Help fleshing out a setting

[Skaloog]

I am just starting to write this story. I have my protagonists' personalities nicely fleshed out but my antagonist could still use some work. I decided my next step is to organize all my ideas about the setting into a coherent world.

Imagine our world...

Then add massive climate change that significantly altered the coastlines as well as over production and over population causing damage the landscape. Then add a huge war with nuclear, biological and other weapons of mass destruction. Basically wipe out 99% of the population. On top of that add horrble supernatural entities from other dimensions that foolish human leaders brought to this world as a last ditch effort to win said war. While you are at it throw in a smattering of gennetically engineered monsters. Finally, add about 1000 years.

I chose to focus in on eastern/central Canada because there is a lot work with and it hasn't been used much before.

I would like to move away from the classic Fallout type nuclear holocaust world into a more healed world where civilzation is mostly tribal with some more advanced city states. I would like to really bring out the feeling of nature reclaming back the world but with some stange signs and scars of the previous civilization.

How should I go about building this world? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[skip.knox]

There are a large number of general articles on world building on the Net. I suggest you have a look at a few of those.

For myself, world building in itself isn't interesting. Story telling is interesting. I build the world only insofar as the story requires it. This naturally requires I work out quite a lot of background, but again only what is needed for the story. To me, building a world first then trying to put a story into it is grasping the wrong end of the stick. It's still a stick, though, and others may have had success with starting at that end. Maybe others will chime in.

Meanwhile, go ye therefore and Google.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

There's a great book about what would happen if the world's population vanished overnight: 'The World Without Us'. It explains how quickly nature would reclaim the cities and so on. You'd have to research the nuclear effects, too, but that's also well-documented. Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire books are about a post-nuclear-cock-up, a thousand years on, but I'm not sure how scientifically accurate it is (he has tower blocks still standing, and society in a basic pseudo-medieval swords-and-small-kingdoms society).

Otherwise, I'm like Skip - I write the story and build the world around it, apart from some basic history. I start with a character (you've got that part sorted), in a situation, in a setting, and then see where that goes.

Good luck with it. Sounds interesting.

 

[SBDanes]

You just started building your world in this post. As you describe ideas, your world builds itself. Just imagine how the characters are going about their lives in this time and it will form from there.