Tips for Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding isn't just about designing cool species and fancy buildings. The true objective of worldbuilding is about creating systems that can withstand scrutiny. Tips for worldbuilding is about tying character development, complex systems, and consequences into a single package: storytelling.

A demonstrable example of tips for worldbuilding is the system of Life Rights. In previous sections, we have looked at what Life Rights are, how they are structured, and some of the ways that beings can obtain them. While these aspects of Life Rights are important, they do not show the system's weaknesses.

Tips for Worldbuilding: Shattering the Illusion

No system is perfect. Each has its own flaws and loopholes. Incorporating workarounds into your world's systems is an important tool that will help your story feel grounded. Systems feel more real when they can be broken. These tips for worldbuilding do more than further the development of your story. They also help to create natural tension.

In Qualx, Life Rights appear absolute and inevitable, but this is only because they are designed to look seamless to the citizens, and therefore to the reader. While Life Rights do function as intended, that does not mean they are bulletproof.

Shattering the illusion of a perfect world does not need to be extravagant or obvious. Through subtle methods, you can incorporate the system's flaws into your storytelling in a way that makes even the defects feel like they belong in the story.

Let's look at Life Rights, and the way that Qualxians bypass the system.

Tips for Worldbuilding: Systemic Loopholes

Life Rights as a system can be manipulated. Whether it's the data itself, or the people managing the system, there are ways to contrive access. While forgery and fraud are both obvious ways to exploit the system's weaknesses, we will find there are many ways the citizens engineer an illegitimate result.

Forged Life Rights are fabricated legitimacy.
Frauded Life Rights are stolen or misrepresented legitimacy.

Black market salesmen and other beings of ill repute use these backdoors. These illegally obtained Life Rights function but are never truly safe.

Not only are forged and frauded Life Rights not safe, but they upset the system. Life Rights are designed to keep the city functioning smoothly, and when this well-oiled machine is disrupted, the system has no choice but to escalate.

This is true for more than just complex systems like Life Rights. Destabilizing loopholes can be a tool of escalation for any system.

When a system destabilizes, it is forced to centralize authority, narrow access, and punish violators. The system will morph so that it can protect what it values most.

Escalation

More tips for worldbuilding include desperate measures in your storytelling. Some systems do not eliminate risk; they formalize it.

In Qualx, duels are one way that Life Rights are escalated. Duels are not outside of the system. They are one of the system's sharpest edges.

When beings cannot obtain Life Rights through conventional methods, they resort to the most dangerous method of all: a fight to the death.

A duel is always in exchange for something. Whether that be for Life Rights, money, resources, or pure entertainment, it is a way to barter even if you have nothing. Yet these duels are not officially sanctioned by the Conglomerate. They risk the safety of the citizens participating.

This negatively affects the efficiency of the quad-city, especially from the perspective of those running Qualx. Since the inherent values overlying Qualx is productivity, efficiency becomes a moral dilemma to many individuals.

That isn't to say that they aren't completely valid forms of barter. Using your Life Rights as a bartering tool or as collateral is a satisfactory exchange that solidifies a legal contract. Qualxian ideology tends to separate the means from the end. In other words, the end result is an enforced contract. The means may have been an illegal underground gladiator-like brawl. While the participants may suffer consequences for the illicit fighting, the Qualxian system will still recognize the fulfilled contract.

The duel is illegal. The contract is legal. The outcome is enforced.

In Qualx, efficiency outweighs morality. Contracts are upheld, even if the methods used are ugly. Illegality is tolerable if efficiency is enhanced or even preserved. Violence is acceptable as long as forward motion is maintained, and everyone is abiding by mandated Life Rights.

Tips for Worldbuilding Using Systemic Values

Worldbuilding is about combining storytelling and systems to form a narrative that engages the reader. A system shows what a world believes. When you decide what matters most in your world, the rest will follow.

Systems shape the world just as much as they shape the choices that characters must make in order to survive.

A perfect system feels fake. Real systems bend, crack, and sometimes even break. Rules need a way to be broken, and power must have risk.

A system is more than rules.

It is a mirror.

It shows what the world believes is right, and what it is willing to sacrifice. If your world never struggles, it will end up feeling hollow and meaningless.

Let it strain.
Let it change.
Let your characters react and adapt to that tension.
Most importantly, let the tension of your world flow out through your written words.