Center for Creativity brings worlds to creation with ‘Mapping the Infinite’ workshop

The Center for Creativity hosted a “Mapping the Infinite” workshop on Wednesday in the Cathedral of Learning, mainly focusing on building worlds in stories. Worldbuilding emphasizes all of the different details that go into the creation of worlds, including things you might never think twice about. Characters inside these stories are influenced by every little aspect of their environment and reflect these influences in their personalities. From biological diversity to language and its hierarchies, students explored the immense detail behind every created world. 

The workshop was hosted by Dan McMillan, a teaching associate professor in the Department of English. McMillan teaches various classes in fiction, nonfiction, journalism and creative writing, as well as pop culture studies in the composition program. McMillan wanted students to take a step back and thoroughly consider all facets of the world they are creating, even details that might not appear obvious to the reader. 

“If we only knew the inside of a closet, that would be our world,” McMillan said. “I kinda want [students] to back up and really think about the world, so the author can understand what a person inhabiting that world is going to know.”

The fundamentals of the workshop are based on subcreation, a topic popularized by author J. R. R. Tolkien. His philosophy centers around God as the primary creator, which heavily reflects his own Catholic beliefs. Tolkien refers to humans as subcreators, as we are creating something new from resources we already have, as opposed to turning nothing into something. In building secondary worlds within our own as authors, artists and creators, we are reflecting God’s image of creation, according to Tolkien.

Character development is a large aspect of worldbuilding. McMillian believes that proper character development lies in the author’s understanding of their created world as if it were their own. His approach to writing and worldbuilding aims for a more profound and deeply layered story.

“When [authors] do create characters, their characters have a much deeper understanding of that world, so they don’t come out like secondhand knockoffs,” McMillan said. “Things authors pick up from pop culture, they go to write that in a limited kind of world, but that’s not them yet. Don’t write characters, write people.”

The workshop drew attendees from multiple different backgrounds of study. Akhilesh Chauhan, a first-year biochemistry student, was eager about the different parts of McMillan’s worldbuilding presented in the workshop.

“I just started writing, like, three years ago —  I was always really big into TV shows,” Chauhan said. “He gave us a different list of biomes and settings to pick from, so I can keep that for when I’m writing.”

Students explored different types of worlds towards the end of the presentation. McMillan walked students through categories to make them think about the broader picture behind the basis of a story. Examples ranged from space operas, such as “Star Wars,” to stories of an adjacent magical Earth, like in “The Wizard of Oz.” McMillan encouraged students throughout the afternoon to reach outside of the conventional ways of story building to make the world feel as real and holistic as possible.

To close out the workshop, participants had the opportunity to create their own worlds, practicing McMillan’s methods. Using digital and physical resources, students created their own maps, stories and world ideas based on the techniques presented by McMillan. Students worked on these representations with everything from colored pencils and markers to drawing software on iPads. Luca Assandri, a sophomore English and creative writing student, was exploring making a high fantasy world. 

“Looking at all the different maps was interesting because they kinda gave me a perspective on the scope of a map,” Assandri said. “All of them are super, super detailed.”

Rachel Burkholder, a sophomore psychology major, and Assandri are members of McMillan’s creative writing class. They were both drawn to the workshop by their professor and interest in story building.

“I like the artistic freedom of it, just being able to go crazy with the creativity part,” Burkholder said. “I was figuring out a sci-fi world with a bunch of bugs and trying to find the terrain for that.”

For students interested in learning more about these topics, McMillan highlighted a class for the upcoming semester. “Topics in Creative Writing,” an English writing class, deeply analyzes themes of subcreation and worldbuilding across multiple disciplines. The class also focuses on artists’ production influences across contemporary genres.

The Center for Creativity’s next event will be a Junk Journal Journey, in which students will create a notebook full of small personal items and memories. The workshop will take place in 310 Hillman Library on Wednesday, Nov. 20, from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.