worldbuilding

Vanguard: What Having A Shared Universe Is Like

by

yin yang puzzle

When Avengers: Age of Ultron came out (spoiler: he does’t look his age), some of my friends began commenting on an old photo on Facebook. The two-plus decade old photo was of a group of us who had been in a superhero-oriented writing project called Vanguard, a project we remembered fondly. Though long ago, the latest Avengers romp led to a burst of discussion of this past project – one worth exploring because it may inspire others to a similar creative endeavor.

Vanguard was a shared-universe writing project, akin to the fan-works like Elfquest Holts, or the professional works like Thieves’ World and Wild Cards. Part RPG, part collective writing project, everyone wrote inside one setting, a whole kit-and-caboodle superhero world of mutants and magic and more. Bimonthly newsletters (and eventually magazines) collected the tales, presented information, and gave us something to read – and be inspired by.

Or in short, 3 and eventually 30 people writing in the same world, with the same cast, for four and a half years of crazy fun. Also there was a mutant dolphin with a suit of armor and a shapeshifter who became the worlds least threatening dragon, so it didn’t lack for unusual characters.

I reflect back on it fondly, on the tales, the camaraderie, of what made it so . . . well, great. I love to see similar efforts, and have advised people on similar efforts over the years. Sometimes I even wonder if I’d like to start a project like it again.

But, if you wonder how it worked, and like the idea of building your own universe with a team, here’s how it went. Consider this my contribution to getting others to try something this wonderful.

Vanguard Had Two Daddies

Vanguard started at a comic shop, when my friend Dan, an imaginative fellow, and I discussed writing and comics. I mentioned how Elfquest fandom had founded “Holts,” writing about their own characters in the setting Wendy and Richard Pini had created. One thing led to another and that evening we came up with the idea of Vanguard – a diverse superhero team (Vanguard) assembled in the wake of a scandal that laid low a more “publicity-oriented” government team of superhumans.

The idea formed quickly.  People would create their own characters and setting elements, but also borrow others (with permission for more “intense” usage). Some characters and setting elements would be shared or designed by the group or the most qualified people. We’d create tales regularly and share them in a newsletter.

It grew with surprising speed.  We had it forged in rough shape in one evening.

We invited one or two more people, and then it just grew.  One friend would bring another. Gaming groups or groups from other newsletters would join via one member or another. We threw parties at conventions, we recruited. In the end it went from three people to about thirty in about two years.

If you wanted to join you submitted a character sheet (hopefully having read our world guide), and if that character was approved, you were in. I found the initial “character pre-screening” a good way to evaluate if people “got” the world. Some people (indeed, most people) just “got” the project and connect with it – and this screening is a way to tell.

Not everyone “got” the world. There were a few submissions that needed editing or were just egregious. Most, the majority, were pretty well done.  I’d say most of the cast could have carried their own series – because in the minds of writers, “their” characters were protagonists.

As you may expect, not everyone participated equally. There was a great difference in talent or time commitment. Some people came, some went. That’s the way it goes, no harm, no foul – we were having fun and growing our skills.

Though it may have been in a bit of a different form than we have in these internet days. Remember this was in the 90’s, and we had paper not pixels . . .

I Love The Smell Of Copy Shops In The Morning

Sure, a big endless creative jam sounds fun, but that jam has to produce something. Inspired by fan newsletter and shared-universe books, our goal was to produce materials that were organized and as professional as possible. A good, well-done “product” made it easier to enjoy, raised the bar, and of course didn’t look too shabby in a job interview.

We proudly produced the following:

A Bimonthly Newsletter – Then Magazine

Every two months (we’d intended every three, but that changed quickly) the staff would put out a newsletter of stories, columns, art, and more. This started as a simple 5 1/2″ by 8 1/2″ newsletter, but ballooned to a giant 8 1/2″ by 11″ magazine.

Keep in mind this was in the 90’s We had to get the files mailed to us, convert them, edit them, and get them into one document,

Then we had to format the document for printing and actually print it out.

Then we had to paste in the art.

Then we had to copy the whole thing.

Finally we had to mail the finished product out.

It wasn’t cheap (people paid about $20 a year), but it did produce a nice product for the technology of the time. Decades later I still have a pile of them on my shelves, and they’re pretty good for what is “pro-amateur work.” We also learned as we went, and you can see the improvement between issues – better formatting, better use of art, etc.  It was a hands-on classroom.

The editing and assembly I remember fondly. It was like a party, all those hours formatting, all the work, all the camaraderie. There’s nothing quite like those times. Part of what made this special was making the final product.

Maybe I’m a bit old-fashioned, but the craftsmanship made a real difference. Anyone trying this today, in electronic format, should make sure it’s as well-crafted as any magazine. That makes you take extra care.

Character Guides

You have to know who was who in the universe, so the newsletter also contained character sheets, following a given template. We’d hoped to assemble a character-only magazine with art, but never got around to it. A shame, as things were damned imaginative.

Guidebook

If you ever wondered where I got my fanatic worldbuilding, this was the major influence on my attitude and approach on setting-creation. Editing the world together, checking for continuity, was a big part of making the project work. This also meant that we had to produce a guidebook so people understood just what was going on.  After awhile the editors probably needed it just to remember what was going on.

The guide was also updated every issue. New characters, new revelations, new organizations had to be documented.  A few times the act of updating the guide would make editors have a “oh crap” moment as we saw a mistake.  Then it was back to the author or to reread a story.

The guide was invaluable – and I liked the terseness. It wasn’t a giant Worldbook. It was a guide. It was enough to get going. You could pick up the rest reading.

I have to wonder how crazy we could have gotten with more time . . . today of course we’d have a wiki.  But I do like to imagine a giant hundreds-of-pages-guidebook . . .

So What Was It Like To Do This?

So we made superheroes and stories, edited and printed newsletters, and recruited. What was it like to do all this?

It. Was. Awesome.

Honestly, until you’ve done something like this, it’s hard to appreciate it. To this day I can remember so many wonderful moments, from editing in the living room of an apartment I shared with four people, or selecting paper colors for covers. I can remember parties and cosplay and jokes and readings.

It Was Creative. The ideas flying around, the stories, the cross-fertilization are something you have to experience to appreciate. Totally unrelated ideas and characters would come together to make something new and unforeseen. At our best we were all working toward something greater than ourselves or our ideas.

It Was Social. You met great people and made friends. You went to events and had parties. It was a creative endeavor that connected you. People with shared goals become closer and do better.

It Was About Achievement. We took this seriously, we did our best. It was fun, but it was also great to work really hard to do it right. The sense of achievement, of understanding how to set and reach goals, sticks with me to this day.

It Was More Than Many Media. During the time Vanguard was active, I think we paid more attention to it than any other media. Vanguard was “our thing.” Vanguard was what we wanted. All of the above made it more engaging than just some other TV show or comic – it was ours.

It Stoked Ambitions. Many of us had professional ambitions of some kind. Some made it some didn’t, but it stuck with so many of us. My writing today is at least 70% due to Vanguard.

It Was Addictive. Again, you have to do something like this, throw yourself into it, to appreciate it. It was wonderfully overwhelming. At times, I wonder if it was too much – then I think “nah, it was just awesome.”

And All Things Come To An End

Vanguard lasted four and a half years. Technically we went longer than many startups of today. But it came to an end.

Of course I wish it hadn’t, but all things have their conclusions. I could have seen it go on much, much longer, but it didn’t.

When I look back on the end, you could see it happening. Some of us were exhausted. Life changes kept coming at us. People questioned the directions things should go. Relations changed. It was a hell of an effort to keep it going at the best of times.

Bitter? No. It kept petering out until at a meeting some of us decided the end was nigh. But it happens.

There’s lessons learned. In fact, I’ll be analyzing now just how it was done and how to do it better in a column after this.

But let’s ask one more question.

Was It Worth It?

Hell yes.

The people you meet are great. The relations are great. Even scattered to the winds decades later members of the crew keep in touch, if in scattered ways or social media.

We all grew so much. It was educational. It was professional. It was amazing. You could look over those newsletters and see people growing as artists and writers and, well, people.

If you want to try a project for this I may warn you to “be ready” for challenges, but there’s no reason for me not to encourage you.  If anything, in an age of internet connectivity, a good shared-universe project could literally change the world.

Forward Into The Future

So, I’ve told you the story and sung the praises of Vanguard. If someone wanted to do their own shared-universe project – as many do now, much easier in the internet age, I’ll share my advice on it next week.

The technology has changed. The lessons? They’re the same.

Maybe even more relevant in an age of internet speed.

Respectfully,

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

Way With Worlds: Without Words

by

Table Empty

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

So having discussed TMI and the danger of infodumps, let’s ask a bit more about how you can communicate your world without everyone talking about it.

Or reading about it.

Or listening to a newscast

Or . . . you get the idea.

It’s easy in a game or story or what have you to try and tell people about the world by having characters do it. By speech or by writing or by The Exposition Channel, it’s easy to resort to the words of characters to fill people in. We’re used to talking to people, and sometimes we talk to our audience through people.

It’s infodumps in any way shape or form. Sure it might be an infodump wearing a funny hat, but an info dump it is.

Which of course is obvious as hell and instantly takes people out of the immersion. When you, the author, the worldbuilder, resort to an info dump it’s obviously “you” doing it. You’re about as concealed as a cartoon character hiding behind a tiny tree. Wile E. Coyote is not your role model, my dear worldbuilder.

So I’d like to cover ways you can tell people about the world without resorting to doing the grenade-fishing equivalent of information sharing. Many of these are things that you should be doing anyway, but we often forget them. Done right, they communicate a rich amount of information.

These methods can be extra powerful because they aren’t always consciously understood by the reader. They’re background detail, little things, but they can add up. When they do (consciously or not) people are really drawn into a world because it all just makes sense.

The reader or player may even get a tiny thrill of figuring it out – but really you set the stage for them to do it.

Imagine a character who stammers as they discuss something – indicating fear (and the reason for which may become clear). Think of a giant futuristic megalopolis where the air smells unnaturally clean (which tells you it’s over-processed or hints that something is wrong). A battlefield-turned-charnel house tells you of not just a battle lost, but of one lost so badly no one is retrieving bodies for some reason (say the war has moved on and is intense).

So much happens without someone explaining it. So much without newscasts and walls of text and four-page speeches.

The unsaid may even emphasize things everyone knows. Mark Ruffalo’s twitchy, troubled Bruce Banner in The Avengers, a living raw nerve, said more about the character than any exposition. We know he’s the Hulk – he made us understand what it was like to live with The Other Guy waiting to come out.

So let’s look at how you can communicate your world without shouting things from the metaphorical rooftops

Expressions And Actions

Blushing, looking around, twitching, pacing. Wordless actions by characters say so much about them. In turn they can say a lot about the world.

If travelers to a particular town always seem tired, or are thought of as “always exhausted’ by a character, we know the journey there is always grueling. If a character nervously waves off a subject we know something makes them uncomfortable – and that may tell us something is up. If people are in a rush to get through a checkout, there’s a reason – and soon we find out a hurricane is approaching in the story.

If you’re designing non-human races, be aware of these kinds of communication as well. An alien’s tentacles may twitch when he’s nervous, or a fish-person’s gills turn blue when he’s embarrassed. Learning these involuntary actions can even be a vital part of some stories for the characters and the audience.

Gestures

We’ve heard the term “speaking with our hands,” and if you think about it, gestures can play an enormous part of communications. Peace signs, shaking hands, putting a finger to one’s lips to indicate silence, winking knowingly – all forms of communication. Just think of many internet conversations would be easier if you could see someone’s expression and gestures (even if said gesture is a middle finger)

However these don’t use words. Characters gesturing or pointing things out is a great way to make a point (so to speak) and not talk about it. You can go into detail how a city block has great food – or you can have a character, when asked what’s the best restauraunt gesture helplessly around because it’s all good.

Speaking of . . .

Cuisine

Food is the fuel for sentient beings. Without it (in whatever form) they’re dead, and you don’t have much of a story except, perhaps, in the afterlife.

But food also says enormous things about culture, people, how they live. A simple description of a meal, how it’s gotten, how it smells, what’s in it, can say an enormous amount.

If your sword-wielding fantasy adventurer has six vegetarian meals in a town then you may realize that’s part of the culture. A character used to delicacies may balk at simpler fare they’ve never seen before (telling you a lot about them). Endless farmland surrounding a town tells you about the economy, how people eat, and perhaps even the politics (read about the Japanese Edo period to see a shining example)

As a personal example, I do a lot of my own cooking and eat healthy and natural. It means my kitchen is often a bit disordered, you can usually smell spices, and there’s usually a few unused pickling or storage jars as I cycle through experiments. But describe my kitchen and you’d get a half an idea of how I eat and learn a lot about me without ever talking about me.

And that’s if I don’t have, say, a jar of fermenting peppers around . . .

Economics

Cultures are about the exchange of things. As cells exchange materials, so do people, keeping the organism of society going.

Economics may indeed be the dismal science, but it’s a fantastic thing to help you describe the world.

Rich clothes and poorly kept building. Piles of coins and zeroes in a bank account. Shortages and surpluses. The signs of economic activity can say an incredible about of things without anyone having to tell you. A comment, the need to protect a vital shipment of materials, some poor-quality food at a high price all say something.

I live in Silicon Valley as of this writing, and as of this writing, rent is a big issue as it keeps going up. The reasons for that tell you a lot about the area and the economy, but merely knowing it alone is an alert that something is up.

The economics in your tales and games will say a lot about the world.

Clothes And Appearance

Clothes say a lot. Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but clothes communicate a lot. A smartly-pressed business suit can tell someone you’re a professional (of what sort may be a question, admittedly). Casual clothes may say you don’t care or that you’re relaxing. A soldier’s uniform communicates a great deal about him or her, especially if its formal with a display of medals.

Clothes also say things about the wider culture. Traditional dress may say something about the culture, or let a person quickly size up a character. Little styles may say something about a character, from a meticulous hairstye to muddy shoes.

How characters dress can say a lot, and how populations say a lot. Working that into descriptions or character designs says things without using words (or many words).

Artifacts And Objects

Pencils and pens, weapons and cars, all of them say something about a world – without you having to explain too much.

Imagine if you have a fantasy world, but the roads are covered with “autocoaches, and the infernal glow of their storage globes.” You just explained you have a world of magical transport and even hinted that they’ve got glowing fuel tanks in a few words.

Or think of a world that’s like ours. A personal computer in’t unusual – a lack of one may be. If everyone seems to use a bicycle you’e just said a lot about the culture and economy. If everyone uses cash and not a credit card you’ve said something.

Things that people use everyday tell you about the world.

Now the sense of what artifacts mean can change with time and reference so you have to be aware of your current and future audience. But artifacts tell a lot.

Architecture and Infrastructure

What your world is made of, how it is made, says a great deal about it.

Think of how the world around you is built. Materials have to be shipped, workers do work, systems maintained. Roads are built for reasons. Architecture is engineering and history and science and art all in one, a building speaking to a given style or given economic limits or benefits.

It says a lot about a culture or a people or a person without you having to explain it directly.

Soaring towers speak of some effort of construction. Simple hovels could mean poverty – or a hermit’s simple dwelling. Decay can be a sign of poverty or war, shining brass of careful upkeep or pretension. A paved road replaced with gravel tells you of a decline in the economy.

Architecture is the part of your setting heavily engineered by characters, so it says a lot about who they are/were, their situation, and their world.

A Suggested Exercise

So here’s something to help you out. Think of the most important elements of your world that your audience has GOT to understand. List about 5 of them.

Now in the above categories (Expressions, Gestures, Cuisine, Economics, Clothes, Artifacts, and Architecture) ask how you could communicate those traits without explaining the meaning directly to your audience.

This kind of exercise is greta practice – in fact I bet you can think up plenty of categories I missed to try and communicate your world.

Closing

Good luck with communicating your world – and learning how to shut up so you can speak!

Respectfully,

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

Way With Worlds: TMI

by

PuzzlePieces

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

TMI is a slang term for “Too Much Information” (and one that hopefully is still relevant when your read this). It’s basically a remind you’ve said too much, usually in an embarrassing way about an equally embarrassing subjects. Writers and worldbuilders face their own risks with TMI when we communicate our worlds.

We can overdo telling people about them.

You know what I’m talking about. The infodump that goes on for pages, the loving detail in a character’s mind most normal human (and human-alikes) would never think like, the historical quotes that seem like their own stories. It’s when you tell too damn much, so much people are taken out of the story or game, out of the world, and into your notes.

Maybe we can’t resist doing it because we have so much to share. Maybe we want to make sure people understand. Maybe we want to make sure they’re not totally lost. Maybe we follow the style of an author or writer we loved and overdo it.

It seems that when we do it, we do it big-time.

People don’t need TMI. TMI distracts because there’s suddenly a Wall Of Exposition. TMI confuses as the context may make sense only in your head. TMI disappoints as it can spoil stories. TMI breaks the sense of realism as infodumps feel like they came from outside the world. TMI can even change your story, as a rollicking adventure becomes a three-page discussion of dragon biology.

We as worldbuilders have to learn to communicate the right amount of information. That’s hard.

How Do We Avoid TMI?

TMI is actually hard to deliberately avoid because so much of it is emotional, or easy to misinterpret, or private. We don’t want to go the other direction and not reveal enough. In the end I’ve come to a simple conclusion.

Communications in your text, characters, story, exposition should:

  • Come naturally to the story so it doesn’t break the sense of involvement.
  • Contain enough information appropriate for the characters. Remember you can learn a lot from “overhearing.”
  • Contain enough information for the audience (this may mean that when you make some choices in the story it needs to be in ways that are informative).
  • Be phrased appropriately – a good sign of an infodump into TMI territory is when the language shifts from appropriate-to-tale to “have some stuff.”

This is an organic process, and empathy is a big part of it – you have to have a sense of both your characters and your audience. It’s art, not science, and I think awareness of it gets you halfway there – the other half is experience in doing it (or not doing it). Keep world building, keep writing – and keep taking feedback from your editors and your readers and your own reading.

However I can provide you guidance to know when you’ve gone into TMI territory. Setting the outer boundaries may help keep you out of TMI territory, or learn when you cross over.

Here’s where you may mess up:

“LOOK, I BUILT A WORLD!”

Sometimes our writing and world building results in us shoving the fact we have a world in people’s faces. There’s a huge world out there and we feel we have to remind them of it. Suddenly there’s unneeded maps and infodumps and unneeded references. This takes people right out of the story or game where they experience your world, and puts them into knowing the world was constructed.

Worlds are experienced, not told about. Remember that. Help with the experience.

Oh, and doing can also seem like bragging. Don’t make the readers dislike you, it’s not conductive to their enjoyment.

“LOOK, DETAIL!”

Be it realistic or weird, sometimes we go into TMI mode because we want to show them everything we did. We’ve got to cram it in descriptions and dialogue, and . . . well at that point suddenly we’re giving too much information. There’s so much there, but it’s hard to help ourselves.

In real life I don’t launch into extensive discussions of public transport history without prompting. Your characters shouldn’t do the same.

In real life you don’t look at a bookstore and recall your entire past history of going there in florid detail. Neither should your characters unless that *is* the story.

Don’t go showing off extensive detail. Show what is appropriate for the stories, character, and setting. Your audience can fill in the gaps.

Besides, then you have enough for your eventual world guide book or tip guide for your game or whatever.

“LOOK, REALISM!”

How many times do you need to know a character went to the bathroom? Or the sit through a five minute FMV discussing why this elf is a psychotic killer? Or . . . you get the idea. Realism can be overdone when people brag about it.

When your attempts to communicate to the audience are “look see how realistic I am, man I thought this out” then you have a problem. Your audience is probably going to give you the benefit of a doubt, you know? Working too hard to show realism becomes a source of TMI.

People are not going to be impressed by the realism of your world when its shoved in their face – and some things can be assumed (such as characters actually going to the bathroom or eating). People can give your characters and world credit for being realistic or at least having its own realism. They don’t need it described to them in painful detail.

“LOOK, WEIRDNESS!”

Another form of TMI is “look at this weird thing I did, wow isn’t it awesome” where your story or game or play shows off, in painful detail, the crazy thing you did. You want them to know how innovative you are, how odd this is, as opposed to letting them feel the impact.

it’s almost a flipside of Aggressive Realism; instead of trying to convince people of the realism of your story more than you need, you try to bring them into the strange-yet-real part.

It’s really showing of how weird you can be but still pull the world off.

In reality, if it’s not weird for your characters, it shouldn’t seem weird to the audience. In fact, keep in mind the impact of weirdness is amplified when it seems normal.

Learn What To Say

TMI can affect many a worldbuilder and storytelling. In a few cases we probably need some writers to lean towards it a bit more as they get lost in tropes and assumptions.

In the end however serious TM ruins the experience of a work, it takes people out of the world and into you lecturing them or showing off.

Worldbuilding is about detail. When it comes to your stories or gmes or whatever, instead learn to communicate what’s important to people. The details you know let you tell the story – the details they find out let them understand it.

You just don’t need to know where all the trap doors and scenery is to enjoy the play.

Respectfully,

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