One of the most common pieces of critique an author gets from their beta readers is that the characters feel too flat, or the world feels empty. Quite often, this feedback is followed up by pages and pages of additions where the world is fleshed out, characters have comprehensive backstories and whole chapters are spent following a character growing up - not in service of the story, but in service of making them fleshed-out, complex people in a real society. I've already covered a better way to build dimensional characters. So today I want to explore why your worldbuilding belongs in the background, and how to build a rich society while focusing on the story.
At its core, worldbuilding is developing a fictional world. But it's more than that: it's about making your world feel like a place that really exists in your readers' minds.
For many authors, this means spending pages discussing the currency system, the political system, the history and culture. Sometimes this shows up labelled as a prologue at the beginning of the novel (when it most certainly is not). For the author, this backstory is exciting and interesting; it lets them get the world in their head onto the page and show, in great detail, the depths they have considered in each aspect.
For the reader, however, this is pages and pages of preamble before they even get to know what your book is about or meet a character, let alone have them do something interesting. The first thing that should be happening in your novel is action, and then from there keep something interesting happening. Setting the lore comes a distant second.
So how do we, as authors, provide for a rich culture in our stories? With the age-old adage: show, don't tell. Think about how you might immerse yourself in another culture. Sure, you might pick up a book and learn a few customs, maybe take a language crash course, but most people go to the country, immerse themselves in it, talk to people, and try new things. This is how you bring your world's culture to your novel. You describe what your characters see, what they smell, what they feel. Not only does this make the world more interesting around your character, but it also makes your character more interesting too.
When it comes to injecting lore and backstory into our action scenes, a little can go a long way. Consider, for example, this line:
Stephane could hear her footsteps echoing back to her from the tall concrete walls of the crumbling apartment complex on either side. As she rounded the corner into the square, she looked up at the bronze statue of the city's founder glinting in the morning sun. She rolled her eyes. "There's always money available if it makes you look better, huh?" She let out a heavy breath before opening the door to the pawn shop, a musty smell greeting her as she entered. The store felt gloomy despite being brightly lit by sterile fluorescent lights that hummed overhead. "Back again, Stephane?" The man smiled, revealing stained teeth as he eyed the bundle under her arm.
See what happened there? In just a few sentences, we showed the reader a city suffering from an urban housing crisis under a vain political leader. We established that our protagonist is struggling financially, showed how she feels about her environment, and introduced a predatory pawn shop owner, and we did it all while keeping Stephane moving directly toward her goal.
Putting action first isn't about removing your backstory; it's about micro-dosing it slowly throughout your narrative and trusting your readers enough to let them draw their own connections. This doesn't just improve your story's pacing; it makes the reading experience far more immersive and rewarding.
And remember the difference between an author and a dreamer is the tap of the keys, or the stroke of the pen.
