[WORDBOT BOOTING]
In 1666, a writer named Mary Cavendish sat down in a cold, windy, rainy corner of the northeast of England and did something quite extraordinary. She not only wrote what is arguably the first sci-fi novel in the English language, but for her story she created an entirely new world.
Cavendish’s Blazing World blazed the way for the worldbuilding that we all know and love, for the universe of Arrakis, and for the Republic of Gilead; for the grimdark far future of the year 40,000, and for a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It blasted off a tradition of worldbuilding in sci-fi – a tradition which the Wordbot humbly follows with The Dystopian Detective Agency’s very own Bryunsville in the year 2063.
In many cases, these worlds almost become characters in themselves with their own narrative arcs – their interactions with our heroes as critical of any our villains’: the Tyrell Corporation and the noir nightmare city of Los Angeles in 2019 shape Rick Deckard as much as any replicant, the sweeping history of the Hainish universe is as tragic and redemptive as that of any of its inhabitants, and [*SPOILER ALERT*] the fate of the world at the end of Terminator 3 leaves this Wordbot broken inside and weeping tears of WD40…
Creating a universe is just as important as creating its characters. If you’re inspired by The Dystopian Detective Agency – and we very much hope you are! – here are some helpful hints on worldbuilding which worked for this humble Wordbot.
Set your distance
Far more academic writers than this Wordbot – and other truly world-changing writers – continue to debate big questions like: what exactly is it that makes a story a science fiction story (rather than a science-in-fiction story)? In other words, what sets it apart from fantasy, or magical realism, or even a ripe tale from a random, rural soul. (And these are, of course, not mutually exclusive terms).
As a writer, this lowly Wordbot likes to cut through the reams of egregious semantic macramé by simply considering sci-fi as being characterized by distance - distance in time, distance in tech, and distance in truth. It was using these bowling-bumpers-for-the-brain that helped this Wordbot build-out Bryunsville – three big picture questions which can clearly lay out the parameters for a world-to-be:
Distance in time: When does your story happen? Are we again a long, long time ago, hundreds of years ago, the near past, the present day, or in the near or far future?
Distance in tech: Is your world still using the tools of the bronze or Victorian Age (but with splendid alien support tools), or is it pretty much the internal combustion engine and emergent AI that in 2022 we all know and love/hate/fear/are? Or maybe in your world we’ve advanced to flying cars but are still very much Earthbound or Solar-System-bound … or maybe our advances in tech have created an easy-teleporting, faster-than-light traveling, planet-destroying society?
Distance in truth: Do our recognizable laws of physics hold in your world or is the art (and science) of the possible much broader? Are chemistry and biology as we understand them now, or is there amazing (e.g. chemistry), weird (e.g. biology), and thought-provoking (e.g. all of the above!), stuff which in your universe is utterly normal? In other words, is the truth in your world the same as it is in the real world, or is it bent a little, or warped completely out of shape?
This Wordbot guesses that Bryunsville might be described as near future, near tech, and near truth. Increasing or decreasing the distance on any one of those three dials, even by a small amount, would change the world – and therefore its characters – to a huge degree. This Wordbot believes that the distances you set are the key factors in determining everything that follows.
In its next blog, the Wordbot will look at fleshing out the universe with characters and locations… and the importance of consistency.
Until next time, stay lucky – and keep writing!
[WORDBOT OUT]
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