Worldbuilding in Fiction Literature

The central component of transmedia storytelling is worldbuilding, or the creation of a world within a given plot line. A classic example of this is in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, in which a wizard world is created for protagonist Harry Potter and all subsequent characters to inhabit. In terms of transmedia storytelling, worldbuilding acts the link between the different types of media used within a single theme in order to expand that central idea. The idea is that all media used in developing either a story, brand, or product is essential to the overall experience of the user. This means that there isn’t a distinction between a “primary” and “tertiary” medium, but rather that they are regarded as a collective machine that guides the user’s interaction with said product (Kompare, 118).

Additionally, it is also important to understand that worldbuilding isn’t a strategy employed for a niche audience. That is how it differs from transmedia storytelling; the world that is created is accessible across all demographics. Both a 14-year old and a 40-year old both have the same access to world built by either the creator or the audience, or in some cases both. What matters is that the content is autonomous, meaning that there is no predisposition of a world to a certain group (Burcher, 227). While a book itself or the central theme behind a story may cater to a specific audience, the world created is part of the larger picture, one that even the creator may not have imagined from its inception.

Figure 1. Process of worldbuilding.

Literature, fiction in particular, is the quintessence of worldbuilding practices. The motivation behind writing fiction is to create a world and a storyline that feeds the escapism that themselves; there is a visceral connection that established between the author, the reader, and the fictional world that entirely encapsulates the wishes and desires of the human mind while still maintaining a healthy amount of separation from the content present (Fleckenstein, 297). The strength of worldbuilding is in its ability to play off the human psyche and capitalize on that comprehension to draw in the reader/user/consumer to remain attached to the world at hand.

As wonderful and empowering it may be to the individual, worldbuilding can also have the adverse effect in terms of emulating reality. A world can be equally realistic as it is surreal, as seen with dystopian games like Angry Birds and Necromancer that parallel morose events in real life (Servitje, 85). Regardless of its positive or negative approach, worldbuilding is crucial in fiction literature as a means of drawing in the reader. The quality of a novel is often judged by the intricacy and plausibility of its world. This idea of world replacing or becoming reality is why advertisers and companies are so willing to get on board with the transmedia storytelling process.

Works Cited:

• Kompare, Derek. “Conference Report: Futures of Entertainment 3, November 21-22, 2008, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.” Cinema Journal, vol. 49, no. 1, 2009, pp. 116–120. www.jstor.org/stable/25619748.
• Burcher, Charlotte et al. “Core Collections in Genre Studies: Fantasy Fiction 101.” Reference &Amp; User Services Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 3, 2009, pp. 226–231. www.jstor.org/stable/20865077.
• Fleckenstein, Kristie S. “Writing Bodies: Somatic Mind in Composition Studies.” College English, vol. 61, no. 3, 1999, pp. 281–306. www.jstor.org/stable/379070.
• Lorenzo Servitje. “H5N1 For Angry Birds: Plague Inc., Mobile Games, and the Biopolitics of Outbreak Narratives.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 43, no. 1, 2016, pp. 85–103. jstor.org/stable/10.5621/sciefictstud.43.1.0085.