My Writing Guide

Worldbuilding

With Fred Warren

Begin at the Beginning. Every story happens somewhere. That "somewhere" is the stage on which your characters move about and have their adventures, and worldbuilding is the process of creating it. Where you start depends on the sort of story you're writing. For a story set in the here and now, the job is pretty straightforward. If your story takes place in New York City, for example, you may only need to acquaint the reader with the particular neighborhood your characters live in. You'll need to describe some landmarks to help them get oriented, and provide some cultural flavor. Beyond that, it won't be too hard to paint a picture in your readers' minds of a big, modern American city. Most of the work has already been done by their own experiences.

Question Yourself. If you're writing a science fiction or fantasy story, it can get a little more complicated. You'll have to make some very basic decisions about what sort of world you're working with. You can start out with a list of questions. Imagine it's your first visit to this planet—what are some basic things you'd want to know about it? Is it similar to Earth? If not, what's different? What are its gravity, atmosphere, and climate? How about the geography? Is it mountainous, or flat? Dominated by oceans or land? Full of life or sparsely populated? What kinds of creatures live there? What creature dominates? Is it intelligent? If it's intelligent, does it have simple or advanced technology? Does it live in large communities or small groups? Are the communities organized into broader kingdoms or nations, and what are the relationships among them? If it's a fantasy world, is there magic?

As you answer these questions, you'll begin to develop a picture in your mind's eye of what your world is like. The broader questions will lead you to more specific questions, and may begin to impose limits on the characteristics of your world's inhabitants. For example, on a high-gravity world, creatures will likely be big-boned, muscular, and short. Tall, willowy creatures won't be able to handle the gravity, and flying may not be possible, either. Dwelling places will likely be built close to the ground or burrowed into it. Likewise, plants will probably be broad and stumpy, growing close to the surface.

Be Consistent. All worlds, no matter how alien or fantastic, have rules. The questioning process establishes the general boundaries, and those limits will become less fuzzy as you go along. Everything that happens in your story should make sense within the rules you've established for your world. Let's say you've created a fantasy world where magic works, but only females can use magic. You can't just randomly have a male character casting spells, at least without providing a reasonable explanation for why he's an exception to the rule. Depending on the scope of your story, and how much of your world your characters will move around in, you may need to sketch out some maps to keep the lay of the land straight in your mind. It wouldn't do to have mountain ranges and rivers changing position at different spots in your story.

Ready, Set...Wait a minute! Once your world is fully imagined, you're ready to turn your characters loose on it and get your story moving, right? Not so fast—you have a solid picture of your world now, but you can't assume your readers know anything about it. You have to help them see what you see. You have to find a way to immerse readers in this world without overwhelming them or your story. Worldbuilding is fun, and it can be easy to get so wrapped up in the intricate details of creating a new world that your story gets lost in pages and pages of details about plants and animals and architecture and the bizarre effects of your planet's crazy orbit. Sure, you want your readers to love this world as much as you do, and there's a lot of information to share—but what's the best way to do that?

Leave Room for the Reader's Imagination. Remember, worldbuilding is like creating a theater stage, and the complexity of your backgrounds and props will depend on the story you're telling. You may want to provide only a simple outline of the environment, and let the readers fill in the rest. The human imagination is pretty powerful and can do a lot of work for you.