Top-down vs bottom-up world development.
As I look at some of the other worldbuilding advice givers out there, I see several of them talking about the problem of putting too much into a world. Putting extra work in, creating ideas that you’re never going to use, and I realize that I don’t see things the same way. Yes, they have very good points, and I see the logic in what they’re saying. You certainly don’t want to take on so much worldbuilding work that you become overwhelmed. So I have realized that there is a distinct difference between beginning with a story, then defining the world around it, and designing a world as a location for telling stories.
My inclination is in top-down world design for a number of reasons, but I’ve done bottom-up as well, and I wanted to discuss some examples and the differences between each, so that you can consider which you prefer, and how to compensate for the potential disadvantages of each.
Bottom-Up World Design: Write a story and Zoom out
This, I think, is how most authors and writers tend to work. An example from my own works is, The Guardian of Taihar. I had some loose ideas about the world I wanted to write, but a lot of it was not specified when I began writing. In the course of writing, I was totally free and open to think up anything as I went, add on the fly, write rules for the world, and it let the story flow freely.
Once the story had been established, I went back to really define the world based on what I had written. That story became the source material, and all the world content flowed through that.
Pros and Cons of BU World Design
- Pro: More freedom to be creative while writing, change things, and be surprising to both yourself and your reader.
- Pro: More control over the reader’s experiences, allows for a more dreamlike quality, describing experiences more than events.
- Pro: Less reliance on consistent rules.
- Pro: More character focused stories.
- Con: (Some might consider this a pro) Makes collaboration harder, as fan-writers or others only have what is written to build from, and must create much of their own content to suit their own story.
- Con: Easy to accidentally create plot holes, or break established rules.
- Con: Can end up with scenarios that cannot be feasibly added to a world, can make the world difficult to reuse.
- Pro/Con: Tendency to make big changes in the setting over the course of the story. i.e.: save the world, break the world.
Top-Down World Design: Create a world and Zoom in
This is my favored inclination as well as that of writers who tend to be more game-focused. In filling out the world, perhaps even without knowing what story you specifically want to tell at the time, you are creating a toolkit, establishing rules, and making a larger project that can become a resource for future storytelling.
An example from my own works is The Savage West dime novel series. That setting began specifically as a setting in which stories could be told, and collaborative role-playing games could be experienced. It was never intended to be solely a vehicle for my Ty Carver character. In fact I know of many other characters from many other angles whose stories I want to share from that setting.
Pros and Cons of TD World Design
- Pro: Easy to reference rules lead to greater consistency. Less likely to break rules, create plot holes, or contradict earlier writing.
- Pro: World is easier to set up as a vehicle for many stories and characters if you want to work with it in the future.
- Pro: (Some might consider this a con) Invites more stable collaboration, as many paths are provided for other writers to explore with some guidance.
- Con: Tendency for events to be presented as they are, rather than as the characters experience them, can come across as more clinical, and less artistic.
- Con: Easy to over-exposition, explaining things you want to show off but are not relevant to the story.
- Pro/Con: World tends to be more stable, and have less dramatic changes within a story.
Making a Choice: A little of both?
Of course neither method is completely exclusive. You can make a top-down designed world and write deeply character focused stories within it, just as you can design a very collaborative multifaceted world out of a single story. So what I’m talking about here are tendencies, and things to be aware of as you design in either direction.
Like I said, I have worked from both angles, and while I prefer to create larger collaborative worlds, I sometimes find that some of my best work comes from just starting a story and seeing where it takes me.
So in deciding for yourself, the first thing you should decide is your goal. If you are writing a single story, are not interested in collaboration, and don’t plan on revisiting much, you probably don’t need to do more worldbuilding than appears in that story. Though, I think for a life-like detailed presentation, you should do at least a bit more than you absolutely need to. Even ungiven lore can inform the mindsets and actions of your characters, or provide context that makes it easier for you as a writer. Details like clothing and the sound of the music, the instruments used, as I mentioned in my first post: Setting an Immersive Scene, can bring a scene to life in a very special way. However, beyond that, it’s probably not necessary to do nearly as much as with a top-down world.
However, if you want to create not just a story, but a setting for stories, if you want to invite collaboration and/or make this a setting you want to work with for maybe several years and multiple stories, from multiple points of view, then Top-Down may be the way to go.
Once you’ve decided on your goals, you can determine the best method for achieving them, and how to avoid falling into potential traps inherent in each. If you are going to exposition with a top-down world, make sure it serves the story, or the voice. If you’ve read my first Ty Carver Dime Novel, I’ve used the narrator’s voice for quite a bit of exposition, intentionally. If you are building from the bottom-up, you’ll want to write down world rules as you go, to maintain consistency, and if you want that to be a collaborative world, consider the wider ramifications of each rule. Is that rule applicable to the scoiety? Can other characters experience these events following these same rules?
Also remember that when you want to create a world for gaming, or to invite collaboration, then having a huge event happen in a story about that world means that you might need to almost consider it two separate settings: The Before and the After the events of that story. Consider Star Wars. It is a beautifully detailed world (well, a galaxy, really) but the events of each movie are so staggeringly significant that it will have ripples across most of the galactic civilization. Before you were to write a story, or run a game in Star Wars, you pretty much need to establish the exact point in the timeline of events. Is there still an Empire? A Republic? What is the state of the Jedi?
Conclusion
Whichever method you choose, there are ways to compensate for it’s potential disadvantages and make it work for you. I hope this is useful to you. If it was, I’d love to hear your thoughts, answer any questions, and help with any world-building dilemmas you may have!
Please feel welcome to comment and share this around, and I’ll see you next time!
—Charles