World Building?

So does anyone have any tips, recs or resources that help with world building? Specifically for smut verses? I am not sure if there is a general world building thread here yet so I just kinda wanted to make one to chat more about it as I am at the point in my writing journey that I want to weave my stories into a fuller world and expand them. Just having a bit of trouble finding ways to do that and still keep the stories sexy, yknow? Eager to hear what other folk have to share on this topic!

I have not done much world building with my erotica. I'll sometimes imply things about the setting but since most of my stories are standalones, there isn't much worldbuilding. Even in my one trilogy (Angel of Love), I really only developed the church which is a key part of the story. Beyond that, it's just "in Eversham". I used to do more under my old profile, with characters from one story showing up in others and that sort of thing. I still use my fictitious Ontario city of Eversham but haven't done much to really develop it on "paper". I guess if you went through all the stories, new and old, set there, you might be able to build a rough picture of the place. Or just look up places like London and Chatham in Ontario that are kind of where it comes from. I have had ideas in the past for stories that go deeper into its history, its underworld, and that sort of thing but most of those would go to StoriesSpace. There's a story there, for instance, about two mayoralty candidates in a local election who have a past together.

It depends on what you want to achieve in building a 'world,' Luce. A world can be a huge, complex, planet-sized place, or it might be a single, largely bare room. But, to my mind, the entire story has to take place there. The state of the 'world' can set the tone, vibe, and mood of the story or it might be used as a complete contrast to your characters. In your 'world' you might consider : light and shade, weather, temperature, topography, colour palette, the locals, the vegetation, etc. The 'world' can become another character if you make constant reference to it or if it affects the action. You can also build the world as you go along - like the sun coming up on a landscape, with things gradually coming into focus. As an example from my own work, I recommend the opening paragraphs of my story 'Nekomusume' - set on a dangerous alien planet where humanity has a foothold.

Quote by Seeker4
Or just look up places like London and Chatham in Ontario that are kind of where it comes from.

That takes me back to my college days traveling back and forth between Windsor and Toronto on the train or driving the 401. Worst strip club I ever went to was in London. Run down place in a run down neighborhood full of run down people and old ugly strippers you wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole - But it was still a great adventure with my friends. Fond memories.

As for the OP -

Most of my stories are linked to the fictional school, "Clinton State University," and the town that orbits it, Clinton City. I picked the name Clinton, because there are towns called Clinton in most states, so it could be anywhere and has jumped around geographically depending on what I needed at the time. However, the university setting works because of the possibilities for different people from different backgrounds to come together. You've got high-ranking high-paid administration, faculty of various fields, students, athletes, nerds, stoners, frat bros ad sorority girls, international students, janitorial staff, researchers researching whatever crazy thing you can think of, etc. etc. I've spent some time at a number of schools in Canada and the US, so it's generally a familiar setting for me, as it is, I think, for most people. We know what a college campus is like, even if we haven't seen this one specifically. But really, it's just a name I keep reusing. It's not like I've got a map of the campus sketched out on my wall, and so far I haven't done any call-backs for characters from one story to the next. It was just convenient not to have to think up a new name for the setting for every story. Likewise, I decided to name all my protagonists "Justin Guillenot" ('Just a guy you know', get it?) even though they aren't the same character, or related in any way. The CSU-niverse isn't very different from our own, so there's not too much 'world building' involved, but I do follow some porn-tropes. Primarily, no one wears a condom, but no one gets pregnant and STDs aren't a thing. As world-building goes, it's pretty half-assed, but it does what I need it to do for my stories, so I'm good with it.

Unless you're getting into fantasy or sci-fi 'other worlds,' I wouldn't overthink it. There are a lot of authors who get too bogged down in the details of their world building that it distracts from the story. Tolkien had that problem at times (No, we don't need to hear another fucking Dwarven drinking song). As creative as you want to get with your world building, it should still be a world the reader can inhabit that makes sense to them. It should feel familiar - wonderful or terrifying, sure, but also accessible. The 'alien' stuff should be relatable, so the reader can say 'ah, this is like that.' The glorpulon on Jafari-8 might be an alien creature, but it behaves just like a dog. As a reader, I've got an existing schema for dogs, so I can map the glorpulon on to that - It's wet and slimy, hovers three inches off the ground, and has seven eyeballs on long stalks that get tangled up when it gets excited, but it's a loyal and intelligent pet, like a dog. Okay, got it. Readers can do a lot of the 'world building' work themselves based on what they know, if you allow them. However, the further away you take the reader from the world they know, the more difficult it is for them to imagine this new world, and the more work you'll need to do to bring them to it. Try not to bite off more than you can chew.

If I can offer a totally different perspective... I wouldn't bother. I struggled forever to write a sci-fi story because I kept getting bogged down in the world-building. When I finally just let go of that, I ended up winning an EP award. In my experience, most readers don't really care too much about that stuff, and most of the time as a writer you can reference things without having to fully explain it and just trust the reader to get what they need from the reference just from context clues. If it's done right, instead of bloating the story with exposition that usually doesn't have much of a payoff, you can be more subtle, mention things, places, events, etc without loads of explanation and let the reader engage with your story and fill in the blanks with their imagination.

I recently wrote a story called "The Score" and the inciting incident - the whole reason why the story exists - is mentioned, but never explained. I just peppered the story with enough context clues so readers could understand that "this" was happening because of "that" - and the details of "that" don't matter. I went into it in earlier drafts. It was cool and clever (it was an Ocean's 11-style casino heist gone wrong) and I thought I had a final version of the story that included it...but I realized it became a better story with better pacing when I just cut it out.

I reduced that whole heist scene that was about 700 words down to a few lines like:

“You know I’m going to stop you, right?”

She didn’t have to look. She knew it was Nathan.

“I know you’re going to try,” she said. “But this won’t be like Monaco.”

“Still bitter about that?”

“It was a rare win for you. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Then Later:

“Not so fast,” she said. “You still owe me for Monaco.”

“That was professional. This is personal,” he said.

I never explain it, never even call it a heist... they just refer to something that happened in Monaco, and the readers understand that it caused a rift between the two characters - because ultimately, that's all that mattered. The details (as cool as they were, as much as I loved them) didn't matter.

Um, damn. Grey covered most of it, tbh.

Elmore Leonard has this thing where he says leave out the parts that people don't care to read. As Grey said, just pepper bits about the world as you tell the story, but don't waste your or readers' time with over descriptions of systems that will make people tune out.

I feel like I've done this as what I call 'quick and dirty' world building, but if I am weaving stories together its a lot of note keeping to build a larger world so it makes more cohesive sense? like building a world for a series if that makes sense? as I'm trying to weave my stories into a greater Devlin-verse as it were.

I make sure the details are consistent across stories, such as the things different characters say when they orgasm. (X says "Oh fuck!", Y says "Daaamn!", etc.) Sometimes I put too much thought into my world but (as mentioned above by others) I stopped having my narrator provide infodumps after my first handful of stories. I know that Wanda's birthday needs to be in September because her car was at the mechanic for its annual inspection, and in New Hampshire your vehicle's registration needs to be renewed during your birth month, but I wisely avoided including that information in the story. (Now it's buried in a forum post instead. 😅) But my semi-fictional version of Ossipee, NH has internal consistency from 1968 to 1988 because that's how my mind works and it would drive me nuts if it was too vague.