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I am a planner in the extreme. I tend to drift toward fantasy oriented novels when writing; it's just what comes out. This means that I do quite a bit of planning for the world that the story will be set in. I know that's not a bad thing, but I have noticed that I have a tendency to get bogged down in specific events - especially historical events. I'll find myself describing entire battles or diplomatic missions or even important local events as though they were the story itself - and almost none of that is ever going to even show up in the story!
I really enjoy that preparation, but eventually my notes become so unwieldy, it's hard to actually sit down and write the story while keeping it all straight. Not to mention that it's kind of wasting time when I could be writing.
My questions are: Is there a helpful way to gauge when "enough is enough"? How do I put an end to this world builder's syndrome I've got? Or at least keep it in check? Does anyone have any advice on how know when it might be necessary to do some more fleshed-out preparation and when it's just wasting time (and accumulating too many notes)?
By the way, my average preparation results in something on the order of 150,000+ words (the most I've ever written is 300,000). In other words, I consistently find myself writing a novel before I even write my novel. And I know it's hindering more than helping me. I just don't even realize I'm doing it most of the time until it's too late.
[And, of course, less than a month after asking this question, there is a wonderful post which answers most all of my questions on Patricia Wrede's blog: pcwrede.com/blog/obsessive-overbuilding/ - it is well worth reading if you're interested in this topic.]
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How does it relate?
Don't write things that aren't teaching you something, or things that aren't progressing your book.
But these scenes you're describing are related to your book. The question you have to ask yourself is how. How is that skirmish tied into events in your book? Why does the curse-born princess of a bygone age matter 200 years past her death? Give just enough detail in these scenes to provide an answer.
If you can't answer that, then it's not related to your book. And if it's not related to your book, it has to be a challenge to make you a better writer. And if it's neither, you're playing.
That's not to say that play is a bad thing. However, playing under the pretense that you're working is.
I think you've pretty much identified the solution yourself: You have to know when to stop.
I think it's good when a story has enough texture to it that it feels like real people in a real world. Every now and then I read a story that has some allusions to things that happened before page 1, and it strikes me that in many stories, it seems like history began with page 1 of the book. Apparently nothing of important happened before the book began, none of the characters had lives or did anything worth mentioning, etc.
But yeah. If you're trying to create a backstory for your fantasy world, it can be good to sketch out a past history so that your story is consistent and coherent. You might want to say, "350 years after the Great Migration, Fwacbar and Tionack fought w war that ravaged both nations and left them hating each other for generations after, but neither had the strength to destroy the other." Maybe there's some value in deciding what the biggest battles or the greatest heroes were. But coming up with a detailed timeline of every battle fought, the names of the units involved, how many soldiers on each side were killed, listing where each dead soldier was buried, who attended the funeral, etc, is almost surely unnecessary. If when you actually write the story you find it necessary to name one particular soldier killed in the war and to discuss what happened to his family, you can surely make that up as you go along.
The problem with Tolkien is that he wrote a fantasy land without it being explicitly a basis for a novel - the novel came out of it, almost accidentally. That is not a good way to go if you do not have another job that allows you to do that.
The other side is that, if you are working on a series of novels, then the stuff you work on now may end up very useful in another novel. it is not wasted, it might inspire something else, or it might never be used, but provide depth to your work anyway.
You may spend 50K words and many hours on a scene that ends up with an oblique reference in one sentence. But it will be a right and relevant reference.
You may spend the same time and realise that you can work this into an entire novel.
So enjoy making the world real. You seem to be writing enough anyway, so lose yourself in it, because the more you believe it, the more your readers will.
Many writers - all too many, in fact - have the exact opposite problem; their worlds are undeveloped.
Find such a writer, and team up! There are many successful novels written by more than one author (take Dragonlance, for example).
Perhaps you need to play to your strength: building detailed settings. You sound like someone who could build quite a career with franchises built around your storyworlds... and in a world where transmedia entertainment is rapidly becoming the standard model, this is an advantage, believe me.
So... build your worlds. In fact, always be building your worlds. At a certain point, expose them to the public and invite others to create content with your storyworld as the setting. Publish the results.
I wrote about this in a guest blog post for the Dead Robots Society podcast, if you're interested.
my average preparation results in something on the order of 150,000+ words (the most I've ever written is 300,000). In other words, I consistently find myself writing a novel before I even write my novel.
Dude, that is so freaking awesome.
Haven't you pretty much answered your own question? You think of the 150,000 words as "notes," thus freeing yourself lavish care and attention and all of your imaginative energy on them. Since, being merely notes, they have a sort second-rate status -- not real writing -- there's no anxiety attached to them or to the process of writing them and you can go wild.
In the end, perhaps, the notes become the novel.
Some people like just reading about fictional worlds. Most readers care about people they can relate to. Your problem is to make people who live in these immense worlds you write about characters people can relate to who are reading in this world.
If you limit yourself in terms of handing out information to the bare minimum to let an audience understand why we should care about character x's situation and motivation that should help draw a line between what is necessary and what is indulgent.
Of course that does depend what you are trying to achieve through your writing but it seems you want a good, honest fantasy adventure yarn. In which case sympathetic characters are a must.
Reuse the worlds! Force yourself to write novels within the worlds you have created until the number of background pages is eclipsed by the number of story pages. Surely that much detail will give you more than one story. Let the stories be unrelated, you don't have to write a series, just stay on the same planet/in the same universe.
This has the additional benefit of allowing readers to be shown the rules one time and then never have to be told again. Specific examples include using Tolken elves, dwarves, etc. without having to explain what it means to be an elf/dwarf.
credit => Nathan C. Tresch
If you're still getting novels written, and don't have a pressing need to write them faster, I'd just go with what you're doing. Make the world real to you, and it'll show up in the story. Have maps (just don't be afraid to mess with them as needed) and backstory.
One of the things that stands out in Tolkien's work is the feel that Middle-Earth is a real place, and that is because of all the back story he did. You may not be as good a writer (most people aren't), but you can still emulate some of the good stuff he did. Another fantasy writer who had a truly extensive background is M.A.R. Barker.
Having more details than you need, is not a bad thing per se. Many writers do that, and it often leads to an authentic world, even if the reader isn't aware of all these details. It is especially helpful, if you plan a long series of books for the same world.
But you are describing procrastination. You do not want to start, so you do other things, which seem more important. That's how I find the time to clean my bathroom. It's a useful thing to do, but the truth is, you are deferring your real work: writing.
I have two suggestions for your situation:
Short term approach: Despotic rule: Start writing your novels without any rules. Play the capricious Almighty of your fantasy world and make rules up as you go. If you have become obsessed with one thing, try the complete opposite approach. Then hopefully you find the middle course yourself.
Long term approach: There are a lot of books out there dealing with procrastination. Pick one (and only one; do not read one after the other; that's procrastination again). Look at the advice and take out of the book what you need. There will be no single book, which is exactly suitable for your situation. They are only useful to give you some ideas, how to get back to work. (If you have no idea, which book you should take: "Getting Things done" is one of the most popular - meritedly or not).
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