On World-Building

For me, world-building is usually quite easy, I have to admit that. Most of my stories are set in the here and now - more or less. Only the John Stanton series (volume two out in November 2019), the two volumes of “The Loki Files,” and the upcoming “Alex Dorsey” (out February 2020) need world-building in the sense of introducing the readers to a world they don’t know and don’t see daily - or can imagine easily from what they see daily. Jane in both varieties and also Inez from the Magpies series are settled in the 21st century very much as we know it (if with minor changes).

When I wrote the stories collected in the two volumes of “The Loki Files,” I very much made things up as I went along. The human world was a mirror of our own and I could go wild with Asgard, adding whatever I wanted. A structure emerged, the large palace inspired by the MCU, the Great Hall of Old Asgard (the time for the palace), the populace of around 12,000 individuals (including people from other realms). The structure of the realms emerged as well, putting the realm of the Sidhe right next to that of the humans - which has played a part in a story or two.

The same very much went for John Stanton’s Steampunk 2015 Britain. I set out with the first story and just made things up as I went along. With every new story, I could flesh out the world, the Bureau, and John’s family a little more. John’s older brother Lewis played a larger role in the second story (where he’s accused of a murder he didn’t commit) and Richard, another of John’s four brothers, was only properly introduced in the second story of the second volume. Since John doesn’t regularly do his job while he’s at home - even though his family might be around, forcing him to be very careful -, I had a lot of leeway with him for most parts. I built up his acquaintances faster than the world as a such, basing society heavily on my idea of late Victorian England, and added landmarks as needed. So far, the only specific room in Stanton Manor which I did describe in detail is John’s secret hideaway below the library - the room he usually has to himself and uses to contact his boss.

When I started writing “Alex Dorsey,” things were a little different. I was working with the modern world, but I had something in there which, as far as I know, doesn’t exist: vampires and other un-dead creatures. Therefore I have a bit of masquerade as well. Alex, her family, her clan, and her order know about the monsters, of course - as do some other clans around the world (one is named in the story). I played around with my own vampire lore, made two strains of vampires in Europe, the Drakul strain (based on Dracula, of course) and the Nosferatu strain (based on Murnau’s “Nosferatu”). I also made use of the idea that vampires were allergic to whitethorn - it saves Alex once during the story. What I came up with was a world interchangeable with ours, unless you are attacked by a vampire or belong to one of a handful of clans worldwide.

So I don’t need to do much world-building under normal circumstances, but I do appreciate the world-building others do. While I’m more partial to humorous takes on fantasy or science fiction, I do appreciate a good world-building everywhere. I do like the way Terry Pratchett (May The Clacks Forever Carry His Name) built his Discworld, I had a lot of fun with  Robert Asprin’s Myth Adventures (and the first two books of his Phule’s Company series - it goes downstream really fast afterwards). I do love the way Randall Garrett built his alternate 1980s reality with magic and a huge Franco-British empire. I had more fun with the Hobbit than with Lord of the Rings, though. There’s too much detail early in the books for my taste - I don’t want to start out with an essay on tobacco when I start reading a fantasy novel.

I generally think you shouldn’t overdo it in the first chapter. Yes, you have a new world. Yes, you need to tell the reader about the new things. But do it slowly, carefully. Start by only giving them information they immediately need. Infuse the scenes with some information which will come in handy later. And don’t forget about Chekov’s gun: If you introduce something in great detail, it should play a role in the plot. All elements of your world which get a big introduction, be it creatures, places, or customs, should be important for the story. You can introduce them early (but not a book or two or five early) and hope the reader remembers them, but at some point, they need to be important. Just like that gun: if you describe it in detail in chapter one, it should have been fired (at what or whom is your choice) by chapter three. The same goes for the ominous shadow flying overhead as the character hurries through the forest in chapter one of your fantasy novel or the robot which is somehow different in chapter two of your science fiction novel.

You need to know all about your world, of course, but it can take ages until you share that knowledge with the reader - and about ninety percent of the knowledge never gets shared in so many words, it just influences what you write.

You will have to dive deep into the world you build for your story, but you also will have to be very careful about how much of it you tell the reader and how much of it you dump on the audience early on. Usually, it’s much better to infuse the story with information as it becomes important and leave it to the reader to put everything together and form a picture in their mind. That, after all, is what reading is all about.