Setting and Worldbuilding - Beyond Kingdoms and Spells

For ten months, I've ruminated over worldbuilding. I've realized the significant flaw when trying to learn about worldbuilding.

A lot of people think of Character, Plot, Setting, as distinct elements. And they are. But for a good narrative, and especially for a great one, these all merge and interweave.

Most people create their worlds like they're trying to make an RPG, like Dungeons and Dragons. They sit down. They pen the magic system. Maybe spend a ten hour binge read on famous Roman battles and tactics. 

And people would rant about the worlds they built. I believed there was a lack of focus on culture. On how people interacted. Their festivities, art, sculptures, natural disasters, regional differences, political groups, architecture.

Most people focus on the war aspect of worldbuilding and on the weaponry. Those who don't focus on that, focus on the cool spells. Then, they focus on religion. And I believed that was highly simplistic (even if writing a war is pretty fun ngl).

“Otaku? The people I hate most are those gun otaku. Speaking honestly, I think they’re really low level, and out of firearm fans, the pistol nuts are the worst. They’re the ones that have the most immature character traits left over. Ha ha, don’t you agree?” - Hayao Miyazaki

The significant flaw I found was as follows: Their world and characters had nothing to do with each other. No one explains how to make the world matter to the plot.

Worldbuilding articles talk about logistics and geopolitics, but rarely about why this world is. 

Setting is the most underdeveloped part in many stories.

If your drama is set among the gated estates of West L.A., we won’t see homeowners protesting social injustice by rioting in their tree-lined streets, although they might throw a thousand-dollar-a-plate fund-raiser. If your setting is the housing projects of East L.A.’s ghetto, these citizens won’t dine at thousand-dollar-a-plate galas, but they might hit the streets to demand change. - Robert Mckee

Your world is a character, a plot, a theme. An integral part of a greater story. Whether that be through antagonism in form of the cruel fashion industry in Devil Wears Prada, or through heroism in form of inspiring tales of Guardians in Guardians of Ga'Hoole, the world services as a part of the piece. 

Therefore, the world should be part of the main conflict. Such as in Honkai Star Rail's Jarilo-VI storyline. 

You've made a choice go fight against your fate

Pain will come with the blade

Pain will wake up the despondent crowd in this dormant world somehow. -Wildfire. 

Honkai Star Rail's first mission is beautiful. You enter a planet smothered by frost due to the effects of a Stellaron. The Stellaron sends out monsters that attack anybody on the surface and also wants to ultimately end all life.

There is only one city on the surface, named Belobog, where there are people on top . . . and the people underground. A pretty straightforward way of talking about class divisions. The people underground are known as living in the Underworld.

The Underworld was cut off from the Overworld, with the people in the Overworld unaware of the struggles down below. The Overworld believes the Underworld is living fine meanwhile they have to fight the monsters of the stellaron. The Underworlders, meanwhile, are struggling against isolation and limited resources. 

The Overworld is ruled by Cocolia Rand the Supreme Guardian.

The Underworld is led by Wildfire who wants to break their way back to the top of the world. 

Meanwhile, Svarog the robot who lives in the Underworld, wants to protect the Underworlders because he believes everyone will survive better underground with geothermal heating.

At the final battle against the Stellaron, the player talks to computer god, and he gives out the Fire Lance. The symbolic flames of rebellion against a world Preserved by Ice.

Come to think, the Underworld is an odd name. That sounds more like a place of death. Well, in myths and legends of Jarilo-VI, the land of death is described as a lush jungle where birds migrate to for winter. So if the land of death in mythology is a lush jungle, then the place literally named after "the land of death" in real life (underworld) is where we get our best chances at truly saving all life.

(Even more interesting is the story ties to Slavic Mythology and Folklore, such as how Jarilo-VI is even named after a Slavic God of the Sun and Spring.)

The worldbuilding in this game isn't just about factions or war, but also about the theme. The dystopian aspect works a lot better here than in other stories, because instead of just being about class tensions, the dystopia is more a metaphor about Action against Inaction. Everyone prays to Computer God of Preservation. The Supreme Guardians keep the world as is.

The world actively influences the characters but also reflects them. Bronya Rand goes from being a relatively cold character in the Overworld, to being brought into the underworld where she truly realizes how awful everything is. She is reborn. Supposedly in Slavic Religion, the Underworld was lush (just like in Jarilo-VI's mythos), and Jarilo the God of Spring brought the lushness back to the overworld with him, bringing the season. 

In Rivet Town, Bronya finds where she grew up: An orphanage run by Natasha, the leader of the Wildfire movement. She finds out that Seele (a major player in the Underworld) and her came from the same place, but Bronya was adopted and sheltered in the overworld. Rivet Town is barely held together by thumbtacks and glue, just like how Bronya's worldview is. The Overworld city of Belobog even has walls as shelter from monsters like how Bronya was sheltered. 

Or consider a tiny mountain lake. Thickly wooded slopes sweep down to the water's edge along half its shore line. Sheer cliffs rise gray and forbidding on the far side. Two camping trailers and a tent stand in a patch of clear ground down close to the narrow south beach, where a rutted dirt road terminates. There are children at play . . . women cooking ... a man who bait-casts a hundred yards or so off to one side. The road, in turn, leads away from the lake, around a spur of brash, them off along the edge of a meadow thick with wild-flowers—columbine, trillium, bellwort, violets. Now a pickup truck approaches, bouncing noisily along the road. Far away across the meadow, behind a hillock and almost in the shadow of another spur of brash, a pair of bear cubs frolic under their blackfurred mother's watchful eye . . .

What will your focal character notice about this scene? To what specific fragment will he react? Is his lens fixed on the trout? The bears? (And if so, which one?) . . .The bellwort? The big, raw-boned woman in Levis who hunkers by the fire, poking sullenly at her frying bacon with a stick? - Dwight Swain

You might ask if your magic system fits your world, but also ask if the system fits your theme and characters. 

In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pharaoh's magic is primarily saved for punishing the wicked after they lose games. The theme is that "villains lose because they cheat", and those who cheat are subject to penalty games by the rules of a shadow game. In The Masque of the Red Death, the rooms of color symbolize the stages of life from birth . . . to the black chamber with a clock symbolizing death's inevitability.

Meanwhile, I'd argue with Pokemon, types rarely play a part. If Giovanni was a Normal-Type gym leader, would they be a difference? Does Pokemon ever focus on the importance of types? 

Then, how does the culture and world affect the characters? In Island of the Blue Dolphins, the culture forbids women from being hunters, and the religion says if they make spears, they will be swallowed by the seas.

And how's the atmosphere affect the plot?

In Guild Wars 2, Maguuma Jungle is important in the Heart of Thorns expansion, as a horrific jungle full of monsters, where there are dozens of levels of vegetation, all who are hostile because they're part of the Jungle Dragon Mordremoth. 

In a great story, everything works together.

So, maybe all this inspires you to take another look at your world. You can still take time to think about where every river is, but what does every river mean? Is the setting a backdrop? Can you honestly say a garden stands for a character's life long work and about perseverance and daily upkeep? 

Maybe now your worldbuilding will be next level. 

Or maybe you still suck, like you're kinda a mess bro, not gonna lie. That's all. LAter.

Vixen of the Dead is finally out

 After several long months of work, Vixen of the Dead, my new *Novelette is out.

*Technically this could also be a short story, but is one-thousand words too long. 

So, should you read this? 

Vixen of the Dead is a story about Cyras and her own cousin, the enigmatic Misty. After the Queen Raynfall incident, Cyras is tasked with returning a crystal of emotions back to Misty and breaking her suppressor crystal. However, instead, the so-called Vixen of the Dead chooses to have no emotions. But the reasons why go back to a traumatic past that Cyras must unravel the secrets of. 

Vixen of the Dead is ultimately about self-sacrifice versus authenticity and genuine friendship. The more pleasant interactions between Cyras and Misty go against the backdrop of secrets within the walls of Sheerwalls and a past better forgotten. The story is also about depression, and how we behave in a self-antagonistic way. 

In the scheme of the wider plot of N:Era, Vixen of the Dead serves as a partial catalyst for Cyras' own growth. 

 

 

Vixen of the Dead 

  https://www.deviantart.com/saviorfoxowlis/art/N-Era-Vixen-of-the-Dead-1003760558https://www.deviantart.com/saviorfoxowlis/art/N-Era-Vixen-of-the-Dead-1003760558

Question: How Do You Balance What's Good With What You Like?

 "Do you gotta balance writing about the topics you wanna write with what's "good", and is there some ideal level where you really have both going. Does learning about what's good influence what you actually enjoy writing?" 

Greetings, mutants.

I've got another question today, this time from Kieral, one of my writing partners, someone who's much better than all of you reading this. And basically, this is a high-level question about "taste". This comes on several layers: 

-Is writing what you like versus what's "good" a balancing act? 

-If so: What's the ideal balance. 

-And: If you learn what's "good", will that affect what you enjoy from now on?

And so when I pressed, Kieral gave me an example from a show called Dragon Pilot. 

(

Well, like for me, over time I've gotten better at reading subtext and making assumptions about what the writer's opinions on things are. Not to say I'm good at it, but that's still shifted my preferences with writing a great deal. Like recentlyish I watched this show called "dragon pilot". It's got everything: dragons, planes, and dragons turning into planes. I shoulda loved it. But I didn't, because I took a fact from the lore (you only get on with dragons if you got nobody else in your life and you HAVE to get on with them to fly) and extended it to something greater (these people are lowkey stuck in possessive relationships and that's not treated like a problem??). And that.. really turned me off tbh, like if they come out with another season I'm not watching it.) 

So: 

When we write, we're obviously influenced by what we like or dislike. Such as dragons turning into planes, or horses, or cowboys. But now, let's say you read a fantasy book, and the fantasy book drones on for almost a hundred pages about how the elves cook their food. We get cookbooks, we get elaborate feasts, etc. 

At some point, that won't matter because while you like that, while your passion comes out, that's not a story. That's background. 

 

Passion and heart are a tool the writer uses to put pathos in a work, but there's more than just pathos. Pathos alone can easily become bathos, or the act of melodrama. 

 

For example, I was recently reading a work where the entire situation was a therapy session and all that occurred was a character talking about how much everyone else in her life sucked and then the story--the text ended. The story didn't end. There was no story. 

 

But this person wanted to rant about society, but that's not a story. That's a rant. This was presented in story format, but that doesn't make this a narrative. And at the end of the day, instead of being a good rant, this was more of a "woe-is-me, tis' nobler in the text to drone the words and talks of probably-right-while-I'm-probably-wrong people" type rant. 

Now imagine this same author took this rant about society, and instead the therapist got pissy and broke ethics and actually started yelling at the patient (who I will admit was clearly insane and needed therapy). And now let's say the patient actually has to defend her point of view. Then we get a story. Now we've got events unfolding. 

Basically, when you include what you want, you can do that, so long as the narrative proper comes first.

 

Remember, there is theme, and that's the universal part of the story. If you like to rant about society, but your story is about being grateful for what you have, now you're going against the theme. 

Now, we got plot. Let's say the plot of the story is about taking out the high school drama cheerleader. She runs the stage, she runs the cheer squad. And she hates the main character because the main character has curly hair (as if having curly hair wasn't a curse already. Anything my hair snags is lost forever). Now if the therapy session interrupts the plot, the audience skips because that's filler. 

And let's say we've got a character who hates to speak her own opinions, but the author wants her to rant anyway. Breaks character. 

The last one is also incredibly common. Someone breaks character to do something they want. They like fighter pilots, so they have the characters pilot fighters, even though most of the characters are too dumb--in canon--to tie their own shoelaces. 

 

Or they put characters in fights and they're experts even though the only thing that's ever hit them was gravity.

 

But then nextly, there's the final question. Will we be affected of what we enjoy if we learn about good writing. 

Well that's a really interesting and neat question, because yes. I can say without a doubt that does affect what you enjoy. Unfortunately, that also means plenty of stuff you liked in the past you will inevitably not like anymore, such as old Disney sitcoms. Or maybe you can't play Pokemon anymore because you've played other, better RPGs. 

Same works for writing. But you also find that strong narratives don't get weaker, but stronger the more and more you learn. 

Now this all begs the question, if you have to learn what good writing is, is "good writing" some elitist club and there's a big story book of how everything should be written? 

No. Good writing is based on psychology of how people think. Good writing is founded on techniques that make people go "oh wow". Based on principles. And some say "good writing is subjective", but you know, whether punching a random person in the face is good or evil is subjective as well. But you don't see many people saying you should punch random people in the face. Maybe a few Swamp Mutants might say punching people in the face is good, I don't know. 

However, subjective is not completely personal preferences so much as a universal sense of what people like. And you might go "well different cultures write differently", but at the end of the day, people watch Anime who aren't Japanese, same as how Japanese people have been interested in writings from Ethiopia.

But that's a full question for another day. Thank you.

Writing Ramble: Why Writers Get Complacement and Lazy

I was reading someone's stories, one more recent, and one a few years back. I'm like, "Well these aren't much different." So I go back to their first story. Eight years. Eight years, the person hasn't improved. Maybe marginally. 

Greetings, mutants. 

I would like to talk today about writer complacency. This occurs when a writer has reached a plateau. They aren't getting better. Maybe technically they've picked up some stuff about grammar, but nothing about theory or craft. You might be like, "Okay, well how does this occur?"

Well there is a vaccine to this infectious disease, and that is to always be learning. You are never the master, you are always the student. 

You need to seek to challenge yourself. Your viewpoints. What you know.

I remember, when I was doing fanfiction writing, how often people would say something like, "You gotta make sure that character isn't a Mary-Sue and give them lots of traits." 

Well that's a one-dimensional approach to making characters. Then you get a bit better and you learn characters need motivations and goals. Then you get better and you learn they need a character arc of growth. Then you learn about how their traits must interconnect, right. And then you learn about psychology. You learn about how that character is linked to worldbuilding. You learn how that character is linked to plot. You learn how that character is linked to theme.

There are a million different things to learn about a character, such as presentation, or making side-characters with subplots that comment on the main character's story. 

And one more thing is you need to leave your comfort zone. If you keep writing the same types of plots or using the same elements or the same characters, you're done! You've already wrote a story, and you keep retelling that same story, because you're done. You've run out of thoughts.

If you keep writing about action adventures where they explore the Crack of Uranus, you're not learning. And if all your characters are sassy "marvel dialogue" characters, and you always got that sexist jerk, the naive dumb one who's learning, the action heroine, and the smart jock, you're not learning. 

Keep learning, keep writing.

Writing Ramble: That Scene Doesn't Work, Just Hit Delete

Greetings, mutants.

Your neighbor is trimming hedges, because you can prune a plant. And with a bad scene in your story, a lot of times you can prune the scene.

But sometimes you need to uproot the entire structure. 

You can't polish a turd. Sometimes, you can work for many, many hours, but some scenes are just D.O.A and you're S.O.L. 

I'm gonna give an example outside of writing. I've seen people try to improve a DND system by homebrewing and fixing and updating, but a lot of times, if they just used an entirely different system from another game they would've been fine. And instead of trying to make your own sci-fi weapons system, maybe just use a sci-fi RPG. I also play Traveler RPG, and the fighting system sucks. I mean, the DND system is superior by far for battle. 

And then you got mods that try to update all kinds of things in Minecraft, instead of just making a new interface. Somethings are broken. 

That's what occurs with stories as well. Sometimes a scene doesn't work. Here's some hints: 

-If you keep dreading looking at that scene, there's an issue. 

-If you have issues writing that scene a lot, and want to just move onto something else, that scene is boring and sucks.

-If you can't figure out the actual purpose of a scene, you need to take a flamethrower to the page (unless you live in Maryland, and if you live in California, have a license.) 

In any of these cases, instead of trying to pour peroxide on a zombie bite, try cutting the infected limb off. You might just live better without that zombie arm, going around, scratching people, punching randomly. You get the picture, you don't want dead parts, you don't want a zombie story.

So yeah, that's my writing advice for today.