Most of the time when I see “World Building” as a break-out session at a writing conference, I assume it is designed for the science fiction or fantasy writers, and for the most part I may be right. However, world-building is often also important for literary fiction writers, especially if they’re writing historical fiction. First of all, it helps if writers of historical fiction understand that their readers don’t want a course in the history of a period in time, but they do want the story they are reading to reflect what could have happened during that time period. It’s important to focus the research for the story on what would have been possible at that time. Since we often become so accustomed to our own period in time, it’s easy to over look some things. I can think of two examples in my last novel where I overlooked this fact.
Fortunately, the first one was identified early by one of my readers. I had one of my characters make a phone call on his way home from the western part of the U.S. in the mid-1930’s. One of my readers said, “I don’t think his family would have had a phone at that time.” It didn’t take me long to determine that she was right, so I made a change in what he did. Another example, in the same novel, was identified after publication. Although most readers would overlook it, as I did, there’s always one or two. After reading the book, my brother-in-law said, “I found a mistake in the book. You said the character bought a 1929 model of a car that they had already stopped making by then. Now, I could have easily avoided that mistake by just saying he drove that model of car, which would have solved the problem, but I didn’t! Research can be helpful, but thankfully, writers only have to research what they actually include in their descriptions. Often, it’s easy to avoid errors with a slight altering of what is said. It is important, however, to do your research and build a world where your events could have happened.
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