Embracing Your Inner Three-Year-Old: How to Build a World When All You Have Is a Character

A skilled writer understands how asking "why" can be critical to world-building

Photo by Never Dull Studio on Unsplash

Publisher’s note: from Maryan Pelland. Guest writer ZK Hardy helps us understand how small details can fuel perfect world-building. Fiction writers use obvious world-building, but ZK’s concept can help writers of any genre understand that the devil is truly in the details.

Even though world-building is something every writer does (unknowingly or not) in every kind of writing—fiction, non-fiction, and creative writing, it is harder if you’re writing speculative fiction, like science fiction or fantasy. This is why there are more articles and books dedicated to describing how to execute world-building within those genres than any other.

Generally, in sci-fi and fantasy genres, you’re going to be working on a secondary world or a world that is different from our own—it has to be internally consistent. How do you maintain that consistency? How do you create new systems that feel right within your world without having to recreate everything from scratch? How do you build a world when all you have is a character?

Finding your inner three-year-old

Let’s say in the heat of the drafting process, you’ve decided that one of your characters, due to a religious reason, wears a bracelet. That’s how it is when you’re writing fiction. Sometimes, you know something about a character, but you can’t say why or how. All you know is that it is true. That’s fine, keep going.

Later on, while reading your story back, you realize you need to create consistency: Why are they wearing a bracelet? Does everybody from their culture wear a bracelet? Why? Where did that tradition come from?

This is what I like to call your inner three-year-old because if you’ve ever spent time around children, especially around the age of three, they begin asking why for everything. Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? Why is the sun so bright?

These questions aren’t meant to be annoying, although they might be. Children genuinely want to know the answers to these questions. Similarly, your readers might not need to know the answers to these questions within your world, but you, as the author, definitely do.

Of course, this can get overwhelming if you have to do it with every decision you make in the heat of drafting, so instead, think about the items that are actually different compared to the dominant culture of your story.

As children grow up, they stop asking why about everything and begin asking why about the differences between their expectations and reality. If they see somebody wearing an unusual hat, for example, they might ask about that, but they probably wouldn’t ask that question if they were walking around in the middle of winter when any sensible person would be wearing a hat.

This same logic can apply to your story. Going back to the example before, if your protagonist is the one wearing the bracelet, is that bracelet indicative of a difference between that character and the dominant culture? Or is it something that everyone in that person’s culture wears? Is it a dying gift from their grandmother or a promise to a childhood best friend?

Any of the answers to these questions tell you something about the character and the world they live in. It could tell you that this character values their familial relationship or their friendships or that they are proud of their culture.

Answers lead to origin stories

Going back to our bracelet example, let’s say you decide wearing a bracelet comes from a cultural tradition: everyone from this particular area of your world wears a bracelet. In initial drafts, this singular rule is good enough. But as you begin to flesh out the world, and your character’s place in it, embrace your three-year-old self once more and ask the question: Why does your character do that?

In the arbitrary example I’ve provided, the character is probably wearing a bracelet because everyone in their village did.

Alright, fair enough. Why does everybody in their village do it?

Because their parents did it.

Eventually, if you keep asking why, you get to the first person in the village who put on a bracelet, who started a fashion trend that eventually became a cultural phenomenon. Why did they do it? Were they a leatherworker who happened to have an extra strip of hide that they wrapped around their forearm one day to show off their wares? Or was it something they learned as a memory trick: the hide on their arm is trying to remind them of something?

If you answer this question, clearly and completely, now you don’t just have a cultural tradition. You have a folk tale, a bit of history about that area of the world, and some data about the local industry. Maybe you even have some answers about the types of resources that exist in the area.

But is this something that actually happens in real life?

It sure does!

A real-world why

Historically, keeping Kosher in Jewish tradition was solid practical advice. Why should we not eat animals with cloven hooves? Because Jacob ate some undercooked pork two weeks ago and just up and died. Why should we avoid shellfish? Because nine times out of ten, it will make you really sick, mortally so, prior to easy access to clean drinking water.

Again, let’s embrace our inner three-year-old. Why did the undercooked pork kill Joseph? Why does shellfish make you so sick?

Pigs are omnivores, meaning they (generally) pick up more parasites than other animals do, so undercooked pork is more likely to kill someone than undercooked beef. Shellfish are filter feeders, which means they pull in harmful toxins from the water they live in. By asking why we get more information about our world.

Most traditions, religious or otherwise, come from some form of logic. Answering the question, “Why do people do this?” allows you to create whole histories for your world, even if all you know is one little thing about a major character. And don't forget that you can apply similar logic to any kind of writing—considering the "why" builds an easy path to more engaged readers.

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ZK Hardy is a storyteller out of Madison, WI. who is a master at explaining the components of writing good fiction. Here’s a recent story of his Men with No Light in Their Hair by ZK Hardy - published by FICTION on the WEB short stories. He’ll be back next month to share more wisdom.