Alan Moore - Create An Imaginary World With Texture - Storytelling - BBC Maestro

What is texture in storytelling? And how can you use it to build a fictional world that feels undeniably real? It’s all in the detail. Watch this clip from Alan Moore to find out how he uses texture in world-building.

This lesson is taken from Alan Moore’s BBC Maestro online storytelling course, which details every aspect of building a fictional world and the characters that live in it.


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[burningflag]

"A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.” Frederik Pohl

I take that line to heart when worldbuilding or doing any creative work.

[ThePsycoDolphin]

Absolutely the best advice for worldbuilding. It's not the huge stuff that counts, that's just the massive buildings and towers you've painted. It's every single small detail around the edge of the frame, the blades of grass, the wisps of cloud, a squirrel running away, a person staring up with an umbrella gently excreeting a fart - thats what counts. Carl Sagan said that in order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first create the universe, meaning that in order to understand something as basic as apple pie it's necessary to know the constitutes of the entire fabric of universe that go into making the pie. Worldbuilding is exactly the same. Want to make a pie, make your universe.

[MythopoeicNavid]

It is SO immensely good to hear his voice again :D thank you so much for this BBC Maestro and thank YOU Alan Moore for doing this!

[nmshine]

I am so thankful this has been shared on YouTube. Alan Moore has been one of the most influential writers I have ever read. He is always making us think better, and be better humans. I hope he can read this and know he has made an impact by just being himself and honest, in his writing. Anarchy is actually quite palatable when explained by Mr. Moore!

[nakenmil]

For an absolute masterful example of this, I suggest the Gainax animated movie "Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise". It's about this alternate universe with a vaguely-mid-20th-century look to it, where some people are trying to create the first manned spaceflight. The story is mostly introspective and kind of subdued and subtle, but in terms of worldbuilding it is just absolutely amazing. The concept artists for that movie must have spent an absolute inordinate amount of time thinking and coming up with alien-yet-recognizeable designs for everything from TVs, to street layouts, to money, to window closing mechanisms, to fighter planes, to board games, to parade uniforms, to musical instruments, to artstyles, and so on and so on. It's a real visual treat for anyone into worldbuilding.

[chej]

I love how the radio in Promethea is called Texture. Give that book a read, it’s awesome.

[kaalsemulzii]

This. This is what makes the world of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines game more believable. The radio and the television makes it so believable, it could pass on normal radio or tv. Love it to the end of the world. Fallout 3 and New Vegas does this too, I heard Fallout 4 is doing it as well, but never experienced it myself.

[BroughtCat]

Wow he's so freaking smart, but smart in a way where he's talking to you directly as a person not down to you.

[Rebazar]

Disco Elysium does an incredible job of this

[Just_Some_Guy_with_a_Mustache]

You gotta embrace your imaginary world! You gotta sniff your imaginary world! You gotta lick your imaginary world! You gotta wash your imaginary world! You gotta date your imaginary world! You gotta BE your imaginary world!

[ABFrank.]

Oh Alan, we do. Ohh Alan we love you!

[stewartroche]

Does anyone know what the music that appears at the beginning of each lesson is? I can’t place it and it’s driving me crazy!

[Lia-ufir]

0:28 Oooh so that's how British people say advertisements.

[buzzawuzza]

Where is the Magus? What room is this?

[fernandosanchez]

while hearing him talking about how to build a world I immediately thought about one piece and how Oda essentially filled the OP world with all of that, advertisement and news, you have Morgans and his news paper that will usually fill in the gaps whenever an arc is done and characters are constantly reading, scraps of songs, you have Bink's Sake and the fact that everybody knows about that song, that's why Oda and One Piece's world building are so good, because like Alan Moore says here, Oda is essentially faking some of those things.

[ianbauer]

Even Alan's accent has 'texchah'!

[TheZoltanF]

Is he suggesting the ‘real world’ is imaginary ?

[markhenzel]

How to fake it, Mr Moore?? Is it like a news tell something that has something with the story?

[kabalofthebloodyspoon]

I did not think 50 seconds could possibly have any meaningful advice. I was wrong

[rafamericano]

What’s with this stupid drip-drip format? Can’t we get the full-length lecture?