The Pen & The Sword: A Discussion Book

|Discussion Article|World Building Part 1 of 1000|

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As you might notice from the title, I have this planned as a series. I'm not saying it will take me 1000 parts to explain World Building, but it could. Honestly, I'm going to miss a lot because so much goes into building a fantasy world. The key component though? Imagination.

"Imagination? Hannah, everyone has that... we're writers."

I get that. But sometimes we could all use a little expansion of our subconscious fantasies. Before you start writing you should be able to close your eyes and walk through your world. There will be things missing, but you'll fill them in with time. 

Imagine, what I call your "movie set."

My movie set is named Illdissa. When I first came up with this continent, I saw a mixture of Alagaesia meets Mordor, meets Winterfell. I went with background information, with what I know. You know that saying, "Write about what you know?" I did that, then I shuffled the deck. I laid my foundation with a lot of inspiration from other literary works.

Once I had that I could build on it following these questions: 

 What do all of these places have in common?: For me, it was that medieval feeling, you know the one you get with castles, magic, and the fantastic lack of indoor plumbing. I never imagined Illdissa as being futuristic. It's a dirty place, where the people smell and the beer is awful. 

What about these places interests me to write something similar to them?:  Swords. The ability to use the word... Mansi says I can't say it in a TFF article, but it's a word you can't use today in good company. 

Foundation is laid, now to build the basic structure:

Society. What makes up a society? And do you want a benevolent society or something chaotic like the Hunger Games? And what about societal norms? Is it customary to wipe your nose on your sleeve in greeting, do you stomp on people's toes to congratulate them on the birth of their latest child?

I swear, there are so many things that you can think of, but what about what you should think of?

Hannah's Shopping List for All Your Societal Needs: 

Who's on top?: who's in charge, what do they do, how did they get to that appointment? Are they just one person or an entire organization?

Who's on the lower rung?: who does the menial work, are they happy doing so, have they ever rebelled again those at the top of the ladder? 

Religion: Do your people have a god? Any creation myths? At some point, someone had to think, "How the heck did we get here?"

What laws or morals does your world have, that our world might not have: Some laws or taboos can go unspoken. Like: Don't kill other people. Here on Earth, most people will tell you that murder is immoral. It's kinda a big deal. If it's the same in your world, you don't have to mention it. But is it customary to stab someone when they sneeze in your world? How does your society deal with nose pickers? Are we super stringent or is that a good thing?

Gender roles: Is this a thing for your people? What do men and women do in your world? 

Landmarks: Where do people congregate? Why there? Where do they live?

Does anyone want to add anything? I'm sure I missed something but I can't think anymore. Leave an inline comment here for easy viewing!

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World building is a long process, and everything is apt to change. I've built entire worlds before and scrapped them only to start over. Sometimes that's what it takes. Drafts are a part of the writing process as is world building. 

I'm going to begin closing this article up because it's getting late for me and I've been sitting in one spot for waaaaay too long: 

For our next article, leave some questions about world building and I'll try to answer them. 

Next time's main topic: How to implement your planning of your world!