While readers form varying degrees of attachment to setting, characters, and plot, from a writer's perspective it's setting that makes the plot and characters possible. In science fiction and fantasy, we call this worldbuilding.
In a misguided effort to "show, don't tell," novice writers risk killing the setting by describing it to death. The hero walks over a hill and is presented with a vista no one has ever seen before. What follows are several block paragraphs amounting to set design notes for the Hollywood adaptation that'll never be made. You can practically hear the whir of the camera as it pans left to right.
I get it because I've been there. My natural state is to communicate my unique vision in all its glorious detail. It's why I started writing in the first place.
There are two problems with this. One, it limits the reader's imagination. If you say castle, it conjures a different image in everyone's mind. But if you say an imposing gray castle with a 15-foot moat, stone towers thrusting into the cloudless sky and flying the lord's coat of arms, a horse stable, a chapel, 46 liveried servants, and a roaring fire at one end of the banquet hall, you have conditioned the reader to rely on you to tell him everything that was otherwise implied.
Now, there's nothing wrong with those details. Some of them may serve a purpose. But if they don't serve a purpose, they're just more words the reader has to muddle through to get to the point. This brings me to a good general rule about detail. Books are not a visual medium, so don't focus on how something looks. Focus on what it is, on what it does.
Two, and I credit my editor with this: The more you explain something, the less it makes sense. Unless you are a wizard like Tolkien, make broad brush strokes except as needed. Every detail and nuance you introduce that doesn't impact the story has the potential to confuse the reader and break the worldbuilding.
I've been rereading Dune to analyze how it so effectively connects with readers. A big part of this effectiveness is the worldbuilding, which has no rival except in Tolkien's Middle-Earth. So how did the master, Frank Herbert, craft the world of Dune?
He started with a lot of expositional dialogue. He couched it in the tensions of a royal family being ordered to a new fief, something even a child can understand. The Baron Harkonnen's scheming and Paul's sparring session with Gurney Halleck serve the tension well. The exposition also comes via Paul's questioning of his identity, jumpstarted by the famous gom jabbar scene. The exposition never comes all at once, but in pieces, with the important pieces often repeated for emphasis.
When it came to the setting of Arrakis and literal world building, Herbert focused on relevant details. For example, Fremen have blue within blue eyes and wear stillsuits to conserve their bodies' moisture. Most other details about them are incidental. House Atreides's base of operations is a city in the Imperial Basin, surrounded by the rock cliffs of the Shield Wall. Other than that, Arrakis is worm-ridden desert. Simple. How far and how high the cliffs are from the city, the size and population of the city, etc. doesn't matter. So why act like it does?
This post was inspired in part on Jeff Vande Zande's post, "World building in fiction." Check it out.
As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like hard sci-fi, check out my books Seeds of Calamity and Tendrils to the Moon. You can find extended previews for each here and here.
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