Transcript:

What makes a world full of fantastical things like dragons, time travel, or magic feel believable? Obviously, in a magical world, it can’t rely on realism, but it does need consistency. In other words, your world needs rules.

I know what you’re thinking: Ugh, rules are the worst. How boring. But if you’ve ever played a video game or tabletop game, or I guess SPORTS, you’ll know that rules can actually make things more fun. Casting fireball would be far less exciting if you didn’t have to wait to level five to get it. A video game wouldn’t be as fun if you could just press a button to immediately defeat your enemies. And who doesn’t love seeing the opposing team get a penalty point? (Yeah, I know a little bit about SPORTS)

So, in today’s video, we are going to explore how to create a clear internal rulebook for your world, so even your wildest ideas still make sense to your reader. That way, everyone has a fun time. It doesn’t have to be realistic, and many readers would prefer that it’s not, but it does need to be consistent, logical, and trustworthy.

Hi, I’m C. Sloan Lewis, your virtual writing coach, and my goal is to help you not just improve your writing, but to support you as a writer. Welcome to my channel!

Why Rules Matter

So let’s start with the question: why do rules matter?

When your world has clear rules, it builds readers’ trust, prevents plot holes, creates conflict and tension, and makes magic, societies, or technology credible and meaningful.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is the best example for this — and really for almost every storytelling element, let’s be honest. In the world of bending the four elements, bending has limits and costs; it shapes the culture, politics, and characters’ personalities. There are certain fighting styles that go with the rhythm of the particular element of the binder, which makes it challenging for Aang, a native airbender, to learn earth and firebending.

In Harry Potter, especially in the later books, the magical rules on what’s not allowed create tension for the characters. Yes, Harry can inflate his uncle’s nasty sister, but he almost gets expelled for using magic as an underage wizard. He also almost gets Ron and himself expelled for revealing a flying car to the muggles, which the magical world is trying to hide from.

What Goes in Your World’s Rulebook?

While you don’t have to write an actual rulebook, you do need to know your world’s boundaries and the rules to which your characters have to adhere, whether they are imposed rules or how the physics of the world work.

Like how we broke up the setting into four layers, let’s break up the rules into four different types:

1- The Physical Rules

In this one, we are figuring out how the world functions. You don’t have to go into equal amounts of detail for each one, but some things to consider are gravity, geography, weather, time (both how it’s recorded and how quickly it moves), and if there’s magic, what are the physical laws it needs to adhere to?

2- The Magic/Supernatural Rules (if applicable)

At the very least, when you are writing a story that incorporates magic or supernatural elements, you need to be able to answer these questions:

• Who can use magic?
• What does it cost to use?
• What are its limits? What can it not do? And just so you know, it needs to have some sort of cost or limit. Limitless magic is not as fun, even if it seems super cool at first.
• What are the consequences of breaking magical laws? Who enforces those laws?

Power of any sort, whether magical, technical, or supernatural, without limits, isn’t exciting; it’s just lazy writing, and the reader will get bored pretty darn quick.

For instance, in The Witcher, magic drains energy —it needs to feed off something. And in Mistborn, the characters needed specific types of metals to use their powers.

3- The Social & Cultural Rules

This is where people who love worldbuilding get a little crazy and fall into the info-dumping issue, but can you blame them? It’s so fun to develop laws, taboos, class systems, belief structures, customs, and religious codes of your very own world.

These ideas are just as important as developing a magic system or a physical setting because they create conflict and enforce consequences. They determine if your character is part of the status quo or an outcast, and who they might spend their time with, as well as the life experiences they might have had before the story starts.

In order to help your reader in the modern, human world of Earth, you have to figure out these details to flesh out your fantastical world. Just make sure to weave these details, only the necessary ones, throughout your story instead of dumping them in your reader’s lap at the start.

4- The Emotional/ Moral Rules

This is the moral compass of your world. You need to ask yourself: What is considered honorable, shameful, heroic, and taboo in this world? What does your society forgive or punish?

For instance, the idea of honor leads Zuko down a destructive path, trying to capture the Avatar for his father, while Ned Stark, holding onto his honor in a corrupt world full of liars, gets himself killed (spoilers).

Rules can be a bummer, I know. But there is a lot of power in limiting your character and their world. Limits make a story more compelling because they create tension and stakes, force creativity, and build character depth.

If superheroes didn’t have weaknesses, they would be super boring to watch and read about. If I could cast Meteor Swarm at will at the start of a D&D campaign, there wouldn’t be an actual game to play. If the Eagles had just flown the fellowship straight to Mordor, Legolas and Gimli would never have become besties. The rules make the story fun.

How to Reveal Rules Without Info-Dumping

So, I’ve mentioned the idea of info dumping a couple of times now, but how does one get across the rules of this world without it?

Your reader will learn the rules as they show up in real time for the characters, revealing them through natural consequences, character mistakes, social reactions, dialogue hints, and natural cause and effect.

For instance, if a character uses forbidden magic and people react in fear, then the reader learns that it’s illegal (or maybe even never known to exist before). You don’t need to clarify which one. If the readers have questions, that’s a good thing. Just show another instance of an idea, like guards coming after the character or a random person shouting, “What the heck was that?”

Let’s try out these ideas with a quick writing exercise:

Answer the following questions:

• What is one major rule of your world?
• What happens when someone breaks it?
• Does your story show that happening?

For an extra challenge: write a scene where a character accidentally (or intentionally, up to you) breaks a rule — and the world around them reacts.

But that’s all from me today. Next week, we will be diving into how to build societies from scratch, so be sure to subscribe and hit the bell to be notified when the next episode is posted. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up to support the channel and help other writers find it.

You’ve got some writing to do, so I’ll see you in the next video. Ta-ta!