This episode is not about exposition, deus ex machina or chekhov’s gun. This episode is about weaving your worldbuilding into your storytelling through scenes that deepen the plot or add depth to characters through the interactions with the world around them.

Worldbuilding is one of the most important things you’re going to do as a writer. Worldbuilding is the stage our entire plot unfolds on, but it outlives both your characters and story long after readers close the back cover.

It matters deeply, BUT, worldbuilding will not ONLY be a backdrop for characters or plot, but become the connective tissue of your story.

Let me give you an example. A pirate ship is smuggling cargo across international waters. The ocean beneath it is the worldbuilding, the ship and cargo is the plot, and the crew are the characters. You might touch on the waters below very rarely, and your readers don’t want you to either: they came for pirate ship battles and swashbuckling and gold. However, your worldbuilding should still pop up everywhere, and your story will be better for it: the saltwater taste in the air, barnacles clinging to the bottom of the vessel, the gentle rocking of the waves, and the wear and tear of the wood. Triangulating the position based on old maps and constellations in the sky. A character getting seasick. Another character staring off at the sunset, lost in thought, and another character coming along to comfort their loss. Fighting seamonsters and shooing away seagulls. The rations are out and now we have the same fish soup every night and the chef is losing his mind. Upkeep and repair means planning to visit a safehaven for more supplies.

Do you see what connects them?

There are a million narrative moments where the reader is in the moment with you. The worldbuilding supports a different kind of character interaction: it causes more challenges and obstacles to overcome besides the antagonist, but it also gives some space for the tension to cool off and to have deeply meaningful scenes..

These narrative moments continue to grow and develop the story while taking a break from conventional exposition and plot development, such as dialogue or action scenes. This is a different breed of showing, not telling. Being able to show off not only the life of your world but also your characters specific connection to it gives every aspect of your story a consistent and resonant feeling to it.

Our worldbuilding then becomes as strong of a personality as our protagonist, only with more power and condensed to as little as a single sentence in the entire book.

We can call this effect “microdosing worldbuilding” if you want. The purpose is to do as little as possible and achieve the largest effect we can. We want to evolve our reader’s experience of the story while keeping them firmly rooted in mysteries of the characters and tension of the plot.

We can do this in a few different ways:

We can use the worldbuilding as a simple set up that sets the scene. Our world is not a still picture, it is dynamic and mobile. I have a few examples, but we can start with my simple favourite: butterbeer.

In the wizarding world of Harry Potter, Butterbeer is a slightly alcoholic butterscotch flavoured drink that is served virtually everywhere, but most commonly seen at Hogsmeade; a small village outside Hogwarts that third-years and above are allowed weekend visits to. However, we want to get the most out of the smallest moments possible because those have a larger long-term emotional impact on our readers from their potency.

In the Goblet of Fire, we have a passage about how Winky, a house elf, would frequently be found drunk off of Butterbeer after her firing by Barty Crouch Senior and how, according to Dobby, the slight alcoholic content of the beverage affects house elves more. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Remus Lupin was surprised that Harry had tasted Butterbeer when, as far as he knew, Harry had never been to Hogsmeade. This was untrue as Harry had been to Hogsmeade with the help of the invisibility cloak, but Harry lied that Ron and Hermione brought some back from Hogsmeade for him. From scenes like this, we know the details of the taste and effects; We figure out that Harry doesn’t quite trust Lupin and Lupin might not trust Harry; and that Butterbeer is an important experience for a Hogwarts student. In writing, it painted enough smaller moments to place more context around the characters and plot, immersing the reader further and bonding them to our story.

In our world, Butterbeer has been recreated in a hundred fan recipes. For something that might have had a paragraph’s worth of sentences said about it in an entire book series and a few minutes of screentime at most, it’s an unforgettable element of worldbuilding that encompasses creatures and spells and hidden things. Fans chose this element specifically to re-experience and enjoy the world that they love.

Another example of setting up scenes with simple worldbuilding is with Disney-Pixar’s Luca. Set around 1959, Luca takes place in an alternate universe where anthropomorphic sea monsters exist in underwater villages just like surface dwelling humans. The story follows the titular main character in his adventures around the italian seaside town of Portorosso alongside his newfound best friend Alberto. Forbidden by his parents from ever going to the surface for fear of being hunted by humans, Luca meets Alberto, a fellow sea monster child, who lives alone in an abandoned tower on dry land. Luca begins sneaking out to meet Alberto and they become friends, soon developing a dream of travelling the world on a Vespa.

In the first act, Alberto’s tower represents adventure and escape for Luca, both being the location and becoming the safe space to daydream and explore, offering extreme potential for Luca’s character growth from a timid individual to a brave one, and for Alberto to begin trusting in others again.

In the second act, while preparing to win the Portorosso cup and win the money to buy a Vespa, Luca begins to bond with Giulia, a human girl. They bond over their love of learning and astronomy, and Luca dreams of being able to go to school. Giulia allows Luca to keep her Astronomy book to read Alberto, who has been working alongside Giulia’s father Massimo, becomes jealous and tells him that no one will accept him due to his sea monster origin, even going so far to reveal his true form as a sea monster to Giulia in an attempt to stop Luca from leaving for school.

Both of these scenes represent a fragment of worldbuilding that has seeped into day-to-day life and affects the story.

The first, Alberto’s Tower, represents worldbuilding as a location for storytelling.

The second, Giulia’s Astronomy book, represents worldbuilding as plot point that changes character’s goals and bonds them together - or pushes them apart.

Smaller worldbuilding of an abandoned tower and an astronomy book offered larger plot points of found family, achieving your dreams, and overcoming prejudice.

I have one more example for setting up a scene with worldbuilding. In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Walter has to chase down the legendary photojournalist Sean O'Connell for the missing photo that will be on the cover of the final print issue of Life magazine. The reluctant daydreamer takes a plane to Greenland, joins a drunk helicopter pilot on a supply run, jumps into shark infested waters to board a ship, sails to iceland, skateboards through the countryside as a volcano erupts, and eventually travels to the Afghan Himalayas. Walter hikes up a mountain and finds Sean behind a camera beneath a blanket, who tells him to sit and be still. Sean points out the Snow Leopard he has been trying to capture on camera, and doesn’t want to scare it away.

After the adventuring chaos, it feels like we get to relax and sit in the scene with them. At this point, the reader gets relief from the tension of volcanoes and jumping out of planes, but we also realize that the plot point of meeting Sean O’Connell for the photo is not the real resolution to this story. We also notice how much Walter looks like the adventurous O’Connell, and how different he is compared to himself in the beginning of the movie.

Funnily enough, the snow leopard is the reason behind why this scene is so poignant. In sitting and watching that snow leopard, the reader has the space to breathe and processes how much has changed in the story relative to the past where they didn’t before. It got Sean O’Connell to sit long enough for Walter to find him after an international chase, and forces them to be still and quiet with each other in the moment, setting a good atmosphere for the specific dialogue they exchange. It also gets Walter to self reflect about his own life and goals since he has the space to do so, no longer possessing the velocity and urgency he did getting to this point. One of the most powerful scenes in the entire story is granted due to a Snow Leopard.

I chose these examples for this point because they offer insight into the writing of these moments. Butterbeer is important because it represents a ‘normal’ experience for Hogwarts students, something Harry desperately needs. The Vespa to Alberto represents freedom, but the ability to learn and go to school equally represents freedom for Luca, causing conflict between the characters that ultimately brings them even closer. Photographing a Snow Leopard forces the two characters to be up close and personal, alone in the mountains, at a critical turning point, setting the perfect atmosphere for their conversation. Use your worldbuilding consciously to achieve the right outcome to give more detailed context to your story.

Sometimes your worldbuilding will serve a larger, direct purpose in your story’s narrative.

In the Studio Ghibli movie My Neighbor Totoro, sisters Mei and Satsuki encounter woodland spirits near their house in rural Japan. As they drive to their new home and have first interactions with the the sprites, the way they engage their environment give us distinct impressions of them. Mei, the younger sister, has trouble traversing her environment due to her size, but her curiosity and intense sense of discovery overpower her obstacles; often going headstrong into possibly dangerous situations. Satsuki, the older sister, carries a bit more maturity and responsibility, but retains her playful attitude. She prefers to ask questions and make decisions before moving forward. Even through their encounters with Totoro and Catbus, we see them maintain this feeling of curiosity. Not only does it differentiate the characters in other ways than dialogue, but it also gives us different perspectives to the same story. We’re able to explore the world alongside them, and the exciting discoveries in the worldbuilding pull the characters deeper, molding their interactions and understanding of the world.

In Avatar the Last Airbender, Zuko discovers that he lost his firebending shortly after joining the Gaang. Inspired by Toph’s story of how she learned earthbending from badgermoles and Aang’s history of the Air Nomads learning airbending from flying bison, Aang and Zuko travel to the ruins of an ancient civilization who called themselves the Sun Warriors in an attempt to learn about the original source of firebending. They break into a room which contain various statues that depict a firebending form called the “Dancing Dragon”. Shortly after learning the form, they are captured by the still-flourishing Sun Warrior tribe. They explain that they want to learn the true form of firebending, and undergo a ritual where they carry a portion of the first fire, given to man by the dragons, up a mountain and present it to the true "firebending masters", Ran and Shaw. Two dragons emerge from caves on either side of them, and start flying in circles around them. Zuko and Aang earn the respect of the dragons by performing the Dancing Dragon technique that they learned. The dragons breathe beautiful, multicolored flames around them in response, revealing the true way of firebending. Zuko realizes the reason he lost his firebending was because he had lost his "inner fire". He used to draw his fire from rage and anger, but after he joined the group, he could no longer draw from this source. However, after watching the dragons, he learns that he can draw from the true source, his desire to help bring balance to the world. Aang learns that fire is not destruction, but energy and life, and is able to firebend as well. The moment that stands out the most of this episode, from Iroh being revealed to have saved the dragons instead of killing them, of them breaking into an ancient civilization, is the moment when Zuko says “I understand” while being emersed in flame. At that moment, the ex-antagonist turned protagonist realizes a significant milestone of his development, Aang overcomes his fear of firebending and a significant milestone of his Avatar journey, and with both the elation of dancing with dragons of an ancient civilization. Now, this moment is made possible due to an incredibly strong magic system which the plot is exploring the upper limits of, the history of firebending, and the lore of the dragons. The overlap of this worldbuilding sets up the perfect environment for these character goals and plot points to have a satisfying culmination. If it was done through other means, such as finding a different teacher or some Avatar Spirit breakthrough, it would have been a pulled punch. Ultimately, this becomes a huge moment in the entire series. For their personal lives, for the magic that pervades the cahracters existence, for this moment that brings these recently opposed characters closer together, thats what the worldbuilding sets up for. For that scene. That scene deepens the entire series.

When we look at our worldbuilding, we cannot just create a habitat for characters, or a simple ruleset that the main character will eventually break. We are constructing an environment that will deeply affect the emotions of a scene. We are setting up moments that will impact your character so hard that your reader starts crying along with them.

These are not plot devices that simply enable the characters to fall into place in the plot or development arcs where they have to be, like a macguffin or grandma’s scratchy knitted sweater. These are intentional environments and elements that speak to deeper themes, ideologies, and vitality rooted in your story.

When you begin a story with “It was a dark and stormy night,” there is an immediate tone shift. When a child walks out of the wreckage of a burning hospital clutching a scorched stuffed animal, we feel the rage and horror at the supervillain on the main character’s behalf. When the chaos is done and our two lovers are floating through space in perfect silence, watching million-year-old starlight dance in each other’s eyes, we’re right there with them.

Plan how your natural environment, infrastructure, and other elements affect your world, deeper than a general premise or chekhov’s gun. How is this going to be used in a a scene? How can you go beyond basic exposition? What ideologies and themes do these things communicate? How will your worldbuilding set the atmosphere to effectively bring all the right emotions into a scene? How will your characters react, and what will the reader feel?

It needs to support life, that atmosphere touch, that set up of those deeper characterization in scenes, like Luca or Harry Potter finding a family, or Aang harmonizing his destiny with his personal fears and goals.

Your worldbuilding has to be specifically built to support those small moments. It’s not a stage that supports some elaborate plotline. It is the thread that connects your characters to the plot and both to the reader.