World Building: How do you start?

[FatCat]

Take a certain bullet-point, like say religion.

Then boil yourself a cup of tea and start thinking about questions such as: Are there any deities, if so how many? · If so, what are the deities roles in the creation of the universe? · What's the purpose of life? · What's after death? · How widespread is the religion? · etc.

Start off by creating a religion you find interesting. The next religion you create will be a lot simpler. But don't sit there and force yourself to write a thousand words in twenty minutes.

I think I'm getting my flow down here. Before I was trying to complete one idea before moving on to the next, now I've started again, but this time moving around on different aspects of world building. So I started with a detailed plot outline, i.e. main character attributes I want to point out, characters referenced in the chapter, so on. I did the first three chapters, then switched to races and I'm getting my groove! I think substituting coffee for tea will serve me better though.

 

[Shockley]

I'll just walk you through the process I used when I created my main world, Argantar.

I cracked open an Anglo-Saxon dictionary and flipped through the A's randomly (I like A sounds, bluntly said). I found the word 'Argantar.' Argantar means 'relating to silver,' so that was my starting place. Generally we see silver as degraded from gold, so I decided that Argantar had to be a colony of some greater country - so I devised the word 'Abenar' for this earlier country, keeping the major elements of the word 'Argantar' intact. Keeping with the theme of Argantar being a degraded Abenar, I decided that it had to be politically unstable and transitioning to the 'bronze' country, so I established two break-away kingdoms, Fornogros and Utanland (Utanland is a completely custom 'word' creation, Fornogros derives from Anglo-Saxon like Argantar - 'forn' usually indicates something dangerous).

This was all pretty basic, but I had something to build off: Something happened to cause Abenar to split into Argantar, and something had to be happening to create Fornogros and Utanland. Knowing that this was not enough, I created two foreign empires to give me added pressure, as needed: Nastrund (a simple variation on the 'Nastrond' of Nordic myth) and Eskandria (derived from the Arabic rendering of Alexander). So I had my basic geography and my political divisions - everything else revolved around justifying those divisions.

So I built a story of Abenarian exiles arriving in Argantar and subjugating a local populace and establishing a government based around god-kings. I had this core idea, so the religion and politics expanded from this: fairly tyrannical monarchs, little freedom and a religion that had a dim view of the human condition. This gave me an easy excuse for Utanland and Fornogros: Respectively, a state that rejects monarchy and an aboriginal state rejecting the Abenarians. To make the extremes of Argantar more acceptable, I had to make Nastrund even worse - a mageocracy, ruled by undead necromancers and massive slave labor (I explored this in the one story I've posted on this board, the Return of Eino the Undying to Almorak). To further the contrast, Eskandria becomes a riff on Sumer - chaotic gods, but an ordered society that encourages both technological innovation and trade.

I added in a few additional elements that gave the world 'flavor:' The Children of Gangibar, a race of semi-divine humans who are the craftsmen of the gods; Kerath, a vaulted city where only the wealthy can enter/leave; Manzriah, a country ruled over by an actual god; Awinnan, the womb of nations; the Wastes, the burial ground of Abenar; etc.

It's still a work in progress, but should I ever regain my interest in writing fantasy I think I have a strong starting point.

 

[Zero Angel]

I think I'm getting my flow down here. Before I was trying to complete one idea before moving on to the next, now I've started again, but this time moving around on different aspects of world building. So I started with a detailed plot outline, i.e. main character attributes I want to point out, characters referenced in the chapter, so on. I did the first three chapters, then switched to races and I'm getting my groove! I think substituting coffee for tea will serve me better though.

Just pursue what is interesting to you. If it is not interesting, I don't think you'll be able to get other people interested in it either, but if you find it interesting, then you have something to work with.