Vtyjkyuk

Here's the way I look at it; when you build a world (for your story / game / amusement / insert purpose here) you're not doing it for yourself per se; you're doing it for the experts in the fields you'll discuss that will also read / play your work.

The whole Skynet thing in the Terminator (for example) bugs the daylights out of me. Why? Because I'm an AI researcher (among the many hats I wear these days) and I know it just can't happen like that, and that if you're going to build machines that wipe out humanity, you don't need to make them smart.

Judging by the number of downvotes I get when I discuss this topic even on this forum, there are a lot of people out there who have a differing view, and that's probably why shows like the Terminator are so popular. But, to me it's not realistic.

So; you can build a world with minimal effort but write in engaging characters and an intriguing plot, and you'll produce something that has every chance of being popular. But, realistic? Well perhaps, but then not to the people who actually know the details of the mechanics behind the world you've created.

Ultimately, the effort you go to in creating a world should be commensurate with the level of expertise in the areas around which your world is created that you wish to engage. If you just want the laypeople, then it's a waste of your time and effort and you can (quite rightly) say that it's unproductive.

For mine however, I prefer the story worlds that go the extra mile to make it realistic to me and to other experts in the chosen fields of discussion. That effort won't be recogniseable to everyone and I have to say that your return on investment may be a lot lower than appealing to the masses, but quality counts, at least to me, so my view is that it's always worth the extra effort because your reward isn't the number of extra people you draw, it's the amount of knowledge you draw by virtue of that effort.

World Building is Entirely Unnecessary.

What justifies the time is writing with consistency. If you have a map with terrains, towns, plausible climates and climatic cycles, etc, then your writing will be consistent as your characters journey through it; you won't accidentally write in logically impossible distances or trip timing. Using Earth as an example, you won't write that the trip from Las Vegas to New York City took 8 hours to drive. It is 2529 miles, they'd have to drive 317 miles an hour! Of course you wouldn't make that mistake on EARTH, even if you aren't great at division you would immediately sense these are further apart than 8 hours, and consult a map and calculator.

But when you are writing and inventing everything yourself, it can be easy to forget what you told the reader about places W, X, Y, and Z, and accidentally create a physical paradox like the above. It takes one crew a day to walk from W to Y, stopping at X on the way, because that was convenient to your plot at the time. Then later in the book you send them from Z to X for supplies, and it takes them FIVE days to walk from X to Y. WTF? They had to do it in less than ONE day the first time...

You might have character Joe talking about being born in W, and growing up with snow, ice, and bitterly cold winters. Then three months of writing and ten chapters later, you forget about that. Joe and your crew end up in W during winter, and you write it as pretty pleasant and mild. But your reader just read about the winters in W a few hours ago, pages back and wonders a) Why Joe and nobody else isn't saying a damn thing about this pleasant winter, and b) Was Joe lying?

In such a case you have broken the reader's immersion, your world doesn't make sense because your writing is glaringly inconsistent.

But I said world building is entirely unnecessary!

You don't have to do this kind of work up front; you can take notes of what you say and build a map as you write along, and if necessary revise your story as you go. If you know some of the elements of world building (what makes deserts, or rain forests, mountain ranges, lakes, etc) then you won't make obvious mistakes, but all you really need to avoid is glaring errors that won't stand up to scrutiny. You don't have to talk about the geology of what makes a seashore cliff; you can plug it in. Just Google "seashore cliff" and you will find a few dozen of them, pick one that best fits your story as a reference for writing your own. Describe actual nature and you won't create any glaring errors.

Of course world building can also include fantasy religions, cultures, rituals, animals, magic systems, and so on. Some of these are for entertainment value, others are developed in order to maintain consistency, and impose limitations on what can be done. Not only in magic, but perhaps politically and culturally as well. In many fantasy and scifi worlds the culture allows one character to kill another in front of witnesses and walk away, never to be pursued or even charged; there just is no law enforcement in such worlds other than vigilantism.

In other worlds more like our own, like the Mr. Robot series, law enforcement and how it works is central to the story, the hackers are breaking the law and in constant fear and danger of being caught.

World building can be an entertainment in and of itself, but (IMO) it is just a setting, not a story.

To me, I would rather write a story. I am a discovery writer, so I do my world-building on the fly, with a map I sketch as my story demands new places, towns, or features like rivers, oceans, forests, deserts, etc.

I also do several passes through my finished work, and along the way ensure my elements are consistent and there are no glaring errors.

The advantage of world building up front is your story maintains consistency and you don't have to invent settings on the fly. However, you can do these things on the fly without ever sitting down to invent your world. If your story is character-driven, like mine, the settings are not necessarily a big part of the story; and (for me) the main thing to keep straight is distances, travel times, and at times for the physicality (traveling or fighting) and dress of characters, whether it is freezing, sweltering, or fair weather, open terrain or forested, watered or dry, etc.

If setting is a major "character" of your story and often plays the villain (heroes versus nature, or culture, or politics) or has entertainment value (tourism for the reader, by terrain and/or cultures) then it should probably be planned and made consistent.

The time justification is in whether it is more efficient to design the setting and then write a story in it, or to write your story and design the setting on the fly, keeping it consistent with notes and sketches. That all depends on how important the world is in your story; and for many stories that focus on the emotions of characters (a relationship, falling in love, coming of age, dealing with loss, etc) the setting is not terribly important.

Think of it like learning the skills so you can build your own house, and then you start building a house that you poke away at when you have the time. It seems like it takes forever. You might never finish the house.

But then, one day, you're visiting a friend and they mention they've got a leak and are going to have to call a plumber. As they describe the problem, you realize you've learned enough doing your own plumbing that it's an easy fix. No need of a plumber, you can show your buddy how to fix it themself.

Never could have done that if you hadn't worked on your own, seemingly never-ending project. Working on your own gives you skills that you can use in other situations.

Depends on what you are using it for? a book, game, personal. For me anyway, I like detail and realism about my worlds. I like my worlds to feel like they could be lived in, but I do this not for myself but for other people to enjoy, that will change how you build your world. If it’s for yourself then you don't need to get hung up on too much detail because you know the world rules all ready (you built it after all) but if it for others then you need to act like they have no idea what your world is, so you need to show them. Don’t go for too much detail (been there) too much detail can drag your story too long and that will bore your readers. The time is your to spend, build whatever fits YOU and most of all have FUN

Building a world often leads to more story options.

The first example that comes to mind is the Star Wars universe. Stories have come out of that "world" since 1977: movies, books, TV specials, animated TV series, fan films, board games, card games, etc. (Don't get me started on merchandising!)

Another world that led to story options was mentioned in the answer Caleb Koch offered: J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. The Hobbit set up the world, and then it was explored in amazing depth in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (Fans can probably list other LOTR works that I don't know about.)

There are many current examples of worlds spawning stories as well: Game of Thrones, Transformers, Star Trek, Stephen King's Dark Tower world and series, the Marvel and DC Comics universes, and on and on.

So the process of building a world is not frivolous or a waste of time. It can be a "primordial soup" that spawns life and aids your creativity.

There are few excellent answers, but there is one point I see missing in them. World building is a real challenge for your creativity. You have to enforce yourself to think of multiple ideas that will make your world interesting in some way. As you have mentioned, one of the things you'll be trying to achieve is to have a world that in some way is unique (that is no-one else came with this idea yet). So it has to be a creative process

This is a benefit that works for you in general. The very same creativity can later work when thinking of finding some real-life problems. And creativity and imagination like every other skill gets better when trained. So even though you might be doing the world building just for your own sake and the world you build is not going to be shown to anyone, you will benefit from it anyway.

That's particularly my reason to participate in WorldBuilding StackExchange. I don't feel a need to build a world as such but I like stretching my creativity answering others' questions.

The answers already here are great and valid, but I just wanted to add that when writing a story, having a complete, believable world for your characters to live in helps to make the characters themselves more believable and complete.

Even if the characters never really understand why they can't jump into hyperspace near a large planetary body or what the consequences might be, with a complete and consistent world, you as the author know exactly the reasons why. Those reasons will be ever present in the back of your mind as you write, and will influence the events in the story as well as the characters actions, leading to more well-rounded characters, and makes it that much easier for a reader to lose themselves in the story.

You could make it a part of your story building progress.

Every time you come up with new ideas for your world, they're probally joined with a few basic/rough ideas of what could happen in this part of the world. If you write those down you could use that as material for your story.

More prep could create a more stable story, less plotholes and some depth. Even if a reader doesn't really care about all the lore around it, they'll still feel the story being solid.

Tolkien, arguably one of history's greatest world builders, seemed to have a similar question. May I direct you towards his work Leaf by Niggle, or at least towards Wikipedia's summary of the work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_by_Niggle)?

I won't ruin the story for you, but I will say that Niggle's life is essentially an allegory of Tolkien's own life and work. Leaf by Niggle can be interpreted as an "illustration of Tolkien's religious philosophy of creation and sub-creation. In this philosophy, true creation is the exclusive province of God, and those who aspire to creation can only make echoes (good) or mockeries (evil) of truth. The sub-creation of works that echo the true creations of God is one way that mortals honour God." An interesting view indeed, wherever you fall on the God debate.

I think the real question is, why does it need to be justified? There are a plethora of hobbies that have much less to offer as far as what you have to show for it. If there are things you should be doing instead, do those things and come back to your world when you have more free time.

However if your world is the setting for a story you're writing, then I would consider that a justification in and of itself (assuming this is a legitimate goal and not just a hobby in it's own right). If you find yourself filling out your world more than is necessary for your story, then get to a stopping point, work on what needs to be done for your story, and again, come back to the world when you've got more free time, or need to flush out more of the details.

Source: I have quite a few hobbies and very few have much to show for the time I put in, especially compared to world building and writing. It all comes down to what makes you feel productive.

What do you do with your world?

• You might want to tell stories in it, and hope to become the next great SF/F writer. You need good prose, a riveting plot, believable characters, and also a memorable world. Usually two or three out of four is not enough.


• You might be the game master of a pen-and-paper roleplaying group. You sit around the table all Saturday until 0-dark-30 with a bunch of friends and many gallons of chips and cola. Those pesky players, they get ideas you never had. The best way to improvise along with that and keep it fun for everyone is if you know your world and if they understand your world.

"Does the castle have a rear exit? How is it locked?"

"No rear door." (I want the big fight in the castle yard.)

"How about the garderobe? Can we hack the planks out and rappel down?"

"No garderobe." (I still want the big fight in the castle yard.)

"What!?"