![]() Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader's ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.Ībove all, worldbuilding is not technically necessary. ![]() It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn't there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. I recognize the point he's putting in play here: but I (conditionally) disagree. The implicit construction of an artificial but plausible world is what distinguishes a work of science fiction from any other form of literature. It's an alternative type of underpinning to actually-existing reality, which is generally more substantial (and less plausible-reality is under no compulsion to make sense). Worldbuilding is like underwear: it needs to be there, but it shouldn't be on display, unless you're performing burlesque. Worldbuilding is the scaffolding that supports the costume to which our attention is directed. Without worldbuilding, the galactic emperor has no underpants to wear with his new suit, and runs the risk of leaving skidmarks on his story. Storytelling is about humanity and its endless introspective quest to understand its own existence and meaning. We exist in a context provided by our culture and history and relationships, and if we're going to write a fiction about people who live in circumstances other than our own, we need to understand our protagonists' social context-otherwise, we're looking at perspective-free cardboard cut-outs. ![]() PARTS GEEK CLOCK SPRING TOYOTA COROLLA 1014 DRIVERĪnd technology and environment inextricably dictate large parts of that context.
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