Your world-building process?

That depends entirely on the story.

Sometimes it starts with a setting. Sometimes a character. Sometimes a scenario or story skeleton. Usually, I try to wrap the world building around the story/characters, keeping fairly close to what's needed to tell the tale; tempting as it is to flesh out an entire star system and planetary history, down that path lies madness, not to mentioned unfinished drafts.

I'm one of those who wing it as the story develops.

I get a basic concept of the world--like a still frame--with a couple concepts of culture/government/religion and a few others, then I just get to writing. I don't really stop and think about how the world, characters, and plot come together--because they just are together.

It changes a lot for me.

For one of my epic fantasies, it started with a geographical element. There's an empire surrounded by mountains no one can cross, mountains that were created by a tyrannical emperor. The rest of the story developed from there.

For the epic fantasy I'm drafting at the moment, it began with a world where their sun was dying. From there, I developed a magic system and a society.

I do a lot of my world-building on the fly. Once I have the basics filled in, I figure out the rest as I'm writing the story. This helps me avoid infodumps because I don't feel the need to insert all this work I did beforehand.

For my upper MG fantasy, I started out with a question. What would a Harry-Potter-type magical world look like if it was more in touch with modern society and if there was a (loose) scientific basis behind the magic?

I write a story.

cw

Because my stories are about characters, not a world, I develop my characters first and their story, and then I develop the world around it.

I'm sure some folk do it but it would drive me crackers to spend time detailing

...aspects that define it and the rules and guidelines of the system (including government system, basic economy type, races, organizations/institutions, kingdoms/lands, and a whole array of other details).

Click to expand...

Seems to me like a recipe for procrastination and day-dreaming. I'd rather write about the folk who populate the world and find about it through their actions and reactions with each other and the environment.

If I recall correctly from your other posts, you are simply working on the one before the other, but you still appear to prefer to do world-building before writing.

Sebastian said:

Because my stories are about characters, not a world, I develop my characters first and their story, and then I develop the world around it.

Click to expand...

I build as I go.

Worldbuilders disease is a real thing and has been known to cause a few fatalities.

While it is fun to dive into your own world and create a complete history, for the most part, I think it is pointless unless you are planning a massive 10+ book series like Jordan or Sanderson. Even Sanderson warns against worldbuilders disease.

I prefer to start with my characters or a scene, then toss in interesting pieces along the way. May be my pantser nature, but I would rather move forward than spend months planning the world alone.

To protect yourself from stepping into the quicksand that is world building, I would suggest setting a time limit for creating those details, then begin your story. If you don't you could be stuck for years.

wolfking said:

Worldbuilders disease is a real thing and has been known to cause a few fatalities.

...you could be stuck for years.

Click to expand...

I hate that they call it Worldbuilder's disease - like taking the time to develop interesting and deep, intricate settings is a symptom of abnormal behaviour that ought be corrected, if not removed like malignant cancer. And this because, you know, you have to finish a book yesterday so that you can get paid tomorrow.

Yes, it can take a long time to come up with an amazing world. It did take me years to develop mine, and I'm still forever and a day nitpicking at it. I never get tired of reexamining my worlds, or coming up with new ones. Once you've learned how to do it, and have practiced it enough times, it becomes fairly easy to do, and enjoyable.

As for me, I tend to start with the people(s). My biggest thing is to invent cultures, and then build the world around them. Each one has a specific environment that their well-adapted to, and others that they're not. For me, this leads to a very diverse and complicated world, kind've like our own. But I'll make it quirky and different enough that both writing and (I hope) reading about it will be well worth it.

I think, really, since this is a significant malady that we're talking about, for the aspiring author who is interested in building their own world, you need to keep focused. Keep in mind why you're doing this, and to what end (the point). Don't go streaking into the wind, and don't go 'window shopping.' It's important to keep your sights on the end that you're aiming for, and strive to achieve exactly that.

Remember, if you are doing a series, or just reusing the same world, you can develop it one story at a time, instead of having to sit down and do it all at once.

There are options for getting this down in a practical way - you just have to figure out what works for you.

I started my WIP with the MC and his particular situation, then started building around him. He's been fighting in a war--what was it about? What tech level? Where's he from? How did he get where he is?

I needed to know some history to explain the war, and some geography to explain the history. Some of it had to be in place before I could really plot out the story, some is still evolving. Like, I always knew the rebel provinces tried to secede because they wanted autonomy, but only recently (50K words in) realized why they wanted to rule themselves.

I don't take notes or write up any of this separately--it's all in my head or in the story. I may, though, make a map at some point because I don't think well spatially and want to make sure the geography makes sense.

I just sit down and tell a story. Any world-building I need happens naturally as the story progresses.

However you world build, whatever the process, either you're writing or you aren't. If you aren't, you're procrastinating.

Jamesaritchie said:

However you world build, whatever the process, either you're writing or you aren't. If you aren't, you're procrastinating.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't label all forms of non-writing as procrastination. You might be able to write everything on the fly, but that doesn't work for every writer. I'd rather do a little planning ahead of time. If I don't have at least some of the basics down, I struggle to write the story.

Not to mention, a little planning ahead of time can prevent you from having big problems later. Problems that would take longer to fix than the planning would take.

I'm not advocating spending years on worldbuilding ahead of time. That goes well beyond a little planning, and that, I think, is procrastination. I can't imagine spending that much time building a world. I'm usually too eager to write the story.

blacbird said:

I write a story.

cw

Click to expand...

Brilliant!
Wonder why no one else seems to think of that?

*sits back to watch this discussion turn into another pantsing vs. planning debate*

Some stories don't require detailed world-building. Others do.

You can build the details as you go, weaving new elements into the story as you think of them, or you can plan everything out ahead of time.

Me, I always start with a scene or series of scenes and a basic plot outline. That gives me an idea of what I'm going to need. I start developing the characters first (detailed histories and bios), then I work on the world-building, planning out whatever is going to be essential for the story. If it's not relevant, I don't worry about it. But as I said, some stories require more detail than others, so it depends.

I outline. (Didn't I just write that in another post? Wait I did, and another and another...)

However, I don't get down all the details of a world before I write. All my world building comes from the story I write. I then take the details and put them in a reference document after I've written for the day. Or into a ywriter section if I need to track the element in my story. My worlds are built only to the level I need for a story. If it's not in the story, it's not written down.

The only thing I have is a world map...the continents are there but the details are only filled in if needed for a story.

Snowbeamer9 said:

World maps are so important (especially for me, as I pretty much have no sense of direction). I wonder, however, how you would go about hinting to the reader how the world is geographically shaped and divided? Or what other "lands" lie elsewhere? I typically make it come up in casual conversation or slip it in when it's relevant, avoiding the toxic infodump.

I've seen some writers just randomly go, "and to our west actually lies the behemoth land of Lalala, whose alliance is especially important to us!" in the middle of the book.

Click to expand...

You can work it in. Like, in my WIP, they've been fighting a civil war against their own Eastern Provinces, who were supported by a separate country called "the Southlands" (although the inhabitants have a different name for it). And my MC mentions fighting in the mountains between the Eastern Provinces and the Southlands, so you get that they connect.

When he gets called back to the capital, my MC is told he can go with the group leaving for the north in the morning. As he travels, people peel off for their homes, and there are only a handful going as far north as he is. When he gets home, the sun sets over the ocean, and he makes a comment that it's been so long since he's been home, he'd forgotten how late the sun sets in the summer.

So you can get the idea that the capital is on the western edge of the country, fairly far north. The Eastern Provinces form the eastern boundary of the country, and the Southlands (now conquered and soon to be a new province) are south of them. All without an info dump. I think it all comes up organically.

I've been trying it both ways. Dancing down the path of worldbuilding, but that way lead to madness and sleepless nights, and endless mapping!

Now, I am using this world for my stories, either up a few years or back a few depending on which story. The world building stories will wait for a while.

blacbird said:

I write a story.

caw

Click to expand...

This.

And when I'm done writing the story, voila! There's my world.

I use Photoshop CS2 to create my map. Then I use Wikidpad to build the history. I love building worlds, so I usually spend at least an hour a day just writing about pretend things that happened, and plotting them on the map.

But usually, I get bored of that after a week or two, so I write. Then I'll run into an issue with my writing so I need to world build. "Well, he needs to get from A to B, but there's too much open ground between them, he'd get caught. Well, what if there's a fort there? That could work, but why would there be a fort there?" Then I'm back to the map, building again. (That's a really poor example, but I think you get the gist).

And then a lot of the time I get burnt out from writing, so I go back to building.

There's no straight forward way for me, it's a winding road.

My inspiration? A love for history. I take a lot from actual past events.

The inspiration for my stories comes from worldbuilding and reading about actual history.

I think about the world as I'm writing. I do outline, but most of my actual "worldbuilding" comes from answering questions that I've raised in the text.

I start with a very rough outline, and get writing. I make notes as I go along, because the way the story flows helps me figure out the kind of world it has to be for my story points to work. It can be a little confusing and circular, but it works for me.