What needs to be fleshed out? (serious)

[Raymann]

For a psychological horror comedy story with an intended focus on worldbuilding, what needs to be fleshed out to carry out the idea well?
What aspects of government are important, and which are not?
What aspects of the economy can be added in?
Etc.
This is a serious prompt, where I do not want statements like "I don't feel like they are necessary at all" or something along those lines. A serious discussion for writers currently writing with the intent to improve their writing.
If anyone else has serious prompts they want answered, feel free to add those in as part of the discussion.
@MintiLime I know you've had a few writing prompts that went unanswered. Feel free to stick it in here.

::Rules of world-building that I am following::

1.
Opt for active experiential world-building. [Don't dedicate separate chapters or sections for world-building full of exposition, instead focus on whatever is being played out in front of the scene.] Show the world through the eyes/senses of the character. Don't show anything that isn't experienced by the character.

2.
There is no benefit in telling readers something in detail about world elements that they will never come across again in future chapters. It will only increase unnecessary word count.

3.
Story element priority
Animated > Inanimate

Remember story moving characters in a story (creatures/people) breathe life into the world. Focus on them, don't focus too much on explaining how beautiful a stone by the riverside is. There is a round stone and that is it. Unless it is an infinity stone.

4.
Avoid excessive info dumping in any manner. You can divide it into digestible sizes and spread it over chapters.

5.
Don't run after the perfectionism. Take your time and rewrites based on feedback.


You can apply these rules to any world-building type and filter out anything unnecessary. ??




On psychological horror comedy,
[Personal views below]


Psychological horror comedy is a genre that has seen quite an abuse. Mostly because of its name people often tend to forget that it is not a single genre but three bunched together. [Psychological horror] [Psychological comedy] [horror comedy]
Yes you can also go [psychological] [horror] [comedy], I am here describing it in pairs.

[Psychological horror]:: Most difficult to read.
Writing something that disturbs the comfort zone of readers. While creeping them from inside.
Paranoia, Phobia, Insanity, etc.
Example:: a girl goes to buy candy, and the shopkeeper gives her candy made of living insects that she happily gulps down.

[Horror comedy]:: making a fool out of most horror-inducing cliche characters.
Highly relies on pre-established things and assume reader know about them. Same for vampires, ghosts, evil puppets, witches etc.
Horror comedy is basically comical parodies of the horror genre. Like say a werewolf visits a dermatologist.

[Psychological comedy]:: closely related to dark comedy. Most difficult to write.
Requires a good hold over the language.(me)
Filled with indirect/hidden puns by using real-life equivalent elements.
Something that pokes the comfort zone of the reader. While making them laugh inside.
Basically making reader laugh on things that are normally sad events.
Example:: think of a character who cracks a funny joke about insurance only to be shot at by a cannon from somewhere the next second.

 

[TheMonotonePuppet]

I don't think Demon Slayer is world building focused. Aside from the demons literally building worlds with their techniques. There is hardly a focus on anything government related, and the main thing we see are the battles between the demons and demon slayers.

Out of the four you listed, AOT and My Hero are the ones with more focus on the government. Though I didn't watch/read much of My Hero since I didn't enjoy it. Jujutsu Kaisen is also mostly battle related like Demon Slayer.

Mostly it will be subjective whether people prefer to watch/read something with a lot of world building in any type of horror. I liked Jujutsu Kaisen, but it wasn't very strong in the horror department for me. There isn't much tension involved. Demon Slayer was also pretty weak in the horror department for the same reason. Attack on Titan is the strongest in the horror department of the three. This is because it invokes powerlessness from the first episode. Though the horror falls off pretty quickly after the first seasons.

I think body horror can only invoke psychological horror for so long. How many times can you see the same demons, titans, and amalgamations before you overcome your fear?

With horror the buildup is more important than the actual monster/s. All of the best horror stories have tension slowly built in.

Now I know I said there is no objective way to build the world into your story, but in my opinion, it would be better to do what AOT did. It has some problems, but the world invokes a feel of powerlessness that you don't get from Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen.

Oh I know a lot of them don’t have amazing world building or have a focus on worldbuilding (though JJK does pretty well on it). I’m trying to surpass them on that. That’s why I am asking here, otherwise I’d be analyzing them. I referenced them to give an idea on the themes and what kind of world building you would want from them.
Thanks for the tips on horror. I’ll keep that in mind! Powerlessness is definitely what I am going for.
I personally think body horror has endless possibilities and can’t run out, but the other stuff you mentioned is quite useful.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

This will sound very edgy, but I don't know how to phrase it well enough. Real-life darkness. The bad stuff that is usually ignored, and I'm not talking about racism or lgbt stuff in USA or something similar. What I mean is the inclusion of a lot of things such as human trafficking, total incompetence of higher-ups, selling your body for the fame, and so on. Basically, bad stuff that everyone knows of, but rarely talks about. Without overdramatazing, making it the focus of the story, or trying to romanticize it, don't make it into a Requiem for a Dream or something similar. Make it sound like an everyday occurence. A lot of very dirty stuff happens every second, and this is how world works, and it won't change.

And don't make it an ultra-super dark world with no hope and no good people.

To explain what I want to see I will write a small scene. Two middle-aged acquaintances run into each other and they have twenty or so minutes to catch up with each other and have a converastion. They talk about various stuff and one of them mentions how this one producer, or businessman, someone in power, abused their power and made something really bad. Like rape or pedo stuff or something. And the second person scrunches up their face, not because he\she find it disgusting, but because he\she don't want to hear about it. This is what I want. Despite the news being very disturbing no one has a surprised pikachu face when they hear about it. And no one starts rambling how they will change things or punich people. They don't want to hear about it.

This is good stuff, but I don't think it works for a shonen type. Shonens use a lot of melodrama.

 

[TheMonotonePuppet]

I love worldbuilding!

Okay, so…

1. Medical field. I work in medical research irl and 1000% there would be arguments over how to conduct research on these creatures, what the government laws are, the ethics, etc. Now, I think an untapped area of this isn’t “ah! The horrible mad scientist does bad things!” It’s “ok, yeah, I’m a lab tech and second day they handed me a scalpel and wanted me to remove this jellyfish nightmare’s nervous system. Sucks, but it pays” Normal people growing apathetic to these creatures and having a hand in studying them. It’s tired grad students trying to figure out what to do their thesis on and writing the fifth paper on the same subject of “they have eyes.” It’s students in universities getting expelled for desecrating the corpse of an alien and carving their initials into it. The sheer callousness of it all, the monotony, the lack of madness, is it’s own horror.

2. Rich people food. Licking chocolate off hands and experimenting with eating what was it? Pufferfish? That still have a bit of poison in it for the spice Imagine that in a horror world. Zombies as waiters dragging out trays of food. Alien exoskeletons as fancy bowls.

3. The middle class people version of that. Releasing little kids toys that mimic the horror. Halloween costumes. Hot topic t-shirts.

4. Charisma makes me think of a ZOO. Captured torments treated like a freak show carnival show. People love seeing freaky things.

5. Reality tv shows.

6. Body modification artists being asked to do plastic surgeries to make people look more or less odd.

7. The beauty industry capitalizing on everything. Covering scars to look pretty for rich people. Creating scars for middle class people to look tough.

8. Government poor assistance programs used as cover-ups for money laundering and corruption. Misappropriation of funds. Fake charities.
Following on that, I think a lot of government issues important to flesh out would be small things everyday people would want to know about. Food regulation laws. How much insect parts and alien meat per hot dog. Think that one book by Sinclair I think? Taxes. Animal rights.

New fiction genres. R18 comics. Red light districts.

legalization of certain psychedelic substances.

Combatting abuse of prescription pills. New ways to diagnose psychiatric disorders when those crazy hallucinations might not be hallucinations.

Snake oil peddlers and pyramid schemes. Selling cheap low quality swords door to door. Saying rosemary oil will drive away demons.

Conspiracy theorists.

I have literally only gotten through the first four options so far, and I've already created 2500 words worth of lore and possible scenes in one day!!! This is a lot for me!!!!! Really helping me flesh out my world by responding to these!!! I would share all of the stuff with you, but a lot of responding to these prompts has created important twists. SO MUCH!!! Thank you so much for all of the help!!!
You won't know how much you've helped me flesh out some major parts and see where I am deficient on the worldbuilding!!!

 

[MintiLime]

I have literally only gotten through the first four options so far, and I've already created 2500 words worth of lore and possible scenes in one day!!! This is a lot for me!!!!! Really helping me flesh out my world by responding to these!!! I would share all of the stuff with you, but a lot of responding to these prompts has created important twists. SO MUCH!!! Thank you so much for all of the help!!!
You won't know how much you've helped me flesh out some major parts and see where I am deficient on the worldbuilding!!!

I’m so glad it helped!!! If you want anymore real life accurate stuff for one, I’m more than happy to share-

Ok I’m sharing

job interview: Can you get along with rats?

me: yeah, my middle school science class kept one as a pet

them: great! You’ll be needing to pet and handle rats

me: ?

~one month later~

them: yeah ok here’s your scalpel

me: ?

Gore Warning

*proceeds to do a standard perfusion, during which one uses gas to knock the mouse out, inject with lethal blue (a death causing blue koolaid looking liquid you pull up in a syringe and inject) uses scissors to cut open the chest and break the ribs, clamp the still beating heart, cut open, stick a needle through it, and use the hijacked vasculature to pump the liquid through the rat’s body (heart still beating btw) the blood is pushed out of the cut part of the heart, so that the blood wells up and fills the rib cage until it overflows into the grate and contained full of coagulated blood from prior killings. Once the liquid flows clear and all the liquid in the rat’s system is perfusion liquid, you use a scalpel and scissors to skin the rat, break its spine vertebrae one by one, cut off its nose and remove its eyeballs, crack open the skull, and then peel out the nervous system like crab meat out of crab shell. Then you throw the rest of the carcass into a red bag, toss that in a bucket, and clean everything.*

it’s very disorienting. It got to the point where a rat peed on me and I said “one of us is going to be dead tomorrow, and it’s not me” as if killing the thing was nothing. But I’d go home and feel drained and tired and irritable. I could feel every time I cut open a rat’s chest and see it’s heart thumping away, I felt how easy my chest would be to break open, how fragile my beating heart was. I didn’t like it at all. So I switched to human and now I get to see humans die slowly, agonizingly slowly as they lose themselves, or, alternatively, as the shell that contains the spirit of them breaks down and betrays them. Sometimes I remember the loved ones I lost and I cry. Sometimes I think, well, one less person to follow up with. I may need therapy at the end of all this, but I hope this sort of thing helps in writing your world!