined world or something more open-ended?

EDIT: For those not familiar with world-building, Wikipedia is always helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_world.

[AdventWings]

I'm more for World-Building as a backdrop than World-Building as a literary device. It is useful when you're telling the reader facts about the world. More in the sense of an Almanac.

World-Building in fiction-writing or role-playing posts, however, is not really lnecessary in my mind. A good read addresses things that are relevent to the story - It doesn't matter Blaster Bolts are made in a factory using a thousand-year-old technology based on the Mayan Empire's research and transferred to another civilization living under water on a different world, but rather how the bolt burns straight through flesh.

So I conclude that World-Building serves better as world description in Almanacs than in fiction books.

EDIT:

As for Althanas, I think a bit more World-Building can benefit to regions with little to no background at all. For other regions, like Raiaera or Scara Brae, they already have more than enough info so there is no more need to large-scale World-Building. I don't see a region that needs more add-ons at the moment asides from Akashima (which will be dealt with soon) so I think Althanas is already good enough in general.

[Elrundir]

I'm inclined to disagree with him just because the use of first-initial-middle-name irks me. >_>

But seriously though, I wouldn't want to rigidly rope Althanas into either of those two extremes: that is, neither a "rigidly structured, carefully defined world" nor "open ended". Though I guess you did say more open ended, so I'll go with that one. I just want to clarify that I don't mean something without a well-defined structure.

What I mean is that we do need some structure, so perhaps, to an extent, we need some world-building (which, by the way, I'm not even sure if I understand what it means, so I'm kind of operating on an assumption). The reason is that Althanas is a collective story, or a collection of stories, depending on how you choose to view it. If there's no scaffold, everyone will write as they please (because they'll have no other choice, will they?) and what you'll get is some crazy mish-mash of information and stories that don't make sense. When it's one person's story, this isn't as much of an issue, because you control everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. You know that this nation here is reclusive and hates outsiders, but that one there is famous for its hospitality. In a collective story, the need for defined structure arises. Otherwise you get one person writing that nation as reclusive, and the other as welcoming him with open arms and wild parties.

That's not to say we have to go overboard. Just cover the important things and, as they say, "don't sweat the small stuff." There doesn't have to be a clear, polarized divide between "writing" and "world-building", and on a collective site like Althanas, I think one synergizes well with the other.

[Sok]

I both agree and disagree with him.

I agree that as far as a written story goes, you shouldn't bog down the reader with a ton of things he or she doesn't need to know. On the other hand, it's really nice to build everything in background and notes, seperate from the story. That way as you write it becomes a simple matter of including what's relevant, and giving little hints about what's not. It creates a very stable platform to build the story off of, and after roadblocks are completed in the story it makes the writing less likely to feel fudged.

On a place like althanas though, I'm more in favor of a sort of general outline of what places are like, than trying to be too concrete about anything. There are a lot of people here with different ideas on what things should be like, it's good to be flexible.

World Building is Important, note the capital I, but can drag out and bog down the flow of a story if done in the wrong place.

[Fenris]

Consider the story of a man and a woman falling in love in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Readers of the tale will not likely be interested in how, when, why, or by whom Cheyenne was founded. They won't care who decided what the capital should look like, who built the main street, or why the commercial sector is where it is. That's not why they're reading the story.

But if the man and woman sit down in the Crossroads Cafe, located at 2310 W Lincolnway, for a casual dinner that ends up becoming a romantic date where they discover their love for each other...

Well, yeah, the plotline's cheasy. But the point is this: the story is not about Cheyenne, Wyoming. The story is in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And a bit of research will show that there is in fact a Crossroads Cafe at 2310 W Lincolnway.

Worldbuilding is a supplement that creates a real, rich, and ancient place, full of people, culture, animals, places, etc., in which the characters (which are what the audience is actually interested in) live and interract.

The story cannot revolve around worldbuilding, unless you plan to write for a secret cult of encyclopedia enthusiasts. The world you build serves only as a backdrop slightly superior to the backyard bedsheet theater. It gives us something to see out of the corners of our eyes as we watch the characters in the foreground, something that never commands our attention but subtly suggests that this world is not so unreal and unbelievable. Maybe, just maybe, it's more vivid and real than you think.

[dopebeatz]

You should include rich detail without pausing to explain why every detail is as it is. I think that's a succinct way of saying what he means and what all writers should try to do.

[Sevellus]

I find myself, many times in a few years of posting on Althanas, looking to the "other regions" forum to post my quests, mainly because I look at Haida and Raiaera and think "well, does the story I have in mind really suit these regions?"

And then I think, well, is my character catering to the website I'm posting on? Or is the website providing a backdrop to my character?

If it were my choice to make, I'd take it no further than "Raiaera is temperate, heavily wooded, and mainly populated by elves. If you are an elf, or want to have fun in the forest, go to this forum".

Even that is a bit restrictive, and once again, I might find myself looking to the Other Regions.

Although in this character's case, Raiaera completely suits my needs.

Upon registering this character, I was informed that I couldn't take a bladesinger as a class, because bladesingers exist on Althanas as a prestige title that a character can aspire to.

While, I had no problem with this because it was well described and still worked for what I intended to do, if I was anyone else, I believe I may have felt limited and dissuaded.

Relating directly to his blog entry, I think it's irrelivant, although it brings up other lines of debate that apply directly to Althanas.

He is speaking as a writer, and on Althanas, the people doing the world building are not the writers. It's the moderators. And while they are also writers, it is two separate positions. They can advance the world they are building with their characters, but other than that, the two are not related.

While its awesome to have things that people write in their quests directly affect the website, its also limiting to anyone who doesnt nessisarily want to participate in those story lines.

If i want to roleplay in a peaceful Raiaera, I have to pretend there's no war, or predate my quest. This might lead to any judgings by someone who does the writing for that continent feeling negatively, because they gave me a beautifully structured setting to work in, and I changed it to suit my needs.

Like wise, I could change my quest idea to suit the continent, but that leads back to the character's catering to the website, instead of vice versa which is what was intended.

Ultimately, one again, I'm off the the other regions forum.

This isn't to say that the work put into the continents isn't admired. I truely value all the work put into it, and being an avid dungeons and dragons player, I would love to have any of these continent writers DM'ing for me.

As a free-for-all creative writing forum however, I believe its somewhat limiting to the imagination and sometimes I admit once again, I do find myself wishing for a much less descriptive region to quest in.

I read in other people's posts in the tournament right now "with this and this going on on this continent, this is different for me"

Which leads me to feel like I'm out of the loop, simply because I have no desire to include myself in that story line, and that perhaps the judges will look more highly upon that person because of their effort to include Althanas' storyline in their own.

Or maybe, if it makes a better point, including their own storyline in Althanas'.

I really want to stress that the world building on Althanas is exemplary, on the whole, unless you're J.R.R. Tolkien, and half the fun of reading your stuff is pointing at one of your well detailed maps and saying "see? this is where this takes place", then it's really not needed.

EDIT:: Sorry, I don't think I made it apparent in the post, but I was just using Althanas as an example as to why I don't particularly agree with world building. I know the discussion wasn't related to Althanas itself.

[Rajani Aishwara]

Anyone here ever seen the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder? It's set in a real town in the US way back in the thirties. It's a very popular stage production, but I'm not exactly sure why. It is it's own paradox. I'll give it it's credit for being innovative in certain aspects, but it is cursed with World Building. There are three twenty minute long scenes where they do nothing but explain the way things are in Grover's Corners breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience. It's rediculous and boring. Why do we need to know that Grover's Corners is 98% Republican and that there are no African Americans there (we can tell that much by looking at the cast)? World Building in that sense is horrible.

I went to a writer's workshop in Greensboro NC last summer, which featured Orson Scott Card, writer of Ender's Game. He touched on the subject of world building. I'm going to try and quote him as best I can.
It's a big challenge for science fiction and fantasy writers to avoid pointless discriptions of these worlds that we create. I often find myself fighting the temptation to throw in a paragraph or two about the world my characters live in, and sometimes I do give in only to find myself deleting whole pages during a revision... Writer's are the original entertainers, so we of all people should know how to keep the audience's attention... It's imperative to remember that (even though a worldly event may be permitted here and there) the most successful books, plays, shows, and movies, are primarily character driven, not world driven.See that's exactly why I don't like to read Science Fiction and Fantasy books. Because for some reason Card is one of the very few who get it, and even then he still does it sometimes. I respect Lord Of The Rings as much as the next guy, but Tolkien's a victim of this too.

I'm a proponent of organic world building where the world and the details of such are seen through the eyes of the living characters. I'm preparing a quest in Akashima at the moment. Rajani makes note of the unorthadox architecture of the region, and someone bows to him refusing to shake his hand. It's relevant without freezing the story up, and I see a lot of people here who are aware of that. I think the majority of players on Althanas use organic world building very well.

As for Althanas' background information, I think Corone and Raiaera have it right. There's a fine line between inspiring creativity and constricting it. I don't like the fact that I have to mention getting an Exit Pass to get into Fallien. That's small and petty of me, and if I were asked to play in Fallien it wouldn't stop me, but it's still constricting and worth mention. Here's a much better example. I don't like the fact that I have to go through a hell of alot of effort to even lay eyes on an airship in Alerar when OOCly that is their signature feature.

[Massacre]

I think that having a description of the culture, general look, and important places on Althanas is important because otherwise the role-playing wouldn't really get anywhere. There would be thousands upon thousands of island names, city names, continent names, with no end. Either that or people would role-play in "the magic forest" where they see a "bustling town" on an "island continent" with no names. That would make it boring to me.

When you write a book I think including only what needs to be included is the right path. Bogging down the reader with useless information that doesn't have anything to do with the story is stupid, unless it tells why something is the way it is. Sometimes though, the main driving factor in a story is the history, resources, or culture of a place. This would make it necessary for the writer to include information relating to the topics of history, resources, or culture.

For example in the book Dune, it is mostly about the struggle between two societies on a world where whoever controls the resources controls everything. If you've ever read the book you probably enjoyed it despite the fact that you get a ton of facts about the society, religion, politics, and resources.

Despite the fact that the story does revolve around some main characters, those characters dramatically influence what happens in the world around them.

It depends on the plot of your literature in my opinion.