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I think that the joy of world building

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in fiction is honestly the joy of

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getting to play God

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because as an author you get to build

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the world. Some authors do it a little

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more invisibly than others. In the same

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way, as far as I'm concerned, all

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fiction is fantasy. It is all made up.

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You are creating people who didn't exist

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or didn't exist like that and putting

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them into situations that they were

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never in. Making them say things they

13
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never said. It's it is an act of magical

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creation

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to do that

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when you're starting out as a young

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writer. Especially a young writer

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wanting to explore the fantastic,

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wanting to create places that are not.

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The urge,

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which you should always try and push

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back against, the urge is to take places

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from fiction.

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You know, it's it's the the urge, the

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fanfiction urge. And fanfiction is great

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in its place, but if you are going to be

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a young writer and you are going to want

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to create a world, you don't want a

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world that you borrowed from Tolken.

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What you want to do

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is look at the world outside.

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Look at the world outside your window.

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Get out there onto the streets.

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Look at places. Think about the places

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that you've been and then change them.

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Make them bigger. Make them smaller.

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If you're somebody who's only ever been

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to school and you think you have nothing

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to write about except school,

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what would that school be like if it

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covered an entire city?

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What would that school be like

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if it was an island?

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What would that school be like

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if it was floating

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in the sky and people only got to visit

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it dragged on the backs of enormous

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birds? How do you get to that school?

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That gives you a place. But it gives you

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a place grounded in realism because the

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moment that you start describing a

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school, if you know a school, you know

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the things that make schools weird and

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unusual, the smell of cooking cabbage

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or the smell of um sports clothes

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unwashed in lockers. You know what that

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place is. You know what kinds of people

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are there? Every little detail that you

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can steal from the world

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and smuggle with you into your fiction

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is something that makes your world more

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real for your reader. But much more

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important, it makes it more real for

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you.

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You need to be the one who believes in

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your story. You need to be able to

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believe in your places. If you are

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building a world, you have to care about

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the world. And sometimes you're also

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going to have to stop and ask yourself

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weird questions.

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Even if those questions are not answered

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in the text, it's always good for you to

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know,

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you know, where do these people go to

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the toilet?

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Where do they get their food from?

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How much food does it take to feed a

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small city?

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How much farmland? Where are these

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farms? Where does the food come from?

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Where does it come in? And suddenly

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you're asking yourself questions

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um that it's good for you to know even

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if you don't want ever to turn your book

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into a treatise on medieval economics.

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Um if you're writing something set in

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medieval times, do your homework.

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Go and look at places.

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There's a there's a trope

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in a lot of stories in the Arabian

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Knights, the thousand1 knights.

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There's a moment that somebody people

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traveling together

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enter a city

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and in the crush of people at the gates

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of the city they get separated

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and it happens over and over again.

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And it was something that had never

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particularly made much sense to me

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until I was in old Jerusalem

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little over a decade ago with my guides.

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And we had to get from old Jerusalem and

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go out through one of the old city

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gates. And there were thousands of

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people pouring through the gates in both

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directions.

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And I found myself swept up and carried

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away from my guides.

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And when we got through the gates

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and the people had dissipated enough

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that I could look around and try and

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find them, they were nowhere to be seen.

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And I realized that this was that

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moment. It's a thing that happens in

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fiction.

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And now I've never written it, but now

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if ever I were writing an Arabian

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Knight's story, I would know how that

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feels. I would know what that is and I

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would make it very, very believable

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because it's happened to me

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and I can give that to my characters.

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There's always a tiny part of you as a

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writer who

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metaphorically

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or really is standing there with a

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notebook

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just taking notes. And it can come out

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in the worst times. It can come out in

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the worst moments of your life. You can

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be there in the hospital

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and your friend or your loved one is

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being wheeled away

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and you can go, "Okay, what does this

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place smell like?

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How are they behaving?

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How do I feel right now? How do these

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people feel right now?

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Because one day you're going to be

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writing fiction.

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And you will need that moment.

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You'll need the way that the lights of

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the cars glint off the broken glass and

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the blood on the asphalt. one day to

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make a story true.

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So the action of world building,

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whether you are building

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New York or Los Angeles

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or the aisle of sky, places that really

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exist, places you might be familiar

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with, or whether you are creating a

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graveyard, whether you're creating an

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enormous world underneath London, uh

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whether you're creating a magical

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America that doesn't quite might exist

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in a state of heightened reality. The

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action of world building is always the

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same. You start with a world

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and you're going to fill it with people

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and you decide what's important about

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the world. What's convincing about the

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world? The worlds that we build in

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fiction, they're soap bubbles. They can

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pop really easily, but they seem really,

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really solid. Anything you can say that

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makes them feel real, that buttresses

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them, that gives credibility,

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you then assume that the author could

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tell you everything else. It goes off in

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all directions. But that one little

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moment of reality. That one thing that

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seems to be absolutely true

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gives credence and gives credibility

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to all of the things that you don't say

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to all of the bits that are really just

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sort of misty smudges in the background.

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But then somebody looks at them and

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goes, "Ah, but I'm sure like this thing

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here, all of those misty smudges in the

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background if we move in are actually

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going to become craggy mountains." And

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each mountain will be different. And you

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know, of course, that they aren't.

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They're just smudges in the background.

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But that's okay because the one mountain

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that we visited was real cuz it was

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informed by you and a mountain

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or just you and a very big hill and an

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imagination.

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One thing that is very important for you

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to know,

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but not necessarily important for you to

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tell,

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is what the rules are.

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You need to understand, especially if

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you're creating anything in the world of

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the fantastic,

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what the rules of your world are.

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The problem with this

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is that when we arrive in this world,

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nobody tells us what the rules are.

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Nobody hands you as a small child a rule

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book, letting you know how gravity

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works, how fire works, how basic

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economics works,

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um how people behave, what they're

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expected to do.

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They don't tell you that.

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You have to kind of figure it out as you

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go along.

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There are rules. Some of them are

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explicit. Some of them are implicit.

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When you're world building,

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you need to know what the rules are. You

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need to know what the explicit rules

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are, what the implicit rules are. And

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knowing them,

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you need to treat them as you would this

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world.

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People find things out by making

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mistakes. You find out that fire is hot

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by picking up something that's been in

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the fire or putting your hand in it and

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going, "Ow."

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You find out that if you are given a

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precious thing made of ice, you need to

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keep it cold because if you put it in

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your pocket, pretty soon you will just

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have a wet pocket and no precious thing.

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That's the way that you find out how the

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rules work.

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In this world,

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it's always by trial and it's always by

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error. So for world building,

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you allow your characters to discover

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what the rules of your world are, which

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you know, and they discover it by making

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mistakes or by taking advantage of those

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rules.

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Let things happen to your characters.

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Let them go out and bump into things.

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let them go out and make mistakes and

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always know more than you tell.

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Um,

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you know, there is nothing more

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frustrating for an author to have people

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go, I don't really understand the rules

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of this place

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and

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because it's fine. Nobody understands

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the rules of New York either,

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but they will find out what some of the

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rules are by making mistakes and some of

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the rules by hanging around with people

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who seem to have figured out what a few

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of the rules of New York are. And that's

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okay.

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Before I started writing the graveyard

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book, I visited a lot of graveyards.

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The initial inspiration for the

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graveyard book had just been a little

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country graveyard

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behind a church across the lane from

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where we lived. I would take my son who

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was two maybe two and a half across that

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little lane with his tricycle and he

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would pedal his tricycle on the paths

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between the gravestones.

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And I remember looking at him one day

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and just going, "You look so comfortable

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here."

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And then thinking, "Wouldn't it be

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interesting to do a story about a kid

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who gets lost in a graveyard and brought

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up by dead people?" I thought it would

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be kind of like

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The Jungle Book, only it will be in a

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graveyard. It will be the graveyard

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book. And that

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was the idea. I would have been 25 years

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old. I remember going straight up to um

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my office and writing the first chapter,

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looking at what I'd written going, the

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idea is so much better than I am a

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writer. I'm going to put this off. And

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it wasn't putting it off from the sense

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of going, I'm going to leave this

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unfinished. It was a sense of going,

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okay, my chops are not there yet to do

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justice to this. So, here I I have this

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thing. I'll probably never look at this

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first chapter again.

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Um,

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but I will come back to this in 5 years,

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in 10 years, when I'm better, when I'm

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good enough. and actually wound up

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coming into it almost 20 years later

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when I really figured that not only was

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I not getting any better, but I was as

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good as I was going to get, so I might

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as well I I had no option. It was now

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time to write it.

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But during that period, I would go and

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visit graveyards. I knew that I would be

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setting a story in a graveyard and I

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knew that I needed things from

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graveyards so I needed to go and look at

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them. So my world building exercise was

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just visiting graveyards visiting Stoke

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Newington

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uh graveyard park which had a glorious

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sort of ruined chapel in the middle

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and looking at that chapel and going

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right I'm going to have you. You're in

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my story.

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Going to Glasgow Necropolis,

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which is all on a hill just outside of

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Glasgow,

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and going, I'm I'm taking your topology.

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I'm going to take the hill. And the fact

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that you're outside of the city, I like

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that. That feels right.

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Now, I was building

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I built a world that was a graveyard in

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my head.

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I'd been playing around with it. I've

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been building it. I've been seeing what

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kind of people lived in it. I was

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figuring out all of the details.

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And wherever I would go, I would just

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visit the local graveyard

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um and see if there was a little thing

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that I could take and put into the

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graveyard that was in my head. Which

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meant that when 20 years later I started

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writing the graveyard book and I knew

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that the graveyard was my jungle. It had

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to be big enough and interesting enough

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that I could set basically an entire

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novel in this one location

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that

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it would be that interesting that I

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would know I knew by that point what a

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graveyard was. I knew why it was there.

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I knew the history of them. And that

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allowed me to make this a real place.

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So a lot of what you do in world

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building

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is you do your homework, you do your

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research. It's like I was talking about

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with Neverware, getting to go through

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the tunnels, getting shown around. Um,

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go on walks, see things,

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all of that. And then take notes. Use

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the the voice function on your phone to

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make little notes to yourself. Use a a

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tiny notebook. I always, wherever I go,

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whatever I do, um have impossible to get

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out of my pocket.

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Tiny notebooks on me. This is one. And

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I will always

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jot down things, little ideas. I may

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never go back to them. I may never see

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them again, but once they're jotted

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down, they're rotting away usefully on

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the compost heap of my imagination, and

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they're there if I need them.

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I think authors you read when you are

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young

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affect you on a level that is very very

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primal and very different. So the

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authors whose work I encountered

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as a child

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who built worlds

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um really stayed with me

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and I would look at what they had done

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and uh and

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puzzle over it and think about it a lot.

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Tolken obviously um was a huge influence

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on me. I've never actually

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uh written anything in somewhere that

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00:18:42,799 --> 00:18:45,039
resembles Middle Earth, I think. Um

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except for a little bit in in Stardust,

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but Stardust is much more a world of

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fairy tale. Um but just the feeling that

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this was a place that I would recognize

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if I saw it, if I went there, I would

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know that I was there. The same

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obviously with Narnia

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and the idea as CS Lewis built an entire

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country or kingdom and I knew that if I

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were in Narnia I would know that I was

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00:19:16,160 --> 00:19:20,240
in Narnia. Um I'd know the people. I'd

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00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:22,960
know the way that everything looked, the

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00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:26,160
way that it felt. descriptions of huge

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cliffs

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um and looking down at the clouds so far

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00:19:30,799 --> 00:19:33,200
below you they look like tiny sheep and

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00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:37,039
you remember this kind of thing. Um

401
00:19:37,039 --> 00:19:39,440
and then there were the writers who

402
00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:43,200
would world build in a way that I wasn't

403
00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:46,160
so conscious of. As an adult, I look

404
00:19:46,160 --> 00:19:48,559
back and I go, "Whoa, it was a

405
00:19:48,559 --> 00:19:50,640
remarkable, fascinating act of world

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00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:52,960
building." But at the time, all I was

407
00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:56,240
aware of was the story. An example of

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00:19:56,240 --> 00:19:59,679
that would be PL Travers writing the

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00:19:59,679 --> 00:20:02,000
Mary Poppins stories

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00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:04,480
where I looked at it as just being set

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00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:06,240
in London

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00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:09,440
and didn't actually examine the

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00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:12,240
mechanics of the way that PL Travers

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00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:15,200
built her universe. A universe in which

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00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:20,160
you could go to a zoo or a circus of the

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00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:21,760
stars

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00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:26,720
at night. um a world in which people in

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00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:28,640
spring would appear in the park and

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00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:32,000
paint paint the trees, paint everything,

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00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:33,760
take it out of its winter clothes and

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00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:36,480
into the summer clothes. Um a world in

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00:20:36,480 --> 00:20:39,039
which things happened between things in

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which the simple presence of Mary

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00:20:41,120 --> 00:20:44,880
Poppins would deform reality

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00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:48,080
and make everything hyperreal. in which

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00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:52,559
Mary Poppins acted as a bridge between

427
00:20:52,559 --> 00:20:54,480
the world

428
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:56,880
of pure imagination and the way that

429
00:20:56,880 --> 00:20:59,520
things should be and the world that we

430
00:20:59,520 --> 00:21:02,080
lived in, the way that things were. And

431
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:04,159
all of those things

432
00:21:04,159 --> 00:21:08,240
as a kid affected me hugely

433
00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:10,799
because each of them felt like a real

434
00:21:10,799 --> 00:21:13,760
place. I remember running into Hope

435
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:16,799
Merley's book, Blood in the Mist.

436
00:21:16,799 --> 00:21:19,840
um a book which absolutely defies the

437
00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:22,559
entirety of the the show don't tell

438
00:21:22,559 --> 00:21:24,720
paradigm by just beginning almost as a

439
00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:27,600
travalog and history of an imaginary

440
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:31,200
country of blood in the mist the kingdom

441
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:33,200
of Dorare

442
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:35,440
the town of blood in the mist and then

443
00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:38,559
gradually becomes a detective story and

444
00:21:38,559 --> 00:21:41,440
a ghost story a story of generations a

445
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:44,960
story of one person's struggle to be who

446
00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:47,120
they are and to find happiness in an

447
00:21:47,120 --> 00:21:52,240
awkward world. Um, of the struggle, the

448
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:54,320
infinite struggle between fantasy and

449
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:58,559
reality, between fairy, between poetry

450
00:21:58,559 --> 00:22:02,559
and the mundane and prosaic life and all

451
00:22:02,559 --> 00:22:05,679
of those things are there in an act of

452
00:22:05,679 --> 00:22:08,400
worldb buildinging and an act of

453
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:11,600
geography, in an act of history.

454
00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:13,919
So a beautiful book like that and that

455
00:22:13,919 --> 00:22:18,400
stuff influenced me. I would sit there

456
00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:20,799
as a small boy

457
00:22:20,799 --> 00:22:23,039
drawing maps

458
00:22:23,039 --> 00:22:27,760
influenced I think a lot by the maps in

459
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:30,559
Ursula Leguin's Earth Sea series.

460
00:22:30,559 --> 00:22:32,320
There's a map in the front of these

461
00:22:32,320 --> 00:22:35,200
archipelos and and I love the shapes of

462
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:38,559
islands. So I would sit and draw magical

463
00:22:38,559 --> 00:22:41,360
little archipelos and islands and the

464
00:22:41,360 --> 00:22:45,520
shapes of cities and worlds. Um, and I

465
00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,559
would imagine stories set on them. And

466
00:22:48,559 --> 00:22:51,679
even to this day, every now and again, I

467
00:22:51,679 --> 00:22:54,720
will nip in and set a story in one of

468
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:57,679
those places on the maps that I drew

469
00:22:57,679 --> 00:23:01,760
when I was 11 or 12 years old.