The Two Types of Fantasy Worldbuilders

Music:
String Quartet no. 3, Op. 66 - I. Andante elegiaco by Felix Draeseke

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

#fantasy #writingcommunity #worldbuilding #booktube

[reginaldogron]

The worst part about the "Cow Tools" argument is that LITERALLY NO ONE GOT THE JOKE and Larson had to issue a public explanation

[hotelmario]

"Absurdism is not the same thing as incompetence" is a fantastic quote.

[finpin]

Honestly less “grounded” worldbuilding can still work as long as you remain internally consistent. You don’t have to explain everything or even have everything be scientifically accurate, you just have to make sure you’re not contradicting yourself. Personally I love both styles but i have a particular soft spot for “soft” worldbuilding like in Ghibli, where things are strange and magical and sometimes absurd, but they work in tandem with each other still. Although I think it’s also funny if you accidentally contradict yourself and then just come up with an explanation and stick to it. For example, in later “Wizard of Oz” books, it’s said that ANY animal that enters Oz can speak. Children sent letters to the author asking “If all animals in oz can speak, why couldn’t Toto speak in the first book?”. He went “oh he could. He just didn’t want to.” And then Toto spoke in the rest of the books.

[naterksmr]

Type III: "The main character looks exactly like me but it's totally not a self-insert. Everyone except the villain loves them and they win every time and have whatever awesome powers I need them to have at any given moment."

[ScadrianGhostblood]

As someone that looks at a wall and thinks to himself how a world where people live in a giant wall would work... I feel called out

[mrsclio]

At the end of the day, it all boils down to the "Once, mighty dragons ruled the land" and "Where the fuck do all these dragons come from?!" dualism

[derpyduck]

"No matter how many sleepless nights it takes, no matter how much pain it brings me... My mind is a ravenous beast, and I must feed it."
That is such an unbelievably metal way of putting it

[skornie]

Type 3: Have a niche interest like "horseless-carriages" or "Airships", have a setting which makes them really cool and reverse-engineer the world so that your niche interests are at the forefront of the story. Everything regarding your niche interest is well researched while the rest is just whatever and kinda falls into place^^

[hosatus]

And then the third writer: sitting for hours staring at an empty word page

[Glisten]

Type 1: The landscape was formed over thousands of years of careful and minute transformations. The mountain that was located between the two villages was known as Mount Hill originally, but the simplification and evolution of language meant it was presently known as Mouthill. It was a spiritual place to the two villages, a common myth being that two lovers, one from each village, first met on the summit. Of this pair, there was a man named K’arll, and historians often interpret him to be the same K’arll from another myth in which…
Type 2: Suddenly, their path was blocked by a mountain!

[millerk]

i believe there are three types
type 1:
"hmm yes, i have created the perfect plot, and my worldbuilding has been crafted to work in tandem with this plot to create a beautiful tale"
type 2:
"okay so character 1 and character 2 go to mars-"
"wait they go to mars? how? why?"
"so the plot can happen"
"but isnt it important to establish how theyre able to travel to mars so the reader isnt confused"
"look ill figure out the worldbuilding stuff later. whats important is the characters and what theyre doing"
type 3:
"uhhhh okay so hear me out. oil doesnt exist, so humans just keep using coal for thousands of years-"
"wait, wouldnt this massively affect the plot???"
"idk"
"what do you mean you dont know? wait, what even is the plot? who are the characters?"
"idk ill figure it out later. anyways theres all this coal pollution, right?"

[horuho]

type 1 and 2 combination leads to the most organic and lively feeling

[Sawdust_]

i mean i was expecting a "eh who cares if the giant floating island dont make sense, rule of cool bro" but that works also

[ChBrahm]

“absurdism is not the same as incompetence”
i’d even say they are opposites

[Ruff]

I like how in both scenarios the writer sounds smart for like a grand total of 2 seconds

[CrossBreedTacoHD]

I like the fantasy novels where 90% of the time the characters are describing their surroundings

[Señor-Donjusticia]

And then there’s big budget Hollywood.

“What’s world-building?”

[doctorhunger]

I often find myself to be the type of writer that becomes disappointed when fiction lacks internal consistency and doesn't abide by either real world logic or its own universe's logic, but I must admit, there's some part of me that admires the boldness of certain writers to simply say "Iunno, I thought it would look cool. Lmao, suck it, nerd."

[Realience]

I was talking to a friend once about the world I'm building
I mentioned how I first established what the continents looked like, what the talk of the planet was on its axis relative to it's own star, the length of a year for it, what the jet streams and ocean currents looked like, tectonic plates and where volcanoes were most likely to be located, and how big and far away from the planet it's moon(s) were, and just how large the planet itself was

He asked me "So should I figure those things out too?"
"Oh god no, absolutely not, this is the worst way of going about this"

[Jorge-ewfk]

I think the best type of worldbuilder would be the mix of this two.