Do you guys have any good threads on tips for world building.

[Darkcrow.]

I have been writing fanfics for a while and due to that, I am still a novice at complete world-building, So can you guys please recommend me some good threads (You can also give me tips) on world-building (you can also recommend threads on other aspects of writing).
I also need help with description.

 

[minacia]

My advice would be to do is little as you can. I know it sounds really odd, but the biggest mistakes I see are when people worldbuild too much and try to info-dump it, which doesn’t do very much except bore readers.

My suggestion would be to start with a bare bones premise (I.e. A giant hole that stretches to the center of the Earth), and then slowly worldbuild along the way as you write.

What I mean by this is to add little bits of flavor along your MC’s life. Suppose they picked up coffee in the morning, but instead of a regular coffee brewer they have these magic dispenser pods or something.

Even if you improvise, your world should slowly start to come together. Just try your best to stay internally consistent.

 

[DubstheDuke]

I'll give you my own approach- whether this is something that you should follow, I won't say.

So first off, when I build a world I would like to generally have at least some idea of each place. I would draw out a map, create some different landmasses, waterways, mountains, different biomes and environmental regions, and so on and so forth. Then I like to dish out these regions to the nations (Or if they are lawless lands, whatever entities are present) which occupy them.

You don't need to plan every little detail from the start. It might help, but I would say just have a general idea at least of all the different places and things in your world, and be open to changing or adding things.

Once you've established nations, features, special locations of interest, etc, think a bit about the political, religious, societal, economic, and militaristic norms for each of your places. Once again, you dont have to know everything from the very beginning, but at least try to figure out how things run and how life generally is for each place.

Of course, there is much more than just human society. There might be monstrous landscapes or various other entities/places within your world. But this is where I would suggest you start.

 

[LotsChrono]

My advice would be to do is little as you can. I know it sounds really odd, but the biggest mistakes I see are when people worldbuild too much and try to info-dump it, which doesn’t do very much except bore readers.

My suggestion would be to start with a bare bones premise (I.e. A giant hole that stretches to the center of the Earth), and then slowly worldbuild along the way as you write.

What I mean by this is to add little bits of flavor along your MC’s life. Suppose they picked up coffee in the morning, but instead of a regular coffee brewer they have these magic dispenser pods or something.

Even if you improvise, your world should slowly start to come together. Just try your best to stay internally consistent.

This is the correct answer. There’s largely nothing else I can write except for the fact that, if you’re making a completely new world from scratch, please make your descriptions of things easy for readers to understand as they’re just getting introduced to them. Some authors get so magical with their words that keeping up with them is a chore in itself.

 

[Nahrenne]

I have been writing fanfics for a while and due to that, I am still a novice at complete world-building, So can you guys please recommend me some good threads (You can also give me tips) on world-building (you can also recommend threads on other aspects of writing).
I also need help with description.

I can't think of any threads but I could attempt at giving some tips/things to think about - though I am not an expert writer, nor a professional one so take them with a grain of salt:

- What are your genres?

- Pure horror will be different from pure comedy, etc...​

- What kind of world setting are you aiming for?

- A fantasy world with magic is going to be different from a steampunk world with grounded technology, etc...​

- What lives in the world?

- Humans?​

- Robots?​

- Aliens?​

- Normal animals?​

- Mythical beasts?​

- etc...​

- What kind of governmental system do you want?

- If there is a system of power/law, how does it work? Democracy? Monarchy? Tyranny? Etc...​

- What kind of political relationships between areas are there - if any?

- Is there a war between some places?​

- Any alliances?​

- Any tensions?​

- Any neutral parties?​

- Etc...​

- Look to how other forms of storytelling have done worldbuilding:

- Games​

- Films​

- TV series​

- Etc...​

- What kind of religion/s are there - if any?

- How do they influence the inhabitants?​

- Are they real?​

- Etc...​

​

I don't know if these things help get an idea of how you'd want your world to be like but they're some of the things I keep in mind when coming up with a new story.
You don't have to think about any of that, though.
You can just let it come organically.

X

 

[minacia]

Another item of advice for writing is to not introduce too many things at one time.

Please don’t introduce all 13 gods of your religious pantheon in the first chapter. ...I’ve seen stories like that and it rarely comes off well. Pick one god and introduce them in one chapter. Later on, if you have to introduce more, then introduce another one in later chapters but certainly don’t introduce them all at once.

Likewise, don’t dump your entire magic system in one chapter. Explaining how all sixteen elements work is not a good idea for a text wall and please don’t do it.

Don’t make up too many names. Like don’t covert Monday => Tiermarsh and Thursday => Ganash and expect readers to be able to follow your fantasy language.

While JRR Tolkien is cool, for most people, it’s a bad idea to copy him, and at best it will just look like you’re attempting a poor imitation of LoTR.

 

[Nahrenne]

Although item of advice for writing is to not introduce too many things at one time.

Please don’t introduce all 13 gods of your religious pantheon in the first chapter. ...I’ve seen stories like that and it rarely comes off well. Pick one god and introduce them in one chapter. Later on, if you have to introduce more, then introduce another one in later chapters but certainly don’t introduce them all at once.

Likewise, don’t dump your entire magic system in one chapter. Explaining how all sixteen elements work is not a good idea for a text wall and please don’t do it.

Don’t make up too many names. Like don’t covert Monday => Tiermarsh and Thursday => Ganash and expect readers to be able to follow your fantasy language.

While JRR Tolkien is cool, for most people, it’s a bad idea to copy him, and at best it will just look like you’re attempting a poor imitation of LoTR.

Yeah, my list was more for what to think about as a whole.
>w<

*huggles MinMin for her good advice*

\(>w<)/

X

 

[AdLeto]

Infodumping makes what you write have less impact, you need to slowly write tidbits for themselves and later condense all into a web, each part sustaining the others

The pleasure it gives to the readers to, bit by bit, complete a puzzle with the hints you have given them, it is exhilarating

 

[RepresentingCaution]

To avoid infodumping, build it as the story goes. Show the characters' daily lives in the first chapter, but make it a more interesting day than normal. Interacting with a friend, lover, or rival is a great way to start. Here are two books with excellent worldbuilding I recommend:

Dysmorphic Kingdom: a fairy tale: Chen, Colleen: 9781940233239: Amazon.com: Books

Dysmorphic Kingdom: a fairy tale [Chen, Colleen] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Dysmorphic Kingdom: a fairy tale

www.amazon.com

Backbiters: Glasheen, Debra Leea: 9781940233444: Amazon.com: Books

Backbiters [Glasheen, Debra Leea] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Backbiters

www.amazon.com

 

[DubstheDuke]

Adding onto what I said earlier, worldbuilding happens (For me at least) in stages of arcs.

While I like to have a general world built up very early on, this is of course only the bare bones of the story.

Any story starts at a given location. Doesn't matter if you're a 3rd person writer like myself or a first person writer, you're not gonna be jumping all over the world right off the bat. Point being, focus on building up the place where the story is currently focused on. From what I've seen a lot, people tend not to like info dumps (Though I personally dont mind reading them at all), so the best way to build a world is to throw some characters into a location and have them explore it, discovering the details either by what they see or their conversations with others.

I would say that before you write an arc, you should probably have a reasonable idea about not only the setting, but also about everything going on around it. I suppose this isn't the case for those who consider themselves 'pantsers' (Writers who do writing on the spot without any planning), but I feel that knowing about the location of the story and the culture/history/current state is very important to writing a story. If you have no idea what is going on, then your readers are going to have even less of an idea. Writing on the spot is perfectly fine, but at least come back to edit later and fix things which are inconsistent or add in things which are consistent with the setting/characters.

You don't have to build an entire world in a day. Do it one place at a time, one character at a time, and eventually things will become so interwoven and complex that you won't even need to write a story, because it will write itself.

 

[lehur]

Give simple map image included no era doesn't have map

 

[NotaNuffian]

...I thought when you do your skeleton, the world is halfway there? Unfunny jokes aside, I tend to throw little tidbits in some chapters to "spice up" my world, had to constantly remind myself by putting it into my glossary though.

Ps. One thing I would like to add, is to go get someone read your work. A beta reader if you will. Or even youself, after pretending to forget all the plots and just read it, to see if you can take in the infodump.

 

[gaylolis]

i just base it on generic worlds and create places i'd like to travel and relax with.

like the world tree actually becomes a large housing complex, with a magical university beneath. you could go to the campus cafeteria and get a sip from the nectar. the elven daily special includes the root beer and glowing mushroom bubble tea.

the elves would hold a ritual every new years to celebrate the dawn of mana, and rune-shaped aurora would rise in the air. they'd burn mystical incenses which had a prismatic glow and inhale it gently.

so basically just like a brief documentary i guess.

 

[thedude3445]

Use movies as the example. Movies CAN'T do info dumping (except for text crawls at the beginning) so they have to do worldbuilding very differently from books. They are a good example of how you can establish your world without relying on info dumps. Star Wars, the original one, is the quintessential example, so I recommend watching that 2-3 times and studying how it builds its world (and I guess you can read the novelization of that movie too if you want to see how they did it in prose).

Otherwise, the way to build a world is to make a list of the daily/weekly routine of your protagonist(s), BEFORE the plot starts. What do they do with the world, and how do they interact with the world? Imagine a, average, unremarkable day in the life of your character and use that to brainstorm "What would be interesting here? How can I flesh this out?" That's generally how I build my worlds. I start small and throw in a lot of interesting stuff, then through that I expand and figure out what cool stuff can surround the protagonist that they don't directly interact with before the story starts.

 

[Daitengu]

From custom table top campaigns I can say. Do all the world building you can but don't put it in the story until a particular part is relevant. The reader doesn't need to know most of what the world is about most of the time. But it sure makes it easier and faster to work up a story if you have a lot of background already done.