Does the complexity of worldbuilding preclude the freedom of writing from the heart? An interesting question, posed last Saturday during a panel at the Cape Fear Crime Festival in Wilmington, NC.

At first glance, the task of linking technical details for worldbuilding looks daunting. I know this because my current, published series is historical suspense and mystery, and before that series, I’d written a contemporary crime fiction series and a science fiction series. Altogether, I’ve completed fourteen novel-length manuscripts.

Development of my characters drives my plots. When I write from the heart, I’m open to spontaneity, the unexpected. All I need to get rolling is a few benchmarks for my storyline. I turn my characters loose early in the first draft, and they find their way, growing and changing, past those benchmarks, to the end. Although I do incorporate some plotting, I’m much more of a “pantser.”

Consider the following facts, pulled from data that comprise the worldbuilding for each of my three series:

• Crown forces, the 82nd Regiment of Foot, occupied Wilmington, NC from January until November of 1781.
• Procedures that local law enforcement agencies follow when a murder is involved differ from those followed by state agencies.
• The rocky planet of a Class G star just a little bigger than our sun must orbit out farther than 93 million miles to confer Earthlike conditions on the planet.

To me, worldbuilding components create an essential core — like a set of immovable system files on a computer’s hard drive. Those files must reside there, or the computer won’t operate. True, the files dictate what type of operating system the computer runs as well as what version of software programs the computer handles. To a small extent, that restricts my options.

But how I populate the remaining space of the hard drive, given the parameters of my computer’s system, is entirely up to me. A large enough hard drive holds many, many application programs.

Likewise, a large enough world vision holds many, many stories. The greater your imagination, the smaller the worldbuilding slice becomes in your overall vision of the “pie.”

Worldbuilding performed properly permits you the freedom to write in ways others cannot about inflammatory issues that score you deeply. It also allows you opportunities to explore unique characterizations, cultural permutations, and plot conflicts. Here’s how all that plays out for each worldbuilding fact that I listed above:

• The Continental Army’s effectiveness in North Carolina is stymied for the year 1781, allowing redcoats to control the state.
• Territorial spats erupt between two representatives of the local and state law enforcement agencies.
• Warfare practices and religious rituals evolve that are based on the planet’s longer year and longer seasons.

In each situation, do you see how much room there is for spontaneity, the unexpected? Worldbuilding establishes certain plot elements as a baseline for me, so I don’t have to worry about those elements. Far from restricting my creativity, worldbuilding frees my imagination to do what it does best: develop my characters.

Worldbuilding doesn’t preclude writing from the heart. It enhances it.