Writing Blog Number 2

20240809 The Little Things (World-Building)

The Little Things (World-Building)

This came up in a discussion on Discord recently, where someone wanted feedback for their new book, and a few people mentioned the same thing. The writer took offence – she left the server – and that was a shame, but maybe a beta reader could have helped her.

Anyway… what had offended her so much?

Her main character and their horse did not eat or sleep or drink for two days straight after the MC escaped a dungeon. Later on, the MC did not eat or sleep for a few days and nights while hiking across a mountain range in the snow. The MC was just a teenaged girl, no special powers, seeking her father. This lack of eating or sleeping had no effect on her whatsoever. Further, she then picked up a sword, a weapon she had never used in her life, and defeated a few trained soldiers after this second lack of sleep or energy.

These things make no sense.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is that the little things that might not seem important can actually remove that immersion, that suspension of disbelief, that is vital for a reader to become invested.

Things include:

1)Food. Your characters need to eat. For energy, for socialization, for other things. And their animals need to eat. You don’t need to detail everything, but even the mention of food or allowing time for the characters to have eaten, or showing the effects of not eating can make the story more realistic. Then, where does the food come from? How is it stored? How is it sold? Lots to consider.

2) Drink. More than food, drink is vital. Water at least keeps all animals going. Moving to where water can be found – they can always hunt for food – affects the course of a journey, and should be taken into consideration.

3) Sleep. The lack of sleep can have the same effects on a person as being drunk. Cognition is affected, and seeing things can be caused by it. Animals, on the other hand, will simply sleep.

4) Family. So many characters seem to have had no family. No matter how good or bad, family is the first influence on a person, and should be seen as such. Even an orphan will have the new family, the street family, the orphanage there to influence aspects of life.

5) Clothing. In modern settings, this is not really that important, as clothing is cheap. But in old, medieval or fantasy settings, who makes the clothes? Leggings are expensive; trunks would be unheard of; smocks would be everywhere. This deserves a much bigger entry, but clothing is only simple now.

6) Animals. Not just where the animals come from and how they are attained, but feeding them, their role – pet or work-beast – the sort of things you need to do to look after a pet. Think about your own pets – do the characters in your stories do even half of what you have to do?

7) Hygiene. Yes, we all know that showering and bathing more than once a week is a very recent thing, but have you considered what the people in old times went through because they didn’t have good personal hygiene? Mould and fungus growths in the sweaty places, loss of teeth and hair, buboes, smells – not good. Also, hair removal. Also very recent, especially for women.

8) Education. We are used to having available schools, but my grandma left school at age 11. That was between the World Wars. Even today, here in Australia, where education is “compulsory” until the age of 17, kids slip through the cracks. And let’s not forget home-schooling and all that can entail. Education is not universal. How and where and when did your characters get their education?

9) Jobs. What do your characters do to earn a living? How can they just take time off in order to go and have this adventure? How do they support themselves while the story is taking place? The idea of a job encompasses the idea of having money to afford things as well. This is for contemporary settings as well as something a fantasy world.

10) Home. A person generally has a home, a base of operations. Owned, rented or some other way of living? How can they afford the mortgage or rent? How is it paid? Where is the home in relation to the main events of the story? The home is not just a place where a person sleeps – it is their storage, their safety place and maybe their family base. All this needs to be considered.

This does seem nit-picky, sure, but to add that realism to a story, these are just 10 things that a character needs to have in their backstory. How many stories – especially films – do you see these things ignored? There is a suspension of disbelief, then there is looking back and going, “Hang on. How could they afford that? What would their boss say about so much time off work? Shouldn’t they go to sleep about now?” etc. etc.

Just because you write fiction doesn’t mean logic takes a holiday.