World Building

Lecture 5, 6, and 8 from wsff

• 44:00

• Lecture 8

• 32:00

• Sanderson’s Laws

• Iceberg Theory

• World Building seems to define the SFF genre, but is one of the least important aspects of the story.

• World Building should be in service to the story

• Probably avoid info dumps

• Show don’t tell

• Pyramid of abstraction - move towards concrete with fewer words when possible

• The setting becomes a character unto itself

• Physical Setting - “Nature”

  • weather
  • tectonic activity
  • map
  • flora
  • fauna
  • magic law
  • cosmology
  • how things look
  • terrain
  • climate
  • races

• Cultural Setting - “Manmade”

  • religion
  • government
  • economics
  • gender roles
  • borders
  • fashion
  • food culture
  • history
  • rites of passage
  • hierarchy
  • taboos
  • languages
    • greetings
    • swears
  • military

• You could probably spend your lifetime fully building a world

• It’s better to focus on a few aspects of world building well, instead of everything a little

• Q&A