World Building: Where To Start

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 don’t 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. 

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).

Geography

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 haven’t reached and doesn’t know about us. Pokemon has it’s 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?

Let There Be Life

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? 

Knowing Every Rock and Tree and Creature

You obviously don’t 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 don’t need to make note of every type of flower or tree, it’s good to have an idea of what things might look like. 

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? 

Vague and Yet Menacing World Government 

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? It’s a vote?)  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.  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 monarchy’s 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. 

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 doesn’t need to be shared. However, in The Hunger Games the government plays a huge role in the plot of the story. 

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. 

Best of luck, and happy writing!  MRM

Things I’d like to see more of in media

characters wearing medical alert bracelets

characters taking medication with their meals

characters mentioning that they have a therapy appointment

characters with reminders to eat in their phones/calendars/planners

characters using stim toys

characters asking if an event is accessible

characters using noise cancelling headphones

characters who are disabled all the time, not just when the plot “calls for it”

characters who are disabled all the time, not just when the plot “calls for it”

therobotmonster:

moniquill:

siderealsandman:

friendlytroll:

prokopetz:

mikhailvladimirovich:

bogleech:

It’s funny how science fiction universes so often treat humans as a boring, default everyman species or even the weakest and dumbest.

I want to see a sci fi universe where we’re actually considered one of the more hideous and terrifying species.

How do we know our saliva and skin oils wouldn’t be ultra-corrosive to most other sapient races? What if we actually have the strongest vocal chords and can paralyze or kill the inhabitants of other worlds just by screaming at them? What if most sentient life in the universe turns out to be vegetable-like and lives in fear of us rare “animal” races who can move so quickly and chew shit up with our teeth?

Like that old story “they’re made of meat,” only we’re scarier.

HOLY SHIT THEY EAT CAPSAICIN FOR FUN

YOU GUYS I HEARD A HUMAN ONCE ATE AN AIRPLANE.

A HUMAN CAN KEEP FIGHTING FOR HOURS EVEN AFTER YOU SHOOT IT

humans are a proud warrior race with a pantheon of bloody gods: Ram-Bo, Schwarzenegger, etc.

REMOVING A LIMB WILL NOT FATALLY INCAPACITATE HUMANS: ALWAYS DESTROY THE HEAD.

WARNING: HUMANS CAN DETECT YOU EVEN AT NIGHT BY TRACKING VIBRATIONS THROUGH THE ATMOSPHERE

WARNING: HUMANS CAN REPRODUCE AT A RATE OF 1 PER SPACEYEAR. DESTROY INFESTATIONS IMMEDIATELY

THE HUMAN MOUTH HAS OVER THIRTY OUTCROPS OF BONE AND POWERFUL JAW MUSCLES.

HUMAN BITES CAN BE FATALLY INFECTIOUS EVEN TO OTHER HUMANS

WARNING: HUMANS CAN AND WILL USE IMPROVISED WEAPONS. SEE CLASSIFIED DATA LABELED J. CHAN.

HUMANS CAN PROJECT BIOWEAPONS FROM ALMOST EVERY ORIFICE ON THEIR BODY. DO NOT INHALE

OH GOD THE HUMANS FIGURED OUT DOOR HANDLES OH GOD OH GOD

More seriously, humans do have a number of advantages even among Terrestrial life. Our endurance, shock resistance, and ability to recover from injury is absurdly high compared to almost any other animal. We often use the phrase “healthy as a horse” to connote heartiness - but compared to a human, a horse is as fragile as spun glass. There’s mounting evidence that our primitive ancestors would hunt large prey simply by following it at a walking pace, without sleep or rest, until it died of exhaustion; it’s called pursuit predation. Basically, we’re the Terminator.

(The only other animal that can sort of keep up with us? Dogs. That’s why we use them for hunting. And even then, it’s only “sort of”.)

Now extrapolate that to a galaxy in which most sapient life did not evolve from hyper-specialised pursuit predators:

Our strength and speed is nothing to write home about, but we don’t need to overpower or outrun you. We just need to outlast you - and by any other species’ standards, we just plain don’t get tired.

Where a simple broken leg will cause most species to go into shock and die, we can recover from virtually any injury that’s not immediately fatal. Even traumatic dismemberment isn’t necessarily a career-ending injury for a human.

We heal from injuries with extreme rapidity, recovering in weeks from wounds that would take others months or years to heal. The results aren’t pretty - humans have hyperactive scar tissue, among our other survival-oriented traits - but they’re highly functional.

Speaking of scarring, look at our medical science. We developed surgery centuries before developing even the most rudimentary anesthetics or life support. In extermis, humans have been known to perform surgery on themselves - and survive. Thanks to our extreme heartiness, we regard as routine medical procedures what most other species would regard as inventive forms of murder. We even perform radical surgery on ourselves for purely cosmetic reasons.

In essence, we’d be Space Orcs.

Our jaws have too many TEETH in them, so we developed a way to WELD METAL TO OUR TEETH and FORCE THE BONES IN OUR JAW to restructure over the course of years to fit them back into shape, and then we continue to wear metal in out mouths to keep them in place. 

We formed cohabitative relationships with tiny mammals and insects we keep at bay from bothering us by death, often using little analouge traps. 

And by god, we will eat anything. 

We use borderline toxic peppers to season our food. 

We expose ourselves to potentially lethal solar radiation in the pursuit of darkening our skin. 

We risk hearing loss for the opportunity to see our favorite musicians live. 

We have a game where two people get into an enclosed area and hit each other until time runs out/one of them pass out

We willingly jump out of planes with only a flimsy piece of cloth to prevent us from splattering against the ground. 

Our response to natural disasters is to just rebuild our buildings in the exact same places. 

We climb mountains and risk freezing to death for bragging rights

We invented dogs. We took our one time predators and completely domesticated them. 

On a planet full of lions, tigers and bears, we managed to advance further and faster than any other species on the planet. 

Klingons and Krogan and Orcs ain’t got shit on us

We drink ethanol (in concentrations high enough to be used as an effective as microbicide or a solvent!) for the express purpose of achieving blood toxicity and disrupting normal brain function… AS A RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY!

On the same subject, we also deliberately incinerate assorted substances and then inhale the particulate-heavy smoke and vapor resulting for the same effect. EVEN IN THE FACE OF SAID SUBSTANCES BEING CARCINOGENIC, BECAUSE WE JUST DON’T GIVE A FUCK.

Humans do not have biological castes. Kill their commander and another will take its place. Soldiers left alone on a planet will start farming and manufacturing to survive. Farmers and manufacturers will take up arms and kill you if pressed. Just because two humans look different doesn’t mean they cannot do each other’s jobs.

Breeding does not kill them. A single human can mate dozens or hundreds of times in a lifetime. They often do so as recreation. Xenobiology team six believes they do not have a mating season but this is too strange to be true.

Their appendages are not designed for hitting, so they developed special training to make them very good at hitting anyhow. 

The proteins making up their bodies are toxic and cause prion disease. Do not touch anything humans have touched. Do not consume earth foods. Fire does not adequately remove this contamination.

Humans perceive sixteen times the colors we do. Do not hide in bushes or vines from humans. They can distinguish your pelt from the foliage with ease.

We tried venting waste gas into the tunnels to kill the humans when they attacked. Turns out they breathe it. 

Everything on their planet came from a single biological strain. They developed comprehensive genetics BEFORE they developed space travel. 

They lack radio receptors and cannot be brought into compliance with right-thought simply by broadcasting to them. Even after we learned how to translate it into sound-waves one of their hatchlings drove the Great Authority mad by responding to every demand with a single question: “Why?”

#an individual human being is actually a microbiome in its own right—you are dealing with a legion each time you approach them     #they carry pathological agents inside their deep tissues and this is advantageous to their health     #one of the most widespread and resilient viruses on their planet is treated as mildly hazardous—even though it causes     #massive disruption to the body’s homeostasis     #(their young offspring endure multiple rhinovirus infections EACH YEAR yet they seem unperturbed by this)     #they have developed such long lifespans that now their primary threat is their own body’s degeneration     #humanity has literally figured out how to survive so long that their body gives out under them     #and they are not satisfied with that     #stupid willful vengeful survivalists who treat mortality like a challenge     #sarah’s ongoing love letter to humanity     #(this is my favorite post of all time I swear)    (via notbecauseofvictories)

The 5 "Bones" of Characterization

So in my English class we’ve been talking about the different elements of different parts of a story. My professor referred to the elements of characterization as bones. I don’t know why, but that’s just what he did. 

He’s talked about these 5 “bones” a few times already and actually uses them to talk about characters in readings we’re doing along with our usual workshops.  He says if you can get these bones out of a character then it’s a well built character. So don’t take these lightly as figuring these 5 bones out for your character will make writing your story much easier.

Desire: There are two types: Long and short. Essentially it’s what do they want in 5 years and what do they want tomorrow? Think of desire as their goals, both long term and short term.

Strength: This is their ability. How do they handle stress and other emotions? What makes them strong? 

Weakness: What makes them hide in fear? What will they run away from?

Deals: Also referred to as “Alway’s and Never’s”. What will they always do? What will they never do? (I’m sure there is more to this, but my notes are hard to follow.XD)

Action: What are they doing? This is also relevant to your plot.

The last thing in my notes that I have written is this: Characters come to us already formed.

Now that’s a weird thought because there’s tons of character development stuff out there as we always see making a new character as a hard task that takes forever. Except that isn’t how it works and having the above said to me actually made everything easier.

Your characters are already full fledged people. Do you ever have that time where you’re writing and you say “My characters just kinda took over and this happened”. Well your characters are already completely formed and know how they’ll react to certain situations. You’re the one who doesn’t know that. So take some time to get to know your character. Stop working on your book and write other random stories. Find a prompt and just write. Or do as my professor says and “sit on the couch with them for a couple hours”. Think of them as another friend that you’re trying to get to know. Don’t force out their secrets.

How can I imply a relationship between two characters without making it too explicit? To make everybody suspect they are together bit never confirming it?

Use subtext and maybe red herrings.

Plot A Month W3D4: How to Make Subplots Work

I’ve been hammering away at at plot so much that I feel like I’ve completely missed talking about subplots. And that’s bad, because subplots are important! When we think about subplots, we should break it down three ways.

Plot: The main focus of your story, what your character’s main goal is focused on. For example, the girl knight decides to slay the dragon.

Subplot: A ‘miniplot’ or sideplot in your story. For example, the girl knight who decides to slay the dragon has a bad relationship with her father, who told her she can’t be a dragon slayer. She wants to prove him wrong, but she also wants his approval. (For the romantic subplot: solving the murder leads the detective to be involved with a private eye.)

Chances are, if you’ve been writing stories for awhile, you’ve already been doing subplots without really thinking about it. But let’s say you’re still a bit lost. First, we’ll look at how to find your subplots:

How many goals does the main character have? SO I’M GOING TO USE AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER COOL COOL viewing Aang as one of our main characters, let’s look at his goals: master the elements to defeat the firelord. Those are his external goals. However, he also has to build up confidence in himself, forgive himself for his past mistakes, and find a way to defeat the firelord without killing him. That’s a lot goals, the first two internal, the second external. Those secondary goals are going to lead to some subplots: what will Aang do to build up confidence? How will he find a way to defeat the firelord without killing him?

How many goals do the supporting characters have? If we look at Katara, she wants to master waterbending. That’s her main external goal. She also has to confront her problems with her father and deal with her forced role as replacing her mother. Those are her internal goals. While the main plot is Defeat The Firelord, Katara also has to reach her own goals. Those are subplots, things that need to be resolved before the end of the story.

How do those goals relate to the main plot? You’ll notice a few things about subplots; they tend to tie into the main plot (particular with the main or head character), and they are deeply related to what makes the character a person. Aang’s past mistakes haunt him, Katara’s needs tie directly to her history and drive her goals.

Although you might already be doing subplots or have a vague idea of what they’re going to be, here are some suggestions on how to figure out your subplots:

What’s important to your character? Obviously besides the main plot, they’re going to have other concerns and worries. Although you’ll have external goals as subplots, a lot of them will be the internal goals. Aang’s role as the Avatar means he must overcome his failings and find his own way of resolving conflict.

What will stand in the way of your character getting their internal goals? Self-doubt, mistakes, and emotional confusion can make your character have a harder time changing what needs to be changed.

Will resolving the main plot also resolve the subplots? If not, how can they be resolved? Thinking about this will help you bring all the threads of your story together.

Hopefully if you haven’t thought about your subplots yet, you can have a decent start now. For more, check out:

7 Ways to Add Great Subplots to Your Story

Adding Subplots to a Novel

Hit Me With Your Best Subplot

Weave Subplots Into Your Novel

Starting With Subplot

25 Turns…To Complicate Your Plot

All About Subplots