How do you talk about “worldbuilding” w/ re novels. It’s a useful concept but I don’t really want to port DND language into literary criticism. (I have no professional reason for asking this… strictly unprofessional reasons)
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
Tolkien's concept of 'sub-creation' has been appropriated by some real drips but I think there's legs there. I wouldn't use the term in like a journal article.
“Set dressing” misses the systemic quality of really good literary settings. Infinite Jest is the exemplar in my mind, a setting that has its own natural laws, almost. Everything internally consistent but also alive
I often find myself reaching for terms from stage/film. "Set dressing", "scene-setting" etc. Helps me remember the whole thing is made of words, and that there's nothing there the words didn't put in.
I’m not worried about screaming DND so much as I am about using language with contextual baggage. I think the novel version and the DND version are slightly different things and I think the difference is interesting. Using the same language can obscure that
Comments