I’ve been reading a lot of novels about world building genre. That I believe are not under my personal opinion actually world building. Let me ask everyone. Is it world building if the MC fight other countries and expand his kingdom. Or is it world building if the MC creates an Industrial Revolution as it were and focus on technology? Personally I find the technology route more along the lines of my definition of world building. And the conquering route as either an action genre or some sort fighting one. Am I wrong. What do you think
Doesn't "world building" usually refer to when authors construct worlds for the novel to take place in...?
I agree. World building to me is making the world of the novel feel like a place people could actually live in, the more details, the better the world building.
World building for me is how fleshed out the world is. It's world building if you know how common people live their lives in the novel. What are their culture, beliefs, the current technological setting etc.
Both are empire building, is what I feel. World building is expanding on the world, either near the Protagonist or away from the Protagonist focusing on other characters. To world build, you're basically info dumping or cluing in the reader on what the Author's system of the world is or even world detail. Then this can go into geography, features, and whatnot. An industrial revolution is basically building on the world, basically expanding on newly added features/processes to the system of the world, while conquest is basically growing an empire fighting against another culture. Both are world building if the technological advancements is in depth and tactics are expounded upon as well as displaying the culture.
Exactly. Let's say you are reading a novel, and in that particular scene, a gun exists. Now that gun at that particular time and space is part of the world because now it serves a purpose for the plot of the story. It has become part of world-building.
No when the author is detailing the universe which the story take place is called world building. kingdom/empire building should be the subgenre for the politic/war ?
@reagents 11 said it best. Sure “World Building” can be seen as an authors attempt to build a world for his novel. But in my post I do mention genre right? That takes it in a different direction. If all things were equal. Than yes, but many novels tend to lean in one direction or the other. The main reason for this I believe. Is because the flow would be a lot of stop and go. It’s a little like a bunch of short stories rolled into one or rolled into the main storyline. It still has both, but it still has a main trend/ genre overall. So I still stand by what I said one feels like World (Kingdom) Building and the other Action genres.
That's... aren't we all saying the same thing? Both examples you listed are kingdom/empire building, not world building.
Yeah, you're talking about the kingdom/base building genre. It's something entirely different from worldbuilding.
I would use that definition maybe if I haven’t read actually entire worlds being modified to tackle other worlds. Besides you can name it universe, solar system, world, country, kingdom or etc. building. It’s still the same question. I’m still asking about which one is the true genre. Conqueror or Technology. Is it a building genre or a fighting one. At least that’s what I’m asking in this post
world building for this cat is explanation, exploration about the world where the story occur~ from geography, history, society, politic, technology, conflict, religion and bunch of stuff to make this cat think.... oh so that world is like that~ the method may vary~ daily life or conversation, blatant text of wall exposition, legend and myth, war and conflict, villain try to break their deathflag or other~
If you're talking about the Territory Building genre (so either a village-town-city, a region, a country, a continent, a planet or a whole sector of space), the goal is raise the overall condition of the place by improving the agriculture, industry, economy, military, infrastructure, management and so on.
To me, neither are necessary for a base builder. Those are just two of the common methods that MC's in novels basebuild. Base building as the literary genre it is today is based on games. Minecraft, Ark: Survival, Zoo Tycoon, Dwarf Fortress, ect. Perhaps the most common model for the novels you are talking about are games like Civilization, where you have warfare aspects and need to unlock new tech through research. You have/need to secure a certain amount of resources and use those to build up bigger income of resources so that you can expand your sphere of influence. That could be done by military conquest or by expanding on technology. But it might as well be done through trade, gathering, befriending people, or really anything depending on the story the game devs/author wants to tell. Personally, my favorite stage in base builder games is usually the gathering stage. One could have a base builder novel with just that, if done correctly.
I have to agree many of your points. A gathering base novel. Interesting. +1. Lol. Just to clarify. The factors your pointing out. Does have a genre. It’s called video game genre. Which is pretty obvious went described as you did. The same should be true to base building genre or world building genre. Sure many novels have many sub genre, but there should also be a main genre too. And that’s all I’m ask about. What is everyone definition of _________ Building? Is it mainly conquering other nations or developing technology.
Neither, if anything those are both sub-genres of base-building. If there's truly a 'main genre' of base building, I'd say that's exploration. Like Minecraft and Terraria - sure you have a very important combat element, but that's just there to make the actual base-building more fun and challenging. The key of the games is to explore, find, extract, and use resources.
Edit: destroyed my original answer since I don't think it addressed the points later in the thread 1) Genre is just a way of analyzing and categorizing creative works. If you like a work in Genre A, then you might like another work in Genre A. You can create an infinite number of genres or subgenres. 2) If you want to define a technology world building genre, you are free to do so, anyone can create a genre. But, you really need to provide an example of it so that you can compare and contrast. Without that it's really pointless to discuss if it's separate or a subgenre etc.
For me personally, empire building would be conquering territory, nation building is improving the internal aspects of a country, like the economy, technology, infrastructure, etc. For some reason in my head, Kingdom building could be one or the other, or both? I'll use the term "kingdom building" here and say if I came across a novel that's only about MC introducing steam power and factories or whatever to a country, I would call it kingdom building, yes. But MC has to have the intent of introducing the technology to the entire country in order to advance progress in the country as a whole. It can't be one of those slice of life things where MC is a modern transmigrator who re-creates modern technology to personally improve life for themselves/their family/village. Same with a novel about MC and war, if it's just fighting battles, that's action genre. If it is trying to take enemy land with the focus on how the country's border will change and what that will mean, that is be kingdom building too.
More than world building, I'd call that world progression/evolution. It is a dynamic world and what has been built/established changes