World-Builders on World-Building (edited by Mark J. P. Wolf) is a collection of essays about the process of world-building.
The first essay in the book is called “Matter, Dark Matter, Doesn’t Matter”. It was written by Henry Jenkins, who interviewed some of the creators of Lost in Oz, an animated series set in an updated Oz. (The essay title refers to some of the elements of magic, which is thought of as physical by the creators of this world.)
Notes
- ‘Negative capability’ refers to characters, locations and suggested plots that are mentioned or hinted at but not fully determined.
- The creators deliberately revealed details gradually – each episode showed a bit more about the world.
- Maps were important for the design of the world and the story, particularly because the series is visual. How the characters travel between places and move within scenes can be more easily made consistent with a set of maps.
- The magic for the world was structured, with a “Periodic Table of Magical Elements”. But the creators left room for flexibility within the structure.
Reflections
The creators gave a lot of thought to the process of world-building, not just the world-building itself. And the process was tailored to the medium of a series that would be worked on by a large creative team.
They left space for new ideas to arise. But they created structures to give spaces for the new ideas to go – a new location would have a place on the map, and a new form of magic would fit into the table of elements. I’ve seen this general approach of setting up structures with blank spaces being recommended elsewhere for world-building.