World-building vs. Setting

A recent writers workshop conversation surfaced the difference between world-building and setting. To be honest, I’d not thought much about it, but the distinction is important as neither can be neglected and one doesn’t do the work of the other.

World is the place, time, and zeitgeist in which the overall story exists. The author must give the reader the necessary information to understand the world of the story. The world must be built in order for the reader to imagine and move about within the story, to immerse themselves in it. 

Setting is the small-scale locale and context for a scene within a story. Setting allows the reader to fully see action as it occurs. To go to film for a corollary, setting is the framing of a shot where world-building is the time and place in which a film’s story-line occurs.

An example: Adam and Eve.

World: This story takes place at the beginning of human history, in a place called Eden. Eden contains all humanity needs in order to flourish. In Eden there is no evil or immorality inherent in mankind or the environment, yet mankind is granted freewill via a sole dietary rule—a prohibition which suggests there’s an alternative reality at risk.

Note how world-building involves not only place and time, but the metaphysical facts of the story as well—the “rules” of the world in which the story takes place.

Setting: There is a moment in the story called “the fall” in which Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit. This action occurs in Eden, in the shade of a tree called The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fruit of this tree grows in abundance and hangs, readily available for the picking. 

Note how setting focuses on a specific place and point on the timeline of the story.

World and setting. Another aspect of writing fiction that, if done well, is invisible.