Creating a Fictional Universe

Welcome to The World of Worldmillion

Storytellers never set out to create an entire universe full of magic and wonder. Or do they? Fictional universes are a major part of modern day pop culture, acting as the various homes of everyone’s favorite mythical characters. Most of the most famous fictional universes happened by accident; the product of expanding on one hit film that was meant to stand alone. But sometimes creators know what they are getting into. They know that they are creating something bigger than one story. George Lucas only set out to make one movie, Star Wars, and he honestly thought it would fail. He was wrong. Star Wars became the most pivotal cultural phenomenon of the twentieth century. Soon, it was rereleased as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, after Lucas came up with the idea for prequels and sequels. It was a response to the affect the first movie had on the American public. The expanded fictional Star Wars universe was an accident, and my own plan, which is much more detailed and drawn out from beginning to end, also happened by accident. That is what I want to do with my life; tell stories through a fictional universe. I have ten planned novels in the main story arc of the universe, as well as five other novel ideas within that universe. Oh and three prequel novels. Telling my story is all about building my universe, and I understand that right from the very beginning. Fictional universes are planned out in different ways, but building those universes revolves around telling a story and creating characters that people love.

Fictional universes exist in every single story ever told, that was not the truth. Literally every work of fiction takes place within a made up world created by the author. Authors have to build a world for their characters to exist in, and sometimes they do not want their world to be a mirror image of the real world. That is why deep fictional universes arise. Every genre, even realist fiction, can take place in a false reality. Yoknapatawpha county Mississippi only exists within the novels of William Faulkner, and the town of Jefferson along with it. Faulkner created this world so that he could tell stories about the south as a whole, rather than any specific county from the real world. I could write a whole paper on Faulkner... in fact I actually have to. I should probably get started on that, but this is more fun...

Other genres of unearthly-concept fiction, such as sci-fi and fantasy, have a greater opportunity to build whole universes, literally, rather than just the creation of one county. Sci-fi and fantasy are in the position to bring about universes that are incredibly huge in scope. The story of how one of the most impactful fictional universes in popular culture came into existence is important if you wish to understand the process behind how these false realities manifest themselves. That story, is the story of Star Wars.

Sometime in the mid 1970’s, a young George Lucas had just released his first Hollywood movie, American Graffiti, and he was aspiring to create something new. Star Wars had been in Lucas’ mind for years, and backers in Hollywood even signed off on it before Graffiti was released. Lucas was so desperate for his movie to be made that even after the success of Graffiti, he still had to pull some strings to get it done. Lucas did something that was the single smartest move he ever made as a human being, but was at the time the worst possible thing for anyone to ever do. Lucas signed a deal that gave him merchandising rights to the Star Wars film, rather than being paid a regular salary. At the time, film merchandising was virtually nonexistent, but Star Wars literally changed all of that. The astronomical success of the first Star Wars gave someone the bright idea of making 3.75 inch dolls based on the characters in the film. Action figures were born. The deal to create them was not signed until after the film was released, so the action figures came out a while later. Star Wars was so successful and was making so much money that companies of all types were shelling out cash to put Star Wars characters on their cereal boxes and bed sheets. From the very beginning, Lucas was creating a universe, but he did not expect so much success. Merchandising made him so much money that he was able to finance his own sequel to the first movie, and thus the Star Wars fictional universe was born. Lucas immediately had ideas for two sequels and three prequels. He knew the prequels would be too difficult to make, so he put those off, but the original two sequels came right away.

While making the first Star Wars, Lucas was indeed building a universe, as all high-genre storytellers must, but it was not just the story he was building, it was the world. He was not thinking about what the next movie was going to be about, he was focussed on why his protagonists are fighting, and what their world looks like, and the story that all those looks tell. Lucas wanted the universe to look “lived in” (Conrad), opting for space ships with cracks and damage and that looked like they were thrown together in a junkyard. This reinforces the rag-tag look of the good guys, the Rebel Alliance, who were meant to be the underdogs working with whatever they could get their hands on. This is all deep universe building, but it is very self-contained. Lucas was focussed on one story, but he was deeply understanding of everything that was going on in that story. Every ship told a story, every set piece had a purpose.

Worldmillion is the dream. For me, creating a universe goes much further. I am focussed on ten stories, each one able to stand on its own but at the same time part of a greater picture. I am building my universe, which I call Worldmillion, from beginning to end before I release it to the world in whatever form that may take. I do have the whole thing planned out, but it all happened much the same way Star Wars did, albeit without the millions of dollars. Basically, I set out to write one story in 2009, called The Chronicles of Max Delta. It was a forty page short story that had characters and twists and a deep universe that I cultivated. It was a high-concept science fiction piece that takes place on a planet far from here, with a group of humans who have forgotten the world they once knew. Max Delta lives in a great city that covers half a continent. He adventures into the woods beyond the city to find a journey that takes him to places no mortal has ever been.

Then I came up with an idea for something that could come before Chronicles, and then two more stories, and then six more after it. Max developed as a character and took on many forms before becoming a god. The science fiction blends into fantasy, making it science fantasy. Science fantasy that spans a million years and accross thousands of galaxies. I built a story arc that spans over a million years and goes through many stylistic changes. It evolves, it falls; it is different in every novel. I did not set out to create a fictional universe, I set out to write a single short story, and then it evolved from there. I discovered something in that one short story and it quickly grew to fifteen novels. Because of that, I am able to have everything planned out before releasing it. This is so different from how other fictional universes are created, and it is mostly because I was too scared or lazy to try to get it published right away. But I had just started college when my universe began to take form, so that just was not my plan.

George Lucas was an established filmmaker in the 1970’s. He had the connections and the resources to get movies made, so when he had the idea for Star Wars, he was able to tell that story without having time for universe building. He did not have time to think about the prequels before releasing Star Wars, so the Star Wars universe came about in a much different way to what I have done. There is a reason why he held back: he did not know if the movie would be successful. My first novel is a self contained story, just in case it tanks and everyone hates it. If that happens, I move on to the next story. If people like it then I will have so much more for them than they could possibly imagine.

For George Lucas, millions of dollars and a fanbase that has never been matched meant a fictional universe was to be expected. Within the decades after the Star Wars movies came out, comic books, novels, video games, and other media fed the universe, expanding it to lengths Lucas never could have imagined. Star Wars now has a universe with legends that occur over the course of over two thousand years and there are countless characters, and stories being told in every way imaginable. For Lucas, this all happened in the public eye. But for me, I was able to plan it all out before anyone ever even knew about it. I will not only have one novel to put out, like Lucas had one movie. I will have ten. I know where my universe is going right from the beginning. I will not be making it up as I go, as is the traditional path, I will be following a plan that all makes sense. This allows me to reference my tenth novel in my first novel, and set up my eighth novel with my third novel, all in extremely subtle ways, but ways that make sense. I want readers to read one novel and say “hey, that answers a question from that other novel.” I want the universe to evolve and change but all according to a design I have already established.

This is convenient, but as my mind is never settled with anything, this is all subject to change. I know the story of the ten novels as of now, but if releasing them has any affect on any type of fanbase, then maybe their reactions will set up a new path for my universe. The point is that every individual story will have a deeper meaning than what is present. They will all be part of a greater whole. Even if the first novel fails, I still have the second one which could act on its own. Even if that fails, the third novel takes place much later and the universe looks different, but the story will be self-contained. I know I am not going to fail. I know that I am going to go far with this, but I need to stay realistic and not get disappointed in the crazy chance that I do not do well. The first two novels would not matter if the third one does well, then I can just take it from there. I say I have it all planned out, but things do not always go as planned. I know that, and apparently George Lucas knows that.

After the initial success of Star Wars, Lucas saw a potential love story between Luke and Leia, the two main... do I really have to explain Star Wars? Fine. Luke and Leia are the male and female lead of the movies, and contrary to Lucas’ initial beliefs, the two ended up being brother and sister. They smooch in the first movie and full-on kiss in the second one. Then by the third one they were brother and sister. Lucas knew by the second movie that Luke would have a sister, but after he decided against making further movies where Luke would find her, decided to just make her Leia in the third movie. Things do not always go as planned, even if you think you have it all planned out.

So why do we create fictional universes? In high-genre literature like science fiction and fantasy, it is just as important to build a world for characters to inhabit as is creating the characters themselves. Obviously every genre has fictional universes, but in sci-fi and fantasy the limitations are nonexistent. Characters and their emotions throughout the story are what is most important, but if a filmmaker places a movie in a galaxy far, far away or on a version of Earth with orcs and elves, then it is important for that world to make sense. It is important to create alien races, planets, technology, weapons, and other things that make the viewer realize what they are seeing is not of our real world. I created all of this for my own false reality of Worldmillion. Deep fictional universes allow storytellers to create a setting that is powerful and interesting while it supports the characters and the plot. Fictional universes are a way to create a world completely different than the real world. They do not always need to be deep. In realist fiction, unless you are Faulkner or any other high-scope realist fiction author, the fictional universe in which the story takes place might just be our reality, but these events happen to take place in it. The “Everybody Loves Raymond” fictional universe is a reality where the only difference from our real world is that Ray Romano is funny.

As I started writing my short story The Chronicles of Max Delta, I opened a gateway into the universe where Max Delta lived. I found a method of physically travelling to Worldmillion. I discovered something greater than one story, just by thinking about what else might happen in that world. Why were Max Delta’s chronicles so much more important than any other schmo on that fictional world he lived on? What was behind his motivations? In Star Wars, why were the Rebels fighting the Galactic Empire in Star Wars? Why did the rebels have home-made ships while the empire had moons that blew up planets? All of these questions are answered by creating a deep fictional universe, where events can happen that explain how things came to be.

When storytellers answer one question, another one comes up, and the universe expands. For George Lucas, he was able to tell a single story in the form of Star Wars, and thanks to its popularity was able to expand his universe. I was able to expand my universe from the very beginning, because rather than trying to focus on getting one story published, I focussed on schoolwork. While I was focussing on schoolwork, my universe expanded from one story. I got carried away with creating that world and coming up with the characters and stories that inhabit it. I got caught up in how it all began, and how it will all end. Now that I have completed the first novel, and school is almost over, I believe it is about time I start trying. Or start doing, as George Lucas might put it. Now I must face rejection the way Lucas did, and I must endure if I want my story to be told. Lucas opted to fund the first Star Wars with a bank loan after being rejected so many times, and it paid off a billion times over. Maybe if I get rejected I will have an opportunity to take that risk and self publish. I want my story to be told. I want people to be able to escape to my universe that I have fully fleshed out. I want this universe to mean something to other people. The characters will be the overall influence of the story, but without creating alien races and planets and rules about magic, there would be nowhere for them to fit in in Worldmillion. I hope to see this go far, but I have so many other passions that if it fails I will have things to fall back on. I cannot expect to succeed with my universe the way Lucas has with Star Wars, but it is a hope that I can stride for. I have the ability to do some really cool things, but I cannot kid myself, and must remain grounded. Grounded though I am, I am more confident that this will be successful than anything else I have ever done. But failure would not lead to disappointment, it would lead to model making for movies; or action figure design; or tattooing; or conceptual artistry... I could really do anything cool if my fictional universe does not work out. I have the talent to draw and sculpt and craft and build. But none of that means more to me than sharing my fictional universe and the characters within it with the world. Nothing would mean more to me than to have Worldmillion up there with the Star Wars universe and the many other universes of pop culture.

Work Cited

Conrad, William. "The Making of Star Wars ...as Told by C-3PO and R2-D2." Lucasfilm Ltd and 20th Century Fox Television,, 1977. Video.