World Building: Where to Start
For sci-fi or fantasy writers, creating your world could be the hardest part. Building something from nothing is incredibly difficult and, while you donât want to be conceited, you are being a God. You are reaching into this nothingness and pulling a whole planet, whole civilization, towns and people and cities and governments out of nothing.Â
You have to always keep in mind that your world, once created, exists without you. Your world existed before you dropped your characters into it, and your world will exist long after your characters die (unless they somehow end the world).
I have always thought the best place to start would be geography. If you open up a history textbook, for any country, geography is often the first thing that you see. How large is this world? Is it a full planet or just a landmass that you are discussing? Where in space is it? Do you know? It is in this universe? What does the sky look like? Are their islands? Mountains? Rivers? Oceans? Lakes? You need to know the layout of the land.
Start off with a piece of paper, and explore where your want your characters to go. If you look at Harry Potter, there is an entire world built inside of our world, living amongst us. If you look at Lord of the Rings, there is an entire different world out there that we havenât reached and doesnât know about us. Pokemon has itâs own region, with little towns and usually some islands. Firefly has earth-like planets in a different universe, but they know of Earth (Earth-that-was). Is your world build on ours? Build away from ours? Built after ours? Can they interact? Have they ever interacted?
Once you have a basic layout for landmass, think about the first interaction with our world. So, for example, I created a world called Fallamore, which exists underneath Earth and was built by magical folk during the witch hunts in order to escape prosecution. This is the kind of information that will probably never make the story, but it is cool to know for yourself. How long has history existed for this world? Where do they believe life started? God? Science? Aliens?Â
Knowing Every Rock and Tree and Creature
You obviously donât need to know every tree and rock that exists in the world - but you do need to know what species are around. Are trees like they are on Earth? Brown bark and green leaves? Do they change colors in the fall? Are there even seasons? While you donât need to make note of every type of flower or tree, itâs good to have an idea of what things might look like.Â
Another good idea would be knowing what kind of species exist in your world. Humans? Witches? Vampires? Goblins? Elves? Fairies? Aliens? Something you invented? Do they all live together, or do they have their own communities? Do they get along, or are they racist of each other?Â
Vague and Yet Menacing World GovernmentÂ
You have a lot of options for governments in your world, and are also free to make your own.
You can do a traditional monarchy: king, queen, princess, prince, etc. Is your monarchy going to be a patriarchy, a matriarchy, or equestrianism? (Will the eldest son take over? Eldest daughter? Oldest child? Most prepared / smartest child? The parent chooses? Itâs a vote?)Â
You can have a President, or Minister. You can have a dictator. You can have a council. You can have a religious leader double as a political leader. All political decisions can be asked to a magic conch shell.Â
Also, you can mix and match these. For my upcoming NaNoWriMo novel, I have a world with many different regions. The entire world has one royal family in charge of everything ( a patriarchal monarchy ) that defends the realm and all things in it. However, the monarchy allows the different regions to govern themselves as long as they follow the monarchyâs policies. Several regions have established their own monarchy that bows a knee to the main one. A goblin region has a council that reports to the monarchy. An elf region has a matriarchy. A final region is led by a very wise educator, who has been appointed as leader for his knowledge.Â
You also need to decide how important government is - but it is necessary. If you are telling the story of a very young girl who finds a unicorn in a meadow, knowing that she lives under the rule of a beautiful princess in a far away castle is not relevant and doesnât need to be shared. However, in The Hunger Games the government plays a huge role in the plot of the story.Â
Now, there is a lot of other things to think about when creating a world, but this is just a place to start. World Building is a lot of work and takes a lot of time and effort and dedication.Â
Best of luck, and happy writing!Â
MRM
