How do you build your fantasy world?

[SleeplyBuilder]

When you create your fantasy worlds, do you have a clear vision of what you want from the beginning, or do ideas come to you unexpectedly while you're running errands or watching YouTube? Do you keep a notebook filled with world lore, or do you prefer using a site like Notion?

Personally, I prefer organizing my work by regions, like in a linear Zelda game. I enjoy gradually fleshing out each area and leaving connections for other places in my world.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm pretty sure I've done all those things, one time and another. But current practice is, I use Scrivener to write. I have one project for each book, plus one project called WorldReference. All the world building stuff goes in there. Naturally things occur to me in the course of writing a particular book that are, properly speaking, worldbuilding. I jot that stuff down in files in that particular project. From time to time anything that feels like a keeper get transferred over into WorldReference.

This does mean that in WorldReference can be found any number of contradictions, dead ends, and inscrutable notations, but at least I know where to look. One of these days I'm gonna get myself organized.

 

[ThinkerX]

I begin with an overall concept of the world and flesh it out by region from there. The primary world is patterned after the old AD&D 'Historical Earth' series.

The main landmass on the secondary world has its roots in an old SF short story by a major author, with another continent stemming from an old play-by-mail game.

One of the things often overlooked by fantasy authors is that planets are *BIG* - and all too often their 'world maps' cover only a tiny area. I often combine different 'worlds' into a grander whole.

 

[Prince of Spires]

All of the above really. I track my worldbuilding in OneNote. It's probably not the best tool for the job. But it works for me and I already had it, so no extra expenses, which was nice.

Usually I start with a general idea, and write down everything I know about that idea. I then expand on it, but taking those idea to their logical conclusion and thinking of consequences.

That gives me a basis. From there, I expand it whenever I get a new idea. And, most importantly, when I outline and write my story. I find that I can't think of everything before I start writing. If anything, the writing helps me flesh out the idea and forces me to make the worldbuilding concrete and specific. Doing this also forces me to focus mainly on the ideas that play a role in the story, which means the time worldbuilding is spent as efficiently as possible. (or at least more efficiently than when it's done in isolation).

For example, I have a world map. There's a nation somewhere in the south of it, which currently has little more than a name and a global idea of how they live. That's all I need to know about them at the moment. I don't need a whole section on that nation's history or the genealogy of their kings or their favorite children's games. It doesn't play a role in the story I'm currently writing. So I don't need to work on it. I know just enough (which is maybe 1 paragraph) that if they are mentioned in the story somewhere, then I can add a little bit of flavor to that mention.

Other things, I will have worked out in detail. I spent a fair bit of time in the main nation's capital for instance, and I have a rough map of the layout of the place, and a basic idea of it's history, reason for being where it is, trade network, and so on. Since I spend a lot of time there, here the time investment is justified. Though again, I came up with most of that as I was writing in or about it.

 

[pmmg]

I tend to begin with the story idea, and a concept of the characters, and let them inform me as to where they are from and what might be around them. I have been known to scribble on graph paper, and try a shape or too until I find something that sticks. With characters, place and lines on a map, I see what else it helps inform me of, and go from there. Any map I have drawn, but not published, is subject to change as the story demands, and better concepts come to me. Once publishing arrives, I do try to make the map look real pretty.

But...story first for me.

 

[CupofJoe]

I'm a visual thinker. So I start with an image in my head. that leads to a broad setting. If the image is of a person, I start building them up and filling in the blanks. Then [if I am lucky] comes the idea for a story to be told. at some point along this train of thought I will start drawing [mainly digitally] places and object and eventually a map. some time the map covers an empire, sometime just a few homes in a small village. This is often when I workout the scale of the story that I am trying to tell.

 

[skip.knox]

When you create your fantasy worlds, do you have a clear vision of what you want from the beginning, or do ideas come to you unexpectedly while you're running errands or watching YouTube? Do you keep a notebook filled with world lore, or do you prefer using a site like Notion?

Personally, I prefer organizing my work by regions, like in a linear Zelda game. I enjoy gradually fleshing out each area and leaving connections for other places in my world.

I have a follow-up on this. Do you build without regard to story? That is, do you have a world that you find interesting in itself, where you build it out without trying to create stories?

Or do you start with a story idea and use that story to build out your world further?

 

[SleeplyBuilder]

I have a follow-up on this. Do you build without regard to story? That is, do you have a world that you find interesting in itself, where you build it out without trying to create stories?

Or do you start with a story idea and use that story to build out your world further?

I have this world I've been building off and on for three years without writing a thing for it! I've been planning to do it's yearly update and start writing this summer break. I have a couple eras I've wanted to sit down and write about.

 

[Karlin]

I have this world I've been building off and on for three years without writing a thing for it! I've been planning to do it's yearly update and start writing this summer break. I have a couple eras I've wanted to sit down and write about.

I hope you've been writing some other unrelated stories during those years.

 

[SleeplyBuilder]

I hope you've been writing some other unrelated stories during those years.

Maybe like, one poem for a school assignment.

 

[skip.knox]

I do think there's a very different sort of process in building out a world as a world, and building a world in which specific stories take place. Each has its merits, but it's worth being aware in which field one is planting.

 

[Gurkhal]

I usually brainstorm, right now anyway, and so build the world when walking or resting and I'm not engaged with some other activity.

And sometimes I just sit down and write down a ton of notes in a true-ish brainstorm fashion.

 

[Super Fantasy]

In my novel "Nesneria", I choose a world type where two kingdoms are separated substantially.
The "Elven Matriarchy" is north of the kingdom of "Nesneria", and the two kingdoms share a rich history.
Nesneria was colonized by those who escaped the Elven Matriarchy's evil form of rule, by those who traveled south upon the vast green rolling hills of grass over many hundreds of years.
In Nesneria its self, there is a rich diversity of culture ranging from kings and queens to royalty of various forms.
Including cults and thieving clans as well as various economies.

 

[Orc Knight]

I build around the story or stories. Sometimes. Sometimes the world comes before it. But most the time the world is shaped by the story and the characters.

Like for instance, I have an MC that likes dining on horse. Unfortunately they aren't exactly bred with that in mind in real life. On her world though, horse's come in many varieties, one of which is sheep like. So it's those she's likely eating. Not entirely though.

She'll roast up someone's expensive warhorse without a second thought. But that's a mild example.

 

[xena]

I start with a general idea and then expand on it. Sometimes ideas pop up at random times, so I jot notes on my phone or in notebook and later organize everything in Notion.