Step 3: Think of the Implications
In the first step, you established your core ideas for the setting. In the second step, you considered how (basic) needs would be met in this setting. In this third step, the task is simple in theory: consider all the logical consequences or implications of your ideas.
In practice, it’s a little harder. Coming up with a list of creative solutions (or consequences) to every problem is a skill every writer needs to learn. You can do so by writing and consuming a lot of stories, or you can do so by practicing logical and critical thinking (through, for example, programming). It won’t just help you with worldbuilding, it will also help you when plotting or figuring out what a character should do.
Say you’ve invented an interesting setting that resembles the modern time, but electricity was never invented. What would the consequences be? Think through all areas affected by this. Think about what society would look like now. Maybe they still invented the computer, but it just works completely differently (not using electricity).
As you list all the options, pick the ones that match (instead of conflicting) and that are most interesting. Not only did you just invent new details about the world, they make sense and make it feel more realistic.
That said, there are some practical tips (or mistakes to avoid) that I can teach you in this chapter.
Go one at a time
It’s overwhelming to try and consider all consequences of all your ideas at the same time.
This is, again, why I advocate the hybrid approach of worldbuilding: plant a seed before you start, but invent other rules for your world as needed while writing the story.
If you do this, you can use the following simple approach.
- Invent a new idea on the spot. (Because you need it to enhance a scene or think it would be a good addition.)
- Consider all the consequences on the spot. (Potentially rewrite existing scenes or planned scenes to prevent contradictions.)
Because it’s only one thing at a time, it’s not that overwhelming and it’s easy to see the bigger picture. But once you’ve considered all the implications of this new rule you invented, you can be pretty sure you’re not making some (obvious) mistake.
I’ve mentioned before how I wanted to write multiple books for my Wildebyte Arcades before publishing the first, to flesh out the world. This is the reason why: while writing the second and third book, I often realized a new rule or part of the world was needed. Introducing this rule had consequences. After introducing it, I went through all my stories so far and checked if it contradicted anything.
By repeating this cycle over and over, I had created a very consistent and fleshed-out world by the time I actually had to publish the first book. Something I could never achieve if I tried to figure it all out “in my head” before writing a single line of the story.
This also grants you the superpower of … time. I realize my biggest plot holes (or “worldbuilding holes”?) when I step away from the keyboard for a day or two. This gives your head time to think about everything you’ve just written, and dream about what might come next. Our brain loves predicting futures (subconsciously). Trust that it will point out consequences if you give it time.
Often, when I finish a book (or a significant part of it), I take the rest of the day off. Not only as a little “reward” for myself, but also to give my brain time to find mistakes. And it does. Usually, by the end of that day, I’ll have two pages of notes asking myself “why did I do X!?” and “wouldn’t it make more sense for the magic to work like Y!?” These notes are often what save the logic and consistency of my worlds.
What does everyone know?
In every culture or world, there are things that “everybody knows”. These are crucial to daily life, or regular occurrences, or shared (moral) values.
Here in the Netherlands, everybody knows you just hop on a bike if you want to get to anywhere (within a 10 mile radius). Similarly, everybody knows that the red lanes on the side of the road are the bike lanes.
Go to a car-based country like America, and this just isn’t true at all. When you say “bike” there, most people assume a “motorbike” instead of a bicycle.
So ask yourself: “what does everybody in this culture know? What stories does this culture tell themselves (or about themselves)?”
This usually leads to great, specific tidbits of worldbuilding you can use in the story. It requires you to dig into the core of your world, into its history or geography, and see common knowledge that everybody would need to survive here.
Then, you can use that to immerse the reader. Have them perform rituals or speak using sayings related to this. Don’t have them talk about this directly—if it’s implied everybody knows, then you can leave the explanation out of the dialogue. Left and right, you can reveal tiny elements of the world that “everybody just knows”, without having to focus on it for more than one or two sentences.
A country that suffered the consequences of a magical battle, will share the value that magic is dangerous and should be controlled. They might have a saying that originates from that battle. When they tell stories about it, the other side will be portrayed as downright evil monsters, while their side will be all heroes and sunshine—no matter if it’s true or not.
The Rule of Cool
So yes, logic and consistency is crucial. Our world has consistent rules, such as gravity, day-night cycle, the fact that we assume buildings do not collapse all of a sudden or water isn’t suddenly poisonous to us. Characters highly depend on the world being consistent!
That should always be your first goal. The first thing you try to accomplish.
But stories are meant to be entertaining, escapism, interesting puzzles. Oftentimes … you just need to ignore logic and consequences to be able to write that awesome scene.
This is known as the “rule of cool”.
If an idea is cool, awesome, wonderful, amazing enough, it overrides any other rules. If you have the most badass idea for a piece of your world, but it logically contradicts some other part, you can include it anyway and the audience will shrug and forgive you.
This is, in my opinion, the mark of a great critic. They can point out such logical flaws in stories, but conclude by saying “it was a cool scene and I enjoyed it anyway”. The largest goal for a story is to entertain and engage, not to “make perfect sense”.
Anachronistic dialogue
This is probably the area in which most (beginning) writers steer their world the wrong way. Without ever realizing it! They made sure to create a consistent world in which rules don’t contradict each other …
… and then all the characters speak like they’re from modern-day New York.
That’s called “anachronistic dialogue”—dialogue out of time (and place). It knocks people out of their suspension of disbelief and destroys immersion. Most stories use a lot of dialogue, so it’s arguably even more important to make it sound correctly than other parts of the prose.
What does that mean?
Well, again, consider the implications. Consider who a character is and what kind of life they live in your world. Consider how that would influence how they speak.
- What words do they use?
- What tone of voice?
- Short sentences or long ones? Efficient or elaborate speech?
- Are there common phrases or sayings for this culture or part of the world?
- Are there taboos? Forbidden words? Custom greetings?
This is especially egregious if your setting is (clearly) inspired by some existing part of the human world or human history. If you go for a medieval fantasy, don’t have them use words that didn’t exist until the 20th century. If you go for a tribe that has no modern technology, they can’t have sayings or use words that originate from that.
If you write and read a lot, you’ll be able to do this on intuition. You’ll know when a word or phrase just sounds like it’s in the wrong story. The important part is to recognize this feeling, then cut it out (or find a more suitable alternative for your world).
My Saga of Life aims to feel like folklore. Like classical tales, told of times long ago. As such, I often find myself writing a word that just sounds too modern or too recent, and force myself to scrap it. This project literally tells of the history of life on earth, which means the first stories are from really long ago, so I’m pretty strict on what words I allow.
An obvious example is the fact that characters do not measure things in common units (such as meters or seconds). Instead, if a distance is mentioned, it’d be something like “the length of a tree” or “as wide as an ocean”. Because a dinosaur who speaks of something being ten meters away feels a little out of place.
When worlds change
For the most part, you can think of your world as static. Most worlds consist of rules that cannot change (such as geography or physical laws) or take a while to change (such as cultures, customs and technology). This means it’s unlikely that change constantly happens to your world.
But change obviously still happens!
In the past
This could be in the past. It’s worthwhile to create a history of your world—a “backstory” for the setting—which explains how certain things came to be. You are quite flexible here. If you give yourself enough time, you can create drastic changes. Humans understand that the capital of your world didn’t appear within a day, but took thousands of years to develop from one building into a bustling city.
Even better, you can also undo the drastic changes! How many great stories have been told about restoring some utopian past? “In the past, we had DRAGONS! But then something mysterious happened and they all disappeared. We’re trying to get them back.”
It’s your world, your history. As long as things seem logical, you can design this backstory to fit your story as well as possible.
In the story
Similarly, this change can happen in the story. In a way, it helps to see your world as a character unto itself.
And what does a great character need? Every action, whether successful or not, brings a cost or a change. This is how you make plot points meaningful and how you keep momentum in your plot.
As such, consider bringing permanent change to your world after significant events.
Two opposing armies just fought a huge battle? Surely, they destroyed this major city while doing so! (And deal with the consequences for the rest of the story. Now there’s an empty space here, a sad sight. Maybe trade routes had to shift or valuable resources were lost.)
Your hero is an explorer who went on a dangerous mission in unexplored territory? Well surely they bring back new and valuable information, such as a more complete map of the world.
One of your characters is a wizard who struggles to control their power? Surely, an accident happens and they move a few mountains!
In fact, many great stories (especially action/adventure) start with a sudden change to the status quo of the world. Because it’s a change in the world (not just one character’s life), it automatically leads to bigger conflicts, and more of them.
One boy finds a dragon egg, fine. It creates one storyline, which is probably pretty slow, as the boy waits for the egg to hatch.
Dragons return to the whole world? Now you have many consequences, and they are probably life-threatening. All parts of society would be attacked or require change. Many different characters would all be impacted.
The key takeaway is that your world needn’t be the same throughout your whole story. Yes, character comes first. Always make sure your characters change and view the world differently, as that is more impactful and emotional.
But if you can, also find some key ways in which the world can permanently change (for better or worse, depending on your story).
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