On Writing : Balancing Emotional Depth and Worldbuilding in Sci-Fi Writing by Philippe Jeanneteau

I think the biggest thing is to make sure both are addressed in different ways. Be sure to keep your character's conflicts(external and internal) personal. For example, if your character deals with loneliness, make it personal and something only they face alone rather than blame it on a bigger external issue. Also a trick that works for me is to flesh out a character's home life, that way you can sort of have an idea as to how they'd feel about things. Regarding bigger thematic/societal elements, I'd say let the settings and plot show that. Show how such issues impact the world around your characters rather than just the protagonists themselves. Hope that spiel helped lol

Thank you, Holly — that’s really helpful!

It actually aligns with what I’m trying to do in my project, especially the idea of showing the world through the characters’ experiences.

Your point about keeping conflicts deeply personal is a great reminder, so I really appreciate it

Philippe Jeanneteau, I love this question, it’s something I think a lot of us wrestle with, especially in sci-fi and fantasy where the world can easily outgrow the characters if we’re not careful.

For me, the balance comes from letting one influence the other in as many ways as possible. In my current project, grief is a major theme; my main characters lose someone important at the start of the story, and that loss shapes everything that follows. Because of that, I named the continent where the story takes place Gravare, the Latin word for “to weigh down” or “to make heavy.” I never explain that in the text, but it adds an internal layer of emotional intention that grounds the world in the characters’ experience.

My process tends to start with character. I spend a lot of time building out my "cast," so to speak, main, supporting, and adversarial, making sure they feel whole, flawed, and authentic before I even begin plotting. Once I understand who they are and what’s at stake for them emotionally, I start shaping the world, conflicts, and plot around those truths.

That way, the worldbuilding isn’t something happening around the characters; it’s something that grows because of them. And as I move through drafting, I’ll keep adjusting one side or the other to make sure everything feels intentional and interconnected.

Hi, Philippe Jeanneteau! Welcome to the community. Stage 32 has a blog that'll help you navigate the platform and connect with creatives and industry professionals all over the world. www.stage32.com/blog/how-to-successfully-navigate-the-stage-32-platform-...

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I set a small, personal story at the center of my high-concept story, and I pick a theme that people can relate to even though there's spaceships, monsters, etc. in the story.

Thank you both so much for these insights — they really resonate with me.

I completely agree that keeping a personal emotional core at the center is what gives a high-concept story its weight.

Ashley, I love what you said about the world growing from the characters rather than simply existing around them.

That’s something I’m actively trying to explore: showing the world through the characters’ eyes, especially since my story follows two protagonists who experience the same society from very different angles.

Their realities echo each other, and part of my goal is to let one character’s truth illuminate the other’s.

Your perspectives really help me clarify that direction — thank you again!

You're welcome, Philippe Jeanneteau. You could post your pilot script on your profile when it's ready. Producers search profiles for projects. That and networking are how I sold four short scripts to a producer. Click the gear symbol in the top right-hand corner and select “Edit profile” in the drop-down menu. Scroll down to “Loglines” and click “Add/edit loglines” to the right of “Loglines.” You can also post your script on your profile this way: www.stage32.com/loglines (near the top where it says “Add a Logline”)

And Stage 32 has feedback services I suggest checking out (www.stage32.com/scriptservices).

Thank you, Maurice — that’s really helpful.

I’ll definitely add my logline when the pilot is ready.

I appreciate you sharing your experience!

You're welcome, Philippe Jeanneteau. Looking forward to seeing you around Stage 32! And I'm a Stage 32 Lounge Moderator. If you ever have any questions about Stage 32, let me or another Lounge Moderator know. We have badges on our pictures. Or you could email support@stage32.com.

So happy to help, Philippe Jeanneteau!

Maurice Vaughan Thanks again, — I followed your suggestion and just posted the logline on my profile. Really appreciate the help!

You're welcome, Philippe Jeanneteau.

Wonderful question, I'm doing this right now with my series Finding Elpis lol :) since there are lots of planets I'm exploring in the series, I touch up on them more than I properly deep dive into the little details, but nonetheless I like to invite the reader to embrace the vibes and their people and maybe even decide for themselves why they are the way they are. One major character is often the one explaining the world to the protagonists and the reader, since he knows it very well and we don't (and even then, there are more major characters who know more than he does). As for the character development, the larger world (or in this case, the galaxy)'s vastness means there's infinite room for character growth, as well as room to get as philosophical as I want kik. I like to be a bit controversial and not have my characters change the world so much as the world changes them, if for no other reason than the world is always bigger than the character, and it's more like the underlayer/backdrop of a painting rather than the actual subject. You can be detailed, sure, but no matter what, the characters are the subject of the painting, not the setting (unless, of course, you want to paint a setting and not characters, or have characters in the background).

I hope that made sense lol

It’s truly a good question that I also have.

In sci-fi, especially when you go very deep into scientific plausibility, the work can start feeling like a textbook instead of a story.

So you need to reinforce the emotional moments and show the characters from within —

how they react to the catastrophe?

what kind of thoughts they develop?

whether they can still fight or if they get trapped in their own psychological warfare: anxiety, tears, nightmares…

and whether there are any hopeful attempts left in them?

Your idea sounds so insane.

You’re discovering many planets at once, and it really makes me curious about them.

Keep going — let us see your planets Banafsheh Esmailzadeh

I’m doing something similar with my next project. It’s a sci-fi/horror/romance, which is a balancing act on its own in terms of tone and genre. I’ve found my sweet spot is locating dread in big concepts while grounding it in smaller, human themes. That’s how I keep things balanced and bring both sides to the same place. I look for the humanity inside the larger ideas, and the deeper meaning inside the quieter moments. Not sure if any of that makes total sense, but it works for me somehow haha

Thank you so much for your thoughts — I really appreciate your perspectives.

martin graham

I love what you said about finding humanity inside the big ideas. That balance between concept and the quieter, more intimate moments is exactly what I’m trying to explore in Glitch. Letting the emotional truth guide the high-concept elements feels like the right compass.

Meriem Bouziani

You’re absolutely right — sci-fi can easily drift into something too technical if we don’t stay grounded in the characters’ inner lives. In my case, I try to show the world through the characters’ eyes, so every societal shift or catastrophe is felt emotionally before it’s explained logically.

How they react, what it awakens in them — that’s where the story breathes.

Thank you both — your insights are really inspiring.

Haha thanks Meriem Bouziani, space travel is so much fun because you can do literally whatever you want (in my novel Branch, for example, there's a canonical library planet because why the hell not). In Finding Elpis proper I have an Amazonian/Barbarian planet, a mermaid planet, a flower people planet, and naturally a dog planet and in RoP's rewrite I finally got to have a beloved little wine planet show up. It's especially fun if you know a little bit of astronomy at least as far as names go, because then you can decide for yourself how much you want to live up to the names of existing galaxies and constellations in addition to making your own.

Lol now I wanna draw out some of the planets from both Petal and Finding Elpis's universes xD

Wow, so cool and so beautiful Banafsheh Esmailzadeh

It feels like Game of Thrones but on a cosmic level — each planet with its own unique atmosphere, all in conflict,

and in the end only one must win.

That’s what I imagined.

Thanks Meriem Bouziani, that certainly was been true once upon a time, but then Elpis the band got popular and the wars stopped xD but I like the way you think!

As a sci fi novelist and short story writer, I've found it most effective to let the imagined world's reality force choices the characters must make. This highlights that world's reality and reveals character at the same time. In the best sci fi moves, that is also true and why the 1st Star Wars movie was so much better than the majority of the later movies and shows.

This is an interesting question Philippe Jeanneteau I write sci-fi/fantasy, and each story starts with character... far more details than ever appear in the script. This allows me to understand why they behave the way they do, why they react to situations the way they do, and how they interreact with other characters.

My central character often carries the central theme of the story within them which becomes apparent as they deal with the obstacles in their way. The sci-fi environment provides the framework for the journey of each character, both internal and external, and, as Fran says above, sometimes forces the choices they make.

Fran Tabor Thanks Fran, I completely agree with that.

For me, a strong SF world naturally creates its own internal logic — it either pushes characters toward certain choices, or forces them into conflict with the system itself.

That’s exactly how I built Glitch: a perfectly optimized society where people rarely choose from genuine inner desire. Instead, they act according to what they believe the system expects from them — a kind of social feedback loop reinforced by their AI assistants.

So when a character finally makes a choice that doesn’t fit that pattern, it feels meaningful, almost like an act of rebellion or self-discovery.

I love when worldbuilding works that way — revealing who the characters really are through the mechanics of the world.

Thanks, Ingrid — that’s really interesting to read.

I realize we work in a very similar way, just from opposite starting points.

You begin with the character and let the world reveal who they truly are…

I tend to start by designing the mechanics of the world, and then I watch how those rules push or shape the character’s choices.

But in the end, it’s the same goal: the moment where a character finally goes against the “logic” of their environment and reveals something deeply human. I love that overlap in our approaches.

I agree with Fran and Ingrid comments above - also, in addition to the world driven conflicts, ground them, give them little unimportant things but that actually annoy them. Give them a longing for something they love - like chocolate, or a Gibson Martini with two of those delicious little silver-skin pickled onions, with a sprinkle of salt and a dash of the pickle juice, into the vermouth - obviously which has to be French. Then a partner who hates pickled onions, so they argue about it, and it ruins romantic moments as they blame pickled onions for their worldly trouble. You get the idea. I love Gibsons.

David Taylor I get what you mean — those small daily irritations really do bring something genuine to a relationship.

For me, tension often comes from something a bit deeper: the way people are, their temperament, how they move through life.

It’s simply another way of keeping things human, I think.

Personally, I think emotional depth and worldbuilding in sci-fi are two important aspects in the said genre but the former is the engine that drives the story forward.

In all movies, your emotional depth enables your audience to relate to your onscreen characters. Blissful or sad emotions our characters experience as the movies unfolds should resonate with our audience's experiential learning.

Any writer who glorifies worldbuilding at the expense of emotional depth is definitely skating on quicksand.

WH?

Answer: Human beings are social animals that have emotions. Emotional attachment is key. Conversely, worldbuilding , as far as I'm concerned, is largely drawn from reasoning or logic but its end product is steeped in emotional depth. While creating this unique world , you're tactfully appealing to the emotions of your audiences. In a way , I subscribe to the idea that the screenwriter should build their world ( with its own rules ---- dos and don'ts) largely from the emotional depth they intend to.create.

Worldbuilding should enhance the thematic flow of the writer's storyline. Worldbuilding, if expertly handled, has an astounding capacity to shape character dialogue. Dialogue should in turn explore the flowing:

1. What's at stake

2. The fears of characters

3. Expectations

4. Themes

5. Motifs

6. Etc

In short, the better approach between the two is the EMOTIONAL DEPTH TO WORLDBUILDING APPROACH and not the other way round.

Jabulani Pongolani Thanks, Jabulani — that idea really resonates with me.

I often start from a simple question: what does the system expect from people, and how do those expectations quietly shape the way they see themselves?

That kind of soft, well-intentioned pressure can become its own form of constraint.

And when a character finally wants something the system doesn’t consider “useful,” that tension naturally creates emotion — almost like a small rebellion just to feel something real again.

For me, that’s exactly where worldbuilding and emotional depth meet: the mechanics of the world explain why the characters feel the way they do.