The Three Monkeys of World Building

You have a blank page in front of you.  This is either the point when: You can freeze up and try to think of something you’d rather be doing, like binge watching House or “researching” every anime article ever published on Wikipedia.  Or you can begin documenting an entire universe, created completely out of the fertile imagination of your all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing mind.  Are you still prevaricating?  Read no further and here's a link you should totally check out.  Ready to create?  Read on.

Sky Moles!

If you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, there is literally a universe waiting to be created.  You will spend countless hours carefully crafting every detail.  Races?  Magic systems?  Technology?  Political intrigues?  Character backstories?  World history?  Oh, yea, you've got it down to the last whisker on that weird sky mole you invented.  Now, this beautiful world is just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.  You begin writing your novel, weaving every possible detail and revealing every little tidbit.  Right down to the last whisker ...

Or not.

Going granular with the details might feel satisfying at the time.  Launching into long info-dump monologues might answer a lot of really interesting questions.  But the reader is going to hate you for it.  The secret to awesome world building is not in what you tell, it is in how you tell it.  Moderation is key.  Answering who, what, where and why is absolutely critical for every author.  You, the writer, have to know.  Your readers don't.  The trick for world building within a story is in what not to reveal.

Here are three ideas I've called the Three Monkeys of World Building:

See no ...  Focus the reader.  Clap those hairy monkey hands over their eyes.  Only give small glimpses of your world.  You choose when, where and how the reader sees it.  Never explain the whole world.  Maintain the mystery, the mystique.  There is something incredibly powerful about the secret, the hidden and the unknown.  Know but don't show.  Your knowledge of your own world informs your storytelling.  And the reader only needs the story.

Hear no ...  Muffle the monologues.  Readers.  Do.  Not.  Want.  To.  Listen.  To.  That.  Much.  Info.  Enough said.

Speak no ...  Gag the preacher.  Some authors try to control the reader's responses to their story.  They try to tell the reader what they should be thinking and feeling.  Allegory is essentially the "control freak" version of this.  As Tolkien famously stated: "I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."  Are you using a dystopian future to preach about NSA wiretaps?  Are you using steampunk to preach about racial intolerance?  Are you using your supernatural monsters to push back at gun control?  Just remember, people don't like being preached at.  Even when they completely agree with you.

So, you've created a world.  You've answered all the big questions.  Now, gently and cleverly reveal your world to, well, the world.  Just remember to tell a story.  A really, really good story.  Speaking of which, what makes a story "good"?  Let's look at this next in: The Greatest Story Never Told