Dear all, Upon inheriting the Looking Glass from our predecessors, we identified a number of key issues. Firstly, there were simply not enough articles being published, due both to a lack of submissions from the school community and limited responsiveness from the previous Academic Team. Secondly, the Looking Glass had not been advertised or explained effectively enough to the wider school community. As a result, we plan to implement a more consistent and engaging stream of articles on the Looking Glass. As part of this initiative, we are looking to recruit a select group of keen writers from across the lower school who would be willing to produce one high-quality piece of writing, discussion, or media each month for publication on the Looking Glass. We believe this will be hugely beneficial both to the school community, which will gain access to a wider range of opinions and viewpoints, and to prospective writers, who will be able to reference their experience contributing to the Look...
Immersive Storytelling: Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is a crucial part of storytelling. It is the act of creating and cultivating a world for your reader/readers to immerse themselves in. In my opinion, one of the most enjoyable parts of writing a story is the preparatory work, a time when you aren’t bogged down with the flow of language, a point when you can simply create and cultivate a world in your mind without the restrictions of narrative. Worldbuilding is something I find fascinating. However for many of the fellow writers and storytellers I talk to, worldbuilding is often a slog, with the fundamentals of cause and effect often acting as a weight in the mind of those who struggle with it. This article will serve as an overview of my process and hopefully act as a guide to those of you interested in creating your own settings for use in writing or elsewhere. However, do not take this article as doctrine - this is simply what worked for me and what I hope can help you.
Aesthetic:
In my opinion the very first thing which is crucial to a setting is the aesthetic, what style is the world in - is it a steampunk dystopia, or a traditional fantastical world? The first thing I like to nail down is what I refer to as either the aesthetic or the “art style” - this won’t necessarily dictate the genre, but it will dictate the tone of the setting. I think a great way to distinguish between genre and aesthetic can be seen in the case of A Crown of Candy and its world of Calorum, a land where everything is made of food but the story told within it is much closer to Game of Thrones than Alice in Wonderland. The Aesthetic does not dictate the genre, although it can help with emphasising it - whether it be through dichotomy (Like A Crown of Candy) or simply lending itself to the genre like a sleek chrome aesthetic lending itself well to a sci-fi tale.
Core concepts:
Once you have the aesthetic design down, you can begin to flesh out the core concepts of the story. This is often done alongside the development of the aesthetic, but I'd recommend keeping it vague until you’re comfortable with the aesthetic you have chosen since while the core concepts are important, they are heavily influenced by the aesthetics. Your core concepts are probably the most crucial part of your world building process- it is the concept upon which the world is built, it is what differentiates your world from others of a similar aesthetic. Your core concepts can take many forms, since it is fundamentally the unique aspect of your world - whether it’s a magic system, a revolutionary piece of technology, a unique hazard, it is what identifies your world- whether it's Mortal Engines and its moving cities or Dune and its Melange, you will find that most successful novels and worlds generally have something which separates them from other books of the same ken. Unlike the aesthetics and the other parts of your process, your core concepts are typically fully your own creation, not based on anything beyond the vaguest of materials.
Beyond the Core Concept:
When it comes to moving beyond the core aesthetics and concepts, there are a few paths which you can take, the first and most rigorous is what I refer to as the cause and effect style. You begin with your core concept and begin to weave a web of logical conclusions outwards - what caused this core concept to arise? How does the concept affect the population? What ramifications does this have for the economy? For politics? (assuming either of those are present in your world) if our concept always existed how might civilization develop with this concept, what changes would you expect to see, what wars would you expect to be fought as a byproduct of the core concept? These are all example questions that are designed to emphasise the importance of logical conclusions in this style of worldbuilding. The novel Dune is a great example of this, with Spice and its incredible properties of granting prescience and other boons having massive implications for political economics and the development of space travel that are thoroughly explored, while simultaneously working as the fundamental force which drives the story forward.
A secondary method is one that is more free, one that is bound only by aesthetics and exists outside the bounds of our very grounded logical reasoning. Alice in Wonderland is an example of this - very little in that book makes logical sense - in fact its nonsensical nature is the main point of the book! While its whimsical tone doesn't really shift, the setpieces and individual concepts have very little ramifications beyond the immediate ones.
A number of fantasy worlds and sci-fi worlds operate under this method - often referred to as “The Rule of Cool” - where objects and concepts are introduced purely for shock or entertainment factor with little reference to logic or a definitive rules system of the universe. This is, in my opinion, a fine line to tread; if done well, the story can retain its impact while allowing for a much greater freedom in storytelling and narrative and can easily function as metaphor. However, step too far and it can quickly become lazy writing - overuse your narrative freedom and it loses cohesion, quickly devolving to a string of unrelated events each individually designed to amaze but with no consistent thread to tie them together. Be careful if you choose to take this method as while it can allow for higher impact moments, you do have to do the legwork beforehand to allow those moments to land.
Once your world is fleshed out, through either of the methods above or your own method, you can begin to write further, either beginning to weave a narrative or whatever else you are using the world for, at this point it is important to remember that the world IS NOT finished, it is and will continue to be a work in progress up until you are finished with writing anything surrounding it, and you may even continue to flesh it out for as long as you desire. Middle Earth was not complete as The Hobbit was being written, and it continued to weave and grow until the publishing of the Silmarillion after Tolkien's death, and while I don't expect anyone to strive for the ridiculous heights of Tolkien's world building work, it is important to note that what you have written thus far is not set in stone, it is subject to change review and expansion and will continue to be so for as long as you choose. Don't make the mistake of thinking retconning is bad practice, - it may be sloppy work in the writing of a TV show or a series of books, but in the process of worldbuilding itself it is completely acceptable to rethink.
In conclusion, the only things which need to remain constant in your mind are the Aesthetic and the Core Concepts. These will form your foundations, anything beyond that is up to the individual. And ultimately, everyone will have their own process - these are simply the aspects that I have seen form the central constants in the large majority of well received media - whether that be books, movies or beyond.
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