• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Begin at the beginning....

Chasejxyz

Inkling
It depends on the project, namely the idea that spawned it. If it's world-first like "what if there was a parasite that gave you magic?" then coming up with a story for that can be difficult, because I'll be busy figuring out how it works and how that affects other things...but there's no real characters involved in it, or real conflicts. But if the idea I got was more "what if someone discovered they had magic but was losing control of themselves because it's all being caused by a parasite?" then there's already a character/conflict baked into that idea, the story is already there, I just need to extrapolate on it.

Everything about a world can be the seed to an interesting story. Things like exploration, wars, and disasters are easy places to begin a story. Basic "coming of age" stories can be something totally new if set in a fantastic culture, different cultures, religions, and species will inevitably have conflict between each other and there's room for stories there, too.
 
What do you mean by story creation? If it's just outlining the story, then for me the proces goes hand in hand with creating the world. And that proces is not noticably harder or easier than creating the world.

If you mean writing the actual story, then that is harder. For a few reasons: the main one is that it's simply a lot more work. For me, spending a month on world building is enough to get to a place where I can start writing the story. When writing the story on the other hand, I can manage 30k words in a month, but 15-20k is more the norm for me. This means that a 75k word novel takes 4 or so months to write (a first draft that is).
Then there is the technical part: writing a novel is harder because you have to consider things like grammar, sentence structure, cause and effect. Yes, you don't necessarily have to for a first draft, but most people aim for something which is at least legible. World building on the other hand can be a collection of random paragraphs and half formed sentences. As long as it makes sense to you it's fine.
In the same area, world building is a lot more non-committal (I think that's the right term at least). With worldbuilding, you can write a paragraph on geography, jump to a history bit, doodle about magic and move on to fauna. To create a story, you put stuff down on paper. Yes, you can contradict yourself (I once changed the race of my protagonist halfway through a book...), but the fall-out can be much bigger.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Ideas are easy; stories are hard.
Building a world can be laborious (and great fun), but it's not at all the same as writing a story, save that words are involved with both. I do find worldbuilding to be much easier than writing a good story.
 

Adamsonofgordon

New Member
It depends on the project, namely the idea that spawned it. If it's world-first like "what if there was a parasite that gave you magic?" then coming up with a story for that can be difficult, because I'll be busy figuring out how it works and how that affects other things...but there's no real characters involved in it, or real conflicts. But if the idea I got was more "what if someone discovered they had magic but was losing control of themselves because it's all being caused by a parasite?" then there's already a character/conflict baked into that idea, the story is already there, I just need to extrapolate on it.

Everything about a world can be the seed to an interesting story. Things like exploration, wars, and disasters are easy places to begin a story. Basic "coming of age" stories can be something totally new if set in a fantastic culture, different cultures, religions, and species will inevitably have conflict between each other and there's room for stories there, too.

Your answer has highlighted a good point and perhaps a difference in approach to writing or creation than mine. My mind drifts to imagery and world creation very easlily but my thoughts and creations are very generic and , aiming to create and write about quite "classic" high fantasy worlds and scenarios (war, adventure, magic, good vs evil etc.) as i do, I get carried away with the world very easily but find it incredibly hard to nail down a plot and characters. Your example is a plot in itself which requires little in the way of world just a development of the theme which might sit in a number of settings. In response to Prince of Spires his point is spot on, it's the act of writing a story. Creating something that will draw others in. Perhaps that is the difference for me, the world creation is personal something i can do easily and play with and it needn't ever be exposed to anothers critisism but the story, the whole point of the story is to have other "judge" it so it requires far more effort on my part!
 

Adamsonofgordon

New Member
Your answer has highlighted a good point and perhaps a difference in approach to writing or creation than mine. My mind drifts to imagery and world creation very easlily but my thoughts and creations are very generic and , aiming to create and write about quite "classic" high fantasy worlds and scenarios (war, adventure, magic, good vs evil etc.) as i do, I get carried away with the world very easily but find it incredibly hard to nail down a plot and characters. Your example is a plot in itself which requires little in the way of world just a development of the theme which might sit in a number of settings. In response to Prince of Spires his point is spot on, it's the act of writing a story. Creating something that will draw others in. Perhaps that is the difference for me, the world creation is personal something i can do easily and play with and it needn't ever be exposed to anothers critisism but the story, the whole point of the story is to have other "judge" it so it requires far more effort on my part!
...and i'm lazy!
 
Top