Current Events > fantasy writers of CE, gimmie world building tips

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have never really built a coherent world. I usually just stop at characters and a plot.

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@HashtagTartarus

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I've been thinking about creating a homebrew world for DND. It's a bit overwhelming. The hardest part for me is getting started.

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MorbidFaithless posted...

I've been thinking about creating a homebrew world for DND. It's a bit overwhelming. The hardest part for me is getting started.

what inroads have you made so far?


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Rip off RA Salvatore.

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More rivers!
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Protip: Don't do Fantasy.

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You'll need bricks and a lot of concrete

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Give things ESP abilities.

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You need to establish context of the world that your characters are inhabiting and why the plot matters.

lore, history, geography, etc. audiences need context that they can connect with in order to empathize with your characters and become invested in the plot.

they dont have to be huge lore dumps.


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Literally nothing is original, so don't worry that you're cribbing some stuff you read or saw or whatever, as long as you recontextualize it and make it your own.
Oh, and you don't have to explain everything. Sometimes the audience is going to be able to come up with something more satisfying on their own.

DrizztLink posted...

Rip off RA Salvatore.

Do the opposite of this.

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Get it any way you can

Let's say they reach the 'Rolf of Discipline'... well the Ed boys would've had to get there somehow so that means the 'Rolf of Discipline' is later on. Is the 'Rolf of Discipline' something that gets blown up? Is it something that needs to be saved? Is the 'Rolf of Discipline' just a staff of sort that's needed to thwart an invasion of Jimmies? A horde of Sarahs? Is Kevin a swashbuckler that joins up and later on steals the 'Rolf of Discipline' from the hands of the Ed Boys? Do legends tell of the 'square one full of holes' and his trusty steed, the Pink Star? Do they drink from the Sac of Cul? Or does Eddy and Ed drink but Edd doesn't because he was always skeptical? Are they a group of Orphans who forsake their past and don the near same name? Who is the warrior, who holds the sacred plank, and who is the bard?

Really, if you think about cool names first you can probably get some ideas.. I find that helps alot. Starting 3/4's of the way through might also help

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DuranOfForcena posted...

thanks for the mention, @GregShmedley , and oh geez, where do i start

i think it's important to be a diligent student of history and to have clear cut real world historical inspirations for your fantasy setting. creating an entire world from scratch is a large undertaking, and you can be at it for years if you let yourself get lost in it (which i admit i have, at least somewhat). but if you know your history and you have an idea of what parallels to it that you want to have, in essence what that does is it lets history do some of the work for you. it doesn't all have to come from your own mind. put your own spin on things for sure, don't just copy paste real historical events wholesale, but if you let history do some of the work, your setting will feel more realistic and logical for it. readers will read aspects of your world and think, hey that kind of stuff happens in the real world, and they will appreciate that.

also it's very important that your setting and worldbuilding feed into the plot and the character histories, and vice versa. i've seen people so focused entirely on worldbuilding down to the most intricate, trivial detail, and when you ask them about what kind of story they want to tell in that setting, they just kinda go "i dunno". that's never good. worldbuilding feels awesome when you are doing it and making good progress with it, and readers will appreciate well-made, intricate worldbuilding, but it's only a backdrop. it's not what they are going to be reading your book for. the characters and the plot are what keeps readers interested. so i think it's best to develop all of the above at the same time and be constantly aware of how each one feeds into the other, so that the aspects of worldbuilding you create and present in your narrative will have significance and be presented for a reason.

but of course that doesn't mean that you should never think about the minor, trivial details that will never actually make it into the narrative. there will most likely be a lot of stuff you have to figure out that will be for you and you alone. it's not stuff that the reader will necessarily need to be explicitly told, and it may or may not be demonstrated or hinted at at some point in the narrative, but it is stuff that you as the creator of the world will need to know in order to have a foundation for other, larger aspects of the world that the reader will need to be explicitly told at some point. the trick is being able to tell the difference, and figuring out exactly when and where and in what quantities it is appropriate to introduce aspects of your worldbuilding into the narrative.

whenever you introduce some of your worldbuilding into the narrative, there needs to be a point to doing so, there needs to be some significance it has to the narrative or to a character. and it needs to be timely, so either introduced at the time when whatever it has significance to is going on, or if you want to introduce it at some earlier point as a method of foreshadowing some greater significance at a later point, it still is best to have at least some minor significance to what's going on.

lastly i want to say that there are definitely plenty of resources about the subject online. i for one am a huge junkie of writing craft videos on youtube. i'm pretty sure almost every youtube channel i subscribe to for writing advice has done at least one video on worldbuilding, if not more. a few are dedicated entirely to worldbuilding and different aspects of it. some of the ones i subscribe to and would recommend are:

Artifexian
Brandon Sanderson
Chris Fox
Ellen Brock
Hello Future Me
Just Write
K.M. Weiland
Lessons from the Screenplay
Mandi Lynn
Reedsy
ShaelinWrites
Terrible Writing Advice

also, going off of the earlier statement about being a student of history, i do enjoy a few history-centric youtube channels as well which i think have helped me along in my writing process as well:

BazBattles
Epimetheus
Historia Civilis
History Matters
History Uncovered
Simple History

^that

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DuranOfForcena posted...

thanks for the mention, @GregShmedley , and oh geez, where do i start

i think it's important to be a diligent student of history and to have clear cut real world historical inspirations for your fantasy setting. creating an entire world from scratch is a large undertaking, and you can be at it for years if you let yourself get lost in it (which i admit i have, at least somewhat). but if you know your history and you have an idea of what parallels to it that you want to have, in essence what that does is it lets history do some of the work for you. it doesn't all have to come from your own mind. put your own spin on things for sure, don't just copy paste real historical events wholesale, but if you let history do some of the work, your setting will feel more realistic and logical for it. readers will read aspects of your world and think, hey that kind of stuff happens in the real world, and they will appreciate that.

also it's very important that your setting and worldbuilding feed into the plot and the character histories, and vice versa. i've seen people so focused entirely on worldbuilding down to the most intricate, trivial detail, and when you ask them about what kind of story they want to tell in that setting, they just kinda go "i dunno". that's never good. worldbuilding feels awesome when you are doing it and making good progress with it, and readers will appreciate well-made, intricate worldbuilding, but it's only a backdrop. it's not what they are going to be reading your book for. the characters and the plot are what keeps readers interested. so i think it's best to develop all of the above at the same time and be constantly aware of how each one feeds into the other, so that the aspects of worldbuilding you create and present in your narrative will have significance and be presented for a reason.

but of course that doesn't mean that you should never think about the minor, trivial details that will never actually make it into the narrative. there will most likely be a lot of stuff you have to figure out that will be for you and you alone. it's not stuff that the reader will necessarily need to be explicitly told, and it may or may not be demonstrated or hinted at at some point in the narrative, but it is stuff that you as the creator of the world will need to know in order to have a foundation for other, larger aspects of the world that the reader will need to be explicitly told at some point. the trick is being able to tell the difference, and figuring out exactly when and where and in what quantities it is appropriate to introduce aspects of your worldbuilding into the narrative.

whenever you introduce some of your worldbuilding into the narrative, there needs to be a point to doing so, there needs to be some significance it has to the narrative or to a character. and it needs to be timely, so either introduced at the time when whatever it has significance to is going on, or if you want to introduce it at some earlier point as a method of foreshadowing some greater significance at a later point, it still is best to have at least some minor significance to what's going on.

lastly i want to say that there are definitely plenty of resources about the subject online. i for one am a huge junkie of writing craft videos on youtube. i'm pretty sure almost every youtube channel i subscribe to for writing advice has done at least one video on worldbuilding, if not more. a few are dedicated entirely to worldbuilding and different aspects of it. some of the ones i subscribe to and would recommend are:

Artifexian
Brandon Sanderson
Chris Fox
Ellen Brock
Hello Future Me
Just Write
K.M. Weiland
Lessons from the Screenplay
Mandi Lynn
Reedsy
ShaelinWrites
Terrible Writing Advice

also, going off of the earlier statement about being a student of history, i do enjoy a few history-centric youtube channels as well which i think have helped me along in my writing process as well:

BazBattles
Epimetheus
Historia Civilis
History Matters
History Uncovered
Simple History

thanks. the borrowing from history makes sense, the story I am thinking of writing takes place in the real world so that is particularly good advice for me. i guess the question is how much non fiction and fiction to have in ratio. i struggle a lot with plotting stuff, I don't have the best eye for story. but details like organizations and persons have always interested me in fiction.

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RedJackson posted...

Get it any way you can

Let's say they reach the 'Rolf of Discipline'... well the Ed boys would've had to get there somehow so that means the 'Rolf of Discipline' is later on. Is the 'Rolf of Discipline' something that gets blown up? Is it something that needs to be saved? Is the 'Rolf of Discipline' just a staff of sort that's needed to thwart an invasion of Jimmies? A horde of Sarahs? Is Kevin a swashbuckler that joins up and later on steals the 'Rolf of Discipline' from the hands of the Ed Boys? Do legends tell of the 'square one full of holes' and his trusty steed, the Pink Star? Do they drink from the Sac of Cul? Or does Eddy and Ed drink but Edd doesn't because he was always skeptical? Are they a group of Orphans who forsake their past and don the near same name? Who is the warrior, who holds the sacred plank, and who is the bard?

Really, if you think about cool names first you can probably get some ideas.. I find that helps alot. Starting 3/4's of the way through might also help

would you make a story or characters first? The Eds or the jawbreaker?

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it's kind of a persona 5 oc fanfic >_>

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Don't make the map with an ocean in the west and uncharted territory in the east. It's overdone and tiresome.

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

Don't make the map with an ocean in the west and uncharted territory in the east. It's overdone and tiresome.

That's what real life is like though. Pacific Ocean to the west and strange mysterious lands to the east full of alien peoples.

MedeaLysistrata posted...

would you make a story or characters first? The Eds or the jawbreaker?

Do the jawbreaker first and see if it's an egg or the start of the universe

also I agree with what @DuranOfForcena said: good artists copy, great artists steal

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Dont try to force yourself to make some kind of world outline or something. You dont need to write the silmarillion to write about a fantasy world. If youre better at characters and plot then let the world build itself up around that. As you write youll likely get ideas just from the direction the story is heading and the world will come into its own. Over time you can discard elements which you fee are incongruous


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Give the dog boobs.

http://puu.sh/GDb1b/41a5e0bb15.jpg

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This is now officially the CE writing topic.
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vigorm0rtis posted...

Do the opposite of this.

Give RA Salvatore ideas?

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DuranOfForcena posted...

tbh I agree with most things you said, I guess I was being a little too simple.

I am pretty good and creating the overall skeleton of a world a story (or pnp campaign) will take place in but a lot of people find nitty gritty specifics difficult and overall I often caution towards going fully headlong into the framework and lore of the world. Often instead of writing productively you can end up drowning in the details of how spell casting works or the origins of the swamp elves or whatever else. Sometimes you just need to -go- and once your characters start doing things I feel its often easier to imagine places and things you want them to interact with

as you said though its different for everyone. This has made me think of an old episode of the podcast My Brother My Brother and Me where they had Patrick Rothfuss on and he talked for a bit about the way different authors play to their own strengths in terms of world building. Wish I could remember the episode number

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Remember to add in problems. A lot of people make their towns some sorta magical place, but what issues do they have? Maybe they have a rat infestation, maybe they have short supply of clean water/food.

Every world will have some sort of turmoil, and they dont have to be big, but it'll help you control the narritive.

You got a lot of good info from @DuranOfForcena , I'd use the resources he's provided, but I didnt notice any mention of societal failings.

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