Worldbuilding

A masterclass with Saad Z Hossain

by Amy Hardingson

For our second masterclass, we were guided through the internal trials and tribulations that go into effective world-building by Saad Z. Hossain, author of science fiction and fantasy novels Djinn City, Cyber Mage, The Gurka and the Lord of Tuesdays, Escape from Baghdad, and Kundo Wakes Up.

World-building is of especial importance to all writers of SFF books where worlds are often created from scratch or are significantly different in some way from the one we know, but it is an important component of all stories of any genre. As Saad put it to us, the goal of all authors is to translate and portray our inner world accurately to our readers. When the world-building is done right, the story is rich and evocative.

So, what tools do we use to create a rich world for our story and characters to live in? The technical aspects of world building are largely work that goes on in the background, where you set the rules of the story, the laws of the land, the infrastructure and culture of the society, the historical background, the geography, the weather, even the physics of what is possible when it comes to things like travelling, fighting or magic. At the extreme end, some authors will create a book in itself of notes that explain all of this, like Tolkien did with The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion. All of these details must be clear in your mind to prevent inconsistencies which can trip the reader up or break the plausibility of your plot.

World building, then, often sits in the background of your whole story, improving your plot, your characters, and your plausibility.

However, there will be moments when your world-building needs to come to the front in order to explain crucial details, and as Saad explained, this is where issues can come in which require careful thought or your story can end up bloated with information and tangents that take the reader away from the action. The more original you are, the more things that you have to explain to the reader. And the more new information that a reader has to take on and remember, the harder they have to work to get into the world of the story. 

Saad made the point that the bloat of world-building is something that particularly concerns POC authors who are introducing cultural elements which may be new concepts to many readers of English language fiction. From the food our characters may eat to the clothes they wear, elements may need far more explicit explanation compared to Western settings and characterisations. Saad shared with us a number of examples from his own books where he was very conscious of the dangers of bloating the story with world-building in stories where not only were there science fiction or magical elements which needed explanation, but also cultural elements or words which are likely brand new to most of his audience. Whereas readers of English fiction are very familiar with vampires, they may have never come across a djinn in a story previously. Where it was vital to the plot to explain what a djinn is, in the same scene do you want to also be describing the food in enough detail so that the unfamiliar can imagine it correctly? Do you let it sit unexplained? Or do you choose to have them eat something more generic to avoid any potential trip-ups as you preserve your flow?  Again, Saad stresses the importance of being aware of the demands you are placing on the reader for each information drop and the tangents which take us away from the plot, which he argued accumulate quicker for South Asian and other POC writers writing in English.

Saad’s top practical tip for avoiding world-building bloat in a story is to only introduce new places, characters and concepts in the first third of your book or story. From that point on, try wherever possible to re-use settings, and characters. This has the effect of keeping your story tight, and makes the reading experience easier. He also said to use caution when using words that are foreign to English and make sure that you are conscious of how many you are using. He made the comment that for himself he feels that one new foreign word per chapter is too many and becomes disruptive to his aims for fun and inclusive novels for a global audience. Footnotes and endnotes can also be very useful tools, giving your reader the option to take in more world-building detail or to skip over it. He also cautioned against the urge of being extremely accurate at all times – sometimes the generic choice can help the structure and rhythm of your story.

Of course, tied up with all of these world-building decisions as POC authors, is the issue of the white gaze, and the white gatekeeper. We began to talk on this power dynamic during the Q&A session, and continued to share links with each other online after the end of the class. It is a subject worthy of its own deep dive, with many authors taking different approaches. How one decides to have this balance depends on a number of factors from genre, to tone, authenticity, politics, and your intended audience. At the bottom of this post, you will find a list of further reading shared between the group which explore several different perspectives.

It was certainly a powerful masterclass that left many of us thinking deeply for days to come. Saad opened up a whole other layer of how we can look at the world-building in our stories, and the joy and (at times) frustrations we can have when joining in this global cultural conversation. But one thing Saad was clear to emphasise was how we stand on the shoulders of the South Asian authors who have come before, and how each new story shared from members of our community in every conceivable variety adds to the richness and nuance of the literary world. The act of writing may be a solitary activity, but in the act of sharing our stories we are contributing to a literary world built of richer, more varied English literature together.

Further reading

‘An Interview with Saad Z. Hossain’, by Shahriar Shaams. WBB mentee Shahriar Shaams shared this interview he conducted with Saad a few years ago, where Saad shares his thoughts on fantasy fiction, euro-centric world-building, and his process. 

‘An Interview with Junot Diaz’, by Henry Ace Knight.  This resource was shared with us by WBB leader Susmita Bhattacharya. Diaz takes a firm stance in his books that he is explicitly writing for a bilingual Spanish/English audience first and foremost.

‘Three reasons why I use Spanish phrases in my writing’, by Naomi Gamel.  This resource was shared with us by WBB leader Susmita Bhattacharya. Naomi Gamel quotes Junot Diaz, and lists her reasons for including Spanish phrases in her books.

‘The case against italicizing foreign words’, by Khairani Barokka. This resource was shared with us by WBB mentee Tara Joshi. In this article Khairani talks about the implied supremacy of the unitalicized word, and how pushing against the convention of italicizing ‘foreign’ words can challenge power imbalances.

‘Prohibition and Hope: The Politics of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Writings’, by Rani Neutill. This resource was shared with me by WBB leader Susmita Bhattacharya as we discussed a further reading list for this blog. Neutill discusses the respectability narratives surrounding Lahiri’s work, and the nuances and authenticity that can be found in her portrayal of characters concerned with being the ‘model minority’ and assimilating into American culture. She also touches on Lahiri’s impact as a bestseller on gatekeepers for writers coming after her. 

‘Jhumpa Lahiri: “I’ve always existed in a kind of linguistic exile”‘, by Lisa Allardice. I found this article when I was looking into Jhumpa Lahiri’s decision to begin writing in Italian. She discusses her relationship with languages and English in particular. 

‘”That is where my navel string buried” An Interview with Ingrid Persuad’, by Will Forrester.  This resource was shared with me by WBB leader Susmita Bhattacharya as we discussed a further reading list for this blog. Persuad talks about writing in Trinidadian dialect as the only choice for her stories.

‘What to read when you want to escape the white gaze’ by Pallavi Dhawan, Devi S. Laskar and Tamika Thompson. This resource was shared with me by WBB leader Susmita Bhattacharya as we discussed a further reading list for this blog. It is a list of 12 books that ‘escape’ the white gaze, and centre the worlds of people from the global majority in a wide variety of genres.

‘Toni Morrison on writing for Black readers under the White Gaze’ The Connecticut Forum. This is a four-minute excerpt from a conversation Toni Morrison had at The Connecticut Forum, discussing why she wanted to write authentic stories for and about her community, and how they were received both by the black community and outside of it.

‘Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story’ TED talk. This TED talk given by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the effect of stories on us, our imaginations, the vulnerability of our imaginations, the power of multiple, diverse stories from different perspectives and the danger of a single story about a people or place.