n my last blog I talked a lot about the place that crafting an internal logic has for fantasy pieces in particular. As I mentioned in that blog, this all falls under the very broad umbrella of world building. I haven’t yet discussed world building directly in a blog, although I mention it a lot, so it seems like a good opportunity to go into it now!
World building in many ways can be imagined as an arsenal of the tools that are used when crafting a story. It spans the creation of everything from the geography of the world itself to consideration of what the primary crop of the main civilisation is. I personally find it useful to differentiate world building into two broad types: technical and creative.
Technical world building is anything that can be considered part of the hard elements of a world. I use this to refer to work related to the minutiae of the biology, physics, and chemistry of a world, all the way to the macro scale of how this influences the weather and geology, transport distances and speeds, and the kinds of plants and animals that will be available as a result. A lot of this stuff is what as I think of as concrete elements of the world and they form the fundamental essentials of any world.
The degree to which certain aspects of technical world building (such as altered physics) is required in your story naturally depends entirely on the kind of world you are building. Some of these things you won’t need to build, and can simply copy over from the real world. However, if you were writing a piece of sci-fi it might be worth considering how other planets could have totally different physics (think the diamond rain on Saturn and Jupiter). Changes to something as important and basic as physics can mean huge ramifications for the biology of the creatures of that world.
While not everyone’s story will require a great deal of technical world building regarding alterations to biology, physics, and chemistry, it is still important to consider things like the weather and terrain of the world, and the run-on effects these can have for the people, cultures, and map. Doing technical worlding on these things can help ensure that you have a through line in your internal logic and consistency. Technical world building on the fly works well, but I find it can cause some difficulties with consistency and rule application.
If you read around online about world building you will very quickly come across people mentioning the outside in or inside out approaches. Very simply put, these refer to whether you start with your story and then world build, or if you begin with your world building. I would generally say that most people are likely to be inside out – that is, story and characters are your starting point which informs key elements of your world building. J.R.R. Tolkien is a great example of outside in – beginning by building the world and then creating characters and stories to tell within it – as he wrote the stories as a way to enjoy the languages he had created. It’s worth noting as well that he did not set out with the intention to become an author.
I am absolutely a story then world building person, and technical world building is definitely not where I begin. My process is story and characters, then creative world building, then technical world building. This is simplified and linear, of course, but is a good indication of how I begin. After that it becomes a lot more fluid. The reason for this order is that I need to gain a feel for the world that I’m creating, and what I feasibly might need to create to give it colour and authenticity. Working on the story and the characters throws of sparks of inspiration and ideas for the rest of the world they’re in, slowly illuminating more and more until I have enough of a mental mood board to sit down and flesh things out.
Creative world building is where I begin with my world building, and is a far larger and broader set of things than technical world building. This could be anything from the races of your world, their histories, religions, and social rules, all the way to the foods that particular cities have access to and what employment people have. Linking these things up and creating them can help create a sense of believability and life for your world. Creative world building is the meatier part of creation and it can take a lot of time to flesh out these things. Having a list of questions you need to answer about your world or the civilisations in it can be helpful for keeping yourself on track and going through things methodically.
Some of the many things that come under creative world building include, but are not limited to:
- Races – what do they look like? How does the weather and the geographical location influence their appearance, clothing, and food? What are relations like between different groups? What are their cultures and religions like? How do they relax or entertain themselves and what is their work?
- Unique animal species – how are they similar to real animals, how are they different? How do they survive?
- Languages – are there fantasy languages? Will you include them – if so, will you create them yourself or involve professional linguist?
- What kind of technology exists in this world? How have civilisations come to possess it?
- Systems of power – how is order kept in your societies? Is there a class system? What is the political world like?
- What is the aesthetic of the world? What terrain does the land have? What look to towns or cities have as a result?
- What is the history of your world and its peoples?
- If you have magic in your world, how did it come to be?
Regardless of which order you world build in – technical or creative first – each will influence the other, and it can be helpful to keep in mind a sense of fluidity. Try not to fall too much in love with particular concepts at this stage. Being able to adjust and adapt aspects like set pieces on a stage can be a really valuable ability, especially early on in your world building. As things become more complete, it is of course natural for ideas to solidify as the puzzle pieces fall into place.
There are some important caveats to remember when it comes to world building, particularly when you start to work on a large and in-depth scale.
The vast majority of this is work that will not directly see light on the page, and that’s OK. Not everything that is created needs to or will end up in front of the reader. However, that is not to say that the reader never gains the benefits of all of this extensive work. World building helps to colour in the background, and having a vast array of knowledge about the world that serves as the backdrop for your story can be extremely useful. Even if small elements are only ever alluded to or mentioned in passing, the breath of tiny background details will instil a confidence in your readers that you as the author know what you’re doing. They don’t need to know the world inside and out, but they need to feel that you do.
The other flip side is that world building as a whole can be a real rabbit hole. Technical world building to this level can be a real trap because of the amount of micro detail that it’s possible to delve into, and creative world building is the same because of the breadth it covers. It’s very easy to forget to draw some lines that delineate the difference between having enough of a database to draw on to add background colour, and getting lost and distracted in the excitement of world building. And it can be a bottomless pit. It is possible to over-plan and find yourself in a quagmire of information, so make sure you watch out for that.
It is important to note here that this is simply my process. Everyone will have a different method, and not everyone wants to or likes world building, particularly not on such a huge scale. If you’re writing a piece of literary fiction little to no world building may be required. The genre you’re working with and your target audience will play a role here. At the end of the day, the point of world building is to create a world that is both believable and something that you want to spend time in.
If you enjoy the world, you will have readers that do too. Writing is about pleasing yourself because at the end of the day, the only person whose reaction you will absolutely know is your own. There is no need to worry about whether others will like the world you have created – if you like it and enjoy it, there are literal billions of people out there in the world, so the odds are pretty high that quite a few of them will like it too.
Ensure the world you create serves the story you’re telling. Don’t get lost in cool ideas or putting things in just because. Everything must be there for a purpose. If something is there simply because it was a favourite cool idea, that will probably show, especially if its incongruous. As you world build, there may be elements of the story that you alter or adapt in the light of things you create, and that’s normal. The two are linked and should influence each other. Discovering your process and approach to world building may take time. This is also normal. Writing, like most creative pursuits, is a constant work in progress that occurs over our lifetimes. The beauty of it is that we get to constantly learn and evolve just as our stories do.
