When we write a story set in our regular world, we get a lot for free. If a character walks into a coffee shop, readers already know the basic rules. They know what coffee is. They know what money is. They know people are not going to solve an argument by casting a spell, opening an airlock, or consulting a sentient mushroom.

However, when we are writing science fiction or fantasy, the world in which our characters live cannot be taken for granted because these genera allow us to change the rules of reality. We can invent time travel, talking swords, alien governments, gods who answer prayers directly, or magic systems that run on memory, blood, music, math, or regret. This freedom is one of the great joys of the genres.

The challenge is that, as the writer, we have such intimate knowledge of the world we have created, it is easy omit something the reader needs to know.  It is important to keep in mind that when some aspect of the world isn’t clear, the reader will default to assuming the story world operates like the one we live in today.

For comparison, a murder mystery set in Chicago does not need to explain gravity, police departments, elevators, dogs, or cell phones but a mystery set on a generation ship orbiting Saturn might. Does the ship have artificial gravity? Is there a police force, or does the captain handle crime? Are dogs extinct? Do people still use cell phones or do they have implants that allow them to communicate telepathically.

These details matter because readers are constantly trying to understand what is possible. They have to learn what is normal, what is impossible, what is dangerous, and what is merely unusual. That means clarity becomes part of the storytelling.

For example, suppose a wizard is trapped in a locked room. In a non-magical story, the reader understands the problem immediately. Locked room. No key. Trouble. But in a fantasy story, the reader may wonder: Why not teleport? Why not melt the lock? Why not summon a rat to fetch the key? Why not turn into smoke? If the answer is “because magic can’t do that,” the reader needs to know. Otherwise, the attempt at suspense becomes confusion for the reader.

I also want to mention  very important concept called The Cost of Magic. I learned about this in Orson Scott Card’s awesome book, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Card outlined how there needs to be a price for using magic in fantasy, as the spell casters otherwise become omnipotent. While he talks about fantasy specifically, this is also true for technology in sci-fi, there needs to be limits to even the most advanced technological race or they essentially become all-powerful, which results in a very boring story.

I suspect this may sound backward as it is cool to think about a race that can accomplish anything and fun to explore that kind of power in a story, but a magic system where anything can happen at any time is not wondrous for very long. The problem with this is that it removes the challenge of conflict, which is the friction needed to develop stakes and drive the story.

Another special challenge of science fiction and fantasy is vocabulary. We need names for alien species, magical orders, invented technologies, rituals, and strange materials.

But we should spend those invented words carefully. This bring to mind another concept: The Shmeep. The Shmeep is a tongue-in-cheek terms for anything in a sci-fi or fantsay story that is something common to us but with a fancy-sounding name thrown on to make it more fantastical.  For example, if you write a utensil for eating into a story that is exactly like a fork but call it a “frong” to make it sound fancy, that’s a shmeep.  Please call a fork a fork and avoid using fancy words for things that would be almost certainly called what they are called today.

Note that when I looked up “Shmeep” there are a few varying definitions, but this is what I have come to understand it to mean from a writing perspective. If I am wrong about the definition, please enjoy the meta-level irony.

While I have spent a good portion of this telling you that you need to explain everything in the story world that is different than our current world, there is an exception to this. That exception is what I would call the “genera canon” that has already been established. The great Science Fiction writers and scientist that have come before us have established such concepts as space elevators, O’neil cylinders, and Dyson spheres. These concepts can be talked about in a science fiction story without much need for further explanation. However, if your take on these concepts has a special feature or some change to the core concept then you will need to elaborate on that. Also keep in mind that there are a few items that have been established that you need to be careful with: things such as WARP drive and Light Sabers speak to very established worlds that will frame your story as a clear derivation of Star Trek or Star Wars.  

So let me wrap it up with this: a good rule of thumb is that more the world in your story deviates from the world we live in today, the more you will need to clearly explain the rules of that world.

Let me know what your experiences have been with your world-building attempts in these generas in the comments below.

-James