Does size matter in fiction? How big should your fictional world be?

Let’s talk about Harry Potter.

I like it. Not in an obsessive way. I don’t read fanfiction or pretend to be Dobby on the weekends, but I have a huge respect for its story and success. That said, I’m still able to recognise some of its faults.

One of the biggest gripes that I’ve always had with the series is that I don’t think it understands its dimensions. I don’t think J. K. Rowling understood the implications of introducing new schools in the Goblet of Fire, and how it stood to change the fabric of the world that she had been crafting.

And don’t get it twisted, GoF is in my top three:

1. Prisoner of Azkaban.

2. Goblet of Fire.

3. Philosopher’s Stone.

Controversial, I know.

Whilst it was nice to have each of the schools get together for a completely harmless game of kill the underage wizard in the most creative way possible it also changed the entire scope of the wizarding world and likely brought about more questions than it was worth. The most important being “Where were they when Voldemort was killing everyone at the end?”

And sure, there are likely answers to the question somewhere, but the fact remains that the inclusion of more schools is not accounted for in the broader sense of things when you look at the world-building of Harry Potter. It just isn’t.

But scope is the real deal.

I’m not just here to point fingers at J.K. Rowling.

Understanding scope is a very legitimate struggle when writing fiction (especially anything that is speculative) because we don’t often consider the entire depth of everything we might go on to create when we sit down to write something.

Having a story in your head is so many steps away from knowing the world that it belongs within. It is something that has kept me world-building for over two years without seriously being able to put pen to paper.

I’ll get a chapter here or there, but then the scope changes and it’s back to square -4 and I hit a writing slump for a month or so. And despite feeling like I’m finally closing in on the understanding necessary for me to start writing again, there always seems to be something else lurking in the shadows.

But there is something important that I need to remember...

I’m the one creating the shadows.

The scope of my stories (and yours too) is decided by me (or you).

I don’t stop because I hit a wall (most of the time), it’s instead because I want more. I want my ideas to be grander, to have a higher purpose, to connect to more in my work.

That is my personal goal, and I have to live with the consequences of that. I could choose to make something less complicated or broad, but I won’t because I know what I want and have to learn to understand what it

takes to get there. A lot of mental anguish.

Just kidding, I love it. It might just take me a little bit longer than others.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

I’ve come to realise that the matter of size in fiction is a more personal thing. Rowling didn’t have to add new schools to the Harry Potter universe, she did so because that was the vision she had for that world. Some people liked it, others might not have - but that’s not important.

What is important, is not doing too much for the sake of it.

World-building is a delicate and often lengthy process that I consider to be very important. I think that there’s no point telling a story if the world it takes place in isn’t believable enough. If I can’t see myself in a story, I won’t want to read it.

In that way, I think you should write what you’re comfortable creating, especially when it comes to fiction. assume that you’re building from scratch and that you have to fill in the gaps.

If you create something to rival the works of Tolkien, accept that you have to explain that world to the people you’re exposing it to, or risk losing their interest. I’m not sure if that’s controversial, but the saying Rome wasn’t

built in a day exists for a reason.

I don’t think size matters.

To me, what matters more than anything is believability.

The only thing that changes with the size of the world is the amount of effort it’s going to take to make things so. But I’d like to think that the reward is worth the extra work.

Whatever you make, just make it make sense.