Dirt: Worldbuilding, Pt. 1

Our collective weariness towards ever-expanding franchise universes feels potent. There is an excess of worlds to immerse ourselves in, but a dearth of meaningful connection to other humans. Popular franchises might boast massive fandoms, but there is a stark impersonality to their widespread consumption and discussion.

In this decade, worldbuilding is not just an imaginative exercise with purely artistic aims. The writer-reader relationship has been supplanted by a creator-consumer dynamic. As a thinly veiled commercial endeavor, its purpose is to oil the wheels of major fan-favorite franchises. Worldbuilding provides grist for expansion. The wider the world, the... See more

Worldbuilding satisfies the desire to “be a real maker,” J.R.R. Tolkien remarked in his 1947 essay “On Fairy Stories.” The creator should “hope that he is drawing on reality,” for the qualities of the world should aim to capture some truth, some essence of reality.

More recently, the concept of “worldbuilding” has come to the fore. The term describes the creation of fictional worlds with unique settings, histories, aesthetics, and characters. Our franchise-dominated media environment is rife with worlds and extended universes, straddling the physical and the virtual, the fictional and the real. There is a pal... See more

The tendency to craft fictional realms is a natural human instinct, argues media scholar Mark Wolf in Building Imaginary Worlds (2012), a comprehensive study on constructed worlds. Our fascination begins in childhood. Youthful proclivities for fairy tales (“Once upon a time, in a land far, far away”) and the imaginary “[do] not change over time,” W... See more

Franchise worldbuilding is a means without a conclusive end. Contrary to its literary roots, wherein narrative details are fleshed out to push a story forward, most attempts today are predicated upon commodification. The goal is to pander and please audiences. It’s the creative equivalent of a dangling carrot on a stick in front of a donkey — and i... See more

More people, increasingly dissatisfied by these corporate offerings, are compelled into creating their own virtual worlds. The future of the internet, as some have theorized, might consist of micro-communities, enclosed worlds with fewer but more engaged members. Through video games like Minecraft and collaborative worldbuilding projects, which are... See more

Fictional worlds are treated as renewable resources, consistently mined for their potential.

Game of Thrones creator George R. R. Martin once grouped worldbuilders into two types: architects and gardeners. These days, there seem to be fewer gardeners (Martin considers himself one), creators who allow a world to organically bloom. Most franchise worlds are architected to market-researched perfection. These efforts are not exclusive to the e... See more

Media scholar Henry Jenkins, in his 2006 book Convergence Culture, cites a conversation with an experienced screenwriter that reflects this shift in Hollywood: “When I first started, you would pitch a story, because without a good story, you didn’t really have a film. Later, once sequels started to take off, you pitched a character because a good c... See more