Building a World out of Walls

There was a wall. It did not look important.

The Dispossessed - Ursula K LeGuin

You know what a world looks like. You live in one. You know the complexities and influences that affect it. The weather patterns, ecosystems, length of orbit and day/night cycle. How long a week, a month and a year lasts. You know roughly how the economy works. You know that there are multiple countries and cultures and a LOT of history. That’s the world we live in. It is complex and dysfunctional and implausible and glorious.

Creating a world as rich and diverse as the one we currently live in is impossible. Some of the more ambitious writers out there will throw their arms up at me for saying that. But the more you know about our world, the more you know that there is too much to know. At least, there is far too much to include in a book that anyone would want to read. 

As a result, I have found that building a world is also an exercise in building the walls that contain it.

Where are the walls?

Walls never look important, but they define so much of the world we live in. They define homes, towns, countries… and on a more abstract level, they can determine the parameters of a personality.

So what does building a wall mean?

It means finding the edges. 

When you enter a world you can’t possibly hope to describe everything in it. So, put up some boundaries and contain your experience. 

Domestic walls

Working out what makes up domestic life in your world is fundamental. Finding that boundary between what is “normal” and what is “not normal” is key. From that point you can work out which side of the wall you want to be on. Or, more importantly, which side of the wall you want your reader to think is the “right” side.

Knowing this makes the difference between citizens and outcasts, between the privileged and the deprived. What makes “domestic walls” on one side of a border versus the other could be used to emphasise the difference between cultures. 

Wall building begins in the home. Fact. So start there.

National walls

Some writers create worlds from single societies and these can be rich and diverse. However, even in those stories there are often questions of nationality. Perhaps there’s a reason why they are one? Perhaps there were walls and they have been broken down? Perhaps there should be walls, but aren’t? 

Knowing what they are or were, and knowing how they came to be, often forms the foundation of the narrative. Heroes cross borders into strange territories; one nation wages war on another; an unlikely leader sees division where there should be unity; a faction forms and breaks away, leaving a new set of walls in their wake. However it works, the presence or omission of national-level walls is significant.

Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.

The Dispossessed - Ursula K LeGuin

Societal walls

Once you’ve decided where the physical walls are, you can have fun with societal walls. What are the lines that must not be crossed? What are the taboos? Are those invisible walls designed to benefit one side more than the other?

If there is segregation within communities, were those walls meant to be permanent or temporary? Has that intention changed over time? What is the significance of that change?

If you cross a societal wall, can you come back? Now that’s a knotty question right there!

Geographical walls

Where are the mountains? Are there oceans? Are we looking at a world of islands, or one big continent? One of the best things about world building is getting busy with a map. If there are countries, are the borders geographical? Does one side have all the natural resources and the other live in relative poverty? If there’s a massive mountain range, does it affect weather patterns? Because mountains do that. If your world is aquatic, is the surface of the water an unbreachable barrier?

Sometimes the most interesting walls are defined by nature. An enormous ocean could be the barrier one society cannot breach, but the source of all intrigue. A mountain range could be crossed to evade capture. Geography counts.

Environmental walls

For the sake of this article I am referring to “issues with the environment”. A lot of sci-fi books deal with hostile habitats and creating walls within these can be an interesting exercise. Is there a point no one has crossed because the limited capacity of oxygen cylinders doesn’t allow for it? Is one side of your planet always shrouded in darkness and, therefore, ice? Is this ice the only source of water? Therefore prompting dark and dangerous missions to collect it? The environment in which you place your story can have a far reaching impact.

Changes to the environment can also be a key consideration. Is the environment changing? If so, how? And is it a good thing? Are there environmental impacts on food production, and does this have an effect on society as a whole?

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In many ways, walls form the framework upon which your world rests. Build them thoroughly and your world will hold true. If you must destroy them, do so with care and due consideration, because they are always far more important than they look.