Frank Herbert, author of the Dune series, is quoted as saying, “The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.” Apply that idea to world building in speculative fiction and you’ve got the core of this article. I’m calling it The Ripple Effect. I’d like you to view world building as a lake, every plot detail and character in your story is equivalent to throwing a pebble into that lake and watching the ripples, to see how they affect everything around it. A large rock is going to cause a huge splash, causing waves that will disturb much of what happens in the lake, a small pebble will generate a small ‘plop’ and a ripple or two that only the ducks notice.

Every detail in world building has the potential to generate a ripple that leads to a disturbance to the story. Patrick Rothfuss of the Kingkiller Chronicles maintains that from all the material he generates, you’ll only see 4% in the finished story. That quantity is defined by the impact of those ripples, the consequences they produce and how they inform the story.

When I asked my writing friends at Spotlight Indie to summarise this concept in 2-3 sentences, I got the same reaction: a roll of the eyes, a heavy sigh and a shake of the head, followed by the words, “That’s almost impossible but I’ll try.” What superstars they are! So, here goes.

Rule 1: Consistency

Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians trilogy, criticised CS Lewis for his lack of consistency in the Narnia stories. He pointed out how Narnia is predominantly feudal in its weaponry yet Mrs Beaver uses a Victorian era sewing machine. Character-wise, Lewis imported creatures from Greek myth and introduced Father Christmas!

Consistency is vital. To return to my ripple analogy, inconsistency would mean ripples lack that circular impact on the water, or a huge boulder generating hardly a splash. My friend Nick Snape said this: “The moment a reader stops believing in your world, the book’s reliability plummets, and their faith in you as an author with it.”

His illustration from A City of Ashes, Warriors of Spirit and Bone Book 2 is perfect:

“Sura began running through the mechanics of pulleys and wheels she had experienced, fighting the fog to draw on memories of the crossbow, ballistae and finally the trebuchets she had either used or seen in operation. They were never a natural draw for her. The Schenterenta always refined what they knew rather than sought to invent. Their creativity lay in song and music, crafts used to retain their ancestors’ stories and tales, so important to their culture. Every child had the first verse of their lifesong woven at birth, a lullaby to soothe and calm. Their parents – and later the child themselves – adding to it as they grew. Of course, each of their great heroes and the most revered shamans’ lifesongs became tribal retellings, often widened and added to by the people in celebration together. A song of binding.

Sura let a hint of a smile cross her ghostly face at memories of the duality, the interweaving of her and her twin’s songs. Until one came to an end, the last verse bitter.”

Nick explains how the ‘lifesong’ concept connects the song and the spirit magic of the Schenteranta race, ensuring it is embedded in cultural rituals. However, it also leads to the long-term failure of the shamans’ magic that caused Sura to turn away from her tribe’s traditions. Their unwillingness to adapt and change became their downfall.

In other words, that refusal to adapt their ‘lifesong’ is a huge rock, thrown into our allegorical lake and it is Sura’s creativity that form the subsequent ripples. It’s so nuanced, to see change occur to a society’s status quo, by one character thinking differently to everyone else around her. (Nick’s stories are full of this original thinking!)

Rule 2: Conflict

The American screenplay writer, Robert McKee is famously quoted as saying, “Nothing moves forward in a story, except through conflict.” He’s right. However, sourcing the nature of such conflict is critical to world building. Where does the conflict come from? To return to my analogy, what has been thrown into the lake and how big are the ripples? It might be a conflict between two people, such as rivalry that defines the story or it might be that two nations are at war with one another. The critical point to consider here are the consequences of that conflict, what ripples does it introduce to the story?

My good friend Simon Kewin is an expert on the subject; his stories focus on conflict in different ways. Here’s what he’s said on the topic: “Conflict of some sort – external or internal, violent or subtle – is vital for any story, and when it comes to world-building, that conflict can be dramatized in various ways. The obvious one is to build a world that is torn by actual conflict, where characters from different sides in a war or some other discord meet, setting up inherent tensions between them. In speculative fiction conflict can be implicit in physical structures – worlds divided by impassable magical rifts or, to use my recent novel The Twisted Road as an example, a space station that is constantly at risk of falling apart as a symbol of the social conflicts taking place within it.”

I love that idea of conflict driving people apart while the same thing is happening to their environment, it’s a prescient metaphor, it mirrors what’s happening on our planet.

Rule 3: Magic

Derek Power, author of the Irish fairy detective Filthy Henry novels, rightly points out the danger of using magic as a deus ex machina plot device. Put simply, you can’t make something out of nothing! Magic must adhere to a few laws of physics or otherwise how do you make it credible? The secret lies in finding the consequences of magic usage. I’ll let Derek explain:

“In a world filled with Celtic myths and legends, leprechauns obviously have the power to grant wishes. But you need to avoid using these as a ‘get out of plot jail’ card. Wishes are reworked into reality altering magic. Where leprechauns can make you wealthy and healthy, wishes like resurrecting the dead need to be granted by The King of The Leprechauns. One of my plot constraints is that leprechauns hate everyone and never grant a wish unless a very important, near impossible, task is completed, leaving the wish-maker in their debt.”

Derek highlights how world building consequences drive his stories. Consider how it would differ if leprechauns were friendly and helpful, never wanting anything in return! Now take it even further, WHY do leprechauns hate humans with such fervour? HOW do leprechauns manage to rework reality? Is it painful? Do they lose a part of their soul? Do they suffer a cost – which would explain them passing it on to the consumer? In this respect, magic becomes another form of basic economics – and think about all the consequences that introduces into the world.

Rule 4: Maps

When talking about world building, a good map has to be a vital feature, doesn’t it? It helps makes the imaginary world real. The Big Daddy of fantasy, JRR Tolkien, explained the importance of maps when he said this: “I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit (generally with meticulous care for distances). The other way lands one in confusions and impossibilities, and in any case, it is weary work to compose a map from a story.” The consequences in this context lie in the geography of world building, not just distances but defining how the landscape itself has a rippling effect to the story.

This article began life thanks to an online discussion at the Four Beardsmen of the Bookpocalypse. One of the ‘4 Beardies’ is David List, author of the duology Turesia Untamed. Here’s how David uses a map: “I find maps crucial while plotting battles, blocking out action scenes, or just considering character perspective. For every scene that involves movement I inevitably sketch a rough, top-down representation of the environment. Notably in Violence and Vigilance (Book 1) that included a siege in a city square, a battle on a beach, a showdown in the jungle, and multiple fights in the arena Keswal. In Book 2 it has included a skirmish in a cave beside the ocean, a confrontation in ancient ruins, an assaulted settlement on a forested hill, a walled city draped over a mountain beset by heathens, and a bigger beach for a bigger battle.”

See what we mean about the way the landscape creates ripples? It’s in the nature of the location, the limitations, quirks and opportunities of the environment. Why is a cave a good location for a skirmish? Why have battles on a beach? Lob your location into our lake and see what ripples occur! Drawing them, describing them, researching what elements those locations might possess, leads you to a wider world. For instance, what does a settlement on a forested hill tell you? Being fortified it suggests the world must be dangerous, liable to attack, defence and location is critical. In illustrating the landscape, what ingredients should you include that will enable attacks to take place? What features of the environment make it possible? Map making allows the author to consider all these consequences before writing the battle.  

Rule 5: Originality

I love this quote from Michael Scott, author of The Warlock: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Originality comes from authors who allow their imaginations to run wild, like energetic 5-year-olds! All the traditional boundaries vanish and new worlds form. Tolkien did it big time. CS Lewis invented portal fantasy using wardrobes! True originality can attract readers for this reason.

Talking of Tru (contrived segue I know), Trudie Skies is one such example when talking about originality defining your stories. Here, the Ripple Effect appears in the inclusion of a character whose powers equal the gods who are hated by mortals. Tell them more, Tru: “In my Cruel Gods series, there are twelve unique domains, each one ruled by an all-powerful god. These twelve gods create and own the souls of their mortal subjects, with their mortals’ appearance and powers designed in their god’s image. They have such absolute control over their mortals’ lives until a group of godless heathens choose to free themselves of their gods’ control. When a character takes on the powers of all twelve domains, their crusade ripples across the twelve domains. When a mortal can suddenly match the power of the gods, all bets are off, and we find out just how cowardly, brave, and conniving gods can be.”

Originality comes in many forms in this series. Firstly, I love how the twelve domains are linked to a clock face. Next, the diversity of very different worlds that bend, twist and break so many speculative fiction tropes. But top of the list is the idea of a character possessing god-like powers – when they’re not supposed to!

Originality comes from breaking the rules quite often. That said, if you break rules you need to make new ones and that can be even harder and require enormous imagination. When you instil that rule breaking in a person – the consequences are huge! They’re capable of generating a string of huge splashes in our allegorical lake. That’s what Trudie Skies does in the Cruel Gods series and is why the first book was a finalist in SPFBO.

Conclusion

John Campbell was a writer and editor in the Golden Age of speculative fiction, the creator of the Astounding Science Fiction magazine. He famously said, “The major distinction between fantasy and science fiction is, simply, that science fiction uses one and develops the rigidly consistent logical consequences. Fantasy makes its rules as it goes along . . . The basic nature of fantasy is “The only rule is, make up a new rule any time you need one!”

Brandon Sanderson referenced this quote when talking about his attempts to create his First Law of Magic. I mention this because good world building, regardless of magic usage, needs to consider the consequences of the decisions taken in its creation. My “Ripple Effect” involves exploring the impact of those global factors. Without those consequences, as our authors have shown, any story can be damned by its lack of credibility. It risks losing readers because, unlike John Campbell’s beliefs, these days we demand logic and credibility in fantasy where all decisions have consequences!

Look out for Part 2 of this article where more of our Spotlight Indie authors will illustrate the importance of the “ripple effect” in world building.