Hot take: worldbuilding doesn’t have to make sense
A lot of recent AOS criticism is focused on the subpar worldbuilding. And I get it: if this is the part Milo spent 10 years on, how does it make no sense?
I think it’s actually okay if the worldbuilding is shallow. If it falls apart if you dig into it a little. I think that’s fine
IF
…if it’s a middle grade book.
There’s a book series I remember liking in middle school by Patrick Carmen called The Land of Elyon. Fun little magical adventure story. Twelve year-old girl Alexa finds a magical stone that gives her the power to talk to animals, leading her to discover a conspiracy that threatens her home and the walls beyond. And she and her animal friends, along with the ~16 year-old son of her recently deceased mentor, thwart the conspiracy and save the cities!
[after reading the summary to refresh my memory about this book, YIKES. Using convicts to build your infrastructure, not pay them, and return them to prison when they’re done? So slave labor but worse? And we’re not gonna…mention it? At all?
The things we told children during the Bush Administration…]
If you actually examine the Land of Elyon, its worldbuilding is bad, arguably worse than the World of Gardian.
But it works! Carmen just keeps writing about Alexa's adventures in this land that doesn't make economic or socio-political sense, and that's OKAY.
A) He knows his audience (middle grade) isn't going to read that deeply. He can gloss over the "how does this society work" part.
B) He writes well enough to let the reader suspend their disbelief.
That second part is key though: you've got to be able to write coherently.
More under the cut if you're interested in the "bad" world-building of a middle grade book I read literally over 20 years ago.
**
See this map? The entirety of the first book only concerns the 4 cities connected by the walled roads. The walled roads were conceived of and built by Alexa's mentor Thomas (who seemingly dies of old age at the beginning of the book). He founded Lunenburg (North of Bridewell) when he was 33 as a safe place to live in the dark and scary woods. When people started believing him that it was safe, they followed him and settled there to the point that it became overcrowded. To relieve overcrowding, he proposed building walled roads into the woods and creating towns at the ends of them.
People only live in these cities. There are some other people living in the other cities marked on the map, but if there isn't a city, nobody lives there. (Technically people do live in the wastes, but they're portrayed as roving bands of scavengers, not isolated homesteads.) There is no farmland mentioned, no trade, heck this whole place is an island. And 4 of the 8 places where people actually live are at the most 40 years old.
Where are the people *coming* from? How is this place feeding itself? How do they have so many books to fill multiple libraries? There’s one river and it doesn’t even go near people! Where are they getting water?!
[one thing I did remember about this series, without needing a reminder, was that when the protagonist learns who her biological father is, she’s like “oh so that’s why I never had a crush on [Boy]: because he was my brother!”…….😬
Patrick, my guy, you know kids my age were reading Flowers in the Attic, right? Like in the 1980s?]
Also, (this is the unfortunate implications part) because the people of Lunenburg are afraid of the monsters in the woods, the road is built by convicts Thomas "borrows" from Ainsworth. On the condition that once the roads are done, they are returned to prison in Ainsworth. How does this society have *that* many convicts?!?! There is no logical answer that isn’t troubling.
There's more stuff that's nonsensical, but the point is none of this matters. It's still a well-written middle grade book. At the end of the day, the most important part of being a writer is the writing.
Some pointers:
If you notice a worldbuilding hole, trying to address it with a hasty explanation
"You can sleep in our guest room"
*shit they live in the woods that no one should live in, why would they have a guest room? um um*
"that's weird, but our house has a guest room too. Because dad didn’t build the house, it was like that when we moved in."
Reader: ...wait, what?!
might be worse than just ignoring it or deleting the part that triggers the cognitive dissonance.
"I can pull out some blankets, but I'm afraid you'll have to sleep on the floor"
Expectations differ for different age groups. Sometimes that's limiting (can't have sex in a middle grade book), sometimes that's liberating (no I don't need to explain how the Government works. I thought it was cool so there it is.)
The "two questions” trick: people will go, at the most, two questions deep on worldbuilding elements, after which any old bullshit is enough. After two answers, you can get away with "it's matter-antimatter fusion, very complicated to explain" or "ahh it's all in tune with the Weave, the channels of power that flow through space and time" or "I don't know, man. It's like, crystals or some shit".
Val Kilmer did not want to do Top Gun. He only did it because he was contracted to. The director told him it would get better. Kilmer did grow to like the movie
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