World Builders- Creation Myths?

[MatchaChocolate69]

I used to invest a lot of time in world-building, but from experience, it's wasted time. When writing a story, you should focus on the characters and the plot, the rest follows naturally and should be built gradually with consistency. For example, when inventing a religion, you should start with how the followers of this religion are and how they behave, and from there build up to the deity.

 

[Deleted member 146224]

Before I started making the story I made the world first. I drafted the creation myths and the general idea what does the gods mean for it and how involved they are with the residents. Though I didn't go too deep yet and only fleshed out things relevant for the current story.

I feel like it makes it so much easier to write, because I don't have to waste time to come up with these things and can just use what I already have. It also helps to avoid plot holes, I think. Or at least makes it easier to do so.

And since I have already a world ready I can have more stories based in it without having to come up with the core.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

I’m a cow tools world builder. If It’s not relevant to the story I don’t create it, and if it is part of the story I’ll only explain the bare minimum of what’s required to understand.

http://imgur.com/a/ItgR0Kd

 

[BearlyAlive]

My creation myth is pretty much copied... I mean "heavily inspired" by what happened to our planet:
Dinosaurs and dragons get wiped by magical comet that acts as a magnet for other magical comets and so every 500 or so years the world gets pumped full with magic and weird space stuff.

 

[QuercusMalus]

I’m a cow tools world builder. If It’s not relevant to the story I don’t create it, and if it is part of the story I’ll only explain the bare minimum of what’s required to understand.

http://imgur.com/a/ItgR0Kd

Yeah.... I need to be more like that. I keep fighting the grand delusion that I'm Tolkien and anyone but me cares about the elaborate history of the world.

 

[StarrGaze]

I'm a complete world-building noob, so I take it one step at a time. I have too many things I'm learning as I go already.
I've seen novels add little excerpts from 'books within the world' to the top of each chapter for many purposes including world-building. It's been on my list of things to try.

 

[BouncyCactus]

I world-build for fun, and there are a couple of ways I do it, depending on how I want the world to be. Sometimes, I leave things ambiguous, but what I do most of the time is as follows. I mostly do fantasy, FYI.

First, decide the top-most of the deity/divinity pyramid. Then, I assigned each of the aspects of life, what people would actually care for, to each, or a group of deities, and had them be the representation of such. They are my primordial, the ancient, the lost gods so to speak. Most of them, in my worlds, tend to be forgotten, hidden, or slumbered, except a few. Then I have the ancient, Old Gods, lording over major aspects of life and nature, or what the people would consider important. Then, there are the New Gods, which are the gods of things that mainly pervade civilization things and such, or gave Old Gods new domains to lord over, or make them a patron god of something. Some domains are shared, some don't even though they should, and sometimes, they could make nonsense.

Sometimes too, I will give the people of the world mythos and stories that might differ, twisted, or inaccurate to the actual creation myth, depending on if the gods in a given world are real or not, to how involved they are in mortal affairs and such. Here are some examples, but they are not fixed in all my world

Ancient Gods: Death, Light, Night, Day
Old Gods: Ocean, Earth, Wild Fire, South Wind
New Gods: Wisdom that includes Writing and Learning, Ocean will include things such as sailing and fishing, god of smithing might not be the god of fire but may be related or connected somehow.

Sometimes, I will only have a dozen plus gods, but there is one world where I have about fifty-something gods and deities, with a dozen major gods, which can consist of all three categories I have above pertaining to the belief of the people, as the main point. Not all gods are worshiped, and it depends on the geographic location, professions, and culture. Most cities will have a couple of temples/shrines that worship some or most of the major gods and half a dozen of the minor ones.