Right now I'm reading through and revising Golden and writing the third book in the trilogy, Bronze simultaneously. Being immersed in the sci-fi world of Renee once more, I'm starting to really stress about the world-building. I'm not a very good world-builder, maybe that's why I prefer writing stories that are in the here and now with hidden worlds. It just makes life and world-building a little easier. I used to write fantasy and I'm pretty good at that sort of world-building, probably because I've been so immersed in those worlds since I was little.
Plus, you have complete free reign to do whatever you want. In sci-fi you have that too, to a point. But sci-fi also has lots of gadgets and sciency stuff and I know not everything needs to be explained. I'm not a sciency, mechanic sort of person. I love the sci-fi world, from Star Wars to Star Trek to Firefly to Starflight by Melissa Landers. I loved the shows Star-crossed and Roswell (especially Roswell!) and Alienated by Melissa Landers too. I love all of it. But right now I'm having a hard time finding the right balance between what's enough and what's too much. I guess I never really thought of this, but every sub-genre of sci-fi needs different amounts of world-building. And each story needs different amounts too.
Star Wars and Star Trek are as vast and complex as they come. Their world and galaxies stretches on forever. Firefly and Starflight are much more intimate and smaller, focusing on a smaller portion of their sci-fi world. They require far less information and world-building than Star Wars and Star Trek and that's perfectly fine because every story needs different amounts of information to make the story make sense. Then there's my personal favorite sub-genre, the whole aliens come down to Earth and there's often a romance between a teenage girl and teenage alien. Star-crossed, Roswell, Alienated. All of them are the best. Star-crossed actually had an entire language made for their alien race. They had a history and they even mentioned the sort of planet they lived on because it was relevant to the marks on their skin. In one particular episode, that information was relevant when one of the characters wanted to join the swim team and since they came from a mostly water based planet so they are natural born swimmers. In Alienated (the trilogy reminds me somewhat of what I'm doing with Golden since the Cara goes to the alien planet like Renee does) there's a good amount of world-building involved. Mostly for the aliens since Cara does go to their planet. They have their own customs and creatures and environments on their planet. (I learned first hand how long and hard it is to create an entire alien planet, I have some real respect for all those sci-fi writers after creating Zlatan!)
Roswell, I think, had the least amount of world-building. Since Max, Michael and Isabel came from their planet as children and don't remember anything besides Earth, I guess it makes sense that the alien portion of that series wouldn't need too much elaboration. And since they lived in the early 2000's in a small town, the human part of the series didn't need much elaboration either. Really, throughout the whole series you don't learn a whole lot about their alien race. Just small things like that they have different abilities, are able to manipulate matter and stuff like that. Smaller stuff that's more intimate and closely affect the characters. But you never get too much about where they actually come from. What they would have looked like if they hadn't landed on Earth and become part human, part alien or what their alien planet looks like or even where it is. In a way it made the show even more enjoyable and unique. I'm interested to see how far they take the worldbuilding in the Roswell reboot coming up on the CW.
I guess my point is, every genre has it's own level of worldbuilding and within that genre, every book, every story has it's level too. It's just the matter of finding the perfect balance. A Tweet from someone I follow on Twitter reminded me that the story isn't about the world, it's about the characters. Give the reader the information that directly impacts the characters and their small portion of their world. They don't need to know everything in excruciating detail. The spaceships and technology don't need to be overly explained. If your reading a sci-fi book, most likely, you know science fiction terminology and worlds. They all are pretty similar. They all have spaceships, they all have some type of ray gun. It's just the matter of finding the right words and terms to explain what your picturing in your head. That's the hardest part for me. Getting the images and story in my head down on paper.
Don't drown in world-building. Don't get caught up in the details. I once read somewhere in a book specifically about world-building that a writer has to be careful when it comes to worldbuilding. There is such a thing as too much and there is such a thing as building an entire world, and getting so caught up on that that you don't even start writing the book. Focus on your characters and their journeys and the rest will fall into place. Trust me, for some of you, I get it. This is hard for me to wrap my head around. No, readers don't need to have everything explained. No I don't need to know every little detail of the alien planet or the futuristic version of our planet. Just give them what they need to enjoy the story, the characters and the sliver of the massive galaxies that I created in this book. Keep it clean, keep it simple, keep it intimate and you'll be good.
Writing this sci-fi series taught me a lot. I became a better world-builder because of it. I learned how to create an entire society, a history for an alien race, several different religions and viewpoints for said society and so on. It's been stressful and fun. But revising this series? I think it's teaching me even more. Golden is a giant mess, mostly because that was book one and I had no idea what I was doing or how to build a futuristic world or anything. So now, revising Golden is teaching me how to cut the fluff out, how to make it clean, concise and to the point. How not to stress too much about the details and focus on the characters and let the world come together on its own.
I hope this post has been helpful and encouraging to you guys! If you're writing fantasy and sci-fi best of luck to you! You're seriously awesome for putting all of that hard work and energy into creating an entire world with your mind. Do you have any idea how amazing that is? I didn't until I started on Golden. Never forget that. That you are creating an entire world, whole histories, religions, civilizations and galaxies with your thoughts, your fingers and a computer. It's truly amazing.
Star Wars and Star Trek are as vast and complex as they come. Their world and galaxies stretches on forever. Firefly and Starflight are much more intimate and smaller, focusing on a smaller portion of their sci-fi world. They require far less information and world-building than Star Wars and Star Trek and that's perfectly fine because every story needs different amounts of information to make the story make sense. Then there's my personal favorite sub-genre, the whole aliens come down to Earth and there's often a romance between a teenage girl and teenage alien. Star-crossed, Roswell, Alienated. All of them are the best. Star-crossed actually had an entire language made for their alien race. They had a history and they even mentioned the sort of planet they lived on because it was relevant to the marks on their skin. In one particular episode, that information was relevant when one of the characters wanted to join the swim team and since they came from a mostly water based planet so they are natural born swimmers. In Alienated (the trilogy reminds me somewhat of what I'm doing with Golden since the Cara goes to the alien planet like Renee does) there's a good amount of world-building involved. Mostly for the aliens since Cara does go to their planet. They have their own customs and creatures and environments on their planet. (I learned first hand how long and hard it is to create an entire alien planet, I have some real respect for all those sci-fi writers after creating Zlatan!)
Roswell, I think, had the least amount of world-building. Since Max, Michael and Isabel came from their planet as children and don't remember anything besides Earth, I guess it makes sense that the alien portion of that series wouldn't need too much elaboration. And since they lived in the early 2000's in a small town, the human part of the series didn't need much elaboration either. Really, throughout the whole series you don't learn a whole lot about their alien race. Just small things like that they have different abilities, are able to manipulate matter and stuff like that. Smaller stuff that's more intimate and closely affect the characters. But you never get too much about where they actually come from. What they would have looked like if they hadn't landed on Earth and become part human, part alien or what their alien planet looks like or even where it is. In a way it made the show even more enjoyable and unique. I'm interested to see how far they take the worldbuilding in the Roswell reboot coming up on the CW.
I guess my point is, every genre has it's own level of worldbuilding and within that genre, every book, every story has it's level too. It's just the matter of finding the perfect balance. A Tweet from someone I follow on Twitter reminded me that the story isn't about the world, it's about the characters. Give the reader the information that directly impacts the characters and their small portion of their world. They don't need to know everything in excruciating detail. The spaceships and technology don't need to be overly explained. If your reading a sci-fi book, most likely, you know science fiction terminology and worlds. They all are pretty similar. They all have spaceships, they all have some type of ray gun. It's just the matter of finding the right words and terms to explain what your picturing in your head. That's the hardest part for me. Getting the images and story in my head down on paper.
Don't drown in world-building. Don't get caught up in the details. I once read somewhere in a book specifically about world-building that a writer has to be careful when it comes to worldbuilding. There is such a thing as too much and there is such a thing as building an entire world, and getting so caught up on that that you don't even start writing the book. Focus on your characters and their journeys and the rest will fall into place. Trust me, for some of you, I get it. This is hard for me to wrap my head around. No, readers don't need to have everything explained. No I don't need to know every little detail of the alien planet or the futuristic version of our planet. Just give them what they need to enjoy the story, the characters and the sliver of the massive galaxies that I created in this book. Keep it clean, keep it simple, keep it intimate and you'll be good.
Writing this sci-fi series taught me a lot. I became a better world-builder because of it. I learned how to create an entire society, a history for an alien race, several different religions and viewpoints for said society and so on. It's been stressful and fun. But revising this series? I think it's teaching me even more. Golden is a giant mess, mostly because that was book one and I had no idea what I was doing or how to build a futuristic world or anything. So now, revising Golden is teaching me how to cut the fluff out, how to make it clean, concise and to the point. How not to stress too much about the details and focus on the characters and let the world come together on its own.
I hope this post has been helpful and encouraging to you guys! If you're writing fantasy and sci-fi best of luck to you! You're seriously awesome for putting all of that hard work and energy into creating an entire world with your mind. Do you have any idea how amazing that is? I didn't until I started on Golden. Never forget that. That you are creating an entire world, whole histories, religions, civilizations and galaxies with your thoughts, your fingers and a computer. It's truly amazing.
Have a great week everyone!
(And please, don't forget to check out Sterling Silver! The first two chapters are on Wattpad now and chapters three, four and five will be up this Saturday!)
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