Are you a wannabe writer who is looking for grand new ideas for your Sci-Fi epic that is totally not a Star Wars rip-off? Or maybe a story of grand adventure and epic clashes between good and evil in a fantasy world where the most humble of heroes must set out to destroy the big bad, and is totally not a rip-off of the Lord of the Rings?
Well if either of those describe your most recent book and you aren't taking the piss/lazy as hell, then you should probably stop writing. If you actually want to bring originality to your setting, Worldbuilding is the absolute start for writers of any fiction story whether it be about high fantasy, alternate history, sci-fi, e.t.c.
So what is worldbuilding? Well, worldbuilding is, as the name implies, building up the setting to a story. However, it is far more than just hand-waving it by saying "Some place somewhere in space" and then pulling the rest of it out of your ass when convenient, Worldbuilding is making an actual, working system that is functional, interesting, and has some actual depth to it.
So where do you start with worldbuilding? Well, most people start with a map. Something simple. Draw your continents first, then mountains and rivers, then climates, and finally political.
[HR][/HR][B]Tips for map making:
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Making a map is serious business. Often times the map will define your world more than the characters and your actions. So remember these key steps when making a map
- Start with scale. Decide on what level you want the map to be. Some people like entire planets to be mapped, some like continents, others choose simple islands. All are best suited to your own writing style and preference. Do you think big, or small?
- Next, move onto coastlines. Coastlines in real life are never to straight but usually not completely irregular. It is mostly defined by the climate and height. Areas on plateaus or with mountains will have rocky coasts (and ditto for places carved out by glaciers) while coastlines in smooth, sloping lowlands will have nice beaches and be generally straight.
- When working with islands, remember, they do not simply spring up out of the ground. Islands often appear where two plates are sliding together, forcing the land upward. They will be continuations of mountain ranges, in this case. In other cases, they can be the result of volcanoes (above water or submerged) spewing out magma that cools into rock that forms islands and atolls over time.
- Islands can also be parts of a continent that have been split off by rising ocean levels or plates separating over [I]very [/I]long periods of time.
- Once you have done all that, add in mountains first. Remember that mountains are not mushrooms, they do not spring out of the ground willy-nilly. They follow specific patterns where tectonic plates collide to form them.
- Rivers always flow towards the coast, except on rare occasions where the land is below sea level. They will ALWAYS flow downward though, no matter what. Because of this, rivers do not "split" into 2, they collide into one. Rivers are straighter on elevated areas while flatlands will have scribbley, snaky rivers. Also, lakes drain out (or flow into) ONE point and only one point. They typically flow away from mountains. You cannot have gravity defying rivers.
- Deserts are the biggest biome people seem to have issues with. Deserts do not form without reason. Most deserts are caused by the "rain shadow" effect, which is when a mountain range blocks oncoming rain by emptying it out over the mountain, causing one side to see little to no rainfall. Some deserts can be caused by their relative position to the equator as well.
- Rain forests are also relative to the equator.
[HR][/HR]However, map making is just one part of the massive process of worldbuilding. In the quest to make an idea into a living world, you must think about some questions.
- What animals live in my world. How big or small are they, and how deadly? How does the ecosystem support them, and how do they fit that ecosystem's niche?
- Which regions have the abundance of materials and the relatively stable environmental conditions to jumpstart intelligent civilization?
- What major threats are there to these civilizations during their development? How do they effect the societies of these people?
- How has the climate and wildlife of certain parts of the world influenced the people that live there?
- What are the religions of the world? How do they affect the populace? Are the gods real or imaginary?
- How has technology and society developed differently from our own world?
- What major cultures are there? How do the cultural barriers affect the peoples of these cultures?
- What major events caused by intelligent species have affected the outcome of the world?
- Are there specific messages you want your world to send to the reader?
Many of these questions are important but often times forgotten. However, the most important part of your world are the people/things living on it, not the world itself. Anyone can make a planet, but it is something to give it true life. Not just a fake life with inexplicable giant monsters that could not be supported by any stable ecosystem, or massive armies of Orcs that are apparently fed by ash from a volcano (seriously, where the fuck [I]does [/I]all the food come from in Mordor?). Real, honest to goodness life that could actually exist and is exciting, original, and cool, all at the same time.
So, other than that, what is the purpose of this thread? Well, to share your own worlds. If you have written a story that is of interest, or just got bored and drew a map one day, or even if you just want to try your hand at worldbuilding for the first time, this thread is always open to share your interesting worlds!
So start building!
World building sounds like a headache to me. I can't keep track of half the shit going on in the real world, much less an entirely made-up one. I like writing sci-fi and fantasy, but I don't plan any aspect of a world, no matter how minute, unless I know for a fact that it is going to be critical to the plot later on.
Designing a map also sounds like a painful task, especially since I don't have a great concept of distance and proportion on maps in general. I think if I ever had to draw a map it would look something like this
[t]http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luginv2Xlv1qzzqt2o1_500.png[/t]
At the very most my map would be some crudely-drawn thing, and I would say that it was made by one of the characters in the story to try and track where they've been, so that would cover my ass from implausibility, and I wouldn't feel obligated to include anything that was never present or referred to in the story.
But I have a friend who is all about world-building. I think he world-builds more than he actually writes, which can be kind of frustrating when I discuss it with him. He's writing a sci-fi story revolving around this alien planet with 3-4 moons, and he's intricately planned out the climates, atmospheres, biology, life forms, and cultures of the people who have colonized the places, but now he's struggling just to convey all this information in story form, much less make it all relevant to a larger over-arching narrative.
He also has a fantasy story he's working on, but it seems to have him really torn. He wants to have it include a lot of creatures from traditional mythology, mostly of ancient Greek origin, but implementing other things as well. But the big problem is that he's [b]deathly[/b] afraid of sounding cliched, so every mythological creature has to have a never-before-seen twist to it. He wants to include vampires, for example, "But they need to be like the exact opposite of Twilight and Dracula and stuff. Just really animalistic and hardly recognizable as something once human. And the story [b]definitely[/b] can't have both vampires and werewolves."
[QUOTE=Loofiloo;40763340]World building sounds like a headache to me. I can't keep track of half the shit going on in the real world, much less an entirely made-up one. I like writing sci-fi and fantasy, but I don't plan any aspect of a world, no matter how minute, unless I know for a fact that it is going to be critical to the plot later on.
Designing a map also sounds like a painful task, especially since I don't have a great concept of distance and proportion on maps in general. I think if I ever had to draw a map it would look something like this
[t]http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luginv2Xlv1qzzqt2o1_500.png[/t]
At the very most my map would be some crudely-drawn thing, and I would say that it was made by one of the characters in the story to try and track where they've been, so that would cover my ass from implausibility, and I wouldn't feel obligated to include anything that was never present or referred to in the story.
But I have a friend who is all about world-building. I think he world-builds more than he actually writes, which can be kind of frustrating when I discuss it with him. He's writing a sci-fi story revolving around this alien planet with 3-4 moons, and he's intricately planned out the climates, atmospheres, biology, life forms, and cultures of the people who have colonized the places, but now he's struggling just to convey all this information in story form, much less make it all relevant to a larger over-arching narrative.
He also has a fantasy story he's working on, but it seems to have him really torn. He wants to have it include a lot of creatures from traditional mythology, mostly of ancient Greek origin, but implementing other things as well. But the big problem is that he's [b]deathly[/b] afraid of sounding cliched, so every mythological creature has to have a never-before-seen twist to it. He wants to include vampires, for example, "But they need to be like the exact opposite of Twilight and Dracula and stuff. Just really animalistic and hardly recognizable as something once human. And the story [b]definitely[/b] can't have both vampires and werewolves."[/QUOTE]
Worldbuilding is very difficult, indeed. I usually write down the "cliff notes" and try to focus one several specific regions rather than the [I]entire[/I] thing. That tends to help.
Also, your friend doesn't really have to write a story. I sometimes build small, generic worlds for fun or for use in campaigns. And you actually don't need to convey all your info, and I wouldn't try to anyways. It gets hard for the [I]reader[/I] to remember it all, let alone the author. I would recommend he add an index about his story, but that he put the maps in first. He shouldn't try to focus on the broad history as the plot, but pick a certain point in that history in which to set his work. Whether it be a war, the appearance of a new species, or some evil threat. You should never try to condense your world to fit the plot, nor should you expand the plot to engulf the world. They run [I] parallel[/I].
Also, I know what he is doing. A lot of fantasy writers like to include "Elves but not elves" who share the name and maybe a few common traits but are not fully "Elves" by any standard. However, it is not originality. I hate to say that to someone who is passionate about building a world, but if you want to include things like Mythological creatures than he would need to get over the fear of being cliche, because there is no way that he could spin it that would sound original.
If I were him, I would make new monsters and combine the ones with little explanation/backstory into one or two monsters to make it more original.
I think that people like worldbuilding because it defines the limits. Other people dislike it for that same reason. The big reason I enjoy it is because that, if I make a history to my world and defines its locales and people, then a person could imagine the times before and after my story is written. It helps to expand the world and makes it feel alive and real, not just a paper-thin stage for the protagonists to play on.
But, to each their own.
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