Worldbuilding, no matter how you cut it, is a difficult task, at least if you’re actually trying to do it right. Sometimes you feel like you have to become an expert in a hundred different fields at once; sometimes, you’re tempted to just throw your hands up and say, ‘That’s that, I guess.’ Maybe you wrote one bit of lore a year ago, forgot about it, and now you’re having to reconsider five other bits you’ve assembled because none of them really work together, because you didn’t remember one when you wrote the others. It’s happened to me- I’m reviewing a novel’s first draft right now, and the worldbuilding has holes you could drive a Spruce Goose through (or at least it feels that way). The truth is, some holes in your worldbuilding are going to happen (as we’ll see below); the task in front of us, then, is to figure out which holes are acceptable in theory and how to apply that theory in practice.

Three general types of unavoidable worldbuilding holes (or inconsistencies) exist: irremediable, unremedied, and inherent.

Irremediable holes can proceed from missing information or complexity. In many instances, the information required to recognize the problem may simply be unavailable to the author. Whether because the information isn’t actually known to man as of yet or the only means of gaining it is without the author’s reach, the problem goes unrecognized. The worldbuilding seems sound for a while, but somebody eventually realizes that it doesn’t work precisely that way in actuality. Suddenly something thought realistic is revealed for fantasy. Another possibility is that the system the author has undertaken to portray works just fine under a surface inspection, but if you calculate all the factors out, the system just doesn’t work. This analysis may exceed human capabilities, but the hole, at least in the eyes of God, will still exist. For obvious reasons, these holes aren’t going to be your biggest priority; you can’t fix them because you can’t perceive them. As authors, our real problems arrive with the next two sets.

Unremedied holes are the ones you can find (maybe even have found). The simplest examples are the ones you’re already aware of (or which you’ll notice with a little more time spent editing. Perfectionists know what I’m talking about); the more complex examples (which can blur towards the first category) are the ones you don’t have the information to recognize, though that information is available. Fixing every single on of these is, for some, a tempting prospect; for others, it’s an unending, unappealing slog. Which ones are worth it? The answer isn’t all that straightforward.

Inherent holes are (generally speaking) a weird mix of the first two categories (primarily the second), but distinct enough to deserve their own category. Inherent worldbuilding problems are the ones which your story is built around, and they come in two flavors: structural and theological. Structural problems are when the inconsistency or non sequitur lies between two parts of your explicit premise, and they can often be bridged (or, particularly with the help of genre, mitigated to the point of being ignorable). Theological problems, as I’m defining them here, are when your premise clashes with what is, for a Christian writer, the unspoken, ever-present presupposition of the writing: the character of God.

An interesting subgroup of this second flavor, the theological-inherent problem, is the difficulty of writing fiction which deviates from God’s world while possessing a fourth wall. In effect, this fiction states itself as a prime universe, not reliant on our own (the pretense of fiction), and for Christian works, also assumes the nature and character of God to be the same in that world, at least in most cases (those which do not have other issues). This new prime universe, being the secondary creation of a fallen, finite mind, is imperfect; God’s creation, meanwhile, is superlatively crafted. As God is perfect, so His creation is perfect to achieve its purpose of glorifying God, who deserves all glory. This fictional universe is imperfect for that task and so clashes with the character of God. This is an unavoidable problem (except theoretically by removing the fourth wall, which has its own host of issues; I’m not advising that course of action, particularly as I believe it has the potential to be even more theologically difficult), and I actually nearly placed it in the first category.

Those three (messy, overlapping, blurry) categories out on the table, let’s take a look at what types of problems worldbuilding holes cause.

Worldbuilding problems, first, impact worldbuilding. This bit seems obvious (and unhelpful) but we must recognize that if the world manifestly fails to work, the story set inside it will fracture at some point or another. Even if everything that directly impacts the story remains consistent, the problems surrounding that streak of consistency may very well undermine the story entirely. For an extreme example, wouldn’t Middle Earth be a much less effective setting if Azathoth (of Cthulhu Mythos fame) was the one dreaming it up, potential of instant annihilation and all? Wouldn’t The Lord of the Rings seem a bit broken?

Worldbuilding problems can ruin characters. In an inconsistent world, characters can easily take actions which, from your perspective, seem perfectly within their characters, but which, once the inconsistencies are taken into account, seem nonsensical or which force a different, unintended characterization. Further, the reader may simply fail to understand the character or may decide that this whole deal is pointless because the setting defies his ability to expect pay-offs for the character actions you’ve set up.

Worldbuilding problems can hurt the plot. A sufficiently incoherent setting, when it interacts with the plot, will rob the reader of his ability to understand the course which that plot takes, why the army marches east instead of south, why audacious political maneuvers end in success instead of mass executions. It can even produce any number of story-destroying deus¹ ex machina and plot devices, as is the case in many comic book universes or the past few Star Wars movies (at least according to my exterior view). This problem will compound off of the character problem; indeed, it shares the difficulty of neutering pay-offs.

Worldbuilding problems can twist the thematic or moral import of the story. As a result, generally, of a twisting of the characters and the plot, the moral statements inherent to any view of the world become warped. Think of a story like a window; if the setting is well-crafted, the window is clear and looks out at the right angle to see the story and to understand it rightly. If the window is dirty, cracked, distorted, pointed in the wrong direction, or partly made of sheet iron, you can look out of it, but you won’t see what’s on the other side properly. The information the view gives you will be false and incomplete, resulting in a flawed interpretation.

Worldbuilding problems have another difficulty: they break the necessary correspondence with reality. Stories are built off of a common bank of assumptions regarding reality. Some use more than others- historical fiction assumes more adherence to the rules of science and the ruth of history than, say, fantasy or science fiction. All of them, however, must, in order to be comprehensible, assume logic; all should, in order to honor God, faithfully portray His character. Worldbuilding holes bear the risk of failing in both those crucial obligations.

So, we’ve established a whole load of potential results. We’ve categorized the problems that can cause those results. The question, as I implied earlier, is what we’re going to do with this knowledge. We can’t avoid all of the worldbuilding holes; should be try to avoid all that we can? Are there some we can accept? Are they unacceptable altogether? Unfortunately, I’ve run out of space for today (or, more truthfully, out of time to write), so we’ll be returning to the topic next Monday with Part Two: Inquisitive Answers (you’ll understand the jest when you read it).

Find Part Two here.

Footnote

¹ – Technically, the plural of ‘deus’ should be ‘dei’.