Why I Write

Why I Wrote It: Conspiracies And Worldbuilding

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Conspiracies and Worldbuilding is a book that is more than it seems, both in content and in origin. It would seem simple to write a book on “here’s how to put conspiracies in your fictional” world – and that’s the problem.

Conspiracies aren’t simple to write.

I love a good conspiracy in a book, from political intrigue to a murder mystery (which is just a tiny conspiracy). It’s fun to figure out what’s going on, and who doesn’t love a puzzle? The problem is that most people’s ideas of conspiracies come from Conspiracy Theories, and that’s dangerous.

Conspiracy Theories are everywhere because humans try to make sense of the world. In turn, they work our way into our popular culture because they are recognizable and often fascinating. A quick perusal of fiction will find multiple Illuminatis, a heavy dose of Lizard People, and a decent sprinkling of alien technology.

But this isn’t just fun. Conspiracy Theories and taking them seriously (in the wrong way) promotes several alarming trends, and this book was to address that in part.

First, many Conspiracy Theories are just window dressing on biases, old or new. When we recycle them into our fiction, we promote those biases and even give voice to promoters who have ulterior motives. A cursory examination of many a conspiratorial belief quickly uncovers racism, sexism, bigotry, and more. I wanted people to avoid spreading these ideas as if they were innocent.

Secondly, many Conspiracy Theories lead to bad story ideas because they’re so unlikely and impossible. Most Conspiracy Theories suppose impossible organizations, dubious motivations, and terrible resource management. I wanted people to write more likely conspiracies – as those are more fun to read or watch!

Third and finally, fiction too often ignores that Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracies go hand in hand. If you have nefarious plans, the easiest way to get away with it is to turn people against someone else. They’re busy attacking phantoms and innocent people so you can get away with your own dark goals. I wanted more fictional conspiracies that were good at evil machinations and wanted to cover this.

In the internet age, I saw more spread of biased conspiracy theories, more foolish leaps of logic, and more muddling of Conspiracy Theory and Conspiracies. So I wanted to do a book on how to handle these subjects in fiction better. From avoiding spreading bigotry to creating more believable (and thus thought-provoking) settings, I figured it was a win-win.

So far, it seems the book has sold pretty well, and I hope I’m reaching people. Let’s make good stories, good conspiracies, and spend less time promoting bigotry and the unlikely. Please give me a conspiracy that chills me as it seems so real and a story that helps me see how prejudices are puppet strings.

Steven Savage

Why I Wrote It: Superheroes And Worldbuilding

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I have a few oddball books in my “Way With Worlds” collection on worldbuilding, and the Superhero one is one of them. It’s the first book of the series to tackle worldbuilding in a given genre directly, and though it may not be the last like it, it’s one near and dear to me.

I love the superhero genre.

The superhero genre is a meta-genre that combines many other genres, tropes, ideas together in one heady brew that wears a cape. Orphans turned detectives team up with godlike aliens and humans transformed by chemicals to fight sentient gorillas and criminal clowns. It takes a few trope frameworks (people with unusual abilities develop specific identities and roles) within which you can go wild.

I even helped run a shared universe superhero newsletter back in the day. The crew created their own characters in a shared setting, we’d often trade-off, and the result was a four-year-plus series of stories and a giant body of work. It went every direction, yet also was still recognizable as a superhero body of work.

Again, I love the superhero genre. That would have been enough to write a worldbuilding book on it – but there was more.

Superheroes are a genre that deserves more exploration as it is a meta-genre, a wrapper for many familiar characters and story types. Because it allows one to write so many ideas while still using an easy-to-access framework, you can make the bizarre accessible. The Grant Morrison Doom Patrol or the anime Concrete Revolutio are just some examples – the former surrealist, the latter a puzzle-box. In today’s grand age of superhero tales, we have a chance to explore.

I was further motivated by thoughts of new caped horizons and masked adventures. Yet, one other motivation came into play.

We’re so inundated with superhero stories, I wanted to make sure people didn’t fall into tropes old and new, so my book is a small contribution to avoiding that. My superhero worldbuilding guide asks hard questions to help people make believable worlds. Because superhero worlds are often many genres, that means such a worldbook inspires people to think through bizarre possibilities – and make them seem real! To reconcile alien invasions, time travel, cybernetics, and a mild-mannered reporting career pushes one to artistic heights.

So my worldbook was born of a love of the genre, hope for more, and fear of stagnation. A small contribution, perhaps, but a heartfelt one, and one I hope inspires others.

Sometimes the best thing you can do when you love something is to inspire others who love it to go to heights you never imagined. That’s where “Superheroes and Worldbuilding” came from.

Who knows what other genres I could tackle?

Steven Savage

Why I Wrote It: Worldbuilding Checkup

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

“Worldbuilding Checkup” is a strange book in the lineup of the Way With Worlds series. The books consist of two guidebooks and then an ever-expanding set of books on specific subjects. Why, suddenly, have a book that’s all “let’s check on the basics”? Well, that actually tells you something about my methods.

Originally I never intended to do more than six of these books.

The smaller “Worldbooks” as I call them were originally designed to be tie-ins to address subjects I wanted to write more on, and get interest in the core books. To flesh them out I went over the core books, the past columns, and subjects I really wanted to write more on. Out of those notes, I realized that a book on more abstract questions would be useful.

See, a lot of the original six books were deep dives on subjects that really needed more exploration – gods, magic, sex, and so on. But among my notes were a lot of questions that could be asked in the abstract – is your world internally consistent, is your timeline useful to you, and so on. I realized that there should be a book that was just “hey, let’s see if your worldbuilding is working.” Then the notes easily became a full book.

Thus, this slightly odd entry in the series was created.

Somewhere after the first six books were written I realized I was on to something and decided to keep going. I also raised the price as a friend with a marketing background noted people would take them more seriously – and I suddenly sold more. There was a market here (and, strangely, I found sometimes charging more is a service that helps people see that your work is valuable).

So as more and more books were created, I realized this book has a special place.

Maybe you don’t need a deep dive on creating believable methods of reproduction or you don’t care about superheroes. None of my specific subjects interest you because you don’t care or you’ve got a good handle on them. But if you’re wanting just a quick check-in to see “hey am I doing this right” the book has you covered – and it definitely does sell, though not as much as others.

I’ve wondered if maybe I should consider other checkup type books, probably one on record-keeping and saving data. Or maybe it’s a one-off. I don’t know yet, but the joy of writing these books may lead me to a new one eventually.

There’s two lessons here.

The first is that for any kind of specific set of guides or instructions, you may need something more abstract or high-level. It may not be for everyone, but there are probably some people who know enough or want that view.

The second lesson is, well, plans change. Now this book is an odd one in the expanded series – but one that may in time inspire more works . . .

Steven Savage