In my writer’s group, you can always count on one member to come out with a particular kind of question. “How many people live in this village?” “How do ghosts work in this world?” “What kind of propulsion system does this spaceship have?”
No shade, by the way – these are great questions that really make you think, and having a deep understanding of the world of your novel is what is going to make it feel real.
At the same time, though, overthinking about the minute details can be a one-way trip to writer’s block town – and absolutely no-one wants to go there.
There are two things to think about:
- How much do you, the writer, need to know
- How much does your reader need to know
These are not the same thing!
As the writer, you need to know way more about every part of your novel than will ever get put on the page. Whether that’s your characters, the value of their home, the name of that person that just sold your character an apple… Your reader doesn’t need to know.
But in general terms, you do. I’m not saying that you need to make a tragic backstory for that apple seller. But I am saying that you need to have an idea of the economic status of your characters, which will inform what kind of house they live in, and many other areas of their lives. And to take that into a wider view, how does their economic status compare to the other characters, and the world at large? Because that sort of thing can affect the plot. It can BE the plot.
Think about it – if your character is the only rich person in a poor town maybe the resentment among the common folk starts a riot, which causes your character to go on a soul-searching journey.
With this example, you’re not going to need to know the exact dollar amount your character has – and your readers certainly don’t. It’s worthwhile, though, to think about it in broader strokes – are they in the one percent, for example.
Your character sits within their world, and are affected by it, so think about what you need to know. Then think about what your reader needs to know – these are the things that inform them about who your character is as a person, how the world affects them, how they affect the world.