Connect Characters and Systems

[MajorKerina]

Some are already doing this, but I often see a lot of topics where people are asking, “How do I build the thing better?” when for me there’s a more critical question first: the things and the people need to be one.

A magic system is not interesting simply because it has seven schools and a color wheel and a book on its tax code.

It becomes interesting the second it gets its hands on a person. Who does it tempt? Who does it exclude? Who does it messily mutilate? Who gets to feel special because of it? Who has to clean up after it? Who can afford its costs? Who gets called dangerous for using it in a way no one else wants to use it? That’s the blood in the rollers.

A lot of writers fall in love with the architecture and then act surprised when nobody wants to live in the house.

Readers get twenty paragraphs on how soul-binding works and not one sharp sentence about what it does to a lonely daughter who can’t bring herself to unbind her mother’s ghost despite the cost to her lifespan and mental health. The details of a rulebook are not the story.

Same with governments, guilds, pantheons, rankings, all of it. Imperial succession rules don’t matter unless it means someone has to marry the wrong person, betray the right person, kill their brother, swallow their pride, or discover they were never going to inherit love no matter what the law said. Administration is only alive when it becomes story pressure.

“Good worldbuilding” is so often mistaken for wiki accumulation. Good worldbuilding is emotional infrastructure. It should produce conflict, longing, irony, constraint, leverage. It should force people into revealing who they are under stress, under desire, under shame. Otherwise it’s just nicely painted drywall.

Even the most detail-interested readers can feel the difference instantly. NPC writing happens when the author cares more about explaining the setting than about letting the setting deform the characters. You get people who speak like lore terminals. They exist to tour you through the museum. Nobody falls in love with that. Nobody mourns that. Nobody stays up late for one more chapter because of that.

Just a few personal thoughts I wanted to share. I see so much ink spilled about am I doing this world or the system or this magic right when it needs to be part and parcel of the narrative and not ornamentation that gets too much attention. Cheers!

 

[KennyCelican]

Just a few personal thoughts I wanted to share. I see so much ink spilled about am I doing this world or the system or this magic right when it needs to be part and parcel of the narrative and not ornamentation that gets too much attention. Cheers!

I think the only time you need to worry about doing things 'right' is when you're in a shared setting, because then, especially if you're borrowing another person's IP, there's some objective measure you're trying to match.

That said, and while I'm in agreement with your general sentiment that character drives engagement, and character is about interaction, not power sets, thus the most important thing about the world is how it affects the characters in the story, there is an additional thing to consider.

The world needs to be internally consistent, or any reader beyond a junior high reading comprehension level will begin losing interest, because without consistency there's no real tension. Everything becomes a deus ex machina.

Which kinda goes back to your original point, because at that point the world isn't deforming the character, the character is deforming the world. Which, for the 'OP MC' archetypes might be part of the fun, but it gets way less interesting if the world is made of cardboard and the MC doesn't care about that (although an OP MC who cares about the world of carboard can have interesting moments of 'I could end this, but that would have consequences I don't want).

 

[LiteraryWho]

Very good point, and a very easy thing to forget about when writing.

I wonder if it's better to start with those questions and work your way down to the world, or if it can work to start with the world and work your way to the characters?

I always do the latter, but I wonder...

Which kinda goes back to your original point, because at that point the world isn't deforming the character, the character is deforming the world. Which, for the 'OP MC' archetypes might be part of the fun, but it gets way less interesting if the world is made of cardboard and the MC doesn't care about that (although an OP MC who cares about the world of carboard can have interesting moments of 'I could end this, but that would have consequences I don't want).

I think the problem with the OP MC and world building is not really the world building, but the OP MC. I'd call it the puffer fish of character archaetypes. Very easy to accidentally make it toxic.