Worldbuilding! Excitement! Adventure?

[Charlie Allison]

So I’m here to prompt a discussion on worldbuilding. Do you get a thrill out of it, or does it make you want to wrap a brick in a sock and start assaulting passerby? Why? Do you have a favorite world or one that you thought would work and turned out to be less than optimal? Any tips to share with other writers? Or do you just want to shoot the breeze on your favorite parts of world building? Do you start with a character and build outwards, or have an idea for a world and zoom in to the character-level? Do you craft the gods and stars first, or focus on the firmament and basic rules of reality? Magic or technology? Both? Neither?

It’s easily one of my favorite activities to do when writing (both behind the scenes before the project grows legs and in-universe through characters and obstacles). I had to take a crash-course in world building both in my MFA and when DMing my own home-brew campaign and learned a couple of tricks and tricks from my players and other students. You know, between the double-headed world serpents, T-rex summoning villains, and a carnival featuring zombies and performance art. Oh, and a zombie named Jeff.

A confession here: I’m a sucker for geography. Literal worldbuilding, that is, having complete control over the geography of the world I’m creating. I think part of this is the fact that people and cultures react in subtle (or not so subtle) ways to their environment. So world building is a literal thing for me—once I know the geography and general quirks of environment, I imagine character reactions and how I can manipulate that into plot-relevant actions or lack of action.

So a brief guide as to how I think of a world at the initial stage.

-Make a list of geographical/structural landmarks I want to see in the world (usually a dozen or so). Take my list of ‘places to see’ for my collection of short stories:


— a hotel with infinite rooms (Ala Hilbert: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel)
—A city that moves with the tides, a series of spheres below the surface connected by kelp and cables
—A city made from the corpse of a fallen deity—which proves critical for providing infrastructure when a population boom hits.
—A desert of uncertain size that serves as the barrier between two feuding cities—and is constantly (and dramatically) expanding and contracting erratically.

—A house that warps time inside it’s walls
— a city gate modeled on the idea of a Rubin Vase (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_vase) which turns away anyone who can’t see both aspects at once (people can’t do it—just can’t. Brains aren’t wired for it apparently).
— a city that tithes blood with each transaction inside it—just a pin-prick—to feed the Hungry Earth.
—A most peculiar library/botany shop where living plants and growing books are among the tamest things for purchase
—A museum of Treachery
—A home made from leviathan’s skull, deep in the pine forests.


So lets start a discussion! What do you most enjoy while worldbuilding? what do you hate the most? Why? Favorite place to design?








[imgone]

Nice introduction to world building. I enjoy world building and have devoted past 8 years to developing my own world. I hope to one day complete it and run a campaign for my players. What I like best about world development is the people and their social interactions. I like creating cultures and developing their interactions with other cultures, ethnicities, races, monstrosities, and whatever else populates the world. The time required to develop a world is my least favorite aspect, on account of I have limited time these days and have not been able to make as much progress. My favorite part is starting with the theme, this helps streamline the parameters you will need to set later. Also, keep it simple at first and expand outward. I find its easier to make checklist of goals you want to accomplish and expand from there. Important questions I always ask is what is the scope of this world, am I working in a town, city, continent, which leads into next question of do I want to isolate setting to this single town, city, continent or expand outward. If I expand outward, is a war ongoing between 2 powers and what is the cause. Questions like these are always important, and once answered, helps the remaining pieces fall into place. At least that is what I have found from my experience.

[princessdiana92]

These are some great points, Charlie! I myself have had quite some struggles with worldbuilding, but it's something that must be done to create a believable and engaging story for the reader. Recently, I've had to take a step back and re-look at my world through the eyes of different characters, as a way to reimagine it. That has actually given me a lot of insight into what I want the world to be, and also how other characters might view the characters I've already written.

For example, my post-apocalyptic world. I struggle with this because I don't want it to be cliche (although part of the nature of writing one of these stories nowadays seems to automatically make it cliche). In my attempt to avoid the cliche story, I try to develop my characters the most, but then I feel I lost sight of the world which surrounds them, and this is a vital thing. It affects them very realistically. So it's benefited me to take a step back and look at the world again, from an outsider's perspective, and see where they have questions and what I can do to answer those questions and avoid having any holes in my world.

[eldercheese]

Cultures and people are my bread and butter. I struggle a bit in geography details (Cities, towns, mountain names and so on)

I obess over my worlds or at least devote a ton of time to mulling them over and making them work. Notes and hundreds of hours drafting idea's in my mind as I go about my day. Charlie has seen me just sort of cut off and stare into space for a time. Normally that's me mulling over a world nugget.

It can be tricky as tgrosch mentions making something not cliche. Fantasy is so full of awefully over used cliche's it can be a nightmare working around them. I find that reading can help me keep my idea's fresh and open. I'm reading "House of Leaves" thanks to charlie and it has lead me a hole new way to consider part of my story "Shattered transitions" plot and world wise.

Time lines can also mess me up but that is more a separate thing I thing unless we are using world building more loosely then I think we are.

[Charlie Allison]

Oct 27, 2016 22:47:31 GMT princessdiana92 said:

These are some great points, Charlie! I myself have had quite some struggles with worldbuilding, but it's something that must be done to create a believable and engaging story for the reader. Recently, I've had to take a step back and re-look at my world through the eyes of different characters, as a way to reimagine it. That has actually given me a lot of insight into what I want the world to be, and also how other characters might view the characters I've already written.

For example, my post-apocalyptic world. I struggle with this because I don't want it to be cliche (although part of the nature of writing one of these stories nowadays seems to automatically make it cliche). In my attempt to avoid the cliche story, I try to develop my characters the most, but then I feel I lost sight of the world which surrounds them, and this is a vital thing. It affects them very realistically. So it's benefited me to take a step back and look at the world again, from an outsider's perspective, and see where they have questions and what I can do to answer those questions and avoid having any holes in my world.

The great thing about post-apocalyptic writing is that it allows you to define the central problem of your world from the start. This leads to multiple leading questions for everyone in your world: What matters most?
Survival at all costs? Are there lines that just aren't crossed even in this world? If so, what are they? The penalties?
Remaining human in a world that doesn't reward that sort of behavior?
Food?
Shelter?
Making a new definition of humanity that is better suited for this situation?
Solidarity and cooperation or distrust and isolation? Does the protagonist move from one to another?

[justin1023]

Just jumping in here. I think when people think of worldbuilding, they think of worlds created from scratch. But that's not what it is to me. It's that, but it's also building a world from an existing world. Everything we write is fiction. For the most part, so is setting—no matter what the setting is. I'll give you an example:

I set many of my stories in the Sonoran desert. That is a very real place, a place I know and love. However, I still must build the word within my story. What goes in this world? Is is a Sonoran desert world full of drug cartels and human smuggling? Is it a poverty stricken Sonoran desert where most people live in trailers and drink cheap whiskey just to get by? Or is it the Californianized upper-class neighborhoods with their air conditioners going full blast, 3000 sqft homes inhabited by men and women who must fake happiness just to get by?

Do you see what I mean. Worldbuilding is everywhere. There are rules to every setting you create within a story no matter how fantastical or anchored in reality it is.

So, I LOVE WORLDBUILDING

[eldercheese]

World building is a bit of an odd duck for me, or at least it feels that way. Almost always I first come up with a character. That character floats in my brain for a while sticking to things it runs into. Sometimes it take but sometimes it starts picking up idea's of its own. A lot of time a world forms around the needs of character and their motivations.

Crow/Ray is great example of this. Her personality formed first, then her biology and then a world that would lead to something like that and finally the society that group up around a population of... well Crows.

From those bits and some of the history Rayzona had gathered up while drifting in my brain muscle came the supporting cast. Niahla and Shillie sprouted from plot needs and to fill holes to explain the world and the main character. I love world building to but a lot of the fun also comes from the way it effects your characters.