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DasIstWunderblyat
May '19

Sorry for a question again. I don't feel this one is new topic worthy, but I don't know where to ask without being a nuisance :sweat_smile:

Is it bad storytelling to have your detailed world-building (lore, history, systems, etc.) dominantly told in extra content instead of the story :sweat:.

Of course I don't rely completely on it; it's just like in my story I showed that cucumber and bitter melon have different taste, but in that extra I go in details about why and how they have different taste with their history of cultivation and taxonomical classification. For more note, I'm the type of person that don't like too much explanations in the middle of the story because it's unnatural and disturbs the flow.

I'm planning to make a more detailed world-building explanation of the system of magic in my series as one of extra contents, given that I offer nothing for Inksgiving. I don't know, insecurities just creep in the back of my mind. I can hear the "Oh, this dumb bitch don't have adequate skill to convey and implement her world-building components in the story, so she has to make extra!" inside my head, and I wonder am I really that bad.

So how much is the limit of actually giving extra information, or being unskilled at world-building? Is having an extra is bad idea?

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    May '19

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Wumbl
May '19

I think it depends on how much you rely on extra content.

You should include world building in your main story, as much as you can, but sometimes extra content is needed to get extra lore across. There's nothing wrong with using that stuff as long as it's in moderation.

I like to use side stories, and page notes to get across certain details or help reiterate things sometimes. I just don't think it's good to do it too much.

punkarsenic
May '19

the story should be able to stand entirely on its own without any extra content - but that may well involve removing a lot of unnecessary exposition.

in other words, so long as the worldbuilding youre putting into extra content isnt integral to the story then youre fine. things like a detailed explanation of magic mechanics or regional politics should be extras, bc then i dont have to read them, but theyre beloved by the superfans

DiegoPalacios
May '19

JK rowling has 2 ways of showing world building:

1-by showing details as they become relevant/entertaining. Harry`s outsider perspective allows him to ask questions that others would take for granted, so it makes some explanations more organic.

2-The other way of world building is the list of curious facts, lore, etc, extra content that may not be relevant to the plot but is fun to learn about it. The idea is that this extra content should not be neccesary to understand what is going on, but it enriches the reader`s experience

IdiotWithPencil
May '19

In my opinion

It depends on how much your story actually depends on world building, here are two extremes, we have One piece which depends heavily and I mean heavily on world building and lore, and then we have something like Batman (Movies and Shows the comics are another thing entirely) which is more focused on character drama and very little on the world of gotham.

now Batman never needed to create extra content to explain things like powers or magic in depth, they just give simple explanations and hand wave it away, and people accept it since you aren't watching for lore or the world but for how batman will defeat the bad guy and the characters interaction, I think most webtoons also do this since they are more focused on characters than showing of the world.

while one piece is another beast entirely, it's world is so vast and giant that we can only see glimpses of it at a time, even leaving our main cast aside to watch what other characters are doing or saying doesn't give us enough of the world or lore as people want. It's to the point where the writer has to create cards and booster packs to give us the readers more info about characters and the world.

so the question is what is your story really about? is it about the characters or the world those characters are in?

depending on the answer depends if you could create extra content or not

KRWright
May '19

Tolkien did it :wink:

In all seriousness, include only what is needed to extend the plot or characters, and nothing more. If there's cool stuff in your world, you can certainly out it into extra materials. In fact, you probably should if it has no impact on the plot!

DasIstWunderblyat
May '19

@Prince_Wumbl
Sorry if I sound annoying but what is "in moderation"?
Is the example is in moderation, given taste of cucumber and bitter melon is important to the story?

@punkarsenic
I'm putting the details of integral contents. I'm just afraid readers will be confused because not all of them can catch all the bits or being overwhelmed.
It's more like scattered in some chapters, I said cats have retractable claws and dogs don't. I went in the extra to recap it and give explanation why. Then in the next chapter I scattered the explanation why as it's becoming relevant to the plot.
Guess I'm really that unskilled dumb bitch :smile:

@DiegoPalacios
Uh you meant that JK Rowling facts that everyone is gay?
Joke aside, it's easy to do that because Harry's general inexperience with magic world (IDK, I have forgotten if I have ever read Harry Potter or not). But what about from the perspective of characters that have been there the whole time? I'm conveying it from dialogue or action... But it's just... Can still be weird.

@IdiotWithPencil
I'm leaning to the One Piece one then, although it's maybe just me who is unskilled. To be honest I really hate when my characters should have a convo about magic systems or narrating battles to got the point across, but if it had to be done I have no choice.

@KRWilliams
Oh yeah Tolkien! That's actually an interesting insight :smile: but I'm not him :no_mouth: so...

DiegoPalacios
May '19

you reminded me of this video :grin:

fun new pottermore trivia

but yeah....choosing what info to share is relevant and to make sure it doesn`t contradict previous facts and are not just things made on the spot.

KrispyKremeBits
May '19

Worldbuilding is making the world and all the little things in it and then having a story play out in your newly built world. Just as real life is complex and has many different things not everyone knows about is probably the approach you should go with. I think it's fine to explain some stuff in side content but it should add to the story your telling and not take away from it. Like keep it plot related in the extra content so you don't do a explanation dump in the main thing. That's at least what I'm doing lol

storytimebiondi
May '19

Have you read the comic series Monstress by Marjorie Liu?
If not you should, it's awesome.

But the reason I bring it up is because it is a very rich setting with a lot of history and world building, and 50% of it is not immediately relevant to the story.
What they've done instead is added "history lessons" at the end of each issue where a class of students is learning about a specific topic. It comes off as just long dialogue based exposition, but it is entirely extra from the story itself. If you wanted to do a lot of background world building, I would recommend this method.

Darth_Biomech
May '19
1

Worldbuilding is there to tell a story, not the other way around. Usually. Well, like 70%.
You shouldn't try to cram in as much lore as you can. Sprinkle in whatever flows naturally, and whatever is necessary for the reader's understanding of the plot, leave the rest for your own consistency's sake. And extras.

Wumbl
May '19
DasIstWunderblyat

Moderation just means "do it but not too much".

Drinking alcohol in moderation would be having enough to be tipsy and enjoy the drink, but not enough to get overly drunk.

World-builing extras in moderation would mean, do enough to add a bit to the experience for those who want it, but not enough to pester the audience or break up the flow of the story.

unknown_user
May '19

I like world-building extras.
Probably, I should write something else, more clever and convincing? :thinking:
But there is actually nothing to add. :nerd:

Moshimitsu
May '19

Generaly, as it was said earlier, the story should be the main source of information. You may consider having extras of things that are already explained but as a reminder. I often don't read stories frequently so I forget a lot of little things, less important characters etc. The extras may be a good reminder that sums up all of those tiny details :wink:

It also depends on the info you want provide. Sometimes creators spoil the fun of discovering the world through the story because of extras .

But its fun to read some world building info if its well balanced :slight_smile:

indigodrawing
May '19

I'd say it depends. If having the extra material adds some flavour to the story but is entirely optional than that's fine. If not having it is detrimental to the story then that's definitely not fine. The story should contain the minimum amount of detail needed for it to stand on its own. On the other hand if people are curious about things mentioned in the story that aren't elaborated on because they're not massively important to the story they might appreciate some additional material.

Think along the lines of the Codex from the Mass Effect games. You don't have to read any of it if you don't want to and just completely ignore it and still be able to fully understand the plot, but if you do read it you learn all kinds of neat things about the world that may go some way to helping you understand how certain characters think (such as Krogan having evolved on an extremely hostile planet driving their violent nature, etc)

borzoiteeth
May '19

It can be hard to judge, as it is a flavour not everyone is into. I love LOVE pointless extra world building extras. Its a great place to foreshadow and reward stuff to the readers who love extra details like it.

One of my favourite examples on Tapas right now is


From author's notes to even the tags for the page are littered with extra fun notes.

LT1986
May '19

I prefer seeing the world building information in the same comic. It keeps me from going back and forth from two different comics to get understanding about one story.

I also think that having one comic to tell everything about a story is creative. Sometimes extra material about world building can add more chapters, buffers, and creativity to story.

I do understand that spin-offs are needed sometimes to not create confusion and to talk about things more in depth that readers that follow the original story might not be interested in. There might be different audiences for both comics.

DasIstWunderblyat
May '19

@LT1986
Thank you!

It might be mistaken though, what I'm planning is make an extra content in the story itself (like intermission chapter, or you know... Just like omake in the manga which contains extra info)

nscomics
May '19

Maybe I missed something in the original post, but why does your world building have to be separate from the story telling when they are the same thing? Even if it's a main character finding a book about its worlds history and taking several issues to read/illustrate it for the readers, it's still apart of the original storyline. Ans when the flashbacks/history lessons end, the main characters are still very much invested in the world that's being built.

Darth_Biomech
Jun '19

Worldbuilding is not the same as story building. For my setting there's large chunks of the lore that will probably not find it's way in the comic in any way. For instance, I developed a taxonomy of the species found on the homeworld of Raharr civilization. I see no opportunity to expose that in a story in the observable future, nor any reason to it. But I needed to do that for keeping the shared traits consisted across multiple species so that they felt belonging to same planet and sharing evolutionary history together (and not like most people do that - "this animal will have four limbs, this animal will have six, and this one, oh, I know, twelve! And seven eyes! I'm making an alien planet, your stupid rules of realistic biology and evolution do not apply!"). This is not even getting in that we might NEVER actually see Harr in the comic! I don't know if plot will contain any scenes that'll happen there yet.
Or for that instance, the history of raharrs themselves. Sans for mentioning of the few key historical events or personas, it won't be useful for a story. Yet, it exists in much greater detail than required.