Hey everyone! Back again another week for another blog post. I’m really excited to get started on this one and really begin this series on world building. I personally have been doing some world building in recent months, so this series has been fun to think about. So, without further ado…
Worldbuilding: Where to start
Worldbuilding is a very daunting task. To create a whole world of culture, languages, history, religions, and geography could terrify even the most experienced writer. But it’s also a lot of fun. There are parts of world building that can be boring or that some writers might want to avoid and then there will be parts of writing that other writers are overjoyed to work on.
Choosing where to start when you begin world building can be very difficult and every writer does it differently. I personally have my own method for world building that I find works well for me, but I have discovered upon talking to other writers that my way doesn’t seem to make sense to them while others agree with my method.
Since my method is the method I am familiar with, that is what I will write this series on but know as you read, that you can take any of this information and do your world building in whatever order seems to suit you. You don’t even have to do world building in the same order every time. You can do it whatever feels right for you and for the book you are working on. Each post in this series will be on a world building topic and they will be in the order that I personally do my building. However, each will have good questions to ask yourself so feel free to refer back to any of them at any time for whichever order you would like.
As far as where to start – the very first step to world building, before you can even ask yourself questions about characters, geography, rules, laws, or anything like that, is to determine your genre. What genre is the book you are writing? And what kind of things will you need to know, or world build to write your book in that genre?
Fantasy novels tend to require a lot more world building than other genres. If you are writing fantasy, consider the type of fantasy you are doing. Are you writing high fantasy? Are you creating whole worlds and cultures from scratch? (This is my typical genre). Are you writing urban fantasy? Do you need to figure out how to make fantastical magic systems work within a seemingly contemporary society? Are you writing steampunk (which could arguably be science fiction, historical fiction, or fantasy depending on who you ask)? What kind of historical or science fiction cultural elements do you keep or get rid of for your universe?
Science Fiction also tends to require world building, but the kind of world building involved in science fiction is only partially related to the type in fantasy. Are you writing a space epic? How many unique planets with life are there? What kind of cultures do they have? Are you writing contemporary science fiction? Where in this world does that story take place? Are you familiar with their culture and their superstitions? What kind of science are you using and are you familiar enough with it to make stuff up that could still be plausible?
Even genres that might seemingly not require world building will require at least a little bit of it. Are you writing romance? Where does your story take place? If it’s a real place, have you researched it and been there? If it isn’t, what kind of culture does that little town have? What does it look like? Are you writing a historical fiction? What kind of environment and culture would your character have grown up in? What is the environment like at that time period?
These are all questions to consider that are all different depending on the genre you are writing. Some genres require more worldbuilding than others so, if you are unsure where to start your worldbuilding, first consider the question: what genre are you writing?
That’s all I have for this week’s post. Next week we’re going to start right in with my first section of worldbuilding that I always work on first. Feel free to let me know what genre you write and what kind of questions you ask yourself when you are beginning your world building. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the links below. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
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