Worldbuilding

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true."--Irving Caesar

Worldbuilding can be critical to a good novel, and it doesn't hurt even if the reader never sees half the work you put into it. I suspect the effort involved is why some writers continue series ad nauseam: so they don't put worldbuilding to waste. (I'd rather start a new world.) It depends on the story: some don't rely on milieu details, and in a short story you have so little space you can only put in the salient details.

Bad worldbuilding can kill a setting's credibility for a discerning reader. Not that you need to know all the details before you start writing, but it helps to know the major ones. There's nothing worse than realizing halfway through a novella that the ecology upon which you've based your plot doesn't work. Small details, however, can be changed or filled in as you go along. I keep a list of Things to Research and interior notes as I write; use whatever method works for you. Consult public libraries, friends ("Writers don't have friends, they have resources"--I don't remember whether Paul Urayama or I said it first, though probably he did), and magazines like National Geographic (if I had to recommend just one magazine for a would-be speculative fiction writer, this might be it) or Scientific American. Catalogues can also be unexpected sources of knowledge and pictures.

Other more comprehensive resources are Patricia C. Wrede's Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions on the SFWA website, or Beth Burdick's Society Building Checklist.

In the meantime, I offer a quick checklist of things to consider.

Geography and world: Knowledge of topography helps. Geology? Even better. You can fudge this if you're focusing on a small area, but it's better to get a feel for geography by looking at maps of the real world. Pay attention to climate and weather patterns if they're a factor. For sf, you probably need astronomy. Avoid the "swamp/mud/desert/etc." planet syndrome unless you have something specifically worked out (or you're writing parody). Real planets needn't be homogeneous. Consult your local friendly physics major, grad student, or prof.

Ecology: I've always wondered at role-playing games where you have underground dungeons with dysfunctional ecologies. Maybe enough unfortunate adventurers die underground to provide an entire ecology of dragons, molds and trolls nutrition. Uh-huh. (Next quibble: why do non-hoarding creatures always have hoards of treasure?) If magic or high technology is involved, fine. Figure out how it's involved and avoid the dysfunctional dungeon syndrome.

People and culture: Work out phenotypes if you can, unless you have a "melting pot" situation. Cultures and relationships between them don't hurt. Basing cultures off real ones is fine: it's a great source for ideas if you're willing to put in the research/reading time. However, a few have been much-trodden: the generic medieval European setting, the feudal Japanese analogue. Consider other details: food, burial rituals (if, indeed, they use burial), whether the family name (if any) goes first or last.

Don't assume that because things work one way in your culture that they'll be invariant across all cultures. (I wonder how many tourists have been screwed over by this assumption.) If you've visited a foreign country for any length of time, or if you have a multicultural background, you'll understand this. When you're writing, you need to strike a (difficult) balance between cultural realism and comprehensibility (to your average, stubbornly monocultural Westerner).

Related to culture are myth and history. Every culture has its lore, whether in the form of fairytales or urban myth. If you figure out the history of a tribe or nation or civilization, your work will be all the richer. A well-worked-out history brings greater consistency into the development of your imaginary societies. Not all history is the result of chance; people have motivations and reactions, and in an aggregate way, so do nations.

Let's not forget languages. Do the local nations speak the same or related languages, and if so, why? Perhaps they were once territories of an empire. (Latin and the Romance languages, anyone?) Or perhaps two adjacent countries speak vastly different languages, but a creole between them has sprung up. How is culture reflected in language, or vice versa? You don't need to be Tolkien, but an awareness of linguistics can help. The web has many conlang (constructed language) sites that can help you either create language-skeletons for use in your stories, or at least learn the basics of linguistics. A good place to start is The Language Construction Kit, and I have some more links on linguistics and conlangs. If you'd rather avoid the issue, my article on Languages in Role-Playing Games might be helpful.

For aliens, you'll also need some biology and chemistry and an inkling of how and why they evolved. (This can be lightened if you're doing space opera, high fantasy, morality plays, etc.) Even in fantasy, I'm more convinced by creatures (magical or otherwise) that fit into their ecologies. If you can portray alien-ness as close as we humans can get to it, rather than humans in funny suits or magical horses with agendas or bipedal feline-folk, you're doing something well.

Also consider government and law. Codes of honor? Democracies? Feudal systems? (Many sf novels posit feudalistic empires, even the ones with faster-than-light travel and impossibly good communications. I'm not terribly convinced, though not terribly unconvinced.) What is the source of a government's legitimacy? Add bureaucracy; there's paperwork (or equivalent) in any sizable political body. Do some reading on political science--comparative government is a good place to look.

Social institutions: where are they and what are they? Is formal education (of whatever kind) common for children, or children of a certain class? Apprenticeship? What is the local definition of "family"--or is there one? Custom is at least as strong a force as explicit law...sometimes deadlier to the unwary. Are travelers to be welcomed or stoned? How are communities organized and who are the authorities? What of those who live outside the system?

Magic: Some people handle it better than others. And there are so many ways to handle magic, including ones that haven't yet been invented, that I shan't try to detail them. A good rule of thumb is to set limits on magic, even definite rules, and stick by them. (There are exceptions. Patricia McKillip's portrayals of magic are spontaneous and lyrical. But not everyone can write such beautiful prose.) Let magic have consequences; work out how it fits into society and its development. Another thought: does magic and/or its practices evolve? I've seen many books where the same old spells are used generation after generation, with no new research or experiment. Spells must come from somewhere. Who thought them up at first? (Unless they weren't thought up. And under some systems that's entirely possible.)

In my story "Counting the Shapes" (F&SF June 2001), there are several kinds of magic, but the one that's the focus of the story is based on axioms and theorems--is math made into tangible metaphor. That's somewhat specialized (I was careful not to get too technical) but there are interesting, nonstandard systems waiting to be used.

Science and technology: As per magic, strangely enough (or perhaps not, if you think of Clarke's Law). If you read a history of science you'll discover that, through many times and places, science wasn't static, and its discoveries didn't progress as neatly as you might guess from reading a physics or chemistry textbook. Historically, scientific discoveries are messy and confusing. For sf, unless you're doing space opera, make sure your science is accurate, or a decent extrapolation. Exception: someone once said you're allowed one outrageous premise per story, and it's a good rule of thumb. With a dozen outrageous premises, you're back to dealing with (effectively) magic.

The arts: what arts are common? Weaving, dream-catchers, woodwork (and stencils, and découpage, and...), sculpture, pottery, painting, chalkings and sand-drawings, mask-making, tattoos. Architecture: don't feel limited by the mainstays, like fantasy inns and taverns or run-down spaceports. If you're only familiar with Western-style architecture, look at how other cultures have dealt with the twin imperatives of climate and aesthetics. Or music: I've seen too many stories where harps and lutes dominate. What about zithers? Thumb pianos? Jew's harps (the name is probably a corruption of "jaw," because of the way it's played, and doesn't as far as I know have any connection to Jewry), mandolins, balalaikas, recorders, bagpipes, concertinas, dulcimers, lithophones (sometimes made of jade, in China), talking drums, tom-toms, chimes...the list goes on.

Alert worldbuilders will have spotted many omissions, but for the beginner, this should be a decent starting point.

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