Essay or Short Story?

[Drakevarg]

Been thinking about the actual process of world building as a whole and realized what might be part of the reason for my current slump - I don't really have any stories in mind.

Thing is, when I first started working on my setting, it was the backdrop for a tabletop campaign. While it has application beyond that, especially thanks to the work I've done on it over time, I feel that it was a lot easier to write content for the world when I HAD to in order to create a believable world for my campaign to take place in.

Now part of that might simply be the motivating power of a looming deadline, but the question I'm asking myself now is if it wouldn't be easier to flesh out my world if - instead of a series of dry technical essays like I'm doing an imaginary research paper - I came up with a series of short stories set in specific locations and time periods in my world, forcing me to create a world around that story.

Just wanted to get the forum's opinion on the matter, and see if anyone had any better ideas on the issue.

 

[Heliotrope]

For myself, I have to have a story in mind before I start world building. I come up with a concept idea first, a sort of premise, or "what if" statement, then I apply a variety of settings to see what works best.

So I might think something like "what if a society thought that only the truly innocent were capable of judging others, so the judicial system was made up entirely of children who had been kept in isolation since birth?" (The premise for an abandoned project of mine called The Eden Project.)

Then I would think about what sort of story this would be, who would be involved, etc, and then I would start applying world building to see what fit best. What sort of a world would breed child judges who could no longer be considered 'innocent" after making judgments, so were abandoned after every trial?

Would I choose a biblical type setting to play off of the theme? Is this another planet? Or is this a dystopian earth?

Premise first. World building to support premise.

 

[Drakevarg]

Well, I already have a world, I'm not intending on writing up a new one. What I want is to flesh out currently-neglected areas of that world for future use or further context to regions I'm already using. I enjoy worldbuilding as a pursuit of its own, it doesn't need a "point" in my eyes.

 

[Heliotrope]

Ahhhh, I see. I thought you meant you needed to create a story from the world building. I understand now. Either way is fine. When I'm in a slump with the boring planning parts I like to write short little stories as if I'm a character in the particular setting, a monologue or something. That can be fun for sure.

 

[Deleted member 4265]

What I do is something sort of in between. I write sort of a travel log or first hand account of an important event. I wouldn't really consider it a short story because it doesn't really have a plot. Sometimes its just small snippets of description. I just try to think if I were in this city what would I notice. Why would anyone come to this place? Where would I get food? Are the locals friendly? What's my travel route?

I generally only do this write before I write a scene somewhere and I don't have a clear picture of the place. But I could see this method being used for more intensive world building.