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Sometimes you need to build a fictional world from a set of broad ideas. To do this you need to find and set the edges of the world and consider features of the physical and social environment.
I have said in Parts I and II of this series, that a ‘big picture’ approach to world building does not work for creating a setting that feels real to an audience. Instead, I advocate building from small details and fragments of story to create a sense that the world exists outside of the confines of the story. This is all true, both on the page and in the experience of the audience. It is the approach that produces the best results, but is there a place for building breaking this rule and adopting the big picture approach? Of course there is.
When to Look Down
The wonderful thing world building from fragments of story and details is that it can lead anywhere. You can take opportunities to texture the world as you move through it. You can imagine first and explain later. It is wonderfully free and enabling, and it creates a real sense of a world that is alive. But if you start to follow a thread of details, it might lead you to something wonderful, or it might lead you astray. It is boundless, and that can be a trap – sometimes you need boundaries. You need to know if something fits into the broader needs of the world you are building. You need to define the boarders of your creation.
“…sometimes you need boundaries. You need to know if something fits into the broader needs of the world you are building. You need to define the boarders of your creation.”
The same need is there, even more so, when working with other people. Free-flowing world-building in a shared world is not just possible, but one of the best ways of making something amazing. But without some boundaries or guiding truths, though, it can devolve into a mess.
In both these cases you need to look at the world you are making from on high before you start a journey of discovery.
What to Paint into the Big Picture
So, you need to do some big picture world building, what approach do you take? All the limitations with this approach that I talked about in Build Worlds Part I still apply. It does not create that tactile, eye level feel of a real world. It still has the tendency to become a dry history dissertation with all the relatability of a Wikipedia page. With that in mind start your big picture by ditching the idea that you need to define all of this world, even in summary. You need to know where the edges of the big picture are, and what the ground truths are, but this is subject to the needs of the story and character. What are the characters going to know, to see and touch, to rely on? What is their assumed knowledge and immediate experience of the world? That is what you need to include.
For example, let’s say we are working with a story that involves a city in a fantasy world without magic. That it involves a city, is not part of our world, and that there is no magic gives us our first edges of definition. These facts cut away a huge number of possibilities: no dragon taxis, no wizard kings, or angel police. And before we get close to anything like systems of politics and law, we are going to have to know what the city is like physically – what’s the weather, what types of building are there, what are the sounds of the streets in the day and at night.
Why? because these things are going to be immediately apparent to any character in that city. It’s the environment of the story. The same applies to anything else that is distinctive in the environment – if a layer of smog covers the city, or if it’s summer and there are open drains adding their perfume to the air. Similarly, we need to know that a river runs through it, that mountains bound it on both sides and a spire rises from the palaces on the northern bank. Why? Because if a character looks up, that is what they will see.
You need to know enough about the world for both you and the characters to orientate themselves. If you are going to be telling a story that involves the Mercantile Spire, then you need to know that that is on the Northern Bank of the city in the middle of a sprawl of smaller buildings. If you don’t, then you will not be able to say where a character is in relation to it, at least not consistently. And the audience will notice. If you are building a world that exists visually, on film or in a computer game, for example, then orientation and consistency is even more important. Big and unmissable features, that’s what people orientate by, and they are what can help your definition of the world you are building.
“Big and unmissable features, that’s what people orientate by, and they are what can help your definition of the world you are building.”
This is not just about geography though, but rather about the senses – what are the significant things that the character will sense at a general level – meaning noting that the city is hot in summer, rather than mapping out the average annual temperatures and rainfall. And with that mention of annual we come on to the next most important things to define – the social environment.
Just as a character feels heat, coughs from smog, or has to cross a bridge to get over a river, they will perceive qualities in the people around them. How do they talk about time – because people always talk about time? Is it in seasons? Do they have weeks? If so, how long is a week? Do people smile? Do they not make eye contact with each other? Are they loud, quiet, dour, welcoming, or cold? Is there obvious social friction between factions, castes, classes, professions, districts, or races? Is there wealth, or poverty, or both? What is the mood, what are the norms that a person would notice during an ordinary day? You do not need to know how or why these things are – that can be either decided later, or act like a dot on the map discussed in Build Worlds Part II and offer the promise of unexplored depth.
The same rule of thumb applies to power structures, and figures of authority. Are they part of the everyday conversation and life of the world? If so, then it is worth noting them along with anything that a visitor might pick up. In a city that is the capital of an industrial monarchy, it is impossible to not know that it is ruled by a monarch, for example. You don’t need to know that the monarch has three Peers of Close Council who enact their commands, but you might need to know that they have a Royal Police that wear grey cloaks and walk the streets looking for those who do not show the proper respect to the symbols of the crown.
All of this boils down to a rule of thumb that you want to give yourself enough definition to orientate yourself as a creator in this world, and enough that the characters can orientate too, but no more than that. Resist the temptation to create everything to the same level of definition. Give yourself space, allow for there to be unknowns and room for the world to grow.
John French
September 2024
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Edited by Greg Smith
Written without AI
