Worldbuilding: share your tips and tricks!

[RetroFan]

Possibly true, but I think we've said before: you have to write the story the way you want it to go. Some of the readers may follow along; others won't . It's difficult to predict what the ones in different categories will want. All comments seem to be few and far between. If I get two of them on a story, I'm surprised.

I always make an effort to write interesting stories and am usually more amused by negative and bizarre feedback, plus like you said any comments are usually better than none at all. It's always more frustrating though to go to so much effort and get no reaction be it good, bad or indifferent. For example if I wrote an IT story called 'My Kiwi Cousin's Hot Feet' with a description of 'Australian guy loves his pretty NZ cousin's bare feet' with appropriate tags, and somebody commented that they hated cousin stories, hated foot fetish stories and hated stories either set in Australia and New Zealand or stories involving characters from these countries I would laugh as it would say more about him/her than it does about me.

But I can understand the frustration of an author who goes out of their way to write an interesting story with a different plot and it is poorly received or met with indifference. For example an IT story called 'My New Sister' about a guy who wakes up one morning to find out he has a sister of whom he has no knowledge of but she knows him and to everyone else - their parents, brother, other relatives, friends etc. she has always been there and she appears in photos, videos and the like from the past as though the timeline has somehow skewed and he has gone into an alternate dimension. If this story attracts poor views, low scores and negative comments about it being boring and confusing or how they don't want to read sci-fi and fantasy stories, while another story posted the same day running barely 1000 words and begins 'So one day my sister and I were at home together, and I asked her if she'd like to have sex with me and she said yes' gets thousands of views, hundreds of likes and many positive comments, then this is definitely a disappointment.

 

[StillStunned]

while another story posted the same day running barely 1000 words and begins 'So one day my sister and I were at home together, and I asked her if she'd like to have sex with me and she said yes' gets thousands of views, hundreds of likes and many positive comments, then this is definitely a disappointment.

I think this is a case of "know your readers". Some I/T readers might be intrigued by an original concept, but I'm pretty sure most of them just want to get to the bit where the brother bangs the sister.

(I understand this frustration, even between my own stories. My first I/T story is 1.5k words: a brother and sister sharing a sleeping bag. It's at 165k views. My 19k Erotic Horror story that I wrote around the same time, with romance, adventure, personal conflict, tragedy and the hint of a happy ending, is stuck on 3k views.)

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I always make an effort to write interesting stories and am usually more amused by negative and bizarre feedback, plus like you said any comments are usually better than none at all. It's always more frustrating though to go to so much effort and get no reaction be it good, bad or indifferent. For example if I wrote an IT story called 'My Kiwi Cousin's Hot Feet' with a description of 'Australian guy loves his pretty NZ cousin's bare feet' with appropriate tags, and somebody commented that they hated cousin stories, hated foot fetish stories and hated stories either set in Australia and New Zealand or stories involving characters from these countries I would laugh as it would say more about him/her than it does about me.

But I can understand the frustration of an author who goes out of their way to write an interesting story with a different plot and it is poorly received or met with indifference. For example an IT story called 'My New Sister' about a guy who wakes up one morning to find out he has a sister of whom he has no knowledge of but she knows him and to everyone else - their parents, brother, other relatives, friends etc. she has always been there and she appears in photos, videos and the like from the past as though the timeline has somehow skewed and he has gone into an alternate dimension. If this story attracts poor views, low scores and negative comments about it being boring and confusing or how they don't want to read sci-fi and fantasy stories, while another story posted the same day running barely 1000 words and begins 'So one day my sister and I were at home together, and I asked her if she'd like to have sex with me and she said yes' gets thousands of views, hundreds of likes and many positive comments, then this is definitely a disappointment.

This is the wrong site to collect affirmations and accolades on your writing prowess.

 

[SimonDoom]

An important aspect of many good worldbuilding stories is a good idea. Leaning into the idea, exploring what it is and how it works, and especially how it plays out in the world, can be very interesting and enriching for a story. I think a good idea can be much more valuable to a sci fi/fantasy story than a lot of detailed description of what alien worlds and their inhabitants look like.

Some examples:

Dune is based on several ideas that are essential to the building of the world and how it works. Spice and its essential role in space travel. The banning of computers, and all that it implies.

Psychohistory in Foundation. It's not a very plausible idea, but it works fine, it sets the stage for everything that happens, and Asimov adds some interesting twists to it after the first book in the series.

The wormhole machine in Contact.

Chaos theory in Jurassic Park. Crichton leans hard into the theory and the story essentially plays it out by emphasizing unpredictability when the dinosaurs escape their confines and even breed.

The metaverse in Snow Crash. The book never really tried to explain how it worked and the medium by which one entered it, but it didn't matter. The way the two worlds were juxtaposed and allowed Hiro Protagonist to be two completely different kinds of characters was well done.

An example, in my view, of not-so-good handling of an idea is the concept of The Force in Star Wars. It's fine when it's unexplained mumbo jumbo in the first trilogy. But in the next two trilogies the filmmakers couldn't quite figure out what they wanted it to be and I thought they messed it up. It felt like it was jury-rigged from scene to scene to be whatever it needed to be at the moment.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I always make an effort to write interesting stories and am usually more amused by negative and bizarre feedback, plus like you said any comments are usually better than none at all. It's always more frustrating though to go to so much effort and get no reaction be it good, bad or indifferent. For example if I wrote an IT story called 'My Kiwi Cousin's Hot Feet' with a description of 'Australian guy loves his pretty NZ cousin's bare feet' with appropriate tags, and somebody commented that they hated cousin stories, hated foot fetish stories and hated stories either set in Australia and New Zealand or stories involving characters from these countries I would laugh as it would say more about him/her than it does about me.

But I can understand the frustration of an author who goes out of their way to write an interesting story with a different plot and it is poorly received or met with indifference. For example an IT story called 'My New Sister' about a guy who wakes up one morning to find out he has a sister of whom he has no knowledge of but she knows him and to everyone else - their parents, brother, other relatives, friends etc. she has always been there and she appears in photos, videos and the like from the past as though the timeline has somehow skewed and he has gone into an alternate dimension. If this story attracts poor views, low scores and negative comments about it being boring and confusing or how they don't want to read sci-fi and fantasy stories, while another story posted the same day running barely 1000 words and begins 'So one day my sister and I were at home together, and I asked her if she'd like to have sex with me and she said yes' gets thousands of views, hundreds of likes and many positive comments, then this is definitely a disappointment.

I had to read this again to grasp it. As I quoted Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) once: "this is the business we have chosen." I think the site is open to anyone who chooses to drop in and comment, so that's what we have to deal with. At least we have some audience, which is better than none I suppose.

I never heard of someone hating stories set in Australia and New Zealand. It almost sounds like he's kidding you, but I wouldn't guarantee it.

 

[StillStunned]

An important aspect of many good worldbuilding stories is a good idea. Leaning into the idea, exploring what it is and how it works, and especially how it plays out in the world, can be very interesting and enriching for a story. I think a good idea can be much more valuable to a sci fi/fantasy story than a lot of detailed description of what alien worlds and their inhabitants look like.

I completely agree with this. I think that audiences like to have one unusual element among loads of elements that they're familiar with. Too much worldbuilding makes it difficult to engage.

The trick, I suppose, is to find that one element or idea that makes your world stand out.

An example, in my view, of not-so-good handling of an idea is the concept of The Force in Star Wars. It's fine when it's unexplained mumbo jumbo in the first trilogy. But in the next two trilogies the filmmakers couldn't quite figure out what they wanted it to be and I thought they messed it up. It felt like it was jury-rigged from scene to scene to be whatever it needed to be at the moment.

I can see the reasoning behind it, particularly with Jedi taking centre stage in the prequels. "There have been Jedi for thousands of years, surely they've studied what the Force does and how it works?" But it just didn't work. It was cool to see the fights, but it was like trying to play The Lord of the Rings using the D&D 3.5 system. Everything that made it so unique was just swept away in a tide of overpowered characters.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I can see the reasoning behind it, particularly with Jedi taking centre stage in the prequels. "There have been Jedi for thousands of years, surely they've studied what the Force does and how it works?" But it just didn't work. It was cool to see the fights, but it was like trying to play The Lord of the Rings using the D&D 3.5 system. Everything that made it so unique was just swept away in a tide of overpowered characters.

I honestly don't see what is unclear about the way the Force works? Keep in mind that I don't consider those so-called episodes VII - IX as part of the SW Universe. Of course, it's not a "hard" system in the SF&F sense but I'd say it's relatively predictable system and it's pretty clear what the limitations are.

 

[StillStunned]

I honestly don't see what is unclear about the way the Force works? Keep in mind that I don't consider those so-called episodes VII - IX as part of the SW Universe. Of course, it's not a "hard" system in the SF&F sense but I'd say it's relatively predictable system and it's pretty clear what the limitations are.

Personally, I liked it better when the Force was a rare thing, and limited to "it's all around us, and if you can sense it you can try to manipulate it." In the prequels, even aside from the whole midichlorians thing, it became nothing more than a tool. And then they had to try and explain what made Luke so special, considering how many other people had been using the Force in the days of the Republic. And what was so bad about the Dark Side. And so on.

To my mind, this dragged it out of the space equivalent of Sword & Sorcery and into the equivalent of High Fantasy. Two different approaches to magic, and very difficult to reconcile within the same world. I don't think the prequels managed to do that.

 

[SimonDoom]

I honestly don't see what is unclear about the way the Force works? Keep in mind that I don't consider those so-called episodes VII - IX as part of the SW Universe. Of course, it's not a "hard" system in the SF&F sense but I'd say it's relatively predictable system and it's pretty clear what the limitations are.

The prequel trilogy provided a pseudo-biological reason for Force power. I thought there were two problems with this. One was, I didn't want to see what was behind the curtain. It kind of spoiled it for me. The other problem is that it makes the Jedi out to be a kind of genetic master race. They're born superior because they are born with Force power. Palpatine kind of has a point: who are these unelected folks to assign to themselves the power to say how things are going to be?

Episode VII leaned into the genetic basis for the Force by making it way too easy for Rey to get up to Jedi speed, and by suggesting that her parentage was a Force-powerful person. Then Rian Johnson threw that all out the window in Episode VIII, and JJ Abrams resurrected it in Episode IX. It was a mess, and very unsatisfactory.

The other thing I didn't like about Force power is that it was a deus ex machina--whatever it needed to be to make something magic happen in a scene. It wasn't so much a problem in the first trilogy because the first trilogy was always played somewhat tongue in cheek. When Leia floated through space, I just gave up the ship altogether.

 

[TheLobster]

To my mind, this dragged it out of the space equivalent of Sword & Sorcery and into the equivalent of High Fantasy. Two different approaches to magic, and very difficult to reconcile within the same world.

What is the approach to magic that is appropriate for S&S then? The name of the genre doesn’t seem to imply anything there, but it seems to me like you’re postulating that only subtle and tacit magic should be used there, thus placing it somewhere under Low Fantasy…?

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Personally, I liked it better when the Force was a rare thing, and limited to "it's all around us, and if you can sense it you can try to manipulate it." In the prequels, even aside from the whole midichlorians thing, it became nothing more than a tool. And then they had to try and explain what made Luke so special, considering how many other people had been using the Force in the days of the Republic. And what was so bad about the Dark Side. And so on.

Not sure I am following you all the way here...
I understand that introducing midichlorians killed the mystique of it all for you. I see it as Lucas trying to insert some science into it, and yeah, it does step on the mystical part, but even in the prequels, The Force still remains mystical as even after so many millennia of existence, its scope and limitations are unknown. Even the teachings of the Jedi and the Sith are not taken as absolute but simply as knowledge that comes from experience but one that's still riddled with holes and unknowns. For example, in the prequels, Qui-Gon Jin discovered how to reach out through the force from the great beyond. Even great masters such as Joda didn't have that knowledge prior to that moment. Then there is Palpatine's talk about "rediscovering" the secret of beating death, which his predecessor supposedly knew.
IDK, I simply didn't feel the loss of the "mystical" that much as it was often implied that there is so much still unknown about the Force, especially if you include the EU.

The part about Luke being special... why is he special again?

 

[Baztrachian]

I've done a little world building. Most recently in my non-erotic story "The Chronicle". I never said much about the aliens and I said almost nothing about how their technology worked. It didn't need to be explained because what mattered was how humanity reacted to their technology.

The real story wasn't the aliens or the tech, it was the people who were the subject.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The prequel trilogy provided a pseudo-biological reason for Force power. I thought there were two problems with this. One was, I didn't want to see what was behind the curtain. It kind of spoiled it for me. The other problem is that it makes the Jedi out to be a kind of genetic master race. They're born superior because they are born with Force power. Palpatine kind of has a point: who are these unelected folks to assign to themselves the power to say how things are going to be?

But the original trilogy was saying the exact same thing - you either feel the force or you don't. You are still gifted with it at birth or you aren't. Unless I am seriously mistaken, it's in the first trilogy where Luke is told that the Force is strong in his family. It was still hereditary sort of. The prequels simply named that "genetical gift" as midichlorians but it wasn't implied anywhere that only sons and daughters of previous Force-sensitives can also be Force-sensitives. I understand the partial loss of the mystical but I also feel you have jumped to some conclusions.

The other points from VII-IX I am not touching as it is too hard and even pointless to try to explain crap.

 

[StillStunned]

The part about Luke being special... why is he special again?

The movies keep going on about "the Skywalker line" and how they're such great and powerful Force users. Except there's no evidence of that. Darth Vader gets his arse kicked by Obi-Wan (and again in the TV series). Luke really never does anything astonishing compared with what we see other Force users do. It just feels very contrived. At least, it does to me.

What is the approach to magic that is appropriate for S&S then? The name of the genre doesn’t seem to imply anything there, but it seems to me like you’re postulating that only subtle and tacit magic should be used there, thus placing it somewhere under Low Fantasy…?

No-one really agrees on a definition of S&S, but one of the common factors is that magic is dangerous and not to be messed with. Good characters use it sparingly, evil characters go overboard and pay the price. There's powerful magic in S&S, usually involving demon-summoning and strange rituals, but it's difficult to control and will consume the sorcerer at the slightest mistake.

 

[Otto26]

I feel that worldbuilding tends to follow and serve the plot rather than the other way round. Unless you're writing science-fiction and engaging in a look at slippery slopes or reductio ad absurdum. I think of the story I want to tell and then consider what setting would support this and then I repeat this loop several times until I've got the setting I require to tell the story I'm now intending to write. I typically expand outward past the immediate focus of the story because I'm error-checking and considering what sequels might be told and wasting time on stuff that no one except me wants to read. The thing is that, in most cases, the rules you establish in your story must remain consistent throughout the story and any follow on stories. You can really tell when that wasn't the case *cough*Star Wars*cough*.

And we must always remember that readers prefer the comfort of close analogs and writers are able to capitalize on these. If I write that the characters walk into a wild-west, space cantina then four words are sufficient to create a solid image in the reader's mind and I don't have to spend several paragraphs describing it. I still will, of course, but that's a personal failing. So the further we get from close analogs the more we have to explain and the more readers we lose. Which is why our worldbuilding not only doesn't have to be extensive but really shouldn't be.

 

[MillieDynamite]

The Force, as it was originally conceived, was supernatural and therefore needed no science behind it. It went more than a little KAKA when they gave it a scientific design.

An example, in my view, of not-so-good handling of an idea is the concept of The Force in Star Wars. It's fine when it's unexplained mumbo jumbo in the first trilogy. But in the next two trilogies the filmmakers couldn't quite figure out what they wanted it to be and I thought they messed it up. It felt like it was jury-rigged from scene to scene to be whatever it needed to be at the moment.

 

[gunhilltrain]

This is the wrong site to collect affirmations and accolades on your writing prowess.

You can probably get that by being in a creative-writing program, although those around you are probably going to fudge their praise and secretly wish for your downfall. (I've never actually been in one.) Besides, there's maybe twelve or fifteen people in each one. Here, you have tens of thousands of the great unwashed who don't know you and owe you you nothing. If a few of those like what you've done, that means who are getting somewhere.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Writer's groups, at least the ones I've been in, have a broad representation of writers in various genres. If you don't write in their genre, they may give an honest opinion of your work. Be it good or bad. Those in your genre are less reliable narrators of your efforts.

You can probably get that by being in a creative-writing program, although those around you are probably going to fudge their praise and secretly wish for your downfall. (I've never actually been in one.) Besides, there's maybe twelve or fifteen people in each one. Here, you have tens of thousands of the great unwashed who don't know you and owe you you nothing. If a few of those like what you've done, that means who are getting somewhere.

 

[RetroFan]

This is the wrong site to collect affirmations and accolades on your writing prowess.

I'm happy enough to get comments about my apparent lack of writing prowess - it's interesting and at times highly amusing what some readers have to say.

 

[RetroFan]

I had to read this again to grasp it. As I quoted Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) once: "this is the business we have chosen." I think the site is open to anyone who chooses to drop in and comment, so that's what we have to deal with. At least we have some audience, which is better than none I suppose.

I never heard of someone hating stories set in Australia and New Zealand. It almost sounds like he's kidding you, but I wouldn't guarantee it.

That's true, although I'm one of those authors who doesn't mind getting negative feedback, even requests that I go and kill myself, wishing that I get cancer and die or hoping that I get my head smashed in with a hammer (those comments removed by the site administrators). As I've mentioned before, I found the negative comments by some humourless IT readers about comedic stories I've posted in this section to be highly amusing in themselves. Or a 750-world story I posted early this year which was written to be the worst story I could possibly think of, but people took it seriously despite it starting with 'Once upon a time...', being strung together with 'and then' on numerous occasions and such terrible grammar that people would question basic Australian academic standards.

And I can confirm I've had a negative comment about Australian and New Zealand authors, that we put too much detail into describing native flora and fauna, geography and architecture in our stories and that as a result they are boring and best avoided.

 

[RetroFan]

I think this is a case of "know your readers". Some I/T readers might be intrigued by an original concept, but I'm pretty sure most of them just want to get to the bit where the brother bangs the sister.

(I understand this frustration, even between my own stories. My first I/T story is 1.5k words: a brother and sister sharing a sleeping bag. It's at 165k views. My 19k Erotic Horror story that I wrote around the same time, with romance, adventure, personal conflict, tragedy and the hint of a happy ending, is stuck on 3k views.)

It is perfectly understandable that readers don't like certain themes, it's human nature. For example, I personally don't like Westerns. I don't like movies, TV shows or books set in the Old West and wouldn't read an erotic story set in this era with this premise. I would really struggle to write a story in this setting, although once I did write a story where the lead female character's very strange husband gets his rocks off by going to a brothel where he dresses up as a cowboy. However, I wouldn't go around Literotica looking for stories with a Western theme and comment negatively upon them for this reason, it is wrong and if I did it would just make me look like an idiot.

With Incest Taboo general story themes or fetish material aside, there's so many different IT combinations and couplings that can come up to satisfy many different readers. For example, one reader may not like immediate family stories - mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, grandparents - but may enjoy stories about secondary IT couplings - the aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin stories - or flirty stepfamilies or in-laws who like to keep it in the family so to speak. Others may not enjoy gay male erotica, so would avoid brother-brother or uncle-nephew stories for example. All of this is completely understandable.

However, if an author has used an IT theme among characters that doesn't come up very often - triplets, double first cousins, half siblings with a big age gap, foster siblings as just some examples - is it really necessary to comment negatively that you don't like this IT theme and would prefer to read an immediate family story? Or for a story that involves a three-way between a brother, sister and their pretty female cousin, commenting that having the cousin in the story ruined it for them and that the author should have simply written a brother-sister story? When there are so many immediate family stories for them to read on the site already, with many new ones posted each day?

 

[gunhilltrain]

That's true, although I'm one of those authors who doesn't mind getting negative feedback, even requests that I go and kill myself, wishing that I get cancer and die or hoping that I get my head smashed in with a hammer (those comments removed by the site administrators). As I've mentioned before, I found the negative comments by some humourless IT readers about comedic stories I've posted in this section to be highly amusing in themselves. Or a 750-world story I posted early this year which was written to be the worst story I could possibly think of, but people took it seriously despite it starting with 'Once upon a time...', being strung together with 'and then' on numerous occasions and such terrible grammar that people would question basic Australian academic standards.

And I can confirm I've had a negative comment about Australian and New Zealand authors, that we put too much detail into describing native flora and fauna, geography and architecture in our stories and that as a result they are boring and best avoided.

Maybe I've been lucky because I mostly haven't gotten anything that bad - like wishes that I die some horrible death. Most of them don't seem to remember who I am from story to story, so I don't get comments about my progress or lack of it. I don't know where all my followers are - mostly missing in any given month.

Well, if professional authors can have all the details they want, why can't we? I suspect a lot of these readers are most familiar with porn tropes - the more the better. As that punchline to a George Carlin routine goes (it is about writing), "Let's get to the fucking already." Although that alone is not always going to please them.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Writer's groups, at least the ones I've been in, have a broad representation of writers in various genres. If you don't write in their genre, they may give an honest opinion of your work. Be it good or bad. Those in your genre are less reliable narrators of your efforts.

I guess I'm only going by what is offered - you have to pay - at the larger universities. Basically, I'm looking at their ads. Less formal writing groups may be different.

 

[RetroFan]

Maybe I've been lucky because I mostly haven't gotten anything that bad - like wishes that I die some horrible death. Most of them don't seem to remember who I am from story to story, so I don't get comments about my progress or lack of it. I don't know where all my followers are - mostly missing in any given month.

Well, if professional authors can have all the details they want, why can't we? I suspect a lot of these readers are most familiar with porn tropes - the more the better. As that punchline to a George Carlin routine goes (it is about writing), "Let's get to the fucking already." Although that alone is not always going to please them.

The Loving Wives fans stand out in this regard, erotica doesn't seem to be the payoff for quite a few readers in this section.

For example I wrote a story narrated by a feminist lesbian who works as a PI and discovers proof that her brother's wife - an annoying and vapid mommy vlogger and social media influencer - is having sex with lots of different guys all over town whenever the brother is away for work as a professional cricketer. It was a long story - 11 pages - and the erotic payoff was a lesbian sex scene between the sisters-in-law. So were they happy with the Sapphic ending between the two attractive young women?

No, they were furious, they wanted a story ending where the sister reveals to her brother his wife's infidelity, and she is exposed and disgraced as a cheating whore losing everything in the process. This would have been their payoff, not the two women getting into each other's knickers and the infidelity covered up.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Not a writing group but an author's group. A group of writers who meet to talk about and share writing. It isn't just for professionals. However, you must be willing to share your work for others to read. Some don't allow erotic lit writers in, fucking prejudice people.

The Loving Wives fans stand out in this regard, erotica doesn't seem to be the payoff for quite a few readers in this section.

For example I wrote a story narrated by a feminist lesbian who works as a PI and discovers proof that her brother's wife - an annoying and vapid mommy vlogger and social media influencer - is having sex with lots of different guys all over town whenever the brother is away for work as a professional cricketer. It was a long story - 11 pages - and the erotic payoff was a lesbian sex scene between the sisters-in-law. So were they happy with the Sapphic ending between the two attractive young women?

No, they were furious, they wanted a story ending where the sister reveals to her brother his wife's infidelity, and she is exposed and disgraced as a cheating whore losing everything in the process. This would have been their payoff, not the two women getting into each other's knickers and the infidelity covered up.