Dear O'Abby,
I just got my MS back from a group of readers and need some help. All of them liked the story and the characters and the overall structure of the book, but they all mentioned that they felt the world-building was weak.
Now this is confusing because my book is contemporary and is set in an imaginary, but very typical modern, western city. Think anywhere from London to Chicago to Sydney. Any of them could be the setting for this book. Or even smaller cities - anywhere with suburbs, more than one public high school, a public transport system etc.
I always thought world building was something that really only applied to fantasy or sci-fi or historical books where the reader needs to understand the landscape, politics etc. I didn't think a contemporary book set in a place most readers will recognise needed much world building.
What do my readers mean?
Kind regards,
World-weary
Dear World-weary,
World building is talked about most in relation to genres where the story setting may not be familiar, but even books set in the real, modern world need a degree of world building to feel real. You can assume that the majority of readers are familiar with cities, but I think what your readers are commenting on is a lack of specific details that will make your fictional city feel real.
Things like the weather. A hot, dry city is very different to one where it rains almost daily. Something as simple as knowing the weather patterns for your city will affect the way your characters dress, travel and behave. As will the landscapes. For example, if one of your characters walks or cycles everywhere, the experience will be very different in a city built on hills than one built on the flat. How the characters spend their leisure time can also be affected by the landscape surrounding them. If there is a lake and it's summer, they probably hang out there and swim or boat or fish. The same if the city is on the coast and there's a beach.
Or maybe they don't. Maybe the beach is there, but your character hates the way sand gets everywhere and the way salt air feels on her skin so she never goes.
You don't need to tell your reader everything about the city, but a few well-placed details create a world that feels authentic and this makes your characters, who live and engage with this world, more authentic too. If a character is getting anxious waiting for a bus because they have to get to an urgent appointment on time, you could throw in a mention of the city's re-organisation of the public transport system and how unreliable it has become as a result. This not only provides added context for the character's anxiety, but also gives depth to the world in which they live.
Other small details that can add texture to the fabric of your world are sounds and smells. Writers often forget to engage all their characters' senses as they move through stories. In real life we all gather information about the world we move through by sensing things as well as seeing them. An interesting exercise is to describe the place you're in, or a place you know well, without using the sense of sight. How much can you show using only things you can hear, smell or feel?
It's the small details that make the setting compelling, and by focusing on the details your character would be most conscious of, you're not just building a world, but your character's world. How they interact and react within it also builds the character and makes them more authentic too.
I hope that helps.
Best of luck with your revision!
X O'Abby
P.S. Here are a couple of books that might be of interest to you:
Preparing to Write Settings That Feel Like Characters
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