How Does World Relate to Character?

If you’re writing Sci-Fi, Fantasy or Spec Fic, building a world is necessary. It’s the canvas upon which your story plays out and it’s very important. But it isn’t primary.

Scrap thoughts about the world needing to be perfect and complete in order for you to build a story. Yes, we walk around on this planet, it's under our feet the whole time and we can't exist without it. But the importance of it is implied. Gravity works, but I don’t wake up every day and marvel at it.

The truth is that with a book, or story, the centre of your creation is character. If you write good enough characters, you could stick them in a giant cardboard box and I'd still want to know what happens between them. In writing a book or story, any kind of book or story, setting is secondary.

In fact, I would say that the world needs to come from the characters, rather than the characters coming from the world. If, when creating characters, we ask ourselves these questions:

• Where did they come from?

• How are they related to the others?

• What are their motives?

• What are their character traits?

• What are their views/opinions on the other characters?

• Do they have anything in common?

...then we can ask the eternal: 

“Why?”

And THIS is where our worlds come in.

• Where did they come from?
  Country X

• Why?
  Country X was founded when the countries Z and Y ended a 653 year war and [character] was born of parents from Y AND Z

• What are their motives?

  Family and political conflicts

• Why?
  People who lived in country Z still feel betrayed and don’t identify with country X, as a person from both sides, [character] feels conflicted etc

Everything needs to centre upon the character’s view, their sense of place, and from that point of view the world unfolds. 

Place is integral to character, but details of what that place looks like and smells like are very much the icing on the cake. We decorate the mind's eye with images of cities and homes and weird nature, but the true substance remains in the person we’re following.

In Sci-Fi, it’s often said that "setting has to be at the crux of the issue", i.e. "don't set it in space, if space isn't important to the outcome."

I agree. But there's always a but. For me, with setting being the backdrop, I would say that you can have a whole drama play out in space, as long as space weighs on how things work and how the characters operate. For instance, being constantly on the move affects the psyche. Living under the stress of being just a few layers of insulation away from the vacuum of space, also affects the psyche. And the psyche affects motive.

That stuff is only important because it affects the characters. And how it affects the characters; their personalities, their decisions and their motives, is what's key.

This could all happen subconsciously. 

For example, I only realised recently that all of my characters are refugees. They were born in countries that no longer exist and they've been thrown together into a dysfunctional melting pot. It’s history, it’s world, and it’s only mentioned in relevant places throughout the narrative, but it affects everything. 

How the characters operate and, most importantly, why, can be traced back to these moments of displacement. They have a fragile footing in this terrible place, and they're frightened to give it up for fear of being cast completely adrift. That’s character.

Those were events that happened in the world... but how they affect the characters is what’s key to the story. It’s the “why” stage that comes after: “what are their motives?” and “what are their character traits?”

World cannot be the basis of a story.

Character is the basis of every story.

Pink atmospheres, giant floating cities, dead religions, diverse languages and reverse gravitational mountains are (99% of the time) optional extras.

You can read more of my thoughts on world building in Building a world out of walls.