Solid, consistent worldbuilding creates a culture that adds
valuable texture to a story.
By the same
token, careless or confusing worldbuilding can confuse readers and detract from
the plot.
So let’s look at the process of creating a setting.
1. Pick The
Setting. This doesn’t mean merely
choosing a spacefaring society or a post-apocalyptic or medieval or urban or
rural backdrop. It includes choosing the
cultural details that will enrich the characters’ quest.
Joss Whedon’s series Firefly
is set in a spacefaring society with varying levels of sophistication and
urbanization. Some planets are high-tech
and urbanized while others resemble America’s Old West. It’s not totally American-influenced, though,
because people curse in Chinese. According
to a Firefly interview video on science.discovery.com, the show’s backstory
posits that the United States and China were the only surviving
superpowers. The clash of cultures and
choices of government is an ongoing source of conflict in the episodes.
Laura Anne Gilman’s Retrievers and Paranormal Scene
Investigations series take place in a modern, urban setting but incorporate
magical creatures out of myths and legends, like angels, fauns, brownies,
demons, and dragons. Gilman also
distinguishes modern magic, or electrical current manipulation, from the older
magic of the world’s wild places. The
result is a setting that not only conveys layers and textures in a few words
but sets the stage for conflict as humans try to control or eliminate the fae.
2. Keep It Simple. Whedon and Gilman pull in different cultural influences but
not every possible one. They picked and
chose the ones that would most complement their stories.
Jessica Andersen uses Mayan mythology to power her
Nightkeepers’ magic. This fits
beautifully with her overall plot, the Nightkeepers’ efforts to avert the 2012
apocalypse the Maya foretold. She
doesn’t bring any a lot of other cultural influences. Maybe that’s as well because the plots
involve escalating stakes from one book to the next, travel to far-flung
locations, and a lot of explosive action.
Linnea Sinclair’s science fiction romances take place in a
futuristic society with faster than light space travel. This world includes alien races but is, in
many ways, an extension of our society.
The clashes that occur and the obstacles her characters face often arise
from the power structure and from issues within that society.
3. Remember the
Stakes: The bigger, the better on this one. Sustaining a fantasy or science fiction
series always requires high stakes. The
bigger the stakes, the wider the potential consequences, the more scope the
series has as it builds.
The Retrievers series revolve around escalating conflict
between humans and fae incited by a secret organization who wants to control
those with magical gifts, known as Talent.
As the conflict escalates, it takes its toll on the relationship of the
heroine, Wren Valere, and her partner and lover, Sergei Didier.
In Ann Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax series, which just concluded,
the characters fight for the freedom of peoples and planets. The struggle periodically forces Jax and her
lover, March, apart and creates uncertainty in the relationship.
Although there are still paranormal romances where the risks
and rewards are mostly personal, the subgenre increasingly involves high
stakes. Alexis Morgan’s Paladins are
protecting the world. The Nightkeepers
are the world’s only hope of avoiding an apocalypse.
4. Choose the
Characters’ Gifts: If the story is science fiction, maybe the characters don’t
have any unusual gifts. They could be
part of the military or a rebel alliance or the crew of a starship going where
no one has gone before.
Giving them some special ability, however, broadens the
scope of the possible. If the heroine is
a Jedi who can move objects with the Force, she may not need to engage
hand-to-hand. If she’s one of the few
who can navigate grimspace, as Jax does, her ship can escape pursuers who lack
such a navigator. If the science officer
can render people unconscious by pinching their necks or obtaining information
with a mind meld, that gives the author options to explore.
There’s one important caveat to this. As Hugo and Nebula Award winner Orson Scott
Card notes in How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, magic needs a
price. If the hero can use his telepathy or telekinesis or magic indefinitely
with no price paid for it, the magic system seems less believable. The conflict also suffers because omnipotence
is boring.
Any magic system needs both rules and limits. Once those are set, the author should stick
to them or have--and share--a very good reason why this instance is an
exception. The world can be whatever the
author wants it to be, but it needs internal consistency. If a character can translocate in book 1, but
not in book 2, the reader needs to know why, and the reason needs to apply the
next time a similar situation arises.
That brings me to the last step:
5. Use What You’ve
Created. Obvious, right? Maybe not. If an
author creates a world with, for example, influences of French culture, that
world might have a judicial system based on the Napoleonic Code. It might use red, blue, and white stripes on
its flag, and French phrases may pepper the language. That may be all that appears in the first
book.
Down the road, though, the French cultural base opens the
door to bring in other French customs.
Salic law, the prohibition of inheritance via the female line, comes
from the French. If a world is
established as having strong French influence, and if earlier stories contain
nothing to the contrary, the author can later tell us this doctrine is part of
the world.
Conclusion Worldbuilding is important in every genre to some degree or
other. In paranormal romance, fantasy,
and science fiction it’s vital. I hope
these tips will help you create your story’s canvas.
Thanks to the FF&P chapter for having me today and to
Nancy Lee Badger for setting this up.
Book blurb for Renegade:
SHE ENFORCES THE RULES
As the mage council's sheriff
for the southeastern United States, Valeria Banning doesn't just take her job
seriously, she takes it personally. So when a notorious fugitive and supposed
traitor risks his life to save hers, she has to wonder why. To find the answer,
she’ll have to put everything on the line, starting with her heart.
HE BREAKS EVERY ONE OF THEM
As a mage, Griffin Dare is
sworn to protect innocents from dark magic, which is how he finds himself
fighting side by side with the beautiful Valeria Banning. But when the council
finds out the two have been working together, the pair must run for their
lives--from the law, the threat of a ghoul takeover, and a possible council
mole.
NOW THEY ARE
EACH OTHER’S ONLY HOPE
Author bio:
Nancy Northcott’s
childhood ambition was to grow up and become Wonder Woman. Around fourth grade, she realized it was too
late to acquire Amazon genes, but she still loved comic books, science fiction,
fantasy and YA romance. A sucker for
fast action and wrenching emotion, Nancy combines the romance and high stakes
she loves in her new contemporary mage series.
Her debut novel, Renegade, is
a November 6, 2012, release from Grand Central Forever Yours.
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