World Building in Realistic Novels
Every genre requires worldbuilding, no matter how mundane the setting seems to you, it’s new and exciting to someone else. Even in a real-world setting, it’s essential to communicate the culture, expectations, and assumptions of a place to your readers.
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I talk about worldbuilding in science fiction & fantasy novels all the time, but I don’t want those of you who write realistic fiction to feel left out. Worldbuilding is important for every genre.
It doesn’t matter if your story takes place in your hometown or your own backyard—you still need to create this world on the page and communicate it to readers.
Why? Because no matter how familiar you are with your setting, you still have to make that world come alive for your readers who may never even set foot in the same hemisphere as your book’s setting.
You won’t need to design the world from scratch, but you will need to explore the little nooks and crannies and killer details that make up your main character’s unique world.
Here are three tips that can help you worldbuild in your realistic novel:
#1 – Clue readers in to the aspects of your MC’s world or experiences that are unique
You can approach this in two ways. The first option is to figure out what makes the setting of your book unique and lean in to those aspects of the world. Take readers into a place that inspires curiosity or awe—the Alaskan bush, the inner workings of a police station, the teacher work room at an inner city high school—a setting doesn’t need to be otherworldly to be remarkable, it just has to be a place that readers wouldn’t get to go otherwise.
The second option is to figure out what makes the setting special to your characters in particular and lean in to the emotional significance that your protagonist attaches to the setting. The four walls of your teen protagonist’s bedroom could be the same as every other bedroom in their suburban subdivision, but the posters, the paint color, the secret diary shoved under the bed—imbue those elements with significance and use it to give your settings a deeper meaning.
#2 – Focus on concrete, specific descriptions that make the place come alive
Just because you’re writing about the real world, doesn’t mean you can rely on readers to fill in the blanks about the setting. If you lean on generic descriptions because you think that your readers will be able to supply their own mental images and experiences, you run the risk of creating a narrative that confuses or becomes incoherent. After all, every reader will come to the pages of your book with different experiences and assumptions. If you want them to see the world the way your character does, then you have to show it to them on the page with specific images and concrete details.
You’ll also need to be careful about assuming what “normal” looks like. A “normal” school. A “normal” neighborhood. Because there is no such thing as normal.
I’ve now lived in three different states across the US and spent a good amount of time in a few others. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not many, but even with that limited experience I can tell you that there is no such thing as “normal”. If you describe your protagonist’s neighborhood as a “typical American suburb”, readers across the country are going to imagine very different things. Not to mention readers from around the world who may not know what to imagine at all.
Writing in the real world isn’t an excuse to be lazy with your descriptions. Specificity matters because you can’t assume that your experiences match up to anyone else’s, especially in the globalized world of online publishing.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget how incredibly diverse this planet is. Real-world settings can be just as mysterious to your readers as a distant planet pulled out of a writer’s imagination. Your job as the author is to make the world of your story come to life, whether you’re finding your information through research or creating it all from scratch.
#3 – Remember: culture is personal and occurs at the familial or community level – in other words – do your work establishing character backstories
If you aren’t intimately familiar with your setting, then you need to do the research. You need to examine the details until you know it inside and out. You need to understand the expectations and assumptions that people living there take for granted. Then, you need to figure out why. You need to identify the values of the community and the underlying fears or beliefs that drive them. Just like you would when creating a world.
Then, put in that same detailed work for your characters as individuals. You don’t have to fill out endless lists of character traits with physical features and favorite foods, but you do need to explore their history and the influences that have shaped them. Understand their relationship to the world around them—both positive and negative—and think about how those attitudes will shape the way they interact with the setting and talk about it to readers (if you’re writing in 1st person or close 3rd). It may not be easy, but understanding your character’s relationship to the world around them is essential to worldbuilding that feels purposeful and nuanced on the page.
Curious what strong worldbuilding looks like in a realistic novel? Check out the example below!
Example: Fractured by Karin Slaughter.
This scene comes from the opening chapter of a crime novel as Will Trent (the main character) heads toward a crime scene. His boss, Amanda Wagner, is driving and she’s lost.
Here’s how Slaughter describes the wealthy neighborhood where the crime occurred:
He looked out the window as she berated her secretary for not keeping a street map on her person at all times. Will had been born and raised in Atlanta, but didn’t often find himself in Ansley Park. He knew that it was one of the city’s oldest and wealthiest neighborhoods, where over a century ago, lawyers, doctors, and bankers had built their enviable estates so that future lawyers, doctors, and bankers could live as they did—safely cloistered in the middle of one of the most violent metropolitan cities this side of the Mason-Dixon. The only thing that had changed over the years was that the black women pushing white babies in strollers were better compensated these days.
With its twisting turns and roundabouts, Ansley seemed designed to confuse, if not discourage, visitors. Most of the streets were tree-lined, broad avenues with the houses tucked up on hills to better look down on the world. Densely forested parks with walking trails and swing sets were everywhere. Some of the walkways were still the original cobblestone. Though all the homes were architecturally different, there was a certain uniformity to their crisply painted exteriors and professionally landscaped lawns. Will guessed this was because even a fixer-upper started at the one million mark. Unlike his own Poncey-Highland neighborhood, which was less than six miles from here, there were no rainbow colored houses or methadone clinics in Ansley.
These paragraphs give readers a lot of information in one neat, efficient package. We get a taste of the history, the values of the neighborhood, and its relationship to neighboring areas. On it’s own, that information might have been dry. But the information becomes interesting because it isn’t the author telling readers about Ansley Park, it’s Will Trent giving readers a glimpse into his thoughts. All of the information is filtered through his biases, assumptions, and personal experiences. The information here isn’t neutral and that’s what makes the description work. Even better, the aura of hostile superiority perfectly foreshadows the judgmental attitudes Will Trent will run up against as he tries to solve the horrifically violent crime committed in one of these gorgeous Ansley Park homes.
I hope these tips will help you create an engaging, dynamic world for your realistic novel regardless of the genre you write. Though it may take some work, readers will appreciate being immersed in a place that feels as real to them as their hometown.
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!
