history

A Way With Worlds: God, Darwin, History

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Easter Island Head Sculpture

Many, many years ago, I noticed American politics often boiled down to blaming things on God, Darwin, Or History. Later it came to me that, in some ways, worldbuilders did this as well.

These are three crutches we use rather poorly in our worldbuilding. Three excuses that let us hand-wave good worldbuilding and thinking, and shovel torpes in. We may not even realize we do it.

(Though if you think about it you’re probably being a bit lazy. It’s OK, everyone is now and then.)

Let’s look at how these excuses get us lazy – and make poor worldbuilding.

God

The Devil is in the Details, but it seems God (and any supernatural element really) is really great for rewriting the details for no good reasons . Supernatural and religious elements in our worlds often lead us to some pretty poor choices.

“Because I Believe”: Perhaps the worst form of abuse is when people shoehorn in their own religious beliefs without repercussion or worldbuilding. Yes, religious fiction is oft infamous for this, but it happens outside of that sphere – and in religious fiction that’s kind of the point. Your beliefs may be so close to you you don’t know you’re doing it – until you realize you’ve stopped building your world and started dropping the theology without thinking if it fits.

“It’s magic, what more do you want?”: “It’s magic” can be a descriptive term, or it can be an accurate description of how poorly a setting is made – you’re just yelling “it’s magic” as an anwser. The supernatural is not an excuse to not design your world – it’s something you have to design. Otherwise it’s just a reason to write what you want.

“Unload The Truckload Of Tropes”: It’s also easy to write God, demons, whatever by simply dumping in pop culture concepts and walking away. They’re expected, either due to the beliefs of the audience or due to tropes being so common. Of course that means that you’re not building – you’ve made your setting a landfill of the gods.

As a worldbuilder God, the supernatural, whatever, is not an excuse to avoid worldbuilding. It is a reason to work harder since you have more to do – and more to avoid.

Deus Ex Machina – the God out of the Machine – was a description of the method of using mechanical contrivance in plays to materialize a god (and possibly wrap up inconvenient elements). The somewhat derogatory use of the term obviously came about because some playwrights overdid it – don’t follow in their footsteps.

Suggestion: Review your religious and supernatural elements more closely to be aware of what you’re doing. Maybe you are writing religious fiction, so get it right. Maybe you need tho think out a magic system more.

Darwin

If we’re not blaming things on God, it seems CHarles Darwin is the next up in the excuse parade. Now as much as evolution is scientific and studied and real, it’s still used as an excuse and might as well be magic.

These are the plays Darwin becomes an excuse for us to stop worldbuilding.

“That’s Just Evolution!”: “Well that’s how they evolved,” and throwing out one or two world elements is sadly common in worldbuilding. It’s using evolution as a device where you feed one or two scientific facts into and you hope it pops out an explanation that people believe. And they may – until they realize, say “this world had tall trees so everyone evolved elastic limbs” is really very lame and misses more realistic complexities.

“Cruel To Be Crueler”: Also common is the idea that you can say “survival of the fittest” and then explain away anything from moral to evolutionary issues. “Survival of the fittest” (never coined by Darwin) is a simplistic summary of evolution that misses the complexity of development. Really this is usually just an excuse for cruelty or violence.

I also found that the Darwin excuse of worldbuilding, just throwing out a few things and blaming evolution, leads to stereotyping of races. “Oh, this race is violent as their planet was harsh” turns the race into a stereotype, and I’ve already covered that quite enough thank you!

Suggestion: Study up on your science if evolution is an important part of your world. Not only does it make you a better and more accurate writer, it gives you IDEAS.

History

I love history. I love learning. I am all for reading history and watching documentaries to help with worldbuilding.  You can research times and people and places and events to get ideas for your world. I recommend it.

(running documentaries and such while I do other things is a favorite way to get history by osmosis. Rick Steeb’s travelogues were an influence on my writing at one point).

Except . . . history can be misused and becomes an excuse. Here’s cases to avoid.

“Just like it really happened”: Look, yes, it may be tempted to duplicate a previous event totally, but it’s got problems. First, it may be obvious and people will notice.  Secondly you’ll probably do it wrong unless you’re an expert and people will notice. Don’t copy and paste history, it’s easy to screw up and takes people out of your worldsetting if it’s not really well done.

(Note if you’re writing historical fiction, go for it.)

“This is just like X”: When you directly lift part of history and drop it into your world then it stands out like a sore thumb. History isn’t something you can transplant seamlessly, and if you’re just taking an idea here or there your world will seem patchwork.

“But this happened”: One fo the final “sins” of misusing history is to use a historical event as an excuse in your worldbuilding. “Because X happened in the real world, Y happened in mine.” This might be true, there might be parallels – but if all you have is a parallel with no underlying reason, that’s all you have. You should explain the similar occurrence in your world with more than a footnote – otherwise it’s just dropped in there.

History is a great tool for worldbuilding, but I recommend using it as a learning tool and a tool for ideas. Learn about cause and effect, find examples, find parallels. Just be careful about transplanting huge chunks – or excising your actions.

I also note that if you use history, remember you may get it WRONG. YOu may not understand as much as you think you do.

And your readers or players will see it.

Suggestion: When you read a history book or watch documentary, pick some things out of your usual comfort zones. It helsp shake up your imagination, broadens you, and keeps you from settling in too comfortably. You’ll also get ideas.

Learn But Watch

So go ahead, learn from theology, science, history. Just don’t drop whole chunks of poorly-understood ideas into your worlds. Don’t use them as excuses not to build more of a world.

Because people will realize it.

And I may need to write another column on it.

Respectfully,

– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/

An Interview With the Video Game History Museum Director Sean Kelly!

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The Videogame History Museum has been looking for a home – and I’ve been looking to interview Geek Citizens.  I heard about their latest opportunity – settling down in Frisco, Texas, and that’s a great time to talk to the director, Sean Kelly!

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A Visit To The Digital Game Museum

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(Updated 7/9/2014 as the Atari party was sponsored by a separate group)

So my local video game group had an outing to the Digital Game Museum. I’m going to write about it because it’s relevant. I wish I had a better lead in to something so important, so let’s talk about why it’s important . . .

Now when you think about it there should be freaking giant museums of video games. There’re a huge industry. They’ve been influential in culture and technology. They’re omnipresent. They helped inspire some really bad films. The industry is re-inventing itself.

But there’s surprisingly little in the way of game museums that I could find. There’s the travelling Video Game History Museum. I hear of art shows of game art. There’s some gaming at the Computer History Museum, but not much – and this is Silicon Valley.

Locally there’s the MADE in Oakland and down in the Valley proper, there’s the Digital Game Museum. You’d think there’d be more, and I can probably find it, but still the fact it’s so hard to find game museums is a bit sad.

And when I visited the Digital Game Museum, it was amazing.  Visiting was an experience because it’s a testimony to love, to geekdom, and to a need to do more to preserve our video game history.

ITS A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL . . .

So when my group rolled up to the museum, we found it was small. Really small. Mostly it’s an archive with a few exhibits that rotate.

If that shocks you it shocked a lot of people as well. This is video gaming after all, and it’s Silicon Valley (as in really smack in the middle of it). Hell, the Computer History Museum was a few miles away.

It, and my later research, made me realize more people needed to pay attention to video games as history. We really take it for granted.  As far as I’m concerned this thing should be huge.

. . . RUN BY PEOPLE WHO CARE . . .

We started talking to the docent, also a founder, who’s video-game loving son had been her inspiration. This was a huge part of her life, and she’d poured a lot into it – including her son’s video game collection.  They apparently kept quite a bit – and she was a trained museum professional, so it worked perfectly.

She held us in rapt attention for over an hour.

It was amazing. This comparatively tiny place with a few exhibits seemed to grow huge as we heard stories and looked at displays, and took in tales of museum curation. Boxes of artifacts were opened just for us, odd game machines were shown off (including a Taiko Drum game), and little-known facts revealed.

Bustling around us were the staff, doing their job, diligently recording history. All while we pushed the place to maximum capacity.

It was a reminder size isn’t a huge measure of . .. well huge.

. . . WHO DO A LOT OF EVENTS . . .

So what do you do when you don’t have a lot of space? You hold events outside of it.

Turns out the DGM does events (they helped with an Atari Party we attended). They crack out the exhibits, get people to bring out their machines, and go to town. They call up speakers who’ve seen and made history. They make the museum mobile and a happening.

We later attended the Atari Party, and saw things I forgot existed. We heard about the invention of the Atari Trackball and the origin of the company (by the way, nothing’s changed in Silicon Valley in 40 years). It was all held at a library, and was the best museum exhibit held by a museum not at a museum I’d seen.

That’s how other small museums and displays and collections reach people. They get involved.

. . . AND NEED YOUR HELP

Si I saw this display of impressive geekery. And it was really humbling and amazing. THis is the stuff we talk about when we talk about hte passion of geek culture, the knowledge, the amazingness.

A small building of people who were retired or doing this recreationally working miracles and archiving our pasts. A tiny team making wonders happen at a library where kinds who never knew a world where Atari wasn’t an afterthought experienced it anew.

So I want to encourage you to get involved:

  • If you live in Silicon Valley, go donate time! Come on over. We might see you there.
  • Help them sponsor an event at your company or con or club.
  • If you can donate games or other artifacts, donate them. I was amazed at what they didn’t have, and am donating a large collection of old games.
  • You can adopt a game. Pay the annual fee to back storage of the game and help the museum.
  • You can send money. Hey, go for it.
  • Promote them like, I dunno, on a website.
  • Help promote them other ways.

This is a worthy cause.

In fact, I’ve noted other game museums above. If you’re a gamer, get involved like the above. Hey you don’t have to get involved in just one.

WORTH IT, SO WORTH IT

This was a massive display of Applied Geekery. This is the kind of things we geeks do.

So your next assignment, my fellow geeks? I challenge you to look for one geeky museum, newsletter repository, or something and make a contribution. Go on. Just one, be it cash or a donation or promotion.

It might become a habit.

Oh and if you’re not sure who to support, well you just got one of my votes . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.