The Joys of World-Building in Fiction
Where do you go when absolutely everywhere feels awful? I’ve had some bones to pick with the real world for some time now (or perhaps on some level forever—I did decide, after all, to become a novelist). But it was several global crises back that I began to feel a specific and intensifying urge to make my excuses, open a trapdoor, and step outside current reality. And one day I saw, clearly, that if I was once again to spend many thousands of working hours on and inside a new novel, the universe of that novel could be—indeed, had to be—somewhere that was just… better.
Historical fiction would offer an obvious departure from the present, but it became swiftly clear that it didn’t suit my purposes. However far back I went, the global bin fire of 2024 would still lie ahead. And it was impossible to make the case that many things were better for women in the past, even if they weren’t having to contend with toxic social media or conspiracy theories. Where, then? I opted for an alternative, made-to-measure present. I opted for absolute, autocratic control.
World-building has long been associated with fantasy. Indeed, it is hard to talk about it without instant, near-obligatory reference to Tolkien, or George R. R. Martin. But the truth is that all fiction invites a reader in to another life, and thus all fiction requires not only the fabrication of plot and character but bricks-and-mortar construction: houses; streets; society; language; even if those elements have everything in common with the reality the author leaves behind. A reader in a subway car, immersed in a novel set in a subway car, still needs the world of that fictional subway car to convince, and to hang together.
All novels require an adherence to their own internal rules, and thus require meticulous world-building, even if they don’t need the author to decide whether or not to breed dragons, and whether those dragons can talk. A novel issues a polite invitation to the reader to suspend her disbelief. Whether the reader plays ball depends, in a large part, upon the author’s architectural success.
And so, when I began writing what would later become Welcome to Glorious Tuga, my own starting point was a recognizable present, but washed clean of hate and terror; of pandemics and polarization. A little kinder, and with better weather. That, already, felt fantastical enough. But it was fantasy on the level of the magnificent Schitt’s Creek—what if a tiny rural Canadian town existed with a total absence of homophobia and racism?
In my case, what shimmered into being was a tiny, remote tropical island in the south Atlantic, on which a close, tolerant, and slightly eccentric Humanist community welcomed any settlers in need of refuge. A place of endearing people trying their best and mostly (but not always) succeeding.
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In the case of Tuga de Oro, I decided early on that the primary invented element was the existence of the island itself, but that real-world rules remained in place. Extreme isolation alone would keep away any sinister global forces. I would not have marsupials in the south Atlantic; nothing would levitate. Tuga is, like Tristan da Cunha, St Helena, and Ascension, a volcanic hotspot near the mid-Atlantic ridge, and thus very much could exist.
Indeed, many islands near its invented location probably do exist, only needing one or two more eruptions a zillion years ago to breach the water’s surface. I love the idea that Tuga is out there, an almost-reality. With latitude and longitude came climate; with climate came flora. With weather and flora come customs, traditions, a way of life.
And therein lies the magical engine of world-building: People invariably begin to form once an environment exists for them, for to build a world is to shape the character of those who live in it. Climate becomes culture, and culture shapes not only the individuals but the constellations of relationships, the marriages, the love affairs.
The joy of world-building, I have discovered, is that, done right, from a new world, new story inevitably unfurls. Or, if you prefer: Build it, and your characters will come.
Check out Francesca Segal’s Welcome to Glorious Tuga here:
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