4 worldbuilding tips for writers
BY Eliane Boey
10th Dec 2024
Eliane Boey is a technothriller and fantasy writer, who studied on our Edit & Pitch Your Novel and Writing a Psychological Thriller courses in 2021. Her first novel Other Minds, a diptych of two cyber punk novellas, was published in 2023. She also has short fiction published in Clarkesworld, the Penn Review and Galaxy, and is currently working on an urban fantasy novel. Eliane’s latest novel Club Contango, is a space-set murder mystery, it is out 11 Dec!
Read on to discover Eliane’s advice on the worldbuilding that goes on behind the scenes of writing a SFF novel, including examples from her new release, Club Contango:
I don’t often begin a tale of any length with the world. The scene descriptions are usually written in much later, and what I begin with are the characters, their story and why it needs to be told. There are as many approaches to writing as there are writers, but I find that the easiest way for me to build worlds is through the characters. In the way that the world shaped, and continues to change, who they are, what drives them, and what they can do.
1. Characters as products of their world
In my novel, Club Contango, the protagonist, Connie Lam, is a single mother who operates a micro-casino on an asteroid station, and is thrown, by the murder of a former partner, into a race to reclaim her life against versions of herself. Connie wouldn’t be what she is without the economic structure of society, and the ruthless labour controls, of spacer life.
2. Choices shaped by the world
In Club Contango, Connie must confront AI replicants that she is responsible for enabling. She is also forced to recognise the effects of the actions she took for her and her small child’s safety; on the other people she cares about. The un-unionised logistics port workers, and other displaced unskilled workers on the station, whose lives are about to change for the worse, if she doesn’t think of a way to work within the station’s powerful society of wealthy Settlers, privileged young Sparklers, and the gangs that supply and live off the excesses that no one can truly afford.
3. Slices of life, and habits unique to the world
In 2075, the pop culture particular to station life is a jazz revival at the glitziest supper clubs and ‘experience’ parlours, house music in the dance halls and a hearty dose of feel-good digitally rendered remakes of early century cartoons. It’s heavy in reinterpreted nostalgia, from a society on the literal edge of a new world, desperate for the comfort of the familiar, but on their own terms. There is also a fixation on live performances, and on revived street foods as close to authentic as feasible, because of the diminishing human touches on all aspects of station life. As with any world, unique slang, group identity, or social habits are some powerful ways of building a sense of place. Young and restless Sparklers drape the clubs and restaurants of Freeport station in Club Contango. Experience parlours offer ‘split,’ or immersive unique experiences of other people’s lives.
4. Outcomes that make sense in the world
As a reader, the endings that stay with me the longest and leave a sense of satisfaction are the ones where the actions are inseparable from the realities of the world, and the conclusion is a realisation of the promises made by the world. I have a short story titled Saturation, where the settlers of a young planetary colony have to decide, when the supply ship carrying the servers for human data uploads is lost in transit, if holding on to their memories or wiping them to absorb new experiences, will benefit the station. This one is a quiet, almost domestic story, and the worldbuilding is in the details of how the settlers’ jobs are tweaked and prioritised, and how that affects the dynamics with their partners. In the end, the protagonist, a primary caregiver and redundant art history teacher, rejects a memory wipe, despite the low priority placed by the society on her knowledge and memories, and leaves the colony with her child.
These tips are certainly not exhaustive, and are best as a spark to your own ways to worldbuilding. If you’re interested to see how I’ve blended science fiction worldbuilding and thriller pacing, I hope you’ll check out my novel, Club Contango.
I can be found on Instagram as @author.eliane and on Bluesky as @elianeboey.
If you’re writing science fiction or fantasy, consider entering the Andromeda Award, a new initiative open to any unpublished, unagented writer based in the UK or USA who has written a full-length science fiction or fantasy novel (up to 120,000 words). The prize is sponsored by C&W, UTA and Curtis Brown Creative. The deadline to enter is 18 December 2024.