Worldbuilding to The Max

[Thomas Laszlo]

Hey!

I am really new at worldbuilding and writing novels. I want to try my hand, but first I came up with a plan, and here it is:

First, come up with everything, detail it on paper in a roughly organized mess, then transfer it into a text-book-esque deal and that way I could reference a literal history book of my world whenever I'm writing. The only problem; I want to get a novel at least drafted before I go into the Naval Academy, and if I do this and it takes me into my senior year of high school - I'm currently a Junior - then I don't know that I'll reach my goal. Is there any better way to go about keeping everything organized for a busy high school student when trying to write a fantasy series? Yes, I have a bit of an obsession with worldbuilding so writing the full history out in a textbook format is not a problem for me!

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Hey!

I am really new at worldbuilding and writing novels. I want to try my hand, but first I came up with a plan, and here it is:

First, come up with everything, detail it on paper in a roughly organized mess, then transfer it into a text-book-esque deal and that way I could reference a literal history book of my world whenever I'm writing. The only problem; I want to get a novel at least drafted before I go into the Naval Academy, and if I do this and it takes me into my senior year of high school - I'm currently a Junior - then I don't know that I'll reach my goal. Is there any better way to go about keeping everything organized for a busy high school student when trying to write a fantasy series? Yes, I have a bit of an obsession with worldbuilding so writing the full history out in a textbook format is not a problem for me!

Hello, fellow junior in high school...

I think the important thing to remember about worldbuilding is to focus on what helps you with your story. It's easy for avid worldbuilders to spiral into an oblivion of endless trivia that doesn't enter the story and isn't relevant. Or, spend forever on worldbuilding and not get around to writing the actual story.

Also, lots of your worldbuilding will probably happen as you write. Your world will grow and evolve as the story does, and thus your worldbuilding.

I'm not saying your plan won't work or anything, but if you want to write a novel in such a short period of time, it probably is better to do just enough worldbuilding to foundation your story, and then work on it as you write, rather than first getting the worldbuilding fully established. If you're anything like me your worldbuilding will change quite a bit as you develop the story.

How much do you know about the story you want to write? Do you have a plot and characters, or just a world you wish to write about...?

 

[evolution_rex]

If you're going to build a world for a story, you need the story first. I can't stress that enough, I think very few people are exception to this rule. Think of world building as putting together a cardboard a box, and then writing the story as filling the box up with your stuff. You may find that things in that box that may not fit. And then you find yourself trying to make this fit and you'll find it just doesn't work. Building your world first means you've set the limits the world before you know how or where your story is going to lead to. 90% of the world you do create will end up being irrelevant to any story you come up with anyway.

The best thing to do is to come up with your story and build the world as you do it. Explore some ideas, make some outlines, and get a general idea on what the plot is. Then as you do so, you'll come up with details of the environment, culture, etc. The world will come to you and you'll find that the world you'll build will work much more perfectly than it would if you made the world first.

 

[TheKillerBs]

Need is a strong word. Not everyone needs to do anything in any given way. Yes, doing the worldbuilding first might limit your options but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some people work better with limits, lest the multitude of options freeze them with indecision. Or the limit might force you to find a better path that makes the story better. It could also be very detrimental, true. I think the greater danger would come from procrastinating on the story by focusing on the worldbuilding though, as DOTA mentioned.

 

[skip.knox]

Yeah, I agree with TheKillerBs on this. World building can be great fun. I have fond memories of creating millennia long science-fiction timelines. No, it's not a particularly great way to develop a specific story, but it can be fun and there's nothing wrong with some good, clean, obsessive fun.

So, here. Consider all this merely suggestion, or a starting point. I'm going to assume you have some sort of timeline and some sort of geography. Those will be the axes on which you build your world.

Let's say you have five races, five nations. Some human, maybe some not. Each nation has its own story--a beginning, a middle, and an end. First thing I'd do is make a folder called World. Inside that, five folders, one for each nation.

Now take a look at any history textbook. It divides up its narrative into eras. For Europe, that's something like Ancient, Middle Ages, Early Modern, Modern. Like that. If you don't have eras yet, don't worry about it, but if you do, you probably want to name them and each nation folder gets era folders within it.

That should give you enough structure so that as you start creating documents, you have places for them. Now look again at a history textbook. Nearly all of them begin with a bit of geography. Where did these people live, in what sort of land, where were their cities, etc.? Then, a common narrative structure is this: politics, economics, society, culture. Where politics includes wars and revolutions, economics includes things like how people made a living (that is, micro as well as macro economics), society means family and social class and gender roles and a whole host of stuff, and culture includes religion. I also put magic under that heading.

At its simplest, each nation gets a file with politics, economics, etc. in there. More elaborate accounts might have entire documents devoted to some specific topic such as magic or religion or agriculture.

Oh yeah, and you may also wind up making a Bestiary folder, so you can describe all your monsters.

Now, if you are picturing assembling all this into a single, publishable book, that's an entire topic in itself. But if you are simply writing it as your own reference, then you could use this. You would then learn to use your computer's Search function, scoped to that World folder, and be able to look up anything you need.

I've tried databases. Shudder. I personally use Scrivener, with a separate project for World. I found Word too clumsy. But don't fret over the choice of tool. Just get to the creating part and have fun!

 

[Fluffypoodel]

I used to world build a lot. It was fun exploring all of the facets of my world but in the end I didn't have a story. My last real big world building before I write attempt lasted through 200 pages of notes vs maybe twenty of prose. So I stopped and put that story on hold. Someday I'll go back to it, (hell, I practically have to after spending that much time on it), I know that there is a lot of good stuff there that I can use but in stepping away from a fully realized attempt at world building and shooting from the hip most of the time I've come to realize that there is something g much more important to a concrete world you can step into.

Fluidity.

A world can be an interesting place, filled with history, wonders and all those tiny little details that make us go "hey, that was pretty cool". Underneath that though is the real beating heart of any world. The people, and people are good t breaking rules.I avoid making concrete rules in my world now when I can because I know that there are characters that are going to disregard them. Those rules might still be there, but I know that they are not the things that are keeping the world together. My characters are.

One last thing to consider should also be the fact that your characters(unless they are omniscient) cannot see all of the world. To them all of the concrete rules are just that, rules in the background. But if you look around the world today you can see all of the chaos that swirls through he news like some wildfire. That is what I try to do with my world building. Provide the fuel for my characters to set fire too. After all, writing is a messy process. We can clean it up as best we can through revisions but at its core it is about people and people will never be completely able to fit the mould.

Hope this was helpful and good luck!

 

[R.H. Smith]

I think the biggest advice i can provide is simply to ignore your time situation. Trust me, if this is more than just a hobby, you NEED to write, then you will, regardless of where you are at at any moment of your time. I feel that if you start writing with that deadline in mind, then that will be at the fore-front and not your WIP. Take this from a father of three, one a special needs child. If you remove that time constraint from your mind, i feel your story will be better off for it. Last thing you want is that every time you sit down to write, your first thought is "I have to finish before I start the Naval Academy!" Hope this helps!

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I think the biggest advice i can provide is simply to ignore your time situation. Trust me, if this is more than just a hobby, you NEED to write, then you will, regardless of where you are at at any moment of your time. I feel that if you start writing with that deadline in mind, then that will be at the fore-front and not your WIP. Take this from a father of three, one a special needs child. If you remove that time constraint from your mind, i feel your story will be better off for it. Last thing you want is that every time you sit down to write, your first thought is "I have to finish before I start the Naval Academy!" Hope this helps!

I'll have to second this. I'm about your age and unlike you i don't know where my life will be headed after high school, but it will probably involve college and getting a job. I used to think that i had to get my books done ASAP because i would never have a better time to get lots of writing done. I was worried about how the future would affect my writing. but things got MUCH easier after i realized that i had my whole life to work on my writing, and unlike many writers most of my life was still ahead of me. Some writers don't even get started until they're 60. If you think of it terms of the bigger picture it will help.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I got into writing as a consequence of world building. I wanted to create a fantasy world that could be used for pen & paper RPGs. Somewhere along the way someone mentioned I should try a write a story on the topic of "a day in the life" for some random average joe in the world - just to see what it was like.

I've not done very much world building since that day.

My advice is... actually, I won't give you advice. I'll just tell you what I did and maybe some of it will be helpful.

Once I had a basic idea of what I wanted (a fantasy version of the real world, but in a different universe) I started thinking about how such a world would work. I tried to establish the rules of the world: how does magic work? What about gods and religions? Are there spirits, demons, vampires, werewolves, dragons?
How does it work?

In all honesty, I'm not actually "done" with that bit yet, but I'm done enough that I'm happy writing stories set in the world.

At some point along the way I did a rough outline of the history of the world. It's here:

8012 BE - A great rift is torn open in the sky. Through it falls an entire elven city and its inhabitants. This is the oldest known recorded event in the world.
7560 BE - The Fiskin Shaal deposits the lost gods on Aua.
7341 BE - The last of the Lamin Huur is killed.
2000 BE - First recorded contact between dwarves and humans.
0 - The eradication of the Haman Empire and the disappearance of Hima.
986 - The massacre at Aliviendell marks the beginning of The Dark Ages, which will last for over 1,500 years
1564 - Mahradian war of independence
1950 - The anfylk race is created
2521 - The siege of Barkheim ends. This marks the end of The Dark Ages.
3804 - Industrial revolution.
3987 - Ferring incident
3993 - Komost incident
3996 - Present day.

As you can see, it's not much. It's got the most major historical events of the world, as well as two recent political incidents that I thought I'd write about at some point.

I don't need more. The above events are the big earth-shattering things. They're the only things on that scale to occur (well, except for Ferring and Komost).

If a story would need more history, I'd make it up then. It's a big world, and history will be told differently in different parts of it. Different events would be important in different places.

I did the same with the geography. I drew an outline of the main continent, placed the three major states/nations and left the rest blank. I can fill that in later too. If I need a little country in the mountains I have a location where such country could exist (there's a massive mountain range all along the western coast of the continent of Aflachs Arod).

I'm confident I don't need more details about the way the world looks, or what's happened in it in the past, because I'm very familiar with how the world works. I know the rules that the world obeys, and if I have to add something new, I just need to make sure it adheres to these rules.

So...
If I were to give advice, it would be something along the lines of: figure out how your world works, make up the "facts" later.

 

[Vaporo]

I usually see two schools of thoughts when it comes to world building:

1. Construct everything. Know everything that has ever happened in your world from the beginning up until when your story takes place. Most people don't quite go to Tolkien levels, but typically I hear people saying that writers should world build as much as possible before writing, that way there are no mistakes regarding your world's history.

2. Don't invent anything until you need it. Come up with a general outline of your world, and then take it from there. This could be seen as the "lazy" route to world building, and it can result in lazily written stories if done improperly. However, this is a completely valid path towards world building. Often, your first idea isn't the best one, so if you happen to come up with a better origin story for your main character's nation after you start writing, you can go back and change things without scrapping 50000 words.

Both approaches are valid. Pick whatever level of detail you feel comfortable with and go with it. I, personally, am just a hobbyist and just want to write stories, so I lean towards using the second approach. But, if you enjoy world building that much, go with the first approach.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

Scrivener was mentioned above. That's what I use for organizing my world-building notes, my character notes, plot notes, etc. You can create folders, and folders within folders, expand and collapse folders, so if you give them good titles, you can find the notes you need very quickly with only a few clicks. You have to try it to see how well it works. It has more features than I care to describe here.

I did a lot of world-building for my WIP. Much of it I did before I started the first draft, because I've used the same setting for other projects, such as short stories and RPGs. But I still find it necessary on occasion to do more world-building. Worlds are, after all, big places, so you could fill encyclopedias and not have noted every detail of a world. Basically, I world-build as much as I need to for the story at the moment, and leave the rest of it for later. But everything I've done before is available to me for any future projects using the same setting. Since I'm planning a series, I'll heavily rely on these notes to ensure consistency of setting from one novel to the next.

 

[Russ]

Without going into detail, I too use Scrivener for world building and writing. I commend it to you.

 

[Thomas Laszlo]

I actually have a few stories I know the plot and characters of that I want to function in this world. Thank you so much the advice is very helpful!

 

[Thomas Laszlo]

Yeah, I agree with TheKillerBs on this. World building can be great fun. I have fond memories of creating millennia long science-fiction timelines. No, it's not a particularly great way to develop a specific story, but it can be fun and there's nothing wrong with some good, clean, obsessive fun.

So, here. Consider all this merely suggestion, or a starting point. I'm going to assume you have some sort of timeline and some sort of geography. Those will be the axes on which you build your world.

Let's say you have five races, five nations. Some human, maybe some not. Each nation has its own story--a beginning, a middle, and an end. First thing I'd do is make a folder called World. Inside that, five folders, one for each nation.

Now take a look at any history textbook. It divides up its narrative into eras. For Europe, that's something like Ancient, Middle Ages, Early Modern, Modern. Like that. If you don't have eras yet, don't worry about it, but if you do, you probably want to name them and each nation folder gets era folders within it.

That should give you enough structure so that as you start creating documents, you have places for them. Now look again at a history textbook. Nearly all of them begin with a bit of geography. Where did these people live, in what sort of land, where were their cities, etc.? Then, a common narrative structure is this: politics, economics, society, culture. Where politics includes wars and revolutions, economics includes things like how people made a living (that is, micro as well as macro economics), society means family and social class and gender roles and a whole host of stuff, and culture includes religion. I also put magic under that heading.

At its simplest, each nation gets a file with politics, economics, etc. in there. More elaborate accounts might have entire documents devoted to some specific topic such as magic or religion or agriculture.

Oh yeah, and you may also wind up making a Bestiary folder, so you can describe all your monsters.

Now, if you are picturing assembling all this into a single, publishable book, that's an entire topic in itself. But if you are simply writing it as your own reference, then you could use this. You would then learn to use your computer's Search function, scoped to that World folder, and be able to look up anything you need.

I've tried databases. Shudder. I personally use Scrivener, with a separate project for World. I found Word too clumsy. But don't fret over the choice of tool. Just get to the creating part and have fun!

I really enjoyed reading this, and it really helped me, I am making folders and I have a few documents already. I think this will be great to keep my thoiughts organized while writing later on!