Worldbuilding for Stories
Building a world to facilitate a specific story can be an interesting experience. When you shift your perspective from exploring a world through the lense of a narrative, to serving that narrative with your worldbuilding decisions, the right choices often change dramatically. Taking this approach can be extremely helpful if you have a strong message you want to convey through your story.
This article will discuss worldbuilding in a context where the world primarily exists to facilitate the story being told. This often allows for extremely interesting and thematic choices, however if not careful, can produce massive inconsistencies. This approach is in direct contrast to the World First approach to worldbuilding and story writing I discussed previously, here.
Serving the plot
When worldbuilding to provide a setting for the story being told, it's important to remember that each decision you make about the world, should be seen through the lense of how it effects the plot. Some decisions may not effect the plot much, but still need to be made. For example, the name of the coffee shop the protagonist stops at in the first chapter, but never returns to. Adding a name provides some extra detail, and can draw the reader in a little more, but may not effect much in the grand scheme of things. However, the place of employment for an office comedy, could drastically impact the entire course of the plot, or at least alter how it is percieved.
Do note, that every worldbuilding decision has the potential to effect how a reader, watcher or listener percieves the story or what makes sense when it comes to the characters decision making. For example, while for many stories the name of that coffee shop may not be important at all, in some it may have profound impact, as it could serve as a clue in a mystery, or the basis for a pun in the recollection of a meet-cute.
In either case, when faced with a decision you need to make about the world your story is set in, determine what the goals are for your story telling. If you're trying to tell moral truth, in the likes of a fable, then consider how each option supports or counters that moral truth. Conversely, if the purpose of your story is to examine a complex social or political issue, consider how the world esisting under each option confirms or contrasts with what you're trying to show. Remember that you choices don't always have to align with those goals. In some cases, you may want to have some elements the world at odds with your messaging, if your goal is to portray a world with shades of grey. In other instances, you may want to have elements of the world exist in opposition in order to demonstrate how things can go wrong, or to highlight other viewpoints which may exist.
The Hemmingway Iceberg
Hemingway said that only the tip of the iceberg showed in fiction—your reader will see only what is above the water—but the knowledge that you have about your character that never makes it into the story acts as the bulk of the iceberg. And that is what gives your story weight and gravitas.
— Jenna Blum (The Author at Work, 2013)
Some people seem to believe that any detail of worldbuilding that doesn't end up in the final product wasn't really necessary to the process. However, this can lead to two potential problems. The first, being that it's easy to forget that a reader, listener or watcher doesn't just consume the piece of media, they also process it. They think about the decisions characters make and the implications of their actions. If you haven't left them any conclusions to come to, it can result in a very empty experience, even if at first glace all the parts seem to be there.
Additionally, not having the supporting facts, even if they are never directly communicated, can lead to major consistency issues. While this doesn't mean that you always have to build out an entire world, just to support your story, do try and go a layer or two deeper below the surface, so that everything that does show up in the work itself has some form of support, tying the whole world, and by extension the story, together.
How to Decide What is Necessary
Sometimes it can be difficult to know what details are neccessary while you're plotting, or even during the writing process. You may be doing some preparatory worldbuilding up front, and not be sure exactly where the story will go yet, or you may not be certain which option for a given decision might be best until you're actually writing the relevant scene. In either case, where possible, using a placeholder can be extremely useful. This could be in the form of a temporary decision, which you know you want to return to later, or you could quite literally but a big "PLACEHOLDER", "TEMP", or "TBD" text whenever you mention it. This doesn't always work, if the plot hinges on a given decision, but returning to the worldbuilding after you've developed more context throughout the story itself can be excedingly helpful in making the right decision for your story.
Why This Might Not Be A Good Idea
Having a world that solely exists to serve a plot breaks down once you move on to a different plot. If you're planning on having a story that expands into sequels, prequels or especially other parellel stories told in the same world, trying to write those new plots in a world built for another one can cause you to run into some inconsistency problems. It's not impossible, but you may have to make those worldbuilding decisions withing a greater context than just the plot of a single story. It can be helpful in this case to have some common themes tying the different stories together. If this sounds like the kind of project you're working on, check out my article on the World First approach to worldbuilding and storycrafting I wrote previously, as it may better suit your project.