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If you're making a fantasy world (which is not a past or future Earth in disguise), you don't have to stick to plate tectonics and volcanism as they exist on Ea

If you're making a fantasy world (which is not a past or future Earth in disguise), you don't have to stick to plate tectonics and volcanism as they exist on Earth. Geology varies a lot between planets, even in our solar system! That's without even going into whatever makes your world "fantasy". Un-Earthly geology could be plot relevant (The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin). Or it could be a bit of colorful background that's still scientifically valid. Maybe you live on a tidally locked moon, or a geologically dead world with a cold core, or an ocean world with an ice crust (not of water necessarily). Maybe the locally important geological phenomena come not from inside the planet (plates, volcanoes) but outside (asteroids, meteors). Maybe your planet's liquid core has currents so strong that islands float around at meters per second and bounce off each other. Fantasy only needs to be consistent with yourself - not with our Earth. Otherwise where's the fun in worldbuilding? Relevant article from the same site: https://mythcreants.com/blog/should-your-fantasy-world-resemble-earth/ https://mythcreants.com/blog/should-your-fantasy-world-resem...

jmilloy 9y ago
> Otherwise where's the fun in worldbuilding. I think it's only fun if you operate within constraints. Choosing Earth-geology is a pretty reasonable constraint that allows you to more quickly get on to other aspects of worldbuilding (the ones that most fantasy worldbuilding focuses on anyways). What you are describing sounds more like science fiction worldbuilding! Plenty of room for overlap and deviation, of course.
- danarmak 9y ago
  I don't see a reason why playing with geology in particular should be restricted to science fiction and not fantasy. Authors often build geologically inconsistent worlds. The article has suggestions for fixing that by changing the geology to match Earth, but that will force the climate etc. to match Earth too. I think if an author wants to build a world with a geology different from Earth that's not a bad thing - they should just notice this and make sure it's consistent and has an explanation for being the way it is.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    Consistency is a constraint. Authors have unwritten contracts with their readers. You cannot destroy the readers immersion with the story with something that doesn't fit (readers will get mad and throw the book down). You cannot spend so much time explaining things that there is no action (this makes for a boring story that is never read). A formula romance cannot solve the problem of a long standing antagonist by having the hero grab a magic wand from nowhere and kill him - readers of romance generally assume a very earth like world because the story is about the romance and changing the world to add and explain magic is a distraction. So the standard course of action is for the hero to use a gun - guns already exist and so very little explanation needs to be spent on where the hero gets the gun before the story goes back to the romantic parts the reader is interested in. That isn't to say the hero cannot use a magic wand in a romance story, but magic needs to be introduced by page 2 at the latest - and some readers will decide that they don't want to read your book because magic is involved. Note that non-fiction doesn't have that constraint. I can introduce the magic wand used to kill right at the moment in history where the magic wand was used. Readers will go "what", and do some double checking and discover that a magic wand was actually used (more likely the research will discover that nobody knows what was really used, but it looked to observers like a magic wand so that is what everyone says), then you will go back to my story satisfied that it really happened that way despite being unbelievable.
    - dsr_ 9y ago
      More to the point, a speculative fiction (i.e. sf/fantasy/horror) should not needlessly multiply entities. If your story is about geology, or needs a particular geological arrangement to explain things, then by all means mention it. But if your story can use known plate tectonics, or takes place in an Earth-analog environment where the geography you want already exists, you don't need to explain it and you shouldn't bother doing so. (There are probably exceptions. Douglas Adams could make a lengthy digression on geology interesting, amusing, and then call back to it half a book later in order to be side-splittingly funny.)
      - wolfgang42 9y ago
webnrrd2k 9y ago
In support of your self-consistency point, the Bean World graphic novels have a well thought out and very interesting physical world that's nothing like real life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Beanworld https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Beanworld
loup-vaillant 9y ago
Sure, but your world will be deeper if you give it a strong sense of causality —or so I think. Un-Earthly geology, sure. Make sure however the layout of your map appears to be mostly a consequence of that geology. (Maybe you meant something similar with "consistent with yourself"?) Unless throwing causality out the window was the goal all along, of course.
deleted 9y ago
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jmilloy 9y ago

> Otherwise where's the fun in worldbuilding. I think it's only fun if you operate within constraints. Choosing Earth-geology is a pretty reasonable constraint that allows you to more quickly get on to other aspects of worldbuilding (the ones that most fantasy worldbuilding focuses on anyways). What you are describing sounds more like science fiction worldbuilding! Plenty of room for overlap and deviation, of course.

danarmak 9y ago
I don't see a reason why playing with geology in particular should be restricted to science fiction and not fantasy. Authors often build geologically inconsistent worlds. The article has suggestions for fixing that by changing the geology to match Earth, but that will force the climate etc. to match Earth too. I think if an author wants to build a world with a geology different from Earth that's not a bad thing - they should just notice this and make sure it's consistent and has an explanation for being the way it is.
- bluGill 9y ago
  Consistency is a constraint. Authors have unwritten contracts with their readers. You cannot destroy the readers immersion with the story with something that doesn't fit (readers will get mad and throw the book down). You cannot spend so much time explaining things that there is no action (this makes for a boring story that is never read). A formula romance cannot solve the problem of a long standing antagonist by having the hero grab a magic wand from nowhere and kill him - readers of romance generally assume a very earth like world because the story is about the romance and changing the world to add and explain magic is a distraction. So the standard course of action is for the hero to use a gun - guns already exist and so very little explanation needs to be spent on where the hero gets the gun before the story goes back to the romantic parts the reader is interested in. That isn't to say the hero cannot use a magic wand in a romance story, but magic needs to be introduced by page 2 at the latest - and some readers will decide that they don't want to read your book because magic is involved. Note that non-fiction doesn't have that constraint. I can introduce the magic wand used to kill right at the moment in history where the magic wand was used. Readers will go "what", and do some double checking and discover that a magic wand was actually used (more likely the research will discover that nobody knows what was really used, but it looked to observers like a magic wand so that is what everyone says), then you will go back to my story satisfied that it really happened that way despite being unbelievable.
  - dsr_ 9y ago
    More to the point, a speculative fiction (i.e. sf/fantasy/horror) should not needlessly multiply entities. If your story is about geology, or needs a particular geological arrangement to explain things, then by all means mention it. But if your story can use known plate tectonics, or takes place in an Earth-analog environment where the geography you want already exists, you don't need to explain it and you shouldn't bother doing so. (There are probably exceptions. Douglas Adams could make a lengthy digression on geology interesting, amusing, and then call back to it half a book later in order to be side-splittingly funny.)
    - wolfgang42 9y ago

webnrrd2k 9y ago

In support of your self-consistency point, the Bean World graphic novels have a well thought out and very interesting physical world that's nothing like real life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Beanworld https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Beanworld

loup-vaillant 9y ago

Sure, but your world will be deeper if you give it a strong sense of causality —or so I think. Un-Earthly geology, sure. Make sure however the layout of your map appears to be mostly a consequence of that geology. (Maybe you meant something similar with "consistent with yourself"?) Unless throwing causality out the window was the goal all along, of course.

deleted 9y ago

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