Worldbuilding Wednesday #2: Cool Rules for Cool People
::takes chair, turns it backwards, sits down in it facing the class like, hey, I’m one of you, a red-blooded human being who used to be younger but now I’m older because that’s how time works::
So, you want to build worlds, huh? Well, friend, I don’t know if you came to the right place, but you are in my place, so let’s make sure you’re comfy.
::finds you a blanket, some hot cocoa, a lil snack::
Okay, great. Let’s get started.
So, last week, we talked about beginnings which are important. And in that discussion, there was discussion of rules and knowing when to adhere to them and break them.
Now, you’re the writer. You can break whatever rule you good and well please, and you should, hashtag power to the people and all that. But, you must ask yourself: will it make for a good story?
Let’s define that word. Much like we defined worldbuilding for our own purposes, let’s see if we can set up some loose boundaries of what a story IS.
Story: A written, oral, aural, tactile, or visual movement of characters from one state to another. These aesthetics can be combined at will to produce various mediums of story.
That’s it. That’s it? It is! At its barest bones, a story is the recounting of movement, often of people, as they find themselves in situations that require them to change. Whether or not they do is part of that story.
Are there literally uncountable examples where the above is NOT true? 10 million percent yes. But you can’t push against the foundation until you know it, and that’s what we’re here to do.
Where worldbuilding comes in is as we discussed last week: scaffolding to help build up, flesh out, and hold your story strong against the reader attempting to poke holes in it, against characters trying to make narrative miracles happen. In this way, worldbuilding can be a hindrance which is a good thing; stories require challenge. In a world where anything goes, there are no stakes and so the worst sin is committed: a story is boring.
Let us always attempt to write interesting stories, friends. Even if they suck, they suck in an INTERESTING way. Like a first time masseuse who can’t bear to touch people, they’re not good at their job but at least it’s interesting!
Let’s look at ways worldbuilding can help a story, stall a story, and how worldbuilding can make a story richer and stronger in ways that either complicate or solve the narrative!
The situation: A young woman named Renna has been trapped in the ancient forest throne room of a ghost-queen who wants her body to return to life. Renna does not want this but knows she cannot just leave. She must solve her way out of this.
We have characters. We have a location. We have magic. We have stakes. Let’s examine how worldbuilding can affect this scene:
1: Adding structure to the story - Worldbuilding can guide you as a writer and give you structure. For example, maybe in this world the ghost-queen, as either someone dead or someone not mortal, must abide by certain rules. Maybe this gives Renna a chance to escape. Immediately, there is a structure to follow and/or upend, but there are next steps that drive the movement. Maybe they are trials, bargains, riddles, feats of strength, a test of some kind, etc. But it gives us somewhere to go, deepens the world, and raises our stakes because now Renna could fail.
2: Stalling a story - Worldbuilding can stall a story when there is either too much extraneous information, action that provides no movement, (movement being narrative not physical), or solutions that appear from nowhere. Some examples being the ghost-queen’s great-great-great-great-grandmother somehow being a solution, told in exact and excruciating detail. Another being, Renna talks to the ghost-queen but they go in circles, with nothing happening. Or, oh look, Renna happens to have salt, a candle, and a brass key in her pocket, EXACTLY needed to banish the ghost-queen. Neat. Blech.
3: Complicate a story, Bad - Any of the above from #2 but in a way that kills movement, denies character change, or goes nowhere. Example: ghost-queen captures Renna, locks her in a basement, the bars are warded, she is in the dark, there is no one around, and she can’t escape because blah blah blah. You stick a character in a hole with no way out, you know what you get? A character in a hole with no way out.
4: Complicate a story, Good - The more specific you can get, the more clever, the more rewarded and engaged the writer will feel. Case in point: maybe Renna does have something in her pockets, but it’s the wrong stuff. Silver shears from fabric work, or some loose peppercorns from the kitchen. Maybe time moves differently here and thinking she had 1 day, maybe Renna has only 1 hour to escape. Maybe Renna’s head begins to throb and the old birthmark on her cheek begins to burn. These are all little things to add to the story, raise questions and stakes, and demand movement and answers, you just need to, you know, answer them.
Again, scaffolding. You’re not trying to build a building on top of your building. You want just enough to make the world feel lived in, with its own rules that make sense, and has characters that know how to move through it (mostly).
So what’s a potential good example of this for Renna and this potential body-stealer? Let’s try this, picking and choosing from each above:
Renna fell into this old throne room because she was running home from a clandestine meeting in the woods. Her girlfriend, a soldier in a neighboring country, is trying to defect and Renna was racing home to prepare the way for her. Having fallen into the old throne-room, the ghost-queen desires her body because she is in love, something the ghost-queen is feeling as well, for an old flame from that same country Renna’s girlfriend is from. But the queen is dead and Renna is not, and having waited so long, the ghost-queen attempts to possess her. However, Renna is a child of the country the queen used to rule; the queen cannot magically hurt her or possess her. But she also will not let Renna go. So Renna proposes a traditional duel that used to happen between those neighboring soldiers: skill, will, and wit. If she wins, she escapes; if she fails, the queen takes her body . . .
Does this set up work? Maybe! We all must love and forgive a first draft.
But I think it does a lot. Renna has real emotional stakes, a reason to escape, quickly. A connection to the queen where she can’t be hurt, but she also doesn’t have to be obeyed. The queen’s emotions mirror Renna’s, even if misplaced, and if written well, we’ll understand her sorrow, too. (Villains need not always be sympathetic, but sometimes it helps to remember people are people, even when they behave horribly.) And we have movement, this duel. Which means one way or the other, by the end, we’ll have a winner.
Where do we go from here? I dunno! But you can see how a little thoughtful worldbuilding provides structure, stakes, movement, and a few specific details help give us some boundaries on what is and isn’t possible, AND some complications that we will navigate and hopefully keep the reader’s interest.
So, long story short: you can do anything you want, especially if it’s cool and you like it. But be careful that what you include adds to the story and doesn’t weigh it down.
Ending prompt: A monk awakens to find their whole cloister gone, and sitting in the middle of the library is a massive owl, eating books. The owl asks, “Who?” The monk is sworn to silence.
Go forth and build!
Listening to: Bella Ramsey’s version of “Take On Me” from The Last of Us TV Show
Reading: Hellions by Julia Elliott
