Play "guess the trope".: Constructed World

Aside from the name being non-indicative, it has a low wick and inbound count for how widespread it's supposed to be. Now if it's an established term, then it stays, but if not, the name shouldn't seem like it's a trope about artificial worlds.

Pre-existing term. Also, it makes perfect sense. It's just a world constructed by the author rather than a character.

I'll accept a term, but don't tell me it makes perfect sense. Technically ALL original worlds in a work are constructed by those making the works.

And the word "constructed" does imply an artificial world. So again, I'll buy it's a pre-existing term, but don't pretend it makes perfect sense.

Does this need examples? It strikes me that pretty much all fantasy and science fiction stories ever are on a constructed world.

Not exactly there are quite a few that are not this, anything in The Future, Urban Fantasy and a bunch of others.

Anyway, googling the term does not make a strong case for this being an accepted term outside of Tvtropes. It primarily points to an art exhibition and a book by that name, plus Wikipedia of course.

That and its low wick count mean it's not de iure immune to being renamed. If people have a better suggestion, let's hear it.

There's also Historical Fantasy that's set in Feudal Japan or Europe in the Middle Ages. It's not an Omnipresent Trope by a long shot.

Okay, good point. I didn't mean to imply that it's omnipresent; I just don't see a list of examples adding much.

I think that examples could help show how people construct worlds and how those worlds differ from this one.

Well, I have no objection to that, but it seems to me that most of the present examples don't.

They shouldn't be X Just X. Honestly, if I had my way even Indexes wouldn't be. The more we give laconics and tell people how things work the more this will draw them in.

I agree with Spark9. I don't think that this needs examples at all. For genres like Fantasy and Science Fiction, a good 75% of works would fall under this. Some of them even contain a Constructed World inside of the existing world, like Tales from the Nightside.

I think mentioning the term Constructed World on the Worldbuilding page is enough and this doesn't need a separate page.

edited 26th Jul '11 8:50:00 PM by followeroferis

Just because something is common doesn't mean it doesn't need a page and it's not a trope. Quite the opposite. It means that it's a common trope. I think that this is the biggest reason we have issues with making supertropes. If it's too common people decide they want to cut it for no apparent reason.

Indeed, I think some people misinterpret People Sit On Chairs as saying that common occurrences can't be tropes, rather than that common occurrences which have no impact on the story can't be tropes.

Honestly, I don't see the problem with examples, but then again, I could careless if the page had them or not, so long as we keep the page.

Maybe, if it is too broad, we can limit examples to explaining why the constructed world is different from Earth. Why it isn't an example A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away..., alternate history, the future or what not.

edited 16th Aug '11 2:07:48 PM by Cider

I was able to guess the trope in the first shot. I don't see a problem here one way or another.

edited 29th Jul '11 9:50:10 PM by NoirGrimoir

You can't use solely your guess. You also have to see how others react (which applies for and against renames).

...Guess The Trope was your idea.

edited 29th Jul '11 11:48:27 PM by Discar

I could possibly see a rename to Fictional Universe and some more information on how a fictional setting will impact a story, if you really wanted to stretch it. This just doesn't seem like much of a problem.

Edit: Looks like Fictional Universe is already troped as something else. Fictional World, then.

edited 29th Jul '11 11:59:31 PM by NoirGrimoir

But it's not merely fictional. An Alternate Universe is fictional, but it's not a Constructed World. Far distant pastor far distant future are Fictional worlds, but not Constructed Worlds. A Constructed World is one which is completely and totally made up out of whole cloth by the author.

I get what you're saying, and I agree. Though I do sort of get that there might, vaguely, be an issue with "constructed world". It sounds more like someone took parts of other worlds/cultures and stuck them together, more like a cultural mash-up then merely a made-up universe. But like I said, my initial thought on this was we have no problem here.

No, I meant don't use just your guess alone as proof of whether it needs a rename, or else I would have acted as though my not knowing was enough.

Also, my problem with the name is, again, that the term implies the world is built artificially, like what Magrethea does in The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.

edited 30th Jul '11 5:26:49 PM by DragonQuestZ

So you don't mean "Guess the trope." You mean guess what I guessed or else it doesn't count.

The trope is what I thought it would be btw. I've heard the term before outside the wiki. It's pretty common in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy community.

edited 30th Jul '11 5:31:39 PM by shimaspawn

What? How could you read "don't use just your guess alone" to mean that? It clearly means "your guess alone doesn't count". It gives no qualifier about matching other guesses.

edited 30th Jul '11 5:45:34 PM by DragonQuestZ

How about making "Secondary World" a redirect? It has some currency, thanks to its use by Tolkien.