I will no longer be updating this guide. I'm leaving it up in case it will continue to be helpful to anyone in the future.
People have asked me writing tips, Wattpad tips, and whatever. This is some of that advice I give them. Keep in mind most of t...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Here's where things get tricky, building your world. What is a world? Well it's exactly as it sounds, it's the location(s) where you story takes place as well as the rules and laws set in that world. It is the police, the magic, the economy, the layout—it is everything that makes that world function. World building is probably the most important aspect of a novel aside from the actual words. You could build the best characters ever, but it will mean nothing if the world they live in is crap. It will require research, even if it's 100% fictional. The rough draft can get away with minimal research, but by the final draft you better have every detailed nailed down to perfection.
The first thing you have to do, if you haven't already, is determine the genre of your story. You're not going to want to have elves in the middle of a mystery novel set in the real world 1970's. I suppose you could, if you really wanted to, but it won't make a lot of sense. The genre will also determine just how much world building you have to do. So lock that down! You don't want to look into corsets if the book is set in space where corsets don't exist.
If you're doing a mystery set in the 1950's, you'll want to research the 1950's. If you have a historical romance in the 1800's, you guessed it, you have to research the 1800's. As a writer you can get a lot of leniency to your worlds, but they still have to have be somewhat ground to reality if you want the reader to believe this place exists. And if it's in the real world you need to know that real city/state/country you're putting it in.
First I'll talk about real world settings before I go into creating your own 100% original world. I'll break world building up into two posts, with the fantasy world being the second post. I'm going to tell you how I came up with my locations for at least one of my books. There's no real way to properly explain how to build a world without telling you how I did it because again with this guide, I'm the only one I can reference. At least I don't know how if there is a way. It's not as simple as Step One: Make Law Step Two: Build buildings. You have so many factors to consider when you create a world or pick your real world setting.
Again, your writing style will determine how much world building you do at the start. As a pantser, my world building evolves as I write. A plotter will probably have the world all set before they write a word.
Without further ado, here is my world building thought process for real worlds.
Research for the real world is even more crucial because nothing will red flag a story as poorly researched more than saying it takes place in California, but all you write about is surfers and bikinis. I can't tell you how many times I've laughed at a story set in my home state. They're set in Hollywood or Beverly Hills with surfers and rich people and to a man they say it never snows in California. I remember one book on here that was set in an actual California city not far from where I grew up and when I mentioned to the author how excited I was to see that, they were all "Oh, I thought I made that city up." So if you're setting it in a real place, do your research. Don't just stick to the clichés ala Cali being nothing but surfers and rich people.
