Love this post! Thank you for the insightful and useful prompts. I’m writing contemporary romance but at the end of book 1 in a series of stand-alone novels, I realised I inadvertently created a dystopian world through some events. I’m now reviewing everything and deciding if I want to move the setting to a dystopia or keep the contemporary elements and edit the plot instead.
It’s appropriate that I’m reading this just as I’m finishing the plot draft of my WIP and gearing up for my worldbuilding draft. Worksheets make me want to nap so I’m using a “build the world as I plot but also make a spreadsheet with 50 tabs” process, but your piece is making me think I should definitely look at some questionnaires.
Good luck on submission! And I’d love to read a vampire novel from you.
I use Scrivener to organize a sort of trapper keeper of all stuff. Like one page for the history of vampires, one page for politics, one page for powers, etc.
Great worldbuilding questions! The title reminds me that it's okay if people in fantasies wear coats rather than cloaks & if you've ever worn a cloak (such as RenFest) my experience is coats are better; especially if your character is fighting or moving in forest or city, because the long cloak can get tangled & caught on things much like dresses & skirts.
I'm not sure if weapon questions were made. I suggest HowToFightWrite, HelloFutureMe, Tamora Pierce, & also acoup.blog by a military historian who also has a great series on how people made weapons, food, & clothing Pre-Industrial which are so, so useful for fantasy writers & historical fiction writers. Did you know Game of Thornes is more pre-modren rather than medieval?
That peasants clothing was often very bright & colorful, rather than drab brown & black? Also most cultures, including Native Americans & steppe cultures?
We all have blind spots. You're normal, I'm just a weapons & stragety/tactics aficionado who loves reading The Art of War & The Book of Five Rings for fun. Tamora Pierce started me on this track with her Immortal & Protector of the Small series, having a fantasy world with realistic training & fighting.
I definitely had flashbacks to Sanderson’s YouTube lectures reading this! I remember him describing the ‘hollow igloo’ of world building and ‘hard magic systems’ and ‘soft magic systems.’ It sounds like you prefer hard magic systems and it sounds like you’re sort of making vampirism and immortality your hard magic system…? In a similar way that we might describe technology in sci fi a magic system that we need to world build around.
I'm realizing I need to put a lot of work into the system because you want to balance something being fun to read without the characters being overpowered.
Eureka! You may have just solved a massive problem for me. If it works out I need to come back and give you the credit. I’m going to follow you just so I can find you again later
This is an absolutely amazing post. I love that you're getting at the deeper meaning behind world building and what it takes to actually create an entirely new place. One of my favorite things about reading is when an author does something cool and quirky with their world, something that makes me think "I never would have thought of that, cool!" Take "Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones (for those of you that don't know, the book is just as amazing as the Studio Ghibli film). She created such a unique world and I loved every second of it because there was so much happening, from political strife, to cultural standards, to familial connections and traditions, and then the magic was wrapped into all of that.
I want to be a writer who can do that. Thanks so much for your brilliant insight!
"except there seems to always be some sort of tea or tincture that delivers both perfect birth control and abortion which is hilarious because we don’t even have that now in modern society." YES this is a TOTAL PET PEEVE of mine. It's SO lazy and flattens romance for me personally. It mostly just means that the author wants to have a modern style romance with fancy medieval costumes on (or off).
Love all these prompts. The D&D tip is particularly good, thank you!
I literally was just talking to my husband about how you have to consider the “how” and “why” things are the way they are in the world you build bc ppl WILL ask questions and will only suspend disbelief so much. Thanks for this article!!
Love this post! Thank you for the insightful and useful prompts. I’m writing contemporary romance but at the end of book 1 in a series of stand-alone novels, I realised I inadvertently created a dystopian world through some events. I’m now reviewing everything and deciding if I want to move the setting to a dystopia or keep the contemporary elements and edit the plot instead.
a big decision as those would feel quite different!
It’s appropriate that I’m reading this just as I’m finishing the plot draft of my WIP and gearing up for my worldbuilding draft. Worksheets make me want to nap so I’m using a “build the world as I plot but also make a spreadsheet with 50 tabs” process, but your piece is making me think I should definitely look at some questionnaires.
Good luck on submission! And I’d love to read a vampire novel from you.
I use Scrivener to organize a sort of trapper keeper of all stuff. Like one page for the history of vampires, one page for politics, one page for powers, etc.
Ooh I do that too. And character backstory and details.
Great worldbuilding questions! The title reminds me that it's okay if people in fantasies wear coats rather than cloaks & if you've ever worn a cloak (such as RenFest) my experience is coats are better; especially if your character is fighting or moving in forest or city, because the long cloak can get tangled & caught on things much like dresses & skirts.
I'm not sure if weapon questions were made. I suggest HowToFightWrite, HelloFutureMe, Tamora Pierce, & also acoup.blog by a military historian who also has a great series on how people made weapons, food, & clothing Pre-Industrial which are so, so useful for fantasy writers & historical fiction writers. Did you know Game of Thornes is more pre-modren rather than medieval?
https://acoup.blog/2019/05/28/new-acquisitions-not-how-it-was-game-of-thrones-and-the-middle-ages-part-i/
That peasants clothing was often very bright & colorful, rather than drab brown & black? Also most cultures, including Native Americans & steppe cultures?
https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/
Funny I didn’t even think of weapons !
We all have blind spots. You're normal, I'm just a weapons & stragety/tactics aficionado who loves reading The Art of War & The Book of Five Rings for fun. Tamora Pierce started me on this track with her Immortal & Protector of the Small series, having a fantasy world with realistic training & fighting.
I have no regrets.
Oh, also Overly Sarcastic Productions has great advice with their Trope Talks & Detail Diatribes.
Hey, I’ve started an account where I collect some out of context moments of great films in cinema history. Just wanted to share it with the cinephiles around here : https://substack.com/@pariscinema?r=1x6h4r&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile
Not a writer but I do improv and these are really interesting things to consider as a performer!!!
Also the bit about Voldemort just talking and talking instead of killing Harry Potter... lol that is spot on.
I liked ACOTAR but the worldbuilding element that jarred me the most was.... LEGGINGS. Maybe because it just gave me instant 2006 outfit vibes
lol at least it was leggings and not jeggings
I definitely had flashbacks to Sanderson’s YouTube lectures reading this! I remember him describing the ‘hollow igloo’ of world building and ‘hard magic systems’ and ‘soft magic systems.’ It sounds like you prefer hard magic systems and it sounds like you’re sort of making vampirism and immortality your hard magic system…? In a similar way that we might describe technology in sci fi a magic system that we need to world build around.
I'm realizing I need to put a lot of work into the system because you want to balance something being fun to read without the characters being overpowered.
Eureka! You may have just solved a massive problem for me. If it works out I need to come back and give you the credit. I’m going to follow you just so I can find you again later
This is an absolutely amazing post. I love that you're getting at the deeper meaning behind world building and what it takes to actually create an entirely new place. One of my favorite things about reading is when an author does something cool and quirky with their world, something that makes me think "I never would have thought of that, cool!" Take "Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones (for those of you that don't know, the book is just as amazing as the Studio Ghibli film). She created such a unique world and I loved every second of it because there was so much happening, from political strife, to cultural standards, to familial connections and traditions, and then the magic was wrapped into all of that.
I want to be a writer who can do that. Thanks so much for your brilliant insight!
"except there seems to always be some sort of tea or tincture that delivers both perfect birth control and abortion which is hilarious because we don’t even have that now in modern society." YES this is a TOTAL PET PEEVE of mine. It's SO lazy and flattens romance for me personally. It mostly just means that the author wants to have a modern style romance with fancy medieval costumes on (or off).
Love all these prompts. The D&D tip is particularly good, thank you!
I literally was just talking to my husband about how you have to consider the “how” and “why” things are the way they are in the world you build bc ppl WILL ask questions and will only suspend disbelief so much. Thanks for this article!!
Questionnaires may fill in the gaps, but it makes the world feel arbitrary rather than inevitable.
I think this depends on the execution.
You just inspired me to start a new pen & paper campaign. I already love the world I'm trying to build, thanks!