Worldbuilding

As an incredibly rich, deep and enjoyable part of human culture, stories have accompanied us since the dawn of time. Tales, mythologies, short jokes even or simply rumors, and of course endless reshapings and retellings of real history unfold in the sky of our destinies as a rainbow of oniric and nightmarish tones, joy and sadness, bright ideas and quiet observations, manipulations and exposition.

As soon as you're writing a story in a fictive world, even if this world is just "Earth but with werewolves", you're gonna need worldbuilding. Even the most basic horror flick needs worldbuilding, if only to know how the werewolf works, if their bite can carry the curse, if they turn only at full moon or every night... An advice to remember is "Don't forget the story", but we still need to focus a little on the setting, don't we? Some folks even like to develop a world without the story, as a purely intellectual exercise.

So this is a thread to exchange advice, observations and resources about worldbuilding. For we will never know everything, for we need to think and examine what the hell we're doing, for ideas develop better with dialogue.



WORLDBUILDING RESOURCES

Seven Deadly Sins of Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding Checklist
Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions by Patricia C. Werde
David Hair on Worldbuilding
12 Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Magic System



And a question for everyone: What's the big thing forgotten in worldbuilding in your opinion?

oh hey, there's someone else in this community who also loves worldbuilding

they host world building june, in fact
also they're cute and good

if you have tumblr you should participate in it this year *winks audibly*

I think the most forgotten aspect of worldbuilding is this: Make whatever you want!

Something I've noticed sometimes is people who are making fantasy worlds getting too caught up with arbitrarily-enforced notions of "realism," saying things like "Well, I want to have a planet made entirely out of candy but that's probably too silly for the setting" - like, dude, no it's not! It's YOUR setting, so go nuts! Your world is whatever you want it to be, so don't be afraid to go really "out there" sometimes! ^^

Theres definitely a balance. I love wildly unrealistic worlds but my suspension of disbelief is suuuuuuper low.

For me, it's less about realism and more about internal consistency-- you can't be completely consistent, but a world where magic is a functional utility and very present will have a massive effect on society, history, and culture, just as an example.

I agree, it doesn't need to be realistic for me to buy into it. I'll buy into a world so long as it's thought out. Your world has its own mechanics it plays to, even if they're separate from reality. I like when things introduced at the beginning are still in effect later on. Good continuity is always a winner for me.

Oh absolutely, internal consistency is definitely a must. That's how you can still keep things "plausible" even if the entire story is set in an "impossible" or "unrealistic" world. So yeah, as an addendum to what I said before; go crazy, but make sure everything adds up within the rules that you yourself set up!

In that sense, I really like to think of writing for your world as simply exploring it. After you set up the rules of the game, the situation, the race, social, magical dynamics... just hit "play" and let things loose, watch what happens.

And while it's important to have fun, and to shape the world the way that you want it, you'll find that it's still very hard to force something in that doesn't make sense.