mxpw's Scribe Theater Three Thousand

So it seemed like the first part of my two-part introspective on Frea was a fair success. Awesome. I wasn’t sure how it’d go over, but people seemed to like it and find some merit to my analysis. And that’s good, because Frea has ordered me to do the second part, and well, I’d like to avoid the lash, so here it is.

The point of this column is world building: what it is, how you do it, and how do you do it well? These are all tricky questions to answer, as quality world building is fundamental to quality writing, and without it, your story will almost certainly fall apart.



Fortunately, we have somebody here in Frea that is very good at world building. I’d say that it’s one of her strong suits as a writer. One of the reasons why is because she has a very active imagination, but that’s not necessary (though it sure helps) to creating a successful alternate world. What you really need is detail, detail, and detail. You need to be meticulous in that detail, and perhaps most importantly of all, you must be consistent in that detail. If you introduce something in Chapter One, that idea must apply to the rest of your story for eternity, unless you are breaking it for a very good, very intentional reason. If you don’t, it will pull the reader straight out of your story (I once read a book where one character’s eyes changed half way through the book for no discernible reason other than it seemed like the author forgot). And when you pull your reader out of your story, you lose your reader.

What is world building?

World building is everything. You might think that goes without saying, considering the term, but it’s true nonetheless. World building encompasses everything in your story, from your characters, their physical characteristics, where they live, what kind of society you’ve created, the political situation, the “rules” of your universe, everything. It’s not just developing the magical rules for a magical society or creating a Jedi code, it’s also deciding stuff like Chuck eats cheeseballs when depressed or cleans to relieve stress. It’s dressing a training dummy up in a dress and corpse-like makeup (and then writing a whole one-shot from the dummy’s perspective).

From the very first page of the book till the last, everything in between becomes your whole world. Frea described it to me as a closed-ecosystem and that’s a good analogy. Everything affects everything. When world building, sometimes the smallest, most innocuous changes can affect everything because your world is self-contained. It’s like tossing a pebble into a pond, the ripples spread out and the pond is no longer the same. Every detail counts. You can create a world that mirrors reality except for a few minor differences (and yet those minor changes make all the difference) or you can create a whole new world from the ground up, like Tolkien or Robert Jordan.

How do you do it?

World building is actually pretty easy; it’s the staying consistent with your details that are the hard part. Chuck the show is not really a good example to emulate in this regard, as their world building (not to mention, continuity) is so full of holes that you could drive a whole platoon of tanks through. All the characters on the show suffer in this regard, though I think Casey is probably the worst offender. Don’t be like them.

The best way I’ve found to stay consistent with your world building is to take copious notes. Document everything. It may seem like a lot of work at first, but it will prove invaluable later on, especially if you are doing a project of considerable length (like a novel). You don’t want to inadvertently screw up the magic rules in your magical universe because you forgot what did what.

Here’s a handy guide I use when I’m doing my original work, though it could easily apply to fanfic as well. Now I’m not saying that you have to do this (in fact, I’d encourage you to develop a system that works best for you), it’s just an example of some of the things I do when I’m developing a character, and it is by no means exhaustive:

Name:
Also Known As:
Sex:
Age:
Hair:
Eyes:
Height:
Weight:
Ethnicity:
Nationality:
Father:
Mother:
Siblings:
Significant Other:
Occupation:
Affiliations:
Physical Description:
Abilities:
Disposition:
Beliefs:

This allows me to stay consistent with my details, because I can just refer back to my notes. Not only does it let me develop my character, but I can also develop the societal/political/economical framework that surrounds that character just by filling in some of the blanks. I do this for every character, even the minor ones, because by fleshing out the characters with as much detail as possible, you flesh out your world (for example, Fates is really only half a story. Frea spends almost as much time developing the background of her alternate universe, stuff that never even makes it into Fates, as she does developing the stuff you do see).

Every character should be connected in some way to another character and the plot. If they’re not, then they probably shouldn’t exist. A list of features like up above allows me to explore those connections to the fullest and round out my world (for example, just by determining “Occupation,” I actually end up giving context to quite a bit of the surrounding world). If I’m writing something where I have a completely different societal framework from what we are used to in the real world, well, I then plan that out by writing up a summary and exploring those differences.

In Fates, one of the major differences from canon that Frea has developed over time is the addition of the Gwen Davenport character. She may seem like a relatively minor character (indeed, I believe she’s only actually appeared in three out of forty-three chapters), yet her influence on the turn of events is huge. Because of her, the threat of Chuck being confined to a bunker doesn’t exist (which is a huge change from canon). Because of Gwen, Chuck has an advocate with the government and they’re not allowed to browbeat him like they do in canon. Basically, because of Gwen, the entire relationship between Chuck and the government is wildly different from canon and this is a major way that Frea has used her world building skills to make Fates into an alternate universe/reality. Chuck’s perception of his role as a spy and of the government has changed, Sarah’s perception has changed, Graham and Beckman’s perception of Chuck has changed, the fears and threats are different, the punishments are different, the character interaction is different, and all this because of Gwen Davenport.

How do you do it well?

Initially, I was going to do a detailed analysis of Chapter One of What Fates Impose, as that is the perfect example of how to world build and how to do so with authority (basically, whatever you do, commit to it). But this post is already too long and I’ve probably bored you by now, so I’m not going to do it. Maybe I’ll save it for a rainy day. To world build well, it really only comes down to one thing: consistency. Be consistent, commit to the world you’re building, and know where you’re going. Once you do that, everything will fall into place.

I hope that this has proved helpful to you. Feel free to ask any questions you want, I’ll do my best to answer them. Or, feel free to tell me I’m full of it. Either way, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

For my next post, I think I will be taking a look at how to write a quality action scene, in honor of Sarah Walker getting her Rambo on in 4.09.