Worldbuilding Wednesdays: Inspiration

Welcome to Worldbuilding Wednesdays!  Every Wednesday, we spend what is probably far too much time walking through our worldbuilding process.  In this week's post, we're going to talk about how to get started with your worldbuilding.

But first, let's talk about what worldbuilding is.

Dictionary Time

Worldbuilding is the process of creating a world.  While this can be meant literally— and if you can literally create a world, give us a call, we've got some ideas— most of the time we're talking about creating a fictional world.

Lots of folks engage in worldbuilding.  Game designers, novelists, and artists are the folks who get paid to do it.  Many more do it for the simple joy of sharing their world with others.  Some folks, especially in roleplaying circles, do it for the simple joy of inflicting their world on others, but hey, to each their own.

Here at Vagrant Dog Productions, we believe that the best kind of worldbuilding is the kind that works like an iceberg.  By that we mean that worldbuilding is something that, done right, your audience will only see the very tip of.  The rest will lurk beneath the surface, granting your fiction (whether that be a game, a story, or both) an unexpected heft.  Done perfectly, your audience will notice the worldbuilding too late to avoid it, trying desperately to swerve out of the way even as the icy tip of your cultural backgrounds and notes on clothing styles tears right through their metaphorical hulls like paper.

Why is Worldbuilding Important?

We are not exaggerating when we say that Worldbuilding is one of the most important things in the world.  All of storytelling, no matter the type, relies on either implicit or explicit worldbuilding.

We will also not elaborate.  Moving on.

How Does Worldbuilding Work?

Worldbuilding consists of thinking up a world and adding details to that world until you're happy with it.  There are a lot of details that you can add, too:  Astronomy, Astrology, Biology, Chemistry, Culture, Ethics, Geography, History, Language, Philosophy, Physics, Politics, Religion, Technology, Magic (if you're so inclined), and more are all viable details to delve into.

You can also draw a big circle, scribble "Planet of Apes, but with, like, Alligators?" and call it a day.  Again, to each their own.

This series is going to lean more toward the "exhaustive" side of the detail pile when it comes to worldbuilding, and we're going to do that for two reasons:

1.   Folks looking for assistance with their own worldbuilding will be able to look at these posts, each oriented around a specific detail, and pick which details matter to them.  The more details we present, the more likely we are to have something in here for everyone!
2.   We like details, and we were always going to do it this way anyway; the other reason is just the pretext.  Don't like it?  Write your own blog, nyah!

Where Do You Start?

Lots of people have their own favorite method of building worlds, but generally speaking, the methods fall into two camps:  Inside Out and Outside In.

  Inside Out.  You start with the story you're trying to tell.  Based on that story, your world is going to have to work a certain way:  for example, if you're telling a story about fighting robots in the near future, your world is going to need A) robots, and B) a healthy coat of "near-future" applied to everything.  Based on the details you just applied to the world, a few more things will have to be true.  You continue in this fashion, building outward, until you have a world that you're satisfied with.

  The Inside Out method has advantages and disadvantages.  The biggest advantage?  Everything you add in this fashion, no matter how indirectly, serves the story you are trying to tell with this world.  Worldbuilding done this way tends to be lean and efficient, containing only the details you need to get the job done.  The biggest disadvantage?  Same thing.  The problem with everything in your fictional world hanging from your story is that, if anyone checking out your story knows where to look, they'll see the strings you used.  An Inside Out world can therefore feel artificial.

  Outside In.  You start with the world itself, treating it kind of like a house that you're building.  You build the rough structure of the world first, mostly by picking a detail and asking yourself how that detail works. Maybe this world is shaped like a donut; how does it work living on the inside of the donut, as opposed to the outside?  Then you move inside and start putting together increasingly specific details, repeating the same process.  Maybe this donut world has two groups of people, called Innies and Outies, and they're fighting a war over the top of the donut, because that is the sunniest and nicest section, called the Everglaze.  You move through the house, finding new interesting details to add, making modifications to suit your tastes, until you have a completed house, move-in ready.  All that's left is to put your story into the world you've built!

  Just like the Inside Out method, the Outside In method has advantages and disadvantages.  The biggest advantage of the Outside In method is that, because the world you build does not hang from a specific story, it tends to feel more lived in and real.  Anyone could live in that house you built!  That makes more sense to people than a house that will collapse if Andy down at the Y doesn't live there.  The biggest disadvantage is the same problem you'd have with building a real house:  just because you built it doesn't mean you can find anyone to move in.  In other words, using the Outside In method might leave you with a wonderfully built world... but no story to tell.

So, given these two camps, where does Vagrant Dog Productions fall?  Well, we're members of the Outside In camp... with a small twist.  Before we start building a world, we look for Inspiration.

Thought we'd never get there, huh?

Inspiration

That house-building analogy is cool enough to be carried into this section too, so let's explain how Inspiration works this way.  If we were to look at our two camps, we'd see a group of people finding prospective homeowners (stories, in this analogy) and purpose-building houses for their favorite.  All the details of the house are designed with that specific homeowner in mind.  By the time this group of people is done, the house is brilliantly crafted for that homeowner... rather obviously so.  Anyone stepping inside is going to instantly note that all the cupboards are the perfect height for the homeowner, and the homeowner alone.

Across the way, we'd see a group of people busily crafting houses with no particular owner in mind.  These houses will serve any homeowner who deigns to buy them.  Some are bog-standard, ranch-style homes with little white picket fences.  Some are avant-garde masterpieces.  What they have in common, though, is that they are all houses in search of a buyer.  Unlike the first group of homes, these homes don't already have a prospective homeowner lined up.  Will someone move into these homes?  Who knows?

And there, on the edge of this group of houses, is Vagrant Dog Productions.  We wear a jaunty little beret, tilted to the side in dapper fashion.  We are not just artists, we are Artistes.  Though we do not build our houses with a homeowner in mind, we do look across the way where all the homeowners are gathered.  We see one in particular that strikes our fancy.  That homeowner serves as our inspiration, guiding the choices we make as we build the house.  Will that homeowner buy our house?  We don't know.  What we do know, however, is if that homeowner doesn't buy the house... someone like them will.

That, lovely audience, is what inspiration is about.  Before we do anything else in the worldbuilding process, we at Vagrant Dog Productions look for something to inspire that worldbuilding.  Maybe it's a stirring, epic line that we can't get out of our head.  Maybe it's an image that excites the imagination, or a song that only makes sense if the girl you sing it to has tentacles.  Regardless, the important thing is that before we so much as pick out a paint color, we have this inspiration in mind.  Not a whole story: just a glimpse that stirred us into motion.

To close each Worldbuilding Wednesday, we're going to walk you through the exact process we're talking about by doing it ourselves.  Case in point:  all future Worldbuilding Wednesdays are going to put together a world inspired by this scene:

On a dusty, single-lane road, a small truck trundles along.  The driver, in no hurry, listens to music on the radio.  Attached to the truck is a flat-bed trailer.  And on top of the trailer, strapped down to it the same way that a pallet of lumber would be, is a freshly-captured dragon.

Will this make sense for our world by the time we're done?  Maybe, maybe not.  But it is this image that is going to guide us as we begin to build our very own world.

As a little treat, and also because we got excited by the image, we've included a sloppy little rendering of the scene.  Until next time, enjoy our amateurish artwork, and happy worldbuilding!