Impossible Worlds: Resources for Scientifically Plausible Worldbuilding
Science fiction authors have dreamed up all sorts of bizarre ideas in the past, some more plausible than others. One of the most persistent challenges is creating new worlds that are both unique and plausible. Some authors ignore the plausible part entirely- I've written before about how single biome worlds are an especially aggravating offender. How do you go about creating more plausible worlds, though? I've run across quite a few resources over the years as a writer.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld isn't even remotely scientifically plausible, but it's one of the most entertaining worlds out there. [Image source]
Scientific Plausibility:
There's really no true substitute for having extensive knowledge about geology, astrophysics, chemistry, meteorology, biology, and more when it comes to scientific plausibility. If you want to get really good at worldbuilding, you've got to at least have passing familiarity with these topics. As with everything, you have to know the rules before you can break them. All that said, it's a tall order. Here are a few resources that can narrow your field of study down a bit:
World-Building, by Stephen L. Gillett
This is the single most useful resource in this whole article. This slim volume is the first resource you should be turning to. It walks you through the physical construction of your world and solar system. It walks you through everything from the orbital mechanics of your world to the type of stars to choose to what chemicals to add to your atmosphere. Get a copy, read it, and keep referring to it.
Aliens and Alien Societies, by Stanley Schmidt
Part of the same science fiction writing series editied by Ben Bova as World-Building. This one isn't quite on the same level, but it's still pretty useful. This one walks you through the biology of creating alien races, as well as their languages and culture.
Artifexian
The Artifexian youtube channel is absolutely fantastic. It's not only useful, but entertaining. It goes in depth into world, star, solar system, and even galaxy construction. It also has a number of videos on creating an artificial language. Plus, it's free, so that's nice.
Historical Plausibility:
This one's both much easier and quite a bit trickier than scientific plausibility. On the one hand, inventing history is easy: This happened, then this happened, then this happened, etcetera. There's quite a bit less study involved. On the other hand, you really need a strong backing in history to make a plausible one. There's a reason so many of the great worldbuilders are such devoted students of history. To my knowledge, there aren't really as many good resources on worldbuilding history in general. The better route is finding resources about specific historical topics that are important to your story, like castles, pirates, or the logistics of armies on the march. Here's a few samples of the type of history you're looking for:
- The Spice Route: A History, by John Keay
- Life in A Medieval Castle, by Joseph and Frances Gies
- Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army, by Donald Engels
- Under the Black Flag, by David Cordingly
Other Resources:
Worldbuilding Stack Exchange
It's a reddit-like forum dedicated entirely to worldbuilding. Handy stuff for crowdsourcing questions, but I'm of the mind it's better to only need it for especially specific and difficult questions.
The Seven Deadly Sins of Worldbuilding
A useful little article from io9.
Excellent Worldbuilding in Fiction:
One of the best ways to learn the art of worldbuilding is to see it in action. Here are a few authors who do it especially well.
As far as scientifically plausible worlds go, no one does it better than Hal Clement. His novel Mission of Gravity features the planet Mesklin, one of the strangest worlds in fiction, where the gravity is three times Earth's at the equator and three hundred times Earth's gravity at the poles- and it's still entirely scientifically plausible.
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Larry Niven is another fantastic worldbuilder- quite literally in the case of Ringworld, an artificial construct circling around an entire star. Integral Trees is even weirder- it's a breathable gas giant that got torn apart and is now a giant gas torus spanning its entire former orbit.
[Image Source]
Robert L Forward's Rocheworld deserves an honorable mention, featuring two planets orbiting each other so close that they share an atmosphere. There are countless more examples all throughout science fiction.
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Bibliography:
Just literally everything on the list up there.
Sorry about the long gap between posts, was traveling for Thanksgiving.