by A.C. Williams @ACW_Author
Imagine that you’re reading a novel, a detective story or a contemporary romance, and the main character is a fairly soft-spoken guy with no unusual or extraordinary talents or abilities. He’s funny or witty or likable in some way, but not in possession of super-powers or magical abilities or extensive technical skills. But when you reach the climax of the story, suddenly your main character sprouts wings and can shoot lasers from his eyeballs.
How would you react to that turn of events as a reader? Would you wonder where it came from? Would you glance back through previous chapters to see if the author had set it up in some way? Or would you just roll your eyes and chuck the book across the room because you’re so disappointed?
Bad example?
Okay, let’s come at it from a speculative genre as a starting point. Say you’re reading a science fiction novel, and the spaceship where the characters have been living suddenly has faster-than-light engines and there’s no explanation as to where they came from or how they function.
Or what if you’re reading a high fantasy book, and suddenly at the end of the book, the heroes are attacked by dragons when there had been no indication of dragons even existing in the story.
As a reader, that would make me stop and wonder what the author was thinking. If the end of the story relies on one of those elements, shouldn’t they have been introduced sooner? Shouldn’t there have been an indication that it was coming?
Of course there should have been, but endings are hard. Writing a satisfying conclusion is completely dependent on dropping breadcrumbs throughout the first three quarters of a story, and you can’t have breadcrumbs if you haven’t baked the whole loaf of bread. Or, restated without the gluten, you need to have a complete picture of the whole story you’re telling before you know how to foreshadow the ending.
So far in this Worldbuilding 101 series, we’ve talked about Existing History, People and Social Circles, Language and Communication, Climate and Geography, Agriculture, Faith and Religion, Government and Economics, and Technology and Magic Systems.
This month, for the final installment of this series, we’re going to chat briefly about Being Consistent in your worldbuilding. This element of writing speculative fiction can be among the most frustrating, but it’s also one of the most important.
Natural rules aren’t something we think about often when it comes to everyday life, unless you’re a physics teacher. The fact is, every world has rules—even fictional ones. Fantasy worlds must have rules. Magic systems must have rules. Sci-fi worlds are absolutely dependent on rules (and if you’re writing hard sci-fi, you’d better have your theories accurate).
Many of the worlds within our favorite speculative fiction novels are so much fun because of the rules by which they operate. The quickest way to lose your reader’s respect and attention is to break your own rules in a way you haven’t explained or set up properly.
This is true in every type of fiction you write, but especially in speculative fiction. It gets complicated in sci-fi and fantasy because the author makes the rules. You’re building an entire imaginary culture from the ground up, most times, so you’re responsible to create the physics and the science (or magic) that operates within the world. You can’t break your rules, or your readers will notice.
Your readers pay closer attention than you might realize.
One of my favorite examples of the dangers of complex worldbuilding and science is from the television show Stargate: SG1. One of my favorites of all time. They had a challenge on their hands from the start because they were adapting a television show from the original movie, and the movie really hadn’t set up the science behind any of the technology that was being used. So the show had to fill in the gaps as best they could, and—boy, oh boy—it got complicated really fast. And it was a pain because after 10 seasons on the air, almost nobody could remember how many blasts from a zat gun it took to vaporize someone versus just stun them (except the fans). But the showrunners and the actors did what they could to keep the rules consistent, because people who loved the show would notice.
So if you’re building science or physics or magic systems in your world, don’t make them too complicated. Because you’re the one who is going to have to remember your own rules!
Now, am I saying you can never break your own rules? Well, not exactly.
You can break your rules, but there is a way to do it well. Some tropes call this strategy a MacGuffin. Sometimes it’s a Chosen One. Whatever the designation, you can create an exception.
Because in most cases, even though every world has rules, most rules also have an exception. Best example? Biblical Salvation.
Every human will die. That’s a fact. A rule. We are born, and then we die. Oh, except for those who trust Jesus for salvation. They won’t die—not spiritually. They get to live forever.
If you already know you need to break the rules in your story, you have to set up the exception far in advance of the conclusion.
One of my favorite anime is called Fullmetal Alchemist (I mentioned it last month). It takes place in a world where alchemy, transmuting one object into another, is the reigning “science” of the day. Like with any other science, alchemy has rules. In the series, they call it the Law of Equivalent Exchange. If you want to make something new, you have to give up something of equal value. Like if you want to make a lamp, you can’t just snap your fingers and make a lamp. You have to have all the pieces or elements of a lamp in place. In this world, you can’t make something from nothing.
Unless you have an item called the Philosopher’s Stone. With this stone, an alchemist can do whatever he wants. He can create something out of nothing, as though the Law of Equivalent Exchange doesn’t exist.
Oh there’s a cost, of course, but that’s not the point here. The point is that in the Fullmetal Alchemist storyline, the Philosopher’s Stone is set up at the very beginning as the sole exception to the rule of how alchemy works. So it’s not a surprise later on in the story when people in possession of a Philosopher’s Stone can do impossible things.
As much as possible, never break your rules. If you make a rule in your fantasy or sci-fi world simply to break it, does it even need to be a rule? It’s an important question to consider.
But, that being said, if breaking the rule you’ve created is an important part of the story you’re telling, be sure that you introduce the exception sooner rather than later.
PART 1 WORLDBUILDING 101 FOR WRITERS: DO YOU KNOW THE HISTORY OF YOUR STORY WORLD?
PART 2 WORLDBUILDING 101 FOR WRITERS: WRITING PEOPLE GROUPS AND SOCIAL CIRCLES
PART 3 WORLDBUILDING 101 FOR WRITERS: WRITING LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
PART 4 WORLDBUILDING 101 FOR WRITERS: CLIMATE AND GEOGRAPHY
PART 5 WORLDBUILDING 101 FOR WRITERS: AGRICULTURE
PART 6 WORLDBUIDING 101 FOR WRITERS: WRITING FAITH AND RELIGION
PART 7 WORLDBUILDING 101 FOR WRITERS: WRITING GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMICS
PART 8 WORLDBUILDING 101 FOR WRITERS: WRITING TECHNOLOGY AND MAGIC SYSTEMS
PART 9 WORLDBUILDING 101 FOR WRITERS: WRITING MAGIC SYSTEMS USING SCIENCE
PART 10 WORLDBUILDING 101 FOR WRITERS: WRITE WITHOUT BREAKING YOUR WORLD'S RULES
Award-winning author, A.C. Williams is a coffee-drinking, sushi-eating, story-telling nerd who loves cats, country living, and all things Japanese. She’d rather be barefoot, and if she isn’t, her socks won’t match. She has authored eight novels, two novellas, three devotional books, and more flash fiction than you can shake a stick at. A senior partner at the award-winning Uncommon Universes Press, she is passionate about stories and the authors who write them. Learn more about her book coaching and follow her adventures online at https://www.amycwilliams.com.
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