Place as Character: On the Art of World-Building

September 19, 2021 Write My Wrongs Co

As an editor, one of the things I find myself commenting on most frequently with my clients is world-building. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “world-building” means exactly what it sounds like it means: building the world your narrative is set in. So often, I come across authors with intriguing plot-lines and dynamic characters, but the plot and characters don’t really exist anywhere. Or they do exist somewhere, but it’s a vague somewhere. Readers don’t get to really see the environment in a way that would most benefit them. And that poses a problem because as most writers have heard at one point or another, your job is to “show, don’t tell.” This golden rule is intended to help writers remember that a reader wants to be immersed in a story. They want to feel like they know the characters on a personal level, they want to understand deeply the conflicts that arise, they want to know what the city looks like, they want to understand how law and order work in this place, they want to know how the air smells. Readers want to feel transported.

The main reason writers struggle with world-building is that for us, the world is already built. We don’t feel like we need to explain how a particular traffic light is always a few seconds off, leaving everyone at the intersection at a frustrating dead stop, because we already know that’s how the world we’ve built functions. We don’t feel like we need to explain unique marriage rituals set against a sci-fi backdrop because we already know how marriage in this setting works. We have everything down to the absolute last detail in our minds. But the reader isn’t in our minds. They might not even know that the town we’ve created has traffic lights, let alone that one of them is faulty. So we need to take the photos and blueprints in our heads, put them into words, and share them with the reader so they can see what we see. Otherwise, readers can only expect to be transported to a void if anywhere at all.

At Write My Wrongs, my goal is not only to figure out how to best serve the author but also how to best serve the reader. Luckily, by the very nature of the craft, those two things go hand in hand; what’s good for the reader is good for the writer. Because without a reader, there’d be no writer.

The Roots of World-Building

There’s a sensation that overcomes all of us at one time or another. We’ll be going about our daily lives, having dinner, mowing the lawn, exiting a grocery store, participating in any number of mundane tasks. And then we’ll catch the briefest, vaguest scent in the air, and without reason or anticipation, we’re suddenly transported to another era of our existence. We re-remember the acrid, unbearable lotion of a grade school teacher or the wooden back porch swing with a rotting plank. In these moments, our minds are telling us the stories of ourselves and of our histories, what life was like for a time before we’d come to forget. Writing, when done well, serves this very same purpose: It teaches us who we are. And who are we if not the places we’re from?

Throughout the history of modern language, stretching all the way back to times of cave drawings, the concept of “place” has played a critical role in storytelling. Maybe early on, that story was utilitarian in nature, a useful means of relaying information from one person to another. Maybe that story went something like, “There’s a small hole beneath the rock on the other side of that trifecta of reeds that casts an oblong shadow when the sun crests over the hill to our east. A snake lives there. Don’t get bit.”

And maybe later on, that story became less about issuing a warning and more about engaging in the intimacy of human connection. Maybe it went like, “This is the story of my home and of the house I grew up in, which aren’t one in the same though I can see why you’d think they would be. But I got hurt once in the house I grew up in, and I never went back, and so maybe there’s something to be said about how love is what makes a house a home.”

And maybe later still, stories won’t be so much about practicality or about intimacy but about remembrance and signing off. Maybe it will go, “Our planet is dying. Hope is lost. Resistance is futile. Here are a few things to remember us by.”

Whether set in a stone age village, at a foreclosed home on the outskirts of Chicago, or on a space station whistling back to Earth the final thoughts of our species, all stories have a place. And how an author uses that place helps dictate how meaningful and impactful the work will be for a reader.

World-Building in Practice

Perhaps the most obvious examples of powerful world-building come from fantasy and sci-fi stories. Consider, for example, what Game of Thrones would have been without Westeros, what Star Wars would have been without Endor, or what the Harry Potter series would have been without Hogwarts. A large part of the success of these narratives is the undeniable link they each share to the setting from which the narrative springs forth. And while these are clear, vibrant examples of fully realized realms of an author’s imagination, contemporary fiction settings are equally as significant, though perhaps less obvious. We often aren’t as wowed by a depiction of rural Kentucky as we are by a depiction of Mordor because even if we’re not Kentucky natives, there will still be more familiar elements we’ve seen before. That doesn’t make time spent on world-building any less critical, however. In fact, I’d argue it makes it more critical. We can understand at a glance the fundamental differences between King’s Landing and Tattooine. But what’s the difference between Charles Town, West Virginia, and Charleston, West Virginia? About 20,000 people, for starters.

If I was writing a story set in my own hometown of Salem, Wisconsin, how would the reader be able to differentiate between what it means to have a history of living in Salem rather than Kenosha or Mukwonago? Just because a reader could point to Salem on a map doesn’t mean they know Salem; it means they can see the single major intersection that makes up the town and the relative distance and direction of my hometown from their own. It wouldn’t be enough to say, “This is a story about a town called Salem and some things that happened there.” I would have to find the words to make this place different from all the other Wisconsin places. It would be up to me to say, “The building on the other side of the less-than-stellar breakfast joint (that serves less-than-less-than-stellar dinners) has housed approximately thirteen different sweet shops and not one of them has lasted, but people keep trying. And that neighborhood just across the town border in Paddock Lake is a neighborhood that looks like a lot of neighborhoods in Wisconsin, but this one is different because it’s where I watched my older brother bash Mike’s face in with a busted crutch he found inside of an equally busted plastic trash bin because he heard a rumor Mike put hands on me.” Now that I’ve said these things and painted several still images of very specific characteristics of a very specific place, the reader couldn’t possibly confuse Salem with anywhere else. It can only be the place with the perpetual sweet shop and the crutch beating. Ultimately, it would be my job to make my town feel as real and concrete and lived in as possible so when the reader is finished with my work, they can say to themselves, “I’ve almost been to Salem.”

Consider again what Winter’s Bone would be without the Ozark Hills. Or what William Faulkner’s stories would be without Yoknapatawpha County. Or what just about anything written by Stephen King would be without Derry, Maine. Anyone who’s read IT can now say to themselves, “I’ve almost been to Derry.” (Though if you want to actually go to Derry, you’ll have to settle for Bangor.)

Stories, like people, are just as much about the places they come from and the places that inspired their creation as human beings are. Who are we without our homes? Who are we without our histories? Who are we without our roots? And ultimately, what are stories without the worlds we build around them?

The Roots of World-Building

World-Building in Practice

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