How Not To Fantasy Worldbuild

How Not to Fantasy Worldbuild

Intro

Yes, you read that title right. Today I’m going to be giving advice on how you should not fantasy worldbuild. I’ll be exploring the mistakes people frequently make when worldbuilding foreign fantasy peoples, countries, and cultures, and how to avoid those mistakes. Please note that this advice doesn't apply to books where foreign countries do not play a significant role. However, if you have a book like Six of Crows or Blood Heir where foreign countries are significant, then this post may be more immediately useful to you.

Disclaimer: Remember that these are my opinions, and you are fully entitled to your own!

Put the same level of effort in for all worldbuilding

As an example: don’t come up with an entire history, economy, government, culture, etc. for one country, and then completely neglect another country because its inspirations lie in a country you aren’t familiar with.

@joonmono puts this best in their Tumblr post: “i will never not be angry at white fantasy authors being like ‘this is fake russia and this is fake germany and this is fake scandinavia and this is fake netherlands and this is fake amsterdam' then turn around and be like ‘oh but there's only one fake collective african country and one fake collective asian country.’”

Many fantasy authors, not just white authors, make this mistake too, because it saves time and effort. However, this is lazy and shallow worldbuilding at best. It shows you don’t care enough to research other countries/cultures and honor them. Yet taking the time to research for your worldbuilding both improves the depth of your worldbuilding and opens up your own worldview. When you enrich your worldbuilding, you also enrich yourself. That should be incentive enough to not half-ass the worldbuilding. So just don’t do it. Trust me, your readers will notice and appreciate it.

Don’t mix and match cultures

Mixing and matching cultures is a surefire way to make them inaccurate. For example, don’t group a bunch of East Asian cultures together into Fantasy China or a bunch of South Asian cultures into Fantasy India. It’s lazy, inaccurate, and quite frankly, offensive. And unfortunately, it’s very common in modern fantasy books.

Even among common aspects of culture, there are huge differences as well. For example, there’s no such thing as one Indian people: there are thousands of ethnic groups in India, however. So, to avoid mixing and matching ethnic groups, focus on one specific group for inspiration.

Whatever you do, don’t consolidate an entire country, with various different languages, cultures, and traditions into a single monolith. That’s ignorant and harmful to the people who are part of those cultures.

Avoid stereotypes and generalizations

I really, really dislike it when writers fill their only foreign cultures and countries with rife stereotypes and outdated misconceptions. As a result, the fictional country/culture/people becomes a caricature of whatever reality the writer is attempting to imitate. It has potential, but it remains undeveloped in favor of stacking stereotypes and/or generalizations on top of each other.

This all ties into the first point I made: readers can tell when you don’t put effort into building foreign countries and cultures. Stereotypes and generalizations is where perhaps the largest harm takes root. This may not seem important--isn’t it all just fiction? But fantasy frequently draws from reality, and that reality may be that of a narrow, ignorant lens.

Be careful and mindful about how you draw inspiration from foreign cultures and countries, because the people who belong to them can very much be affected today.

If you're reading this...

go write three sentences on your current writing project.

369K notes View Post

the-writer-muse

3 years ago

f*k coffee and tea, my writing drink is the tears of my readers.

Set a goal.

Write down the main points, and donʼt worry about how everything flows, and if everything is perfect. Give yourself deadlines on certain exercises so you donʼt waste time writing things that youʼll most likely edit out, or eventually change in other drafts. Stick to a schedule, or a certain amount of pages or hours you write in a day.

Prewrite.

What is prewriting? Itʼs the first step before writing your novel! Some examples are brainstorming, freewriting, journal writing, listing, and outlining.

Prewriting is helpful for getting started, and can be doing writing prompts or other writing exercises. This allows for you to write freely without a strict guideline to follow, or any at all, which is also useful for stimulating creativity when you’re suffering from writer’s block.

Let your ideas flow!

Your rough draft is where you let your wild ideas run free, with nothing holding you back (besides yourself, of course). Don’t be shy to experiment with point of view, or holding back ideas that might be worthy of sharing! This is the draft for your eyes only, so you donʼt need to hold back and feel the weight of self-consciousness weighing you down.

Outline (or donʼt).

Prewriting is also about outlining the structure of your piece, like the sketch for an illustration; not all of them require it. But if you do like to know where youʼre trying to head, outline would be the best bet. It helps you see all the pieces in front of you, either in detailed pages that make your computer lag, or in simple bullet points. It also helps you figure out which bits are necessary with story flow, and which ones drag and donʼt let the story move on smoothly.

Forget editing.

When you’re writing your first draft, donʼt worry about grammar, or writing complete sentences—or ones that make much sense. Leave the editing process for future you. As long as you can read the manuscript, and it makes sense to you, youʼre going in the right direction. You can worry about all the little mistakes for later drafts.

Start wherever.

Start in the middle of a big battle, where your main character is kicking enemy behind, or wherever you may please! Start in a place where you feel most stimulated or motivated to write, what makes you feel most excited to write. You don’t have to weigh yourself downby writing each thing in chronological order and having to bore yourself with facts you already knew. Writing a novel, or anything really, is a long journey, and you want to stay entertained throughout.

Take breaks.

Taking breaks is fundamental to any kind of creative process, especially those that deal with easy burnout. Sometimes you just have ti step away from your first draft and come back with fresh eyes.

Finishing it.

Donʼt start your next draft until you feel like your current one is finished, and the sooner you get it done, the better! Sticking to your goals and putting in the time and effort into making something truly yours is what will make you happy and fulfilled with your final draft in the long run.

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the-writer-muse

3 years ago

shoutout to all the people who write contemporary, romance, mystery, crime, thriller, horror, paranormal, dystopia, nonfiction, and any other genres I’m forgetting! i know you guys don't get as much attention as fantasy or sci-fi in the writing community, but you're just as valuable and talented, and i appreciate all of you!

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