Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation

by Mark J.P. Wolf

Mark J.P. Wolf's study of imaginary worlds theorizes world-building within and across media, including literature, comics, film, radio, television, board games, video games, the Internet, and more. Building Imaginary Worlds departs from prior approaches to imaginary worlds that focused mainly on narrative, medium, or genre, and instead considers imaginary worlds as dynamic entities in and of themselves. Wolf argues that imaginary worlds-which are often transnarrative, transmedial, and transauthorial in nature-are compelling objects of inquiry for Media Studies. Chapters touch a theoretical analysis of how world-building extends beyond storytelling, the engagement of the audience, and the way worlds are conceptualized and experienceda history of imaginary worlds that follows their development over three millennia from the fictional islands of Homer's Odyssey to the presentinternarrative theory examining how narratives set in the same world can interact and relate to one anotheran examination of transmedial growth and adaptation, and what happens when worlds make the jump between mediaan analysis of the transauthorial nature of imaginary worlds, the resulting concentric circles of authorship, and related topics of canonicity, participatory worlds, and subcreation's relationship with divine CreationBuilding Imaginary Worlds also provides the scholar of imaginary worlds with a glossary of terms and a detailed timeline that spans three millennia and more than 1,400 imaginary worlds, listing their names, creators, and the works in which they first appeared.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing, Games, Theory, Academics, Reference

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Mark J. P. Wolf is Professor in the Communication Department at Concordia University Wisconsin.

Reviews

[Diz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a how-to writing book, but rather an academic overview of created worlds and the elements that go into creating these worlds. It covers a wide variety of material from classical literature, fantasy, science fiction, and pop culture. If you're doing any research in the areas of fantasy or science fiction, then this book would be a useful one to have in your library. Of particular interest to me was the chapter on secondary world infrastructures. Using the ideas from that chapter would make it easy to describe why a fictional world feels real.

[John Carter McKnight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Building Imaginary Worlds is a valuable entry into the study of fictive and transmedial worlds - provided one sees it as occupying a particular place on the shelf of key works.

Both the "building" and "theory" in the title and subtitle are a bit misleading. The book is of only secondary utility for someone interested in building an imaginary world: it is definitely not a how-to worldbuilding guide, though its extensive schemas of categorization and classification may spark ideas in a creator.

It is also not particularly theoretical, though it makes an important contribution in rejecting, and explaining exhaustively reasons for rejecting, narratology as a theoretical tool for studying worlds. In this sense, its utility can't be overstressed: to the extent that narratologists still reign, they tend to see good worldbuilding as flawed narrative, missing the point.

The book's great strength is in its exhaustive history of worldbuilding up to about 1995: what in many books is canned history (Plato blah blah blah Sir Thomas More blah blah Burroughs blah blah blah) here is both more exhaustive and more engaging.

I would have preferred a work more heavily weighted to the present era, but that goes back to my opening point: Wolf is no Henry Jenkins, and this book should be read along with Jenkins' Convergence Culture and Saler's As If, as Wolf skews towards older examples and to a tight focus on authorial worlds, rather than fan/audience co-creation, in part because of his theological perspective of worldbuilding as an example of Man being created in God's image.

Mostly Wolf's biases are matters of selection and focus, and thus position his work as a useful companion to Jenkins and Saler. However, his relative ignorance of games and MMOs can lead to some flat-out errors, as repeated misstatements about MMOs indicate. Wolf mostly sticks to his turf and does well with it; off that turf, he can mis-step.

In all, well worth reading for humanities students of worldbuilding, if taken with counterbalancing works; possibly thought-provoking for creators in any medium.

[Boogie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An academic take on how fictional worlds are (sub)created by their authors. It's not a guide on how to write a book but rather how to read fiction and how fantasy worlds are connected to the real world.
I liked this one for two reasons. It's a good book on history if you're interested in works of human imagination through time. The second reason is that it contains a lot of references to many works of fiction and captures the essence of what's fascinating about each one of them.

[Nicoleta Faina · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Mark J.P. Wolf creates a study of imaginary worlds. He theorizes world-building within and across media, including literature, comics, film, radio, television, board games, video games, the Internet, and more. Wolf argues that imaginary worlds which are often transnarrative, transmedial, and transauthorial in nature are compelling objects of inquiry for Media Studies.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the amount of references to literally hundreds of fictional settings to help illustrate points on worldbuilding concepts. Even complex ideas were explained clearly and effectively. Defo the go-to textbook on contemporary worldbuilding. Served as the backbone of my undergrad thesis.

[Renata Candeias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really happy to have bought this book, since it gave me some clues on how to build an imaginary world for my thesis and plus all the references regarding world building. Huge help!

[Finn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some interesting stuff about subcreation but got weird and over the top with the god stuff at the end

[Jonathan Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magnificent and thorough work on imaginary worlds. Certainly start here if this scholarship is interesting to you!

[Maggy L · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beauty of creation

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent entry to the theorisation on imaginary worlds, very well researched and supported. The best comes from following an approach based in environments instead of based in narrative, but also the worst comes from that side also, because investing all in the environments makes you forget about characters.

Wolf is well known for his pioneer work on video games, this time it goes more in depth and presents a book that serves not only games, but also virtual worlds, and more than that all the new transmedia and cross-media projects that keep inundating the media landscape. Thus the book is highly sound and relevant for the current state of research in all the domains of storytelling.

I would prefer a less theoretical book, not based in software also, but more visual, able to show and present the overall relevant concepts, instead of the in depth textual descriptions.

[Alex Matzkeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I did find the book as a whole a very good read, especially the first two sections, I think it misses out a little bit on thinking beyond a simple descriptive categorization of world-building. Since the examples of Wolf's narrative and authorial categories are usually drawn from a small number of worlds (mostly Middle-Earth, Star Wars and Myst), the book does little to explain what all these categories do with the material, what effect they have on the audience. Maybe this was not what the book set out to do, but I certainly had hoped for it after the promising introduction. It will now fall to other writers to use Wolf's categories to interpret worlds in meaningful ways.

[Joe Frisino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful but overly reliant on literature, especially Tolkien, for examples (not to in any way disparage Tolkien). Wished there was much greater emphasis on modern gaming worlds which, IMHO, are pushing quality and variety of "imaginary worlds" into new, exciting directions.

[Alain Thys]

It's a nice introduction to the concept, yet a bit too academic for my practical/pragmatic taste (nothing wrong with being academic, just not my thing)

[Linnie Leavines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, comprehensive book on this subject. As someone who would like to "subcreate," I found this very useful and inspiring.

[Micha · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most well researched books on and best tools for world building I've come across. This book inspired many stories from me. I look forward to more from Mr. Wolf.

[Emmawho97 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read if you're interested in how one shapes and builds imaginary worlds