Talk:Worldbuilding

Age of Worldbuilding

What was the oldest work of worldbuilding? How old is worldbuilding? Was it existing even before in olden works like "The Epic of Gilgamesh" or is it fairly a new phenomenon developing only in the 19th to 20th centuries? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.105.37.169 (talk) 14:41, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Jennifer Diane Reitz

Is this a notable enough example to include in this page? Compared to the works of published authors such as Tolkien, Pratchett, LeGuin, etc., a webcomic seems rather... obscure. There are certainly many webcomic authors who have built worlds, why should this example be included over others? CallMeCaito (talk) 12:44, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Where do we draw the line?—RJH (talk) 19:56, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but it seems reasonable to stick with worldbuilding examples that have been published by established, third-party publishers. There's no dearth of examples from fantasy and sci-fi novels, video games, RPGs, etc.CallMeCaito (talk)

I agree that this seems a big obscure. It sounds like it was added out of a fan's love not for any worth of content —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.93.35 (talk) 23:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Middle-earth and Azeroth

Two examples of famous maps in both literature and modern media are Middle-earth and the world of Azeroth.

Two examples of famous fictional detectives are Sherlock Holmes and Tom Barnaby. Two examples of famous fictional pirates are Long John Silver and Captain Jack Sparrow. Two famous alien invasion stories are The War of the Worlds and Independence Day. Two examples of famous beauties are Helen of Troy and Angelina Jolie. Two examples of famous revolutions are The French Revolution and The Pink Revolution. Two examples of famous religion-founders are Moses and Brigham Young. Two examples of famous vampire hunters are Abraham van Helsing and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Two examples of famous rock operas are Jesus Christ Superstar and Antichrist Superstar. ...

I give up. Not one of these does full justice to the original sentence that I was trying to parody. And I wonder if there is anything in them that strikes someone else but me as somehow inappropriate.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 19:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Some examples of constructed worlds in professionally published works are Middle-earth and Ethshar.

Wow. This one actually beats the previous one.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 20:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow. This one actually beats the previous one.

Well, what would you suggest as an alternative second example? I can think of several from literature, such as Brooks' Shannara, Robert Jordan's "Randland", George RR Martin's Westeros, and so forth. Azeroth, though, actually isn't a bad example considering the widespread appeal of World of Warcraft, and the fact that world-building doesn't simply happen within the context of books. WiseBass (talk) 05:35, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Robert E. Howard's Hyborian World or H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamland. It has to be something from a classic. --Bluejay Young (talk) 23:08, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Geofiction

What about the link to "Geofiction" - it redirects you back to this article, though geofiction is a slightly different thing with a focus on the graphical presentation of the imaginary places. I would like to write the article, but English is not my mother tongue. Perhaps there's another user who would start the article? There are several good sources on the net, just google "geofiction". Joschi81 (talk) 10:05, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to start a stub article and reference it with your good sources so that it doesn't quickly get AfD'd.—RJH (talk) 18:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

There used to be a separate page about Geofiction, and there should be as Geofiction and Worldbuilding is not the same. See this page for an explanation of the difference. For some reason, someone at some time thought it would be a good idea to merge Geofiction and Worldbuilding in Wikipedia. It would be better to change that back and reinstate the separate Geofiction page. — Lajib (talk) 04:55, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

True, geofiction and worldbuilding are not the same thing. The geofiction used in game-playing is alluded to in the end of the opening paragraph, "for personal enjoyment or its own sake," but is mentioned nowhere else. There is no commentary on how geofiction is played, in that it is an open-ended creation of a fictional world by its many players with no story arc to follow. (I fear someone is going to cite ONEDAY, but that "one day" was decades ago — indeed, the game of Risk is a basic form of geofiction. More advanced forms of the game contain players from all over the world, and some individual games have been going on for nearly 15 years. I don't feel comfortable adding it myself due to NPOV and CONFLICT, but I wish someone would.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 01:23, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I added a mention of geofiction in the Map making section, along with a cite, and updated the redirect. If it is split off again, I think a WP:SS section here would still be appropriate. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

The term "geofiction" was coined in the early 1980s by Dutch hobbyists to describe what they were doing: designing fictional countries and worlds. Geofiction is not fictional map-making (and I have never seen the term used with that meaning before). The book cited refers to a webpage that no longer exists, which makes it rather difficult to check whether some terminological change occurred in some sub-community of worldbuilders/geofictionists or that the author is just wrong, but I suspect it is the latter. In any case, I would suggest to remove the current mention of geofiction. At best that usage of the term is idiosyncratic; at worst it is wrong. If geofiction is mentioned on this page (which may be the best alternative if it doesn't get back its own page), then it should either be treated as a synonym of worldbuilding or - more appropriately - as an overlapping phenomenon differing in two respects: (a) geographic scale is not limited to worlds but is often smaller, and (b) worlds/countries/etc. are not created for any other purpose than the joy of creation itself. Lajib (talk) 05:35, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Title

According to the rules of wikipedia, the title of this article should be "World building" because it gets more hits. Any thoughts on this?--Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 15:57, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

A potential drawback might be some confusion with the New York World Building. Another issue is that "World building" has the low number of redirects, compared to some of the others (Ex.: Constructed world, Conworld, Geofiction and World-building). But otherwise I would have no issue with a rename.—RJH (talk) 18:33, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I like World-building. There is a website called world-building which is getting second place on google searches for "worldbuilding". --Bluejay Young (talk) 22:59, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I was going to start fixing it to "world-building" throughout the article until I noticed that the article currently uses the incorrect word. We need to get this article moved. DreamGuy (talk) 17:56, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Dubious

The result may sometimes be called a constructed world, conworld or sub-creation.

I've tried to verify this statement with independent, reliable sources but I have been unable to do so. For example, "constructed world" is used in a number of different disciplines including psychology, sociology and literature, but I could not confirm that it is used in the sense of a well-developed "Worldbuilding" exercise used here. Unless the statement can be properly confirmed, I think it should be removed as a non-notable assertion. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:44, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

"Sub-creation" is from Tolkien's On Fairy-Stories (as is the unmentioned "Secondary World"). As for "conworld", construct currently appears 28 times in the article; but, as you say, that doesn't make it notable. The statement can probably be removed/rewritten as Wikipedia is not a dictionary and the use of "sometimes" bothers me. -- Kazwolf (talk) 05:33, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I think "Secondary World" is a more useful term, and one that I frequently hear from authors and fans from forums and blogs discussing these types of stories. "Conworld" is too vague, and "Sub-creation" is a reference to the process of world-building, not an actual secondary world (I've never heard of someone refer to their imagined world as a "sub-creation"). WiseBass (talk) 05:38, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

To call the world a "subcreation" is a misuse of Tolkien's wording. WiseBass is right. Subcreation is the process of making a secondary world (with the real or earth world as primary). Tolkien believed only God could create primary worlds so human subcreation was analogous to kids imitating their parents.

Of course, what is needed is citations from notable sources -- not some fanzine, obviously, but something like Time, Newsweek, etc. I'll do some looking around. --Bluejay Young (talk) 22:58, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I saw no reliable sources using the term "conworld" so I removed it. Also, the wikibook called conworld is fine, but Wikipedia does not link to random wiki projects just because they are operated by the wikimedia. A book somebody created out of nowhere fails WP:EL rules,so I removed it. DreamGuy (talk) 17:54, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Construction section

We've got a lot of words on the top-down building method, but are still lacking in anything on the bottom-up route. Similar but not identical is when the builder starts with a gimmick, leading to either extrapolative (assume premise X; what follows?) or justificational (suppose X, now how does that make sense?) methods. Is anyone feeling driven to talk about these? Wyvern (talk) 18:55, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you know of a reliable source that discusses these methods in more depth? Regards, RJH (talk) 21:02, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Conworld is non-notable

I've tried repeatedly to find reliable sources for this statement, but have been unsuccessful:

The resulting world may be called a constructed world or a conworld.

Legitimate writers just call it "world building". The terms "conworld" and "constructed world" appear to be neologisms adopted by a few hobbyists that have yet to attain any notability. "Constructed world" is used for different purposes in psychology, politics, religion, and sociology; anything but the sense in which it is used here. I think the statement should be removed from the article per WP:WEIGHT. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:23, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I removed it after coming to the same conclusion. DreamGuy (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Faster-than-light travel

In § Physics, I've mitigated this bald assertion:

faster-than-light travel is a common factor in most much science fiction.

I've been reading sf for almost 60 years. FTL is certainly a common trope, and it may well have been in most sf in the 1950's. But the field has expanded far, far beyond space travel since then (not that it was ever just space travel), and I daresay nobody is, or could possibly be, familiar with enough of it to know for certain. Thnidu (talk) 04:05, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Mythopoeia - A Potential Synonym

Mythopoeia appears to be a potential synonym. It feels this might belong in the See Also section, but, admittedly, I'm not 100% certain and felt it would be better to post this in the talk section rather than edit the article without a word. Zorrent12 (talk) 21:16, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Recentism

The statement "The creation of literary fictional worlds was first examined by fantasy authors such as George MacDonald, J. R. R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, and C. S. Lewis." doesn't seem to be an accurate characterization of Mark P. Wolf's Building Imaginary Worlds. Wolf recounts several pre-20th century examples, back to Homer and the Bible. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy cites the Odyssey (8th c. BC), True History (160), Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1657), and Gulliver's Travels (1726) as prime examples preceding Edgar Rice Burroughs. This should be written to have a broader historical scope. See also Wikipedia:Recentism. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:36, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

If the source counts as reliable, use it. You are a registered user, so you can improve the text with better sources.

Now for the examples you mention:

• The Odyssey was apparently written in the 8th century BC. It was part of the Epic Cycle, a collection of 8 epic poems based on the Trojan War, the events leading up to it, and its consequences. Most of the other epics are now lost, though we have summaries and various adaptations of material from them. As with much of Ancient Greek literature, we do not know how much the author/authors drew from older works or oral tradition, and how much they invented themselves.
• True History depicts "travelling to outer space, alien life-forms and interplanetary warfare." And it was clearly not intended as a factual account. "Lucian goes on to state that the story recounted in True History is about "things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." " In many ways it is a more clear-cut exercise in worldbuilding.
• Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon is in part based on True History. It depicts the invention of flying machines, use of rockets to fly into outer space, use of solar energy to power machines, and some alien life forms. A large influence on science fiction.
• Gulliver's Travels has protagonist Lemuel Gulliver traveling to several fictional islands and continents over a period of 16 years (1699-1715). He gets a hell of a culture shock and ends up a reclusive misanthrope. A pretty good example of worldbuilding, with the introduction of multiple cultures and civilizations, each of them distinct. And in this case the work is satirical. Among the themes of the work: "A satirical view of the state of European government, and of petty differences between religions", "An inquiry into whether men are inherently corrupt or whether they become corrupted", A restatement of the older "ancients versus moderns" dispute.

By the way, George MacDonald (1824-1905) is more of a 19th-century writer than a 20th century one. He wrote all his major works between 1858 and 1895. He is considered the founder of modern fantasy, though John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River (1841) may count as an earlier British fantasy novel. Ruskin's tale is part fairy tale, and part Christian allegory on the value of charity and mercy. Dimadick (talk) 09:33, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

List of fictional counties up for deletion

• Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · NYT · WP Library
• List of fictional counties (3rd nomination) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs|google) AfD discussion
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional counties (3rd nomination)

I've added some sources. More are out there. Important literary device. Important list for some of our readers. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:00, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Help with translation

Hello, I am translating this page into the French Wikipedia (where it had no equivalent), and I'm having trouble translating the quote by Tolkien: "Very little about trees as trees can be got into a play".

I looked for context and it seems that it means drama/plays can't include much about background elements ("trees") while novels are more suitable for worldbuilding and fantasy. But the phrasing "can be got into" is unfamiliar to me as a non-native English speaker. What I understand from it is "There is very little about trees in plays, because trees can be included into a play", which sounds contradictory in itself.

Could anyone can provide a rephrasing or an explanation? Thank you ! Opsylac (talk) 14:50, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

@Opsylac: if you are still working on this I hope this helps. I don't think this sentance is very helpful to the article as a whole and isn't particularly easy to understand but I think you're problem is that you are splitting the sentance in the wrong place. It should read more like "very little about 'trees as trees' can be got into plays". Basically Tolkein is saying that it is hard to describe the scenery in a play - you can't spend much time talking about 'trees as trees'.

In this case "can be got into" would probably be clearer as "can be written into". ~ El D. (talk to me) 19:28, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

@El komodos drago: Thanks a lot! It makes much more sense indeeed :) I just edited the translation, it's way better! --Opsylac (talk) 11:56, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

No problem. ~ El D. (talk to me) 16:08, 13 August 2021 (UTC)