By CLAIRE WINTER

On September 28, Aardvark Authors and the Worldbuilding Collective held a worldbuilding and creative writing workshop. Held in the lobby of the Hendricks Center, the first task of the event was to write what a personal utopia would look like- either detailing the boundaries and rules of their world or writing a scene from within the world itself. As part of the Le Guin Beloit Community Reading Project, it’s easy to see the parallels between the exercise and Le Guin’s sci-fi classic “The Dispossessed”, which itself has heaps of worldbuilding. 

Varying perspectives quickly emerged: from a planet where people decide their leaders based on art contests to a seafaring-based society riding dogs as transport. Levi Hansen’26 even announced the ultimate rule of his utopia- “If anyone is mean to me, they’re publicly executed”. Members posed questions about each other’s worlds: what was the tech level? The systems of power? What kind of people lived in these worlds?

After half an hour or so of writing, members of the Worldbuilding Collective then started a group discussion centering around what it means to bring a world to life- whether that be through novels, Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop games, or simply through sharing with fellow creatives. Throughout the year, The Worldbuilding Collective works to create a singular intricate world, and at the end of the year, this is published, allowing months of intricate planning and creativity to be released into the world. A few critical tenants I learned throughout the discussion: 

1. Don’t add information your readers don’t care about

While a writer might have many ideas for detailed, intricate lore in several different places, in general, readers don’t care. Dropping a piece of worldbuilding into your story and then never expanding on it is generally more annoying than helpful.

2. You don’t need to know everything

Even as a writer, you don’t have to know everything about your world- and neither should your characters. After all, in real life, I would be hard-pressed to find someone off the street who could tell me the exact mechanics of how the internet works. Immersion in a world means that your characters may not always know as much as you do. 

3. You experience your world through a character- even if they’re wrong

People have different perspectives: whether divided by job, class, or location, nobody agrees on everything about the world. Similarly, sometimes your characters may have different information about the society around them, and they act accordingly. Every world has its own different versions of “truth” to those who experience it. Good writing shows that. 

There was no requirement to read Le Guin’s work before showing up, nor was the event itself an analysis of “The Dispossessed.” Still, by holding these events, the Le Guin Beloit Community Reading Project shows the value of holding so tightly onto a fifty-year-old book. And between the Aardvark Authors and the Worldbuilding Collective, a centuries-old tradition is staying alive and healthy at Beloit: the tradition of storytelling. 

Featured Image Credit: The New Yorker, Ursala Le Guin