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How to start worldbuilding?

Writer guide to beating procastination.

By Lara NewtonPublished about a year ago 4 min read
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World building can be overwhelming in the beginning and it can be difficult to find a place to start. You are looking to create the image in your mind but you need to make sure it has some realistic qualities. By realistic, I mean that you can give them context even if it's outlandish.

Top Tip: have a notebook with the notes on your world building to refer back to later.

Species

Are you creating a whole new species or is your world populated with humanoid species? (humans, dwarfs, elves etc). Either way, you should draw or use a computer program to create an image of your species. This will help with descriptions when writing later on.

Power

In this world, there are so many different political hierarchies with some societies having royal families (Kings/Queens), others having Presidents or Prime ministers leading a government and some are led by religious heads. Who is in power in your world? How did they get into power? Are they a good or bad leader?

This will also come into play when talking about conflicts with different groups of people and why. For example if you have a leader who is strongly against magic that is going to create conflict with groups that use it.

Basic needs of life

Every living creature needs nourishment to survive especially if you have a human species in your story. Most civilisations will grow or harvest from a kind of plant that fruits an edible substance.

What’s the cuisine? Species are either omnivores, herbivores or carnivores. Think about the kind of food you eat in your culture and how it differs in others.

In addition to this, it has to come from somewhere like a farm or specific area where it is collected. How does the population receive its supply of food? Who is responsible for making or growing the food? What is the chain of supply?

Terrain/Climate

The weather and temperature can affect a lot of aspects of your world. The species' surroundings will affect the clothes they wear and the transport they can use. For example horses are gonna struggle to pull deliveries in heavy snow.

Also, it adds to your plot. If your character needs to get from one place to another. How are they going to do that? What supplies will they need to get across safely? This will depend on the possible weather and terrain.

Landmarks

Amongst the terrain of your world is going to be landmarks (natural and manmade). You can come up with different legends and stories about their creation.

Top tip: draw a map of your world including all the places your characters visit and where they are in relation to each other. Label landmarks and colour code terrain if there are different ones.

Template

If you have several cities/ towns/ groups of people in your world with different cultures, I have created a template for you to fill in for each of them. There will be another for specific species. Can be kept in the worldbuilding specified notebook or file for reference while writing.

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Location

Name (city/kingdom/town etc):

Main species:

Population size:

Leader of population:

Type of political hierarchy (monarchy etc):

Laws:

Typical clothing:

Religious. If so name of the religion:

Place of worship:

Gods/goddesses:

Rules of religion:

Significant buildings/landmarks:

Conflicts with other groups:

Water source:

How is water supplied:

Food source:

How is it supplied (farms etc)?

Cuisine? Signature dishes?

Climate:

How do they compensate?:

Seasons:

Terrain:

Species

Name:

Appearance:

Magical abilities:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Lifespan:

Sleeping pattern:

Feeding habits (herbivore etc):

Location they typically live in:

Can they survive in extreme weather:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The details are going to help your reader fully immerse themselves in your fictional world. They will fall in love with a world they can connect with and image on their own while reading your story. You don’t want to information dump on them because that will overwhelm them but adding visual description amongst the plot will create an image.

Note that this is a basic starter guide to get the process started. You can note down anything significant that fits your world and you would like to remember for later.

Lara X

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About the Creator

Lara Newton

I'm an author of fantasy but here I'm writing slightly different fantasies. ;)

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