t seems only natural that whilst I am currently undertaking a monolithic worldbuilding task to go into some greater discussion of the things involved for myself and other fantasy writers. There are many aspects to worldbuilding, partly because it is such an umbrella term for anything from culture creation to character creation, and also because, as I see it, it’s not just this standalone thing that you do and that’s that. Worldbuilding, it its various forms, is often a platform or a backdrop for other stage pieces that are happening in the behind the scenes of story creation, and as a result has an influence over these things. The question of fantasy and logic is one which is not solely about worldbuilding, however, but the two certainly run in tandem, and it would be remiss not to discuss them when paired together.
To some it might seem strange to pair fantasy and logic in the same sentence. After all, surely they are contradictory things? Logic here refers to the internal logic of the fantasy world. When it comes to the construction of a believable fantasy world in writing, therefore, the two are inextricably linked. But should a fantasy world should be believable? Does it have to? I hear people up in arms already. These are questions that are most certainly up for debate, and I daresay there are people who would disagree with me. My answer to these questions is that it depends on what you mean by “believable”.
When I talk about a believable fantasy world, I mean one that holds water. I do not mean a world that is realistic in the sense that it mimics and mirrors our own and the rules by which it is governed. I mean one that obeys its own rules and structures, one that we can allow ourselves to fall into, which is well constructed enough to catch us. In other words, is it something which seems to carry its own internal logic?
A fantasy world doesn’t have to be believable in the sense that you must justify in human terms why your aliens exist, but it does need to be believable in the sense that there is an underlying basis of logic and systems that make sense within that world. Therefore, to me, yes, a fantasy world should be believable by those terms. These structures are what your story and realm hang off, and if they are shaky, odds are that your readers will notice, and if they’re particularly unstable, they may cease to engage in the suspension of their disbelief.
This last part is the most crucial aspect of what I am driving towards when I discuss believability, and by extension, internal logic. When it comes to fantasy there is one thing that all authors require from their readers. We reach out our hands to pull them into our worlds, and in taking them they are engaging in a contract to suspend their disbelief – to believe in the world that we are drawing them into. Now, there are certain rules about this contract. Namely, that in return for the reader being willing to believe what we tell them, the author has to play ball and do their best to create a world that makes sense. And by sense, I mean that it follows its own rules. A quasi-medieval fantasy story isn’t about to have aliens randomly appear, the reason for their presence unsubstantiated.
If an author doesn’t do their job well and accidentally breaks the believability of the reality they have created, the reader is of course well within their rights to break that contract of suspension of disbelief. There are a few reasons why this might happen. An accident on the part of the author, lack of attention to detail, or even not understanding the contract they’re engaging in with the reader, and the expectations of the genre they’re working in. That’s not to say you can’t play with and subvert the genre expectations, but it must be done intentionally. At the end of the day, all of these things boil down to the reader being shaken out of the story and back into reality, and it can be likened to a poorly done, or unintentional, fourth wall break.
A reader disengaging is a worst nightmare. In the worst-case scenario, they may decide to simply put down the book and not come back. In less dramatic cases they may just have a moment of disconnection where the flow is interrupted and they have to stop and think, possibly even re-read. An accident that hasn’t been picked up is like a car hitting a pothole in a road. You’re given a jolt, but generally can continue if it’s only a small hole, but you’ve been unsettled by it. These jolting and unintentional fourth wall breaks interrupt your reader’s immersion in the story, pushing them back into the real world. If they happen too often, they may begin to question the author’s ability and lose faith in the author and the story.
This is something that is important to all genres. Anyone can have an incongruous detail or a patch of clunky prose. Unless there is a reason for the author shaking the reader out of their story, it’s generally not a desirable thing to happen. Many interruptions to the flow of a piece will be taken as poor writing ability, and if it happens too much, you can alienate audiences. To me, uninterrupted immersion becomes even more important with genres like fantasy. After all, that is what the genre is about. Immersion, and to a degree, escapism. Readers want to fall into your story and to believe in the world you’ve created. Interrupting your reader’s experience of that with clumsy moments isn’t ideal.
So how do we tackle this in fantasy? Suspension of disbelief is vital to a reader engaging with a fantasy (or sci-fi or any other like genre for that matter) novel. It is the ticket fee for entrance, paid in good faith, with the expectation that promises made will be fulfilled. But what then must an author do to fulfil their part of the bargain?
In basic terms there are two parts to this. One, the easiest, is watching your vernacular, particularly in description (e.g. similes) or when using common idioms. A world without electricity wouldn’t have characters describing a sensation being like an electric shock, for instance. This can be tricky to get a handle on, because often we will employ these methods of description without thinking. It can be helpful to tuck away a reminder about this for editing. The second part is far larger. This is where I return to internal logic.
One of the most freeing aspects of writing fantasy is that you, as the author, have complete and total control over every aspect of that world. One of the most overwhelming aspects of writing fantasy is that you, as the author, have the responsibility of complete and total control over every aspect of that world. Despite the sometimes heavy weight of this responsibility, we, as writers, are able to make worlds that are as illogical and irrational as we desire, as compared to reality. We are choosing and creating the rule framework for the world, and for ourselves. Regardless of which path we take, these are big things, and it’s important to know how to pick and choose your battles (in a worldbuilding sense). What are things which you can draw in from the real world? What are things that you can subtly reinvent or subvert? What are original things that require construction from scratch?
So here we are at worldbuilding, something that every author will do regardless of their genre. For fantasy and other genres where the whole canvas can start out blank, there are some bugbears to watch out for here – under building and over building.
Many are likely to indulge in the first. Namely, creating a world too shallowly. What can happen here is that when readers are perhaps on their second or third read (hopefully it’s not noticed on their first) they begin to see the potholes and missing patches that you didn’t pick up on. This is not to say you need to recreate the atom in your fantasy world. These kinds of gaps are the unintentional ones that result from not considering the implications of particular features you are building into your world. For instance, if you have magic, what place does it have in the world, does it have a source? It’s fun to create cool things, but make sure they’re substantiated and serve a purpose beyond simply being cool. Once you begin building with intention, the internal logic of your world will more easily be paved.
Over building is what I think tends to happen once a writer notices that they’ve been under building. They get very excited at their newly broadened horizons and can over commit and overextend themselves in their endeavour for total originality. I’ll say it now – the pursuit of originality is one I do not recommend. To some extent most ideas have already been had, it’s how we handle them that makes our version different or original. That’s not to shoot anyone’s aspirations down – it’s a warning. Do not hang your skill or ideals as an author on originality. It will make for a rough ride, and originality is not the highest peak on which we can hang our caps on.
To return to over building, however. It can be helpful, if you feel yourself getting to a quagmire of worldbuilding, to break down the different things you are trying to do into clusters. For instance, the culture of a society – what is their religion (if they have one), do they have coming of age rituals, what are their leisure activities, what are common jobs? Choose and build what may become relevant, and when applicable, use broad brushstrokes. This will cut down on the time required, as well as the amount of creative energy you have to use up in the creation of this background colour.
You want a world that seems real and distinct, but keep in mind just what it is that your readers will “see”. Not everything has to be created, and not everything you create has to or will have “screen time”. It’s also fine (and even important) to leave plausible gaps for the reader to fill in with their own imaginings. Remember to credit your readers with intelligence. Not even connection needs to be spelled out even if you know the answer. This pertains strongly to your control over your prose, and finding that tricky balance of enough description for vibrancy and life, without belabouring anything.
Sometimes the quest for internal logic will also involve a lot of research for the author. It’s easy to think “oh no, research?” and conjure images of Gandalf surrounded by dusty scrolls and books. Research is important for writers, however. If I wanted to create a herbalist character, even if I was only to have her picking some herbs without any direct mention of creating a cure, I would want to do some research about the properties of various plants. Something so simple can give rise to a number of questions. Would I use modern knowledge of plants, or would I use perhaps a medieval text? Am I approaching this from a Western perspective? Would I only use real plants or would I create some? These are questions that authors may face and indeed struggle over.
It’s important to remember that researching is a double-edged sword. You may fall down some rabbit holes, and it’s very common to accidentally procrastinate by researching. However, it can also build a helpful base of knowledge from which you can draw threads and elements later down the track. Knowing what you’re talking about will come through in your writing, sometimes without you realising, and can subtly help influence the legitimacy of your world’s internal logic.
As I envisage it, a structure of internal logic is like building stable foundations. It doesn’t form the actual narrative that I am telling, but it is the frame on which it hangs. I need to know and understand that frame and the tenets of it in order to ensure it is sturdy. By building my architecture well, the story is shaped in a way that seems cohesive and whole. Telling the story well means that the architecture is nicely concealed. The reader doesn’t need to see all the cogs and wheels whirring in the background, or the large support struts that prop up the façade.
It doesn’t end there, however. The keystone to internal logic working, is, of course, consistency. What you’ve done is create a set of rules which dictate how your world works. This is, perhaps, the very essence of what internal logic is about. It is important to remember those rules, and to follow them. Failure to do so will result in those potholes in the road which bump your readers out of their suspension of disbelief. Because we as fantasy writers get to choose what our rules are when it comes to the internal logic of a piece, it becomes doubly important that we remember them and abide by them. Breaking them for the sake of a little cool trick or because it was more convenient for plot reasons won’t fly with readers that are on the ball, and at best is an accident, at worst, laziness.
The interlinking of these concepts (of internal logic and consistency) is something that writers spend a great deal of time and effort in achieving, hours slaving away writing notes and researching, crossing out and deleting things, and reworking and rewording. To me, they are important. Vitally important. Especially to the work of fantasy authors. Although all the effort is not shown, and a lot of the material that has been created may never directly see daylight, it all informs what ends up on the page for the reader. We are all like swans. Calm and put together on the surface, but frantically paddling underneath to keep all of that going. What looks effortless very rarely is, and all the work involved to get to that point often just won’t be seen. However, if you don’t put the work in, and something is incongruous, it is extremely likely that someone will notice it.
Being informed and intentional will always impart a tone of confidence that the writer knows their stuff to the reader. Do we write solely for the benefit of readers? No, of course not. Sometimes the act of writing serves the author more than it may do any reader. But very few pieces are ever created for the purpose of being locked away from sight. Writing is meant to be read. It’s an act of creation that is generally done for the very purpose of being shared.
The logic in fantasy are the rules that we as writers create for ourselves. These can take time. They can take multiple edits to get right, and then yet more to ensure there is continuity and consistency with those rules and systems and how they are being applied. Be kind with yourself. Sorting these things out takes effort, and you are still creating when you are doing it, even if you’re not getting words on the page. Not everything in writing is writing.
