Brief thread on Star Trek, Star Wars, and emergent vs necessary worldbuilding. 1/11
There's a lot of discussion on here about #worldbuilding, and I basically love all of it. Writers like @JeannetteNg, @tinytempest and @juliettewade talking about what to think about, what makes it feel real or believable, how it's politicised and so on. Do check 'em out. 2/11
Today I'm going to talk about it in very broad, structural terms. The question here is "why worldbuild?" What purpose is it going to serve in your writing, and what does that say about your story? Emergent and necessary worldbuilding are two answers to that question. 3/11
Emergent worldbuilding starts at the beginning, with starting principles. It's "what if?" worldbuilding; what if there was magic? What if there was FTL travel? The answers will pose more questions, layer on layer until you have a world to tell stories in. 4/11
Star Trek (prior to the 2009 film) is all about this. New technology builds on the old: holodecks are a product of forcefield tech, replicators are a product of matter transport. The political world is continuous and has consequences, like Klingon peace and DS9. 5/11
The plot of Star Trek II was directly built on the plot of the TOS episode Space Seed, and provided a foundation for the plots of Star Treks III and IV. Everything builds on what was before, with only occasional stops to retroactively insert new elements. 6/11
Necessary worldbuilding, by contrast, starts at the end, with the story. It's "how do I get there?" worldbuilding; my hero needs a dragon to fight. Okay, why are there dragons? Is there anything else? How do people feel about them? You work backwards until the world fits. 7/11
Star Wars is a lot of things, and will always be my first love, but it did not give one solitary fuck about continuity. All that mattered was the story and how to make it work. Why build a Death Star rather than a load of ships? Because Luke needs to destroy a Death Star. 8/11
Why is Leia on the Death Star? It's a military base, not a prison. You can't even argue they were transferring her; she was captured by a destroyer. What, does Vader just carry his prisoners around with him, in case he wants to do a bit of torturing? 9/11
It doesn't matter. Leia's on the Death Star because, in this story, the Death Star is the underworld, and she is the princess that must be rescued from it, like Guinevere in the Knight of the Cart. Come up with a story that sort of explains her being there and move on. 10/11
Both these approaches to worldbuilding work; both of them can produce fantastic stories (like, I would argue, Stars both Wars and Trek). The question, for you, is which best suits your story? Which provides the world you need for what you're trying to do? 11/11
