How do you create your World?

[BioSplycerZ]

I've always wanted to write a story based on a world I created but have always thought it a daunting task. With so little free time at my disposal as it is, and no real experience as a writer lending to a lack of confidence that my story will even be worth the time and effort invested in trying to write it. I've always loved hearing about the creative process famous writers journeyed through leading to their world coming to life. Tolkien's love of language and history, Neal Stephenson's love of geography and how that lead to the creation of a fantastical realm that's believable and engaging and relatable on such a deep level, the stories persist.

I've recently been inspired to pursue creating my world whether or not it develops into a book, in part as a thought experiment like "What if this existed this way, based on these core concepts" which exploded into a full on world structure from both the most concrete and abstract aspects. Starting with my world's creation and the natural/divine powers that lead to the world I was imagining, suddenly the governmental, economic, societal, and magic systems all had a foundation that started to make sense in my mind making the story part much less intimidating. A universe is coming together with natural laws that feel real and possible and with that, I can start to see the beginnings of a real story developing.

It may all turn out to be nothing more than a fun thought experiment, but just having the core foundation for a world with natural and magical laws that govern it inspired me to keep exploring the idea and let it grow and expand. And now I really dont have much concern about whether its worth telling the story, but instead I'm just eager to create and see what comes of the idea.

So I wanted to ask the other new and veteran writers here; when you are creating a story, what is your process? Do you create the universe and find a story within the world you created? Or do you have a specific story you want to tell and develop your world around that?

 

[Romy]

I like building worlds more than the actual writing but it is difficult getting it in a presentable form for others to enjoy.
There are some small short stories on why things are the way they are. Some stuff needs to happen but characters do not want to be in the places I need them to be.

 

[CupofJoe]

For me it is a bit of everything.
I am a visual thinker, so it usually starts with an image that I see or something that comes to me.
Dreams are great for that.
That leads me to either a story idea or setting.
Then I can let my imagination [a little] loose.

I used to dive deep into world building and get happily lost in there.
But I found a few things not great about that.
The first is that it eats in and takes up all the time I have to write.
Secondly the world building fixes the itch to write I had from the original idea.
Also, I found that my world building and story usually didn’t work out and I’d need to rewrite one or the other. More time wasted

Now I am trying to be more of a pantser. I have a few fixed points, but the rest is a fuzzy mess until I need to tighten it up.
Because I like high[ish] fantasy [and sci-fi], a lot of the worlds I create are pretty much like Earth but then twisted into something pretty.

 

[Wrexx]

I really enjoy the concept of world building, the different mechanics that can be created.
For example the Symbiosis that exists in Avatar is quite interesting.
Im probably more influenced by Fantasy, however while most fantasy realms typically involve different parts of one planet, it's also very cool to see entire planets that are so vastly different from each other as we do in many sci-fi scenarios.
Saying all that I guess to say while I appreciate them, I've never actually went about the task of creating an entire world system for the sake of the story.

I suppose individual writing style plays a large role in all of that, while I probably have a very vague idea of the general structure of a world it's not until my character either interacts with, discovers somthing about, or relates information about a place that it comes into focus for me.
If they are describing an event to another character or speaking of their homeland...im there taking notes.
In my head in saying "hey that's a cool place, never heard of it." LOL!

I do think it would be a fun challenge just to try and craft somthing like that, maybe down the road...when "free" time increases I can give it a go.

 

[pmmg]

I will steer you to...

Goldie's Guide to World Building

I usually don't start with the world though. I start with character and conflict, and the world that needs to be around it comes after.

 

[JBCrowson]

For me there has been a back and forth between story and world: I had an original idea for a story, which necessarily included some world building (there were gods and magic). Clarifying some important details about the extent and limits on both gods' power and magic, influenced the story. The setting also lead to interplay - a city that believes itself the last remnant of humanity had to have reasons to believe that, which became the religious beliefs that underpin the city. That meant a major culture shock for the MC when they left the city, so the story was impacted as they assimilated their new reality.

What would I suggest you do?
I think imagining what a day in the life really looks like for your MC could be helpful - what do I eat, where does it come from, what do I wear, what kind of place do I live, what jobs can I do, what about leisure time, how good is literacy and numeracy.

The answers to these questions may never explicitly come up in the story, but they will be in the background for sure. Some may become integral to the story, eg in an illiterate society, the one person who can read has phenomenal power, they might choose to abuse. Or the MC can leave notes for others, thinking they will not be read.

As you draft the structure of the plot keep track of the assumptions about physics, climate, culture, geography it requires. When you have all those pieces, think about how to build a coherent structure from them, what extra bits are needed to make it internally consistent. Then look at how to show the extra bits you had to add, without deforming the bones of the story.

 

[Karlin]

story , characters.World building? As I go. I don't really understand these world building discussions. You need a framework for your story, even if it not a fantasy story. But character and plot are teh guts of the story. Who cares what year the seashell bank was founded?

 

[skip.knox]

It would be interesting to know how completely built was Middle Earth before Tolkien began writing stories set within it. I don't know if there's any reliable evidence one way or the other, but I'd be willing to bet much was developed during the actual writing. And even after. Same for Stephenson.

Perhaps a useful experiment would be to ask yourself how much of the world would need to be built before you could start writing a story.

For myself, I both had much done prior and also almost none. I write fantasy set in an alternate Earth, so on one hand my world was entirely built. I had the geography, calendar, even economic and political systems, if I chose. OTOH, none of that got me a millimeter closer to an opening scene.

OOTH, I did have some assumptions, or choices made. One, that magic came into the world and was not already pre-existing. There was an event. I didn't know what, but I knew there would be a Before and an After. Same went for monsters; none before (maybe) but a great many after. I posited that the Roman Empire persisted right the way through up to modern times, though much changed over time. Again, none of that got me a story.

The very first stories I wrote came from entirely different sources. I one day imagined a kind of garden in which living beings were grown. I also had an image of a young man hitchhiking in the California desert. A Buick Roadmaster pulls up and offers him a ride. For both stories, that was about it. In both cases I thought here I had an idea that I surely could turn into a story. Because I had already decided all my stories would be set in this alternate historical world, that gave me what I needed to make the stories fantastical, though neither were set in the pseudo-Middle Ages, which is where I had meant to write.

Since then I've written four novels, three of which are indeed medieval (well, one is late Roman). In each and every case, I had to do a ton of worldbuilding in order to get the story told. All that the background stuff gave me was, well, background stuff. The specifics of the actual story required I do a great deal of very specific research (e.g., what does the Danube River look like on its lower reaches and where are the likely crossings; or what are the customs of the gardiens of the Camargue).

To put all that more succinctly, the really important worldbuilding happens in response to the needs of the story. And a great deal of worldbuilding never makes it into the finished product. But is still important, at least to the author!

 

[Prince of Spires]

It would be interesting to know how completely built was Middle Earth before Tolkien began writing stories set within it. I don't know if there's any reliable evidence one way or the other, but I'd be willing to bet much was developed during the actual writing.

A fair bit about this can be learned from the History of Middle Earth series which was published by Tolkien's son after his death. It's a collection (spanning a dozen or so books) of all the snippets and notes Tolkien wrote. Or at least, those parts that didn't end up in the Silmarillion. I'm sure it's not all of it, and it's mainly those bits that look like parts of stories. But it gives a decent picture.

And it shows that Tolkien worldbuild a lot through stories. He didn't sit down to write an essay on the various ways magic could be used in his stories. He just wrote a story about it.

All in all, I think Tolkien actually did far less of what we now call Worldbuilding than many people believe. He just wrote 12 novels worth of short stories and snippets of stories set in his world...

Since then I've written four novels, three of which are indeed medieval (well, one is late Roman).

Out of curiosity, since the Middle Ages began with the fall of the Western Roman empire, would they still be considered the Middle Ages in your world? And would it then also not be late Roman, but rather early Roman?

 

[Fant@syaspiringauthor14]

I've always wanted to write a story based on a world I created but have always thought it a daunting task. With so little free time at my disposal as it is, and no real experience as a writer lending to a lack of confidence that my story will even be worth the time and effort invested in trying to write it. I've always loved hearing about the creative process famous writers journeyed through leading to their world coming to life. Tolkien's love of language and history, Neal Stephenson's love of geography and how that lead to the creation of a fantastical realm that's believable and engaging and relatable on such a deep level, the stories persist.

I've recently been inspired to pursue creating my world whether or not it develops into a book, in part as a thought experiment like "What if this existed this way, based on these core concepts" which exploded into a full on world structure from both the most concrete and abstract aspects. Starting with my world's creation and the natural/divine powers that lead to the world I was imagining, suddenly the governmental, economic, societal, and magic systems all had a foundation that started to make sense in my mind making the story part much less intimidating. A universe is coming together with natural laws that feel real and possible and with that, I can start to see the beginnings of a real story developing.

It may all turn out to be nothing more than a fun thought experiment, but just having the core foundation for a world with natural and magical laws that govern it inspired me to keep exploring the idea and let it grow and expand. And now I really dont have much concern about whether its worth telling the story, but instead I'm just eager to create and see what comes of the idea.

So I wanted to ask the other new and veteran writers here; when you are creating a story, what is your process? Do you create the universe and find a story within the world you created? Or do you have a specific story you want to tell and develop your world around that?

I was unexperienced when I started my first draft, I'd done loads of other creative writing before that though, I was more unexperienced with world builiding

I've always wanted to write a story based on a world I created but have always thought it a daunting task. With so little free time at my disposal as it is, and no real experience as a writer lending to a lack of confidence that my story will even be worth the time and effort invested in trying to write it. I've always loved hearing about the creative process famous writers journeyed through leading to their world coming to life. Tolkien's love of language and history, Neal Stephenson's love of geography and how that lead to the creation of a fantastical realm that's believable and engaging and relatable on such a deep level, the stories persist.

I've recently been inspired to pursue creating my world whether or not it develops into a book, in part as a thought experiment like "What if this existed this way, based on these core concepts" which exploded into a full on world structure from both the most concrete and abstract aspects. Starting with my world's creation and the natural/divine powers that lead to the world I was imagining, suddenly the governmental, economic, societal, and magic systems all had a foundation that started to make sense in my mind making the story part much less intimidating. A universe is coming together with natural laws that feel real and possible and with that, I can start to see the beginnings of a real story developing.

It may all turn out to be nothing more than a fun thought experiment, but just having the core foundation for a world with natural and magical laws that govern it inspired me to keep exploring the idea and let it grow and expand. And now I really dont have much concern about whether its worth telling the story, but instead I'm just eager to create and see what comes of the idea.

So I wanted to ask the other new and veteran writers here; when you are creating a story, what is your process? Do you create the universe and find a story within the world you created? Or do you have a specific story you want to tell and develop your world around that?

Well, I started my actual story in August last year, and I restarted my worldbuilding yesterday. Since my ideas for what I want have changed a lot. I just finished the map structure half an hour ago at least, and I've been thinking of it all day in school, so had something to work with for the document, since I write all my ideas down if I'm in school or somewhere there is no computer. So I'm going to work on that while also writing chapter 4, and doing my schoolwork and any other documents that need creating or adding to. (The map I created is just for me, so I know the structure of everything. And I am a multitasker so I'm used to doing so much work at once. I wouldn't recommend doing this much work if your not used to it as it can cause you to overwork, which I've done many times.)

 

[Fant@syaspiringauthor14]

I was unexperienced when I started my first draft, I'd done loads of other creative writing before that though, I was more unexperienced with world builiding

Well, I started my actual story in August last year, and I restarted my worldbuilding yesterday. Since my ideas for what I want have changed a lot. I just finished the map structure half an hour ago at least, and I've been thinking of it all day in school, so had something to work with for the document, since I write all my ideas down if I'm in school or somewhere there is no computer. So I'm going to work on that while also writing chapter 4, and doing my schoolwork and any other documents that need creating or adding to. (The map I created is just for me, so I know the structure of everything. And I am a multitasker so I'm used to doing so much work at once. I wouldn't recommend doing this much work if your not used to it as it can cause you to overwork, which I've done many times.)

I didn't even realise, I already replied to this.

 

[skip.knox]

Out of curiosity, since the Middle Ages began with the fall of the Western Roman empire, would they still be considered the Middle Ages in your world? And would it then also not be late Roman, but rather early Roman?

First thank you for that about Tolkien. I've not read much beyond his main novels, plus Farmer Giles of Ham.

WRT the MA, there is a Renaissance of sorts in Altearth, but I haven't explored it much. But there's never a clear perception of Back Then In Roman Times, then a rough patch, and now we're something new (though I may make something of the Ancients vs Moderns discussion of the 17thc). So there's no Middle Ages in the way we understand (or misunderstand) the phrase.

Rather, most human historians carve the past into ages centered around magic. There's Antiquity--the time before monsters and wizards and all that. There's the Heroic Age, when magic was a kind of power possessed by an individual (or, in Late Heroic, by an object). There are the Dark Ages--there are two of them, thus justifying the plural <g>. There is in fact a Middle Age (singular), followed by the Golden Age (a nod to Erasmus), the Age of Science, and Modernity (which stretches for as long as I bloody well please). By the time of the Golden Age, the limits and boundaries of each age are increasingly colored by political and social currents in addition to how magic was used and perceived.

Obviously, or perhaps not so, the terms were mostly invented by later, even Modern, writers. The people living through them always thought of their own era as now. Modern. Unlike the Olden Days.

Oh, and possibly also obviously, other peoples--dwarves, ogres, elves, orcs, and such--have their own histories and chronologies. Gnomes have an understanding of their own past, but it's been hard to document by outsiders. And of course looking for anything so structured as a chronology from sprites or pixies, is just plain silly.