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Welcome to worldbuilding part 3:) Do read parts one and two if you didn’t yet!
If you’re worried about your world becoming too generic, or not having a specific feel, then it’s great to consider writing about a world based on a certain time period in history. This is rich and convenient, especially because what we understand of history is rarely what the well-documented evidence points to. There were guns in ancient china, for instance, or women going to work in ancient Egypt.
But if you’re pulling from a less kind time in history, then how do we approach sex, race or class. We have three ways of doing it: Bridgerton, Dune and Wonder Woman.
The Bridgerton way is colourblind and anachronistic. There is no realization of what it means to have black characters as Dukes, or Indian women marrying Viscounts. This approach crosses the hurdle of having everyone deal with ancient ideas of feminism, allows for characters that can relate to our modern audience — but of course, means one has to suspend all belief. It’s a bubbly, frothy and meaningless world, so it works. Since it doesn’t take itself too seriously, it hardly matters. This allows you more room as a writer, and keeps your story from being the worst it can be — stale.
But what if we want a more serious tone? The Imitation Game/Dune way of writing an ancient world makes its hero an exception character. Just like Turing respects and agrees to work with the woman Joan Small, the Duke Atreides arrives on the desert planet of Arrakis hoping to make friends with the local Fremen tribes. He wants to respect and admire them, and be good to them. But if there’s only one character who cares about those of a different class, gender or race, then either we need a very good explanation as to how this happened. But honestly, this is kind of ick. It’s outdated, and we shouldn’t be using the good white man trope anymore for obvious reasons.
The third way is the Wonder Woman or Avatar the Last Airbender way, which has sexism as expected but the larger story around it, then contextualises and comments on it. Diana might face sexism, but she’s constantly commenting on the world around her, such as “How can a woman possibly fight in this?” This is also done in ATLA, where Sokka has unlearn the misogyny of his world, and ends up taking on an unconventional masculine role. If your story will not reward your heroes for sexism or racism, but instead punishes them, then you’ve made a particularly powerful narrative, because the characters feel real, but they also grow into better people.
Our second case study is a fantasy — it’s Game of Thrones. This show (I’m talking about the show not the book because I never read it), has a rich world, with distinct cultures, clothes, food, rules, but most of all, different philosophies and beliefs. There’s the Iron Lands, where traditional alpha masculinity is upheld, and there’s the Lannisters, who are schemers, thinkers and masterminds, the Starks, known for nobility, and even less seen houses like the Tyrells, who rely on charms and people skills. Each one reveals a different territory that the characters can explore and tread on, and each is connected to the larger tug of power. It’s a great way to see how stories can lend stakes, how sayings crop up from unique life experiences “What is dead may never die” and how something as simple as hair styles can influence the way we see the characters (like Sansa’s internal shift through the early seasons).
Now, let’s talk about contemporary fantasy.
The staple of this genre is that there is usually the hero in their natural, every day mundane world, and discovers a magical world alongside their own. This shock of a natural world alongside a magical world is what really works, so one of the biggest things to keep in mind is how these worlds connect. The question of POV is the most important here, with the POV character usually an unassuming, everyday outsider. Now, with this version of fantasy becoming the most well-known and done, it isn’t really a shock as much as it was when harry potter came out.
You can’t engage audiences with the shock of the second world. So how do you engage audiences? You engage them with the uniqueness of the world and the consequences it has on the character’s life. You use the specificity of the character and also make sure your world is unlike any seen before. This is one of the reasons I believe black panther worked as well as it did, with a tension between the hidden and normal worlds, as well as the ethical considerations it had.
Our third case study is Once Upon a Time, the tv show which has an outsider enter a sleepy town of storybrooke, only to find out that everyone is a fairytale character. It’s an incredible premise in my opinion, and the parallel nods between the real world and the past’s fairytale world is what lends it its charm. The past fairytale world kept the interest in the story through the second world while also adding stakes to the present timeline. A question of which human character is which fairytale legend kept up most of the interest in early seasons. In this regard I think a major takeaway for me is that lore should only be included if it affects the present, complicates it, explains it, or heightens stakes.
Big don’t in worldbuilding, because doing so might make your world generic: Avoid overdone tropes in worldbuilding — racism-based fantasy, Fantasy as a metaphor for discrimination (unless you have a Witcher S1 style take on it). Avoid placeholder names (the empire, the rebellion, the scholars, the warriors). Your worldbuilding needs to show in dialogue, sayings, and even tenor / verbiage. Stay away from explicitly Roman, Greek, and British history, unless, again, you have the FRESHEST take on it. If you’re talking about a Gaulic companion in conquered Rome, an aged healer in Britain who patches up all the young knights, for example. Or are literally writing the Hunger Games. It needs to ring fresh if you’re doing a mythology often used in fantasy.
There’s no need to make your fantasy world sexist. It’s a magical world. You don’t need to have women delegated to chattel, and your MC be the first woman to do stuff. It’s regressive You can have contraception, abortion or ways to avoid dying in childbirth. You don’t need women getting their period (but if you describe it, yay you). You don’t need damsels, seductresses or any other stereotype.
Part 4 coming on Friday!