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Have you ever wanted to make your own world? Ever wanted to share a story of your own creation and be able to express it to your peers? Worldbuilding is defined simply as the process of developing a detailed and plausible fictional world for a novel or a story. This process creates the settings and the world around the character, and the importance of this function makes or breaks many of our greatest movies, and stories as we as a reader is sucked into the world of our character as we follow their story. In our final project students used the process of worldbuilding and created their own unique world and we follow them with a short story that describes their world and see three images of mix media portraying their world.
History & Distinction
Worldbuilding has its many artists as any creator of a story can be defined as a worldbuilder. Many examples of worldbuilding are seen in most of our beloved cultural stories. Examples like Avatar, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and so many other films and books. Many artists like Hayao Miyazaki, George Lucas, and J.R.R Tolkien used worldbuilding in many forms and able to use it to describe their stories and movies in different ways. I drew much inspiration from these artist as of how they told their stories and how the detail or lack of detail adds to their story and how it impacts the audience as a whole, and especially work from Hayao Miyazaki was a great inspiration for the workshop. The investigation of writing a short story and understanding the spectrum of worldbuilding were key techniques participants participant needed to learn to understand the premise of worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is used in many careers from artist to professional. From fields like architecture which I major in to fields like theater to video game designers; they all use worldbuilding in a process and how much they tell to show their point. Kameron Hurley points out “I'm not going to tell you how to start a bug-powered vehicle, I'm just going to put you inside one with somebody who knows how, and send you off on a ride.”( Kameron Hurley) These quotes point out the process one goes through when they world build and how they convey that information to the audience as all worldbuilder are storytellers. Through means of visual or descriptive or interactive the story is conveyed to the viewer and they are carried into a different plane of story. The Japanese have a term known as Yugen which means suggested beauty only partially perceived—fully felt but barely glimpsed by the viewer. (Lundgren, Alex) The worlds we create are only ours and ours alone these worlds are a glimpse into ourselves and how others view it we create worlds to escape our own world but it opens up our world to all to enjoy.
Methods
In making this workshop, I wanted to use the aspect of creating art to make worlds as I use my Architecture major to present building that don’t exist and make art to share why this building is the best fit. So I focused on that for the beginning and it led me as in those classes I was told to have a story and share that story to be able to visualize your building. The use of drawings was a prominent activity in those classes so each lesson in class we would start with a warm up on the topic asking what they think the topic means and then move on to a small PowerPoint slide on the topic and what it means, how it works, and examples. Then after that we move on to the activity where we will either write a story or draw images correlating to the topic we discussed and, in the end, we will use a random word generator and create a world using that word. By organizing the class in this structure participants felt an understanding of the lesson of the week and have a solid knowledge of the material, making the class accessible to students of all abilities and experience levels to participate.
In making this workshop, I wanted to use the aspect of creating art to make worlds as I use my Architecture major to present building that don’t exist and make art to share why this building is the best fit. So I focused on that for the beginning and it led me as in those classes I was told to have a story and share that story to be able to visualize your building. The use of drawings was a prominent activity in those classes so each lesson in class we would start with a warm up on the topic asking what they think the topic means and then move on to a small PowerPoint slide on the topic and what it means, how it works, and examples. Then after that we move on to the activity where we will either write a story or draw images correlating to the topic we discussed and, in the end, we will use a random word generator and create a world using that word. By organizing the class in this structure participants felt an understanding of the lesson of the week and have a solid knowledge of the material, making the class accessible to students of all abilities and experience levels to participate.
Since I struggled in the beginning with analyzing the full picture of worldbuilding and the end goal of the process, I have learned how to break it down into smaller pieces through focusing on one aspect at a time: primary worldbuilding, secondary worldbuilding, hard worldbuilding, soft worldbuilding, seed theory, formatting, and writing short stories. A majority of the class is involved in the lesson and the activity following the presentation of the lesson, from which I offer time for misunderstandings, clarification, and discussion to students to guide towards a more solid knowledge of what was taught. Throughout the workshop, I provided many opportunities for participants to provide feedback, activities, and talking points when I couldn’t think or drew a blank. I used this advice and interest to conduct further research into more better topics that students were interested to learn in future lessons. Overall, I gave students a relaxed classroom with a lot of space to make a creative and thinking mood and make the lesson more impactful and enjoyable to all users.
Since I struggled in the beginning with analyzing the full picture of worldbuilding and the end goal of the process, I have learned how to break it down into smaller pieces through focusing on one aspect at a time: primary worldbuilding, secondary worldbuilding, hard worldbuilding, soft worldbuilding, seed theory, formatting, and writing short stories. A majority of the class is involved in the lesson and the activity following the presentation of the lesson, from which I offer time for misunderstandings, clarification, and discussion to students to guide towards a more solid knowledge of what was taught. Throughout the workshop, I provided many opportunities for participants to provide feedback, activities, and talking points when I couldn’t think or drew a blank. I used this advice and interest to conduct further research into more better topics that students were interested to learn in future lessons. Overall, I gave students a relaxed classroom with a lot of space to make a creative and thinking mood and make the lesson more impactful and enjoyable to all users.
Audience & Impact
This workshop mainly targeted the participants from art scholars who participated in the class each week, as well as fellow Art scholars who had interaction with the workshop and has knowledge of the workshop and what is happening in the workshop. This class in general was to form to bring artist together in a common curiosity of worldbuilding and what it brings to the table. The workshop formed around worldbuilding and the lessons were plan to teach the concept and then to try it themselves through practice and creative thinking brought out growth in all participants. The impact this capstone has on me was very significant as of how it taught me to a leader and have people look up to you for answers and being able to be a role model. I have grown significantly as an artist and a scholar as being able to curate, and set up events to have the bigger picture. As a scholar I grew a lot to be a leader and break out of my shell of insecurity and I was able to grow, and wish all the participants to will takes these skills and be able to use them throughout their lives.
This workshop mainly targeted the participants from art scholars who participated in the class each week, as well as fellow Art scholars who had interaction with the workshop and has knowledge of the workshop and what is happening in the workshop. This class in general was to form to bring artist together in a common curiosity of worldbuilding and what it brings to the table. The workshop formed around worldbuilding and the lessons were plan to teach the concept and then to try it themselves through practice and creative thinking brought out growth in all participants. The impact this capstone has on me was very significant as of how it taught me to a leader and have people look up to you for answers and being able to be a role model. I have grown significantly as an artist and a scholar as being able to curate, and set up events to have the bigger picture. As a scholar I grew a lot to be a leader and break out of my shell of insecurity and I was able to grow, and wish all the participants to will takes these skills and be able to use them throughout their lives.
References
Sayings, Famous Quotes &. “Top 17 Worldbuilding Quotes & Sayings.” Famous Quotes & Sayings, https://quotessayings.net/topics/worldbuilding/.
Lundgren, Alex. “What We Convey in What We Don’t Show The Philosophy of Yugen – Can Unclarity Be Valuable in Art?” 2021, https://www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:1631878/FULLTEXT01.pdf. Accessed 7 Oct. 2022.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank everyone in the Arts Scholars program, notably my advisors Harold Burgess, Heather Bremenstuhl, and Gabrielle Robinson-Tillenburg for all of their advice, feedback, and motivation. I would also like to thank my TA Ellen Feng for helping me run each class smoothly and help me with the activities. I also would want to thank all participants in the workshop for being enthusiastic learners and always there every Monday night giving their all and working with me through the hard and easy times. I also want to thank my family, and friends, for their knowledge and support that has helped me compose this workshop. I am sincerely grateful for being able to do this incredible opportunity.
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