In this article, G.M. Baker argues that worldbuilding has evolved from a tool used to support storytelling into a distinct, participatory art form of its own. He contends that this shift has fundamentally changed modern fiction, elevating expansive, open-ended universes at the expense of traditional, close-ended literary plots.
Baker distinguishes between the structural demands of a story and the structural demands of a world:
- Storytelling (Story Worlds): Traditional literature relies on small, compact, and often isolated settings designed strictly to allow a specific, transformative human narrative to play out. Once the character undergoes this deep emotional or moral transformation, the narrative concludes with finality, and the story world neatly folds up.
- Worldbuilding (Legendariums): Modern worldbuilding focuses on vast, detailed universes (or “legendariums”) with extensive backstories. Here, individual plots are merely triggers used to put the world into motion. The setting itself acts as the main character, and the stories within it cannot have absolute finality, as the universe must remain open for further exploration.
Baker identifies several cultural, psychological, and economic reasons for the rise of worldbuilding and the corresponding decline of traditional plot-driven literature:
- The Appeal of Participation: Worldbuilding invites the audience to actively participate rather than passively read. Successful legendariums thrive because fans want to inhabit them, write fan fiction, dress up in cosplay, and create their own narratives within the established rules.
- Corporate and Franchise Economics: Close-ended stories have limited profit potential. Media corporations and publishers heavily favor open-ended legendariums because they naturally lend themselves to long-term franchises, spin-offs, sequels, merchandise, theme parks, and video games.
- The Spread to Other Genres: Baker notes that this obsession with “the setting” has bled out of fantasy and sci-fi into other spaces. He points to historical fiction (where research and extreme accuracy regarding the past are treated as more important than the literary merit of the plot) and the “Jane Austen industry” (where readers seek to continuously inhabit a specific historical aesthetic rather than engage with a single, tightly crafted novel).
Ultimately, Baker argues that serious, high-quality popular fiction requires deep, permanent character transformations. Because real internal change fixes a character’s traits and narrows their capacity for future, massive overhauls, true character growth is fundamentally incompatible with the endless, multi-volume requirements of a modern franchise or legendarium.