Welcome back to the Writer's Nook! This week we're delving deeper into worldbuilding. Last time, we went over the basics: where to start, where our inspiration comes from, and a fun way to make a map and visualize the world you're creating. Now we'll get into ways to sprinkle your worldbuilding details into your writing.
If you've taken any kind of writing class or even just read some popular advice, you've probably been told to "show, don't tell." That's easier said than done, but it is an important distinction. Telling, especially in regards to worldbuilding, is like giving your reader a big info-dump of everything you know about your setting. It's like dropping a history book on your reader's head. Readers don't usually appreciate that. You want to avoid lengthy info-dumps; instead, there's ways to gradually and seamlessly describe the setting, and that's what we call showing!
The best way to present your setting to your reader in a way that feels real and vivid is to find several little details of everyday life (and remember that ordinary life for your characters might not be ordinary for us). These details are going to anchor your setting. They help a place feel more real, and when describing them, you really want to rely on the senses: what a place looks, smells, and feels like.
Smells especially are grounding when it comes to places. Think about a place you know well - even if it's just your own bedroom. You probably associate a certain smell with it, right? I've begun associating the smell of hand sanitizer with the library (sad, right?). My own room smells like the candles I have on my bookshelf. If I were to smell either of those things anywhere else, chances are my brain would conjure up a thought of the library and/or my room. So think about what your setting would smell like. If it's a town by the sea, the air will probably have a salty scent (and taste) to it. If your story is set in a forest, it might smell like grass and pine. If you're in a city, well, it'll probably smell like a lot of things, especially depending on what kinds of places you walk by.
The look and feel of a location is also going to affect the vibes of that place. If your setting is a big city, a simple description of the jumble of buildings and zooming cars and people in a hurry sets up an energetic scene. We sort of expect a city setting to be chaotic and busy, right? So a neat way to offset that expectation and make your setting more interesting is to break that expectation. Your story is set in a huge city, BUT it's dead silent and the streets are empty. The buildings loom over the streets, watching, but there's no honking from cars or shouting from the hot dog guy on the corner. This break of the norm immediately makes your reader want to keep turning pages and find out why this place is not as they expect it to be. This is a situation where feeling is your best friend. If you offset your reader's expectations of how a place should be, you instantly change the vibe and set it in line with the type of story you're trying to tell.
Visual details are also your best friends. Obviously we gotta describe what a place looks like, right? But how do you do that without describing every single thing in front of you? The answer: your reader isn't stupid. Remember last week how we talked about writing what's familiar to you, and enhancing a setting by building it up with things you know like the back of your hand? We're going back to that, because that is how you describe a setting without info-dumping. This is easiest if you're writing a story that takes place in our real world (but it also works with fantasy worlds; we'll get to that). If you're writing contemporary fiction, chances are your reader is already familiar with pretty much every general element of your setting. Again, they're not stupid. You don't have to describe every facet of the local grocery store (unless it's an unusual grocery store), because your reader has probably been in a grocery store at some point in their life. You don't have to go to unusual lengths to describe things that are familiar; instead, focus your attention on things that are extraordinary or break the norm.
Let's say we're in a typical, run-of-the-mill small town in rural America. There's fields, there's cows, there's long country roads and probably a tractor rumbling down the side of the road. There's big, old houses with wrap-around porches, and the town itself is so small that you'll miss it if you blink while driving by at 70 miles an hour. You know, normal stuff. But then there's something decidedly... not normal. There's a church in this little town, which might be expected, however, no one can actually agree on what the church looks like. Most people in the town, especially those that have lived here for generations, adamantly believe the church is white with a bell tower on top. But the kids and the newer residents of town claim that it's a brick building that probably once had a tower but it looks like it was destroyed a long time ago. And there's some, just a few, who whisper that that church burned down fifty years ago.
Do I have your attention yet? This kind of juxtaposition, between what we know and an alteration of what we know, makes a setting and a story way more interesting. In this example I only gave the briefest descriptions of the normal aspects of the town, because I trust that you guys can imagine the scene without me having to tell you what the fields or each house looks like. You don't need a detailed description of those things, because I'm not asking you to focus on the wider scope of the town. I want you to focus on the church. And while I didn't describe the cracks in every brick of the building, I gave you some key visuals: white with a bell tower, brick with the remains of a bell tower, and perhaps the burned-out shell of a building that's hardly still standing. Those are still pretty simple descriptions, but they work to set the vibe of the story: there's something off, something wrong, a mystery that may need to be solved. That simple setting description sparks a bunch of questions that build the framework for your story - and that's exactly what a successful setting should do.
Now, excuse me while I go actually write this story about an odd little church.
Okay, maybe later. Let's talk about exposition again, because like many things in writing, it is not inherently evil (no matter what you've been told).
Exposition is going to be necessary at some point. You are not banned from ever explaining anything to your reader. Quite the opposite, actually: you should explain things to your reader. But like I said earlier, you should try to avoid dropping everything at once. Ease into it; only explain what you absolutely need to in the moment, and then keep your story moving until you have to explain more. There’s really only so much you have to explain; the readers can fill in the blanks. Like I said, they’re not stupid!
Also, if you wanna cheat, there’s a really easy way to lay down the workings of your world to your reader: have the main character be an outsider to that setting. When they arrive in a totally new place, there’s gotta be someone there to answer questions and show them around, right? Boom, there’s your easy peasy exposition. Perfect loophole. I fully encourage you to use it 😉
We got through a lot today, so I’ll wrap up here and leave you with some final, parting wisdom: the biggest worldbuilding thing to remember is that characters are a product of their world. Just like each of us is a product of our upbringing and little bubble of the world that we live in, your characters will be molded by their settings. Keep that in mind as you’re writing; there should always be a sense of a bigger world outside your character’s personal circles.
Okay actually, one more thing: have some worldbuilding sites that have saved my life a million times!!
World Anvil is a virtual notebook for keeping all your worldbuilding stuff in one place. It's excellent, and allows for a lot of detailed development. It's been most useful to me as a fantasy writer, but really it could work with any kind of genre.
And here are some fantasy worldbuilding questions that are really detailed, but hey if you wanna go ham, I won't stop you. Even if you don't answer every single one, it's a good road map for the kinds of things you might want to know about your world.
Last but not least, if you want to make cool maps that don't involve you having to throw pasta around or actually draw something, check out Inkarnate! I've used this site for years to build maps for my books, and I love it.
Now I am actually going to go write that story about the church. I’ll let you know next week how it goes xD
Until next time!
😎✌🏻 Anna
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