A thrill of hope

I’m working on the pre-writing for my next novel. I don’t know what that means for other writers, but for me that means I’m trying to anticipate what I will need as background for my story. Though I hear all the time different authors throwing out different figures (ie. you need to have written at least 10 times the world-building as you plan to write of your novel), I suspect it’s yet another one of those things where each writer has to find what works for them. I have no doubt that Brandon Sanderson has at least as much background written for his “Stormlight Archive” series as at least one of his novels, but if he had to write ten times that I doubt he’d have been able to start the novels yet.

I suppose, though, a lot depends on just what type of experience you’re hoping to give your reader. Sanderson is going for an epic, immersive experience. Michael J. Sullivan is going for an interesting story with a solid plot and good characters. His Riyria books may have accumulated a considerable amount of background info, but I’ll bet he didn’t start with that much initially, because his books use a lot of standard fantasy trope shorthand for setting.

As for me? I’m still trying to find that balance. I don’t want to get “lost at sea” and forget to actually write the book. The novel I’m currently planning is set in the same world as the last one, though in a rather different part of the world, so while a certain amount has already been done, there’s a lot that hasn’t. I have a general idea of the plot, and the plot is such that I don’t foresee needing a lot of background on, say, what’s going on in a part of the same empire 1000 miles away. This is not an epic novel. It’s an adventure story. I mainly just need to know the area in which I expect it to take place.

For me backstory is hard. I have to make myself work at it, otherwise I go with the first idea that comes into my head. That’s not necessarily bad, but it’s not necessarily good, either. It’s too easy to tie things up in a nice little bow rather than leave myself “hooks” that could lead me to develop other ideas. I tend to get lazy, and come up with something that explains it, but it’s way too simple. My setting can lack complexity, and as a general rule, complexity breeds conflict, which is what stories need to thrive.

I also have a hard time locating the holes. Anyone can take a look at a picture and figure out what’s wrong with it. It’s much, much harder to take a blank canvas and decide what’s missing. Do I really need to know how rich people’s children gain an education? Perhaps not. But perhaps that little detail could be important. It could be the spark that leads to a myriad of other ideas that lend my whole setting a weight that might not have been there before. But then, that could just be overkill that keeps me from actually getting to the story.

I suspect it may require something of an iterative process. I’d been avoiding creating my characters until I have the bulk of my world-building done, but I’ve been noticing that I’m running out of ideas as to what more elements of setting I need to fill in. Then yesterday I left my power adapter at home, so I couldn’t continue my world-building during my usual lunchtime writing time. So instead I sat down and wrote out what I know of my main character at this point, and what I know of the plot. Then, looking at those pieces of the puzzle, I brainstormed on what that suggested for other characters I might need. Within a few minutes I had four other characters. Then I started looking at each of them in turn. I quickly realized two of them were the same person.

The next realization was that several of these people likely wouldn’t like each other, or would at least have strong reason to distrust each other at first. That’s big for me, because building conflict into my stories is not easy for me. In spite of my main plot, I prefer everyone get along. It’s a bad habit I’ve got to break. So it’s encouraging that I’m starting to alter my thinking in that area.

The next and best realization was that I’m excited to write about these people. I still don’t have a real grasp on the plot line yet, but just the sub-plots already arising from my choices of characters are already grabbing my attention. I’m getting eager to start.

Since character is one place I feel I’m weak, this is especially encouraging. I’ve made a conscious goal for this next novel to focus more on characterization, so it’s encouraging that I’m giving myself more to work with this time around.

So the next step is to take a closer look at my characters and the various plots surrouding them, and do another pass at world-building. What do I now need to flesh out in order to explain who these people are and why they are the way they are? Where can I add points of conflict to their backstories? Where can I develop more interesting aspects to the setting to explain things? I’ll know if I’m getting it right if I find myself getting increasingly excited rather than increasingly bored with world-building. At least that’s the hope.

Where I may have initially erred in the last novel was in planning the novel in too great detail. This time I’m hoping to emphasize building up everything around the story so that (hopefully) the story becomes easier to tell once I get started on it. I don’t know wherethat balance point is. I’m still learning, still experimenting.

But I’m also having fun.