Enhance Theme Through World Building
FYI: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. For more information click here and thanks, as always, for your support!
World building touches every other aspect of your manuscript. Some of the connections are obvious—your character will be a product of their environment (I talked about that in this blog post), your plot can be influenced by natural phenomena or political/cultural conflicts (read more on that here), and your setting descriptions are natural byproduct of your world building.
One area of your manuscript that may not come to mind when you think of world building: theme.
If you’re in the planning stages, think about the big ideas you want to explore and see if you can build your world to match. If you’ve already started the writing process, that’s okay too! Themes often emerge as we write, so you still have plenty of time to go back and look for places where your world building can amplify the big ideas that are already present in your manuscript.
Here are three tips that can help you strengthen the connection between your world and your novel’s themes:
1) Create systems and cultures that represent your themes
One of the things I love most about reading science fiction and fantasy is the way that authors can take elements of the real world and amplify them to extreme proportions. Though these worlds are made up, they become a sort of mirror of our own world, allowing us to explore real-world problems from a different angle.
One way to create a system that reflects your theme is to take a real-world problem and take it to a logical extreme. For example, The Giver takes on the inherent messiness of freedom and individuality. To represent those themes, Lois Lowry creates a world without emotion and doesn’t hold back from exploring the horrifying consequences.
Similarly, in The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins is working with themes of excess, greed, and exploitation. How does she do it? By creating a world with extraordinary wealth gaps that is willing to sacrifice children for the entertainment of the ultra-rich.
To make this type of world building work, figure out the issue you want to address and think of ways to take it to an extreme. The Hunger Games wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if Pan-Am was an egalitarian society where every child had an equal opportunity to win the games. The conflict is devastating because Katniss has such terrible odds for survival. And that leads us to point #2…
2) World build with theme related conflicts in mind
The choices that your character has to make should reflect the themes of your story. If your overall message is that love conquers all, then your character has to face a choice between embracing their love despite the consequences or walking away for good. If your theme is that power corrupts, your character should face a choice between seizing power and working for the greater good.
How can world building support these conflicts? It’s all about creating systems and cultures that stand in your characters way or force them to make those impossible choices.
If your character has to fight for love—make sure they and their love interest belong to opposing cultures or families on opposite sides of an insurmountable political divide. If your character has to choose the greater good, create a system that rewards or demands selfishness.
Think of its this way—without politics Romeo & Juliet has a boring, happy ending. Without the high price of magic in The Bone Shard Daughter, there would be no reason to oppose the ruling class.
And to take your theme one step further…
3) Make the magic or technology symbolic
Everything in your world building should be purposeful and while being really, really cool can be a perfectly fine reason to include something, it’s best if you can make your world building pull double-duty.
Magic usually comes with a price—something that the practitioner has to give up or expend in order to make the magic work. Connecting that cost to your story’s themes can be a powerful source of resonance that creates a deeper level of meaning in your story.
For example, in The Witch King by Martha Wells, magic has multiple sources. One form of magic is performed by either drawing on a supernatural source or by drawing on pain from one’s own body (at least, that’s the simple version, for the whole thing you’re just going to have to read the book. Trust me, it’s worth it). Given those two choices: bottomless magic pit vs. pain, it seems like an obvious choice—draw on the source that doesn’t require hurting yourself!
But there’s a catch. Drawing on that external source is inherently corrupting. So what does Kai, the main character, do? He draws on his own pain. He chooses not to be corrupted no matter how much pain it causes him. It’s an excellent story made even stronger by the thematic resonance of Kai’s choices.
Technology can work a similar way. Even if the costs are less direct, technological advances often come with unintended consequences (cough, fossil fuels, cough). The decisions that your characters make to either embrace a technology in spite of its consequences or forgo short-term gains for long-term benefits can tell us a lot about who those characters are and convey the message of your story.
Conclusion
World building is a crucial aspect of novel writing—even if you’re writing about a realistic setting. Why? Because the culture, political systems, and physical setting have resonance that goes beyond the words on the page. In the same way that world building dictates who your character’s backstory (I talked about that in this post), your world building choices help develop and refine the themes of your world.
So, wherever you are in the drafting process: planning, drafting, or revising, keep looking for places where your world can amplify the deeper message of your story.
Happy Writing!
FYI: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. For more information click here and thanks, as always, for your support!
