How to Build a World, Part Four: Influence and Bias

Here we are: part four! The last in our worldbuilding adventure together. If you’ve liked this series so far, let me know so I can brainstorm more topics for the future!

Just in case you missed it, here’s what I’ve covered so far in this worldbuilding series:

Part One: Ask the Right Questions
Part Two: THE MAP
Part Three: Building Systems

Time for the finale. This week we’re discussing why it’s important to be aware of your own influence and bias while worldbuilding. Because guess what: your writing is biased. My writing is biased. Everyone’s writing is biased.

For example: I like my dragons with four legs. Even though it’s apparently not anatomically possible. Don’t care. I think it looks cooler to have four legs, AND wings, AND a tail. I’m personally biased against the wyverns and wyrms of the world.

The goal of this thought experiment is not to erase bias and influence from your writing. Some will always exist. But when it comes to worldbuilding: if your goal is to craft a rich, authentic world that will resonate with your audience, bias will limit your reach, and it may be introducing harmful prejudices into your story.

Definitions

First: some definitions so we know exactly what we’re dealing with. From Merriam-Webster:

Bias: an inclination of temperament or outlook especially: a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgement.
-Merriam-Webster dictionary

Bias is always prejudiced. Unreasoned. Look at my dragons example. Other than personal preference, I have no defensible reason for liking my fire-breathers with six limbs.

Influence: the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways.
-MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY

Influence, on the other hand, is subtle. Some influences could be biased themselves; but influence doesn’t carry prejudice within its meaning.

Perspective: a mental view or prospect.
-MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY

I threw perspective in the mix because your perspective is still your secret weapon as a writer. And of course your perspective is biased and influenced by your life experience and preferences. So you and I need to wield our perspectives with skill and nuance.

How to Counter Bias and Influence

How do you counter bias in your work? By reading widely, asking questions, researching, and having other people, especially people who have different life circumstances than you, read your work. The key is to actively interrogate your work and find where bias has crept in.

An anecdote: I was very stuck in an earlier draft of my current manuscript for a few years. Eventually, I realized I was stuck because my worldbuilding was flat and my characters were skeletons. I’d built a caricature of a society, instead of an actual society. I’d used stereotypes as shortcuts for my worldbuilding, and the story felt lifeless as a result.

So I went back to the drawing board and started again. The resulting draft was something I was immediately prouder of. It rang true. There was depth to it. I could now imagine the intricacies of how the society worked and the lives the people there led.

A question I like to ask a lot is, “Why not?” Why wouldn’t a population be diverse and varied if it’s the population of an entire world? Especially in science fiction and fantasy, the options are limitless for the premises and types of beings we can dream up.

Oftentimes though, the ideas we generate are influenced by what has come before. This is natural. And here is where the ugly side of influence can rear its head.

“When you’re creating the rules for your imaginary world, you may find that some of the decisions you have made about the alien races or the way your imaginary cultures are structured reflect real world biases. An example of this is that in much high fantasy, the good elves are pale and blonde, while “dark elves” are known for their deceit and cruelty. Obviously, this has come out of associations and imagery long built into much of Western culture, so it’s not surprising, but it’s still very problematic.”
Anne Reid, Narrative Director, Ethical Worldbuilding in Games, 27 February 2020

Tackling the biases from classic fantasy works that have influenced most writers in recent memory isn’t an easy task with a simple answer. Questions are again your best friend here. Ask yourself why you made a choice to follow a classic trend, like, dark elves = evil. Did you do it for convenience? Or because the story you want to tell requires this choice? Even if you think the story requires the choice, is there another path that is more interesting to you?

Again, the goal is to be aware of what is influencing you so you can embrace it, discard it, or subvert it. Many influences are helpful. They provide inspiration for writing and worldbuilding. I know for me, my earliest stories were based on movies or books I loved so much that I wanted to write myself into the story.

Here’s an experiment for you. Go find the earliest piece of writing you can find. Read it. I bet you know what was influencing you by just reading the title.

I will volunteer mine: the first story I found in my digital archives, from 2003, was titled “Matrix”. Can you guess what sci-fi classic inspired that one?

Influence can be a great thing. I’m always looking for new influences to help me look at narratives, stories, characters, and settings from a new perspective. We just need to be aware that bias could be hidden (or not so hidden) in some of those influences. Fictional bias reinforces bigotry in our real world, whether we like it or not. As a writer creating worlds, I want to be a part of the solution.

How to Build a World, Part Four: Influence and Bias

Definitions

How to Counter Bias and Influence

Further Reading

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