World Building
What Am I Looking For?
My absolute favorite part of editing is diving into a new world an author has built. While it’s true that everything comes from something, and writers use inspiration from other writers, I am always so interested to see what the outcome is. As a developmental editor, it’s my job to make sure that everything you’ve built into your story makes sense from start to finish. That the world that you worked so hard on actually lands with your story. And what I mean by that is, does the magic make sense? Do the creatures you created fit in the land you plopped them in? If you have politics playing into your story, is it believable in your world? You may have a modern world in a sci-fi or spec-fic that you’re writing, what does that mean for global climate, plastics, disease, the economy! There are so many things that make your characters world, and I want to know everything. Most of all, I’m looking for inconsistencies or over-explained/repetitive exposition about your world.
Your readers want to know where they are in this story, what the scenery looks like, smells, colors, and sounds. If you’re moving your characters to a new part of your land, show them where they are! What does the city look like? If you’re in a new land, what are the plants, animals, or even rocks looking like? This can be done in a couple of ways: either have your characters walk through the scene and see it from their eyes, or have the general narrator give a sweeping view of the scene. Now, these suggestions depend on what POV your story is told from. First-person POV will have specific thoughts and opinions about what’s around them. They may think it smells a certain way, or doesn’t seem to be what the others told them it was going to look like. A third-person POV will have that birds-eye view of the scene and give a general description of what everyone is seeing. Choosing your POV is important for world-building, but that’s another conversation that, to be fair, is really up to the author and how they want to tell their story.
An example of good world-building that I’d like to shout out is Holly Black’s The Folk of the Air series. I just started reading these books and am now almost halfway through The Wicked King, and I just have to say how much I love all of the moving pieces here. Holly Black gave us a traditional fae world with rules, creatures, and magic that every kid grows up reading. The Seelie and Unseelie courts, underwater creatures, and just the way that all of her background characters are so unique is what makes this world so believable as fae. Now, what she did was show us a different view of it from a non-faerie person and immerse them in the life of being fae. She came up with different rules to keep Jude and Taryn from being affected by faerie magic or pranks, and had them grow up in the court where it is most dangerous for them. Furthermore, Black also created a political system for this world, taking into account the traditional fae lifeline and traditional succession rules. King Eldred had five (pls correct me if I am wrong here) children, and Jude found a way around the two eldest children to crown Carden and make the deal for Oak. While Jude was working that out, we, the readers, were able see the underbelly of this fae world and how it works through the characters. Everything Jude learned, we learned. Everywhere Jude went, what she saw, the characters she interacted with, was explained to us and expanded Elfhame even more for the readers. That is one of my favorite ways to show a new world.
An example—I will briefly touch on this—that did not do this well, in my very humble opinion, is Crescent City. There were so many things I had issues with while reading that series, and they start with how the new world system was presented to us, and end with the entirety of HOFAS. Truly, I almost shelved House of Earth and Blood because of the info dump that was the first, like, half of the book. There was so much being given, and I was re-reading everything just to make sure I didn’t misunderstand. It got to the point where I had to move on and give up, just to get to the actual story. Now, I am not knocking the first book; it was my favorite of the three. It had so much action, character growth, unique storylines, and enough mystery to keep me interested after every page. I am, however, going to complain about how so many of us readers were confused and overwhelmed by the first 100 pages of a book because there was so much information that we needed to know before the actual story could start.
I can’t even get into HOFAS right now.
At the end of the day, it’s your book and story that you want to tell. All an editor can do is suggest what an author could do with their story. World-building is important; it’s the very bones of your story. It tells so much about your characters, how they live and what they eat, do, or enjoy. The story depends on how fleshed out a book’s world is and how useful it will be to the overall plot.
As always, these are my thoughts and opinions. Every editor is different!
