Changing Your World: World-building Over the Real World
Compare & Contrast: Marvel, DC, and Sherlock Holmes
As I writer, I work primarily in three genres: non-fiction, magipunk fantasy on an entirely different world, and near-reality supernatural fiction. It’s easy to see how world-building applies to non-fiction: it’s simply a fancy way of saying ‘construct a metaphor.’ World-building is likewise critical, and painfully obvious, for writers of the fantastic: fantasy and sci-fi depend on vivid depictions of wholly unfamiliar things.
But how, in the world, does world-building apply when you’re just setting your book in the real world, the every-day world, the timeless world of the world around us?
It all comes down to this week’s theme: Change. What are you changing about the real world to make it fit into your story? When we remember that world-building is more than just the setting; it’s also the characters, the species, the technology, the fashion, the culture, the advertising. All of these give us opportunities for change, for world-building, for details that set our version of the “real” world apart.
Let’s look at three popular and well-known examples — Marvel’s superheroes, DC’s superheroes, and Sherlock Holmes — and how the choices they made in their near-real world-building have influenced me in my supernatural thriller setting, Avalon, Indiana.
Marvel vs. DC — the eternal struggle
Let’s begin with Geography, the thing most people think of first when world-building. Marvel chose to build inside of real cities, such as Salem, Westchester, and New Orleans. DC, meanwhile, chose to squeeze in next to real places. Smallville, Gotham, and Metropolis are reflections of — metaphors of — real cities, but they aren’t real to the real world the way that New York City is.
When it came to setting Avalon somewhere, I took a little from each of these approaches. Indiana is a real place, and Brown County State Park is a very real place. Avalon exists (in part) inside of this primeval forest in an area where no one is supposed to have access. (Not quite like The Village, but also, yes, like The Village.)
Sherlock Holmes — true crime contemporary
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective made his debut (“A Study in Scarlet”) in 1887 and continued until 1927 (“The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place”), while his stories are set between 1880 and 1914. Further, he included real events from the London of his time — newspaper articles, visiting dignitaries, famous crimes, etc. — as lavish details in his stories.1
Furthermore, Sherlock Holmes himself says, time and again, that part of what makes him such a good detective is all the hours he spends combing through the annals of historical true crime. History’s greatest detective liked to do heroin, play the violin, and read true crime.
This is, in essence, no different from someone today writing about a 40-something character in the twenty-teens smoking weed and listening to paranormal podcasts.
Oh. Wait. That’s literally my main character!
So, remember, when applying world-building to your real-world fiction, it’s important to determine the boundaries of your real foundation (how much of the real world are you going to use, a Marvel level of real world, or a DC level of real world). Then, you can determine how much of the real world’s atmosphere (details from your era and specific location) to introduce!
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Many scholarly articles have been written on this, and Holmesian afficionados who enjoy digging out these little historical Easter eggs call it “The Game.” It’s an easily searchable rabbit hole, and a fun one to go down! Links not included in case you have shit to do right now. Yeah. It’s like that.
It's interesting to compare my world to your article. The main city is essentially New York but I call it Grisham instead. Since I'm writing alternative history, I didn't want to spoil New York's history and I didn't think I could capture the essence of the city since I have never been there. This lead to more cities across the country being made for similar reasons and now, the only real cities I have are DC and San Francisco.
Exactly! Pulling from reality gives us so many convenient ways to reach our audience on an emotional level, where it really counts. I can describe a perfect pink rose, and not only do you get it, but you can also probably understand how giving pink roses is different from red roses as a gift, LOL!
But. Our audience is also there for something NOT reality. Whether they are seeking escape from the ordinary or a different perspective, or just a fun emotional journey, they want the comfort of the familiar mingled with the excitement of the strange and unusual, whether that unusual is a murder or a dragon.