I think detailed worldbuilding docs kill the story

Everyone in this sub loves those massive lore bibles. I used to write them too. 50 pages of history for a short story about a guy finding a lost key. Then I read a Stephen King book where he spends 2 sentences on the town's founding. Now I just write characters bumping into stuff and let the reader fill in the blanks. Anyone else ditch the notebooks and just start typing?

3 comments

3 Comments

karen_west5924d ago

My 1994 notebook for a story about a haunted convenience store had 12 pages on the local water treatment plant's history. I thought it made the setting real. Then my buddy asked me what the main character ordered at the deli counter and I realized I had no clue. I just started writing the next day with a guy buying a bad sandwich and a weird stranger sitting in the booth behind him. The water plant stuff got tossed in one sentence about the tap water tasting like pennies. Now I keep one sticky note per story with two things on it, the main character's name and the thing they really want. Everything else comes out as I type and sometimes the story goes somewhere I never planned.

cora_scott7724d ago

It's crazy how that works, it's like the same trap we all fall into with planning too much. My sister spent three weeks organizing her kitchen drawers with labeled bins and dividers but still can't find the pizza cutter when she needs it. We think getting all the details right ahead of time will make things smoother, but half the time you just gotta jump in and figure it out as you go. That sticky note trick sounds solid because the best stuff comes from actually doing the thing, not planning the thing.

brown.gavin16d ago

My 1987 trip to Disney World taught me this the hard way. I spent six months planning every FastPass and dining reservation down to the minute, and then it rained the whole first day and my daughter got sick from a turkey leg. The only thing that saved the trip was throwing away the schedule and just wandering into whatever ride had a short line, which turned out to be the best memory of the whole vacation.