So, does anyone have thoughts on world building? As in what is the most paramount part of world building, or if it's important to leave a bit of the world blank for the reader to fill? Have you built a world, realm, or perhaps dimension within your mind? Also if your feeling creative/bored why don't we try and create a reasonable setting for some story together? Please let logic apply in this world btw... So first off, let's say that this soon-to-be world is affected by the same formatting our dimension appears to have, and that it contains some form of life (at the very least).
Well... I create my world first before writing a story. The star system, the planet, the plate tectonic, the mountain orogeny, the climate, the rain pattern, the Koppen Clinate, the trade wind, the river, the fertile lands, the biome, the flora, and the fauna. Creating the culture, the religion, the language, the nations, the trade route... The history, the dynasty, the wars, the folklore....... Yeah, I like the top down approach.
So you prefer to flesh out every detail so that your world is very realistic? I would like to spend time doing such things; however, if i'm world building for a story, I would feel that time could be spent elsewhere. Well, unless I want to incorporate I huge amount of details about the world in the story (which would have to be rather lengthy to warrant such actions). Although, I can easily understand the reason for going to such lengths if one wished to set various other stories in the same world. The main thing i'm wondering though is what part of the world (if not its entirety) would you create, if you were to write a short story?
It is indeed delicious from what I've heard. Though it might not be palatable to those inexperienced of such cuisines. (???)
Well... I usually used my universe (contains several different worlds) for several stories. I believe that the world will shape how the character will react. I found that if we don't flesh the world first, the character action tends to be too unrealistic. For short story, I immediately conjure a planet with characteristic similar to Earth, put several continents and oceans, conjure quick climate and biome approximation, appropriate earth history, change the country and event name, and then out the character in the story abd thought what they will do in the situation. For example, my character, a historian of the United Kingdom of South Helianthea need to escape the agents of the rival from the Krisan Cooperative Commonwealth, so he could take the otherwirld girl to his linguist friend in the Rhisa Socialist Republic in Sikori the continent beyond the Asper Ocean. What route will he take? Will he took the longer southern route over the Baranis Continent? Or the direct route, even if the Krisanean Navy had bases near Rhisa SR. Or perhaps, he could call his brother in the UKSH Overtech Bureau and borrow an Aeroship? At any rate it will be a journey over 10,000 km... The solution in the story? He boarded the Submarine his friend made, on the shallow sea, island jumping on the Asper Ocean many uninhabited islands.
Sometimes i DO start thinking of how i would do a world for a novel or story, and i always start with a random mc, what is his power, then i start creating the enviroment, house, family, friends, city, country, world state(wars, treaties,etc) then i think if I want only one world, or various ones, then if necesary start sketching stars, galaxies, empires, like space story, then i go to the Why are aliens in my world, were they part of it since the start? was an invasion?was mc recruited for awakening raro power? then i think if i want humans to be the only species and if not, are humans the enemy or just exist, background story for top of my head races, then i go back to the settings, i want full modern, feudal age? steampunk?post post apocaliptic? basically i just go with what is at the top of my head and then I kind of extrapolate my thoughts
If you are making a short story the most important thing is culture and history followed by the geography of the world, like i said if the history and culture is important because of that depends how they react to what is happening around them Example: If the world you are making is one that been in constant war your characters will be more accustomed to the fights and to death as well as living in precarious conditions. On the contrary, if your world has a history of taking a long time in peace without major wars, your characters will be calmer, accustomed to a comfortable life and will react in a much more scared way in front of deaths or confrontations
not my cup of coffee then~ although i think you should focus on the characters backgrounds before you move-on to proper world-building~
I see, so you start building the world around the MC, then solidify the rest with what you find most reasonable at the moment. Do you bother using references to history or just purely wing it? I kinda prefer this method when world building honestly as opposed to thinking out every detail.
But wouldn't geography play a large role in the creation of history and culture? Or would it not matter if one were to focus on one aspect of a world before building another around that one?
So let character build world, instead of world build character. Got it. (I think) The characters are a main part of the story after all. Btw isn't all forms of coffee delicious though? Well, straight black is debatable I suppose.
A story's world should be a bit vague but always have a discernible size. A good world for me is coiling dragon's. a very clear way of progression for the main character into a larger and larger universe, without getting bogged down in too many details. The story should always focus on the characters, if the world is too complex it distracts me from the humanity of the story. My opinion only
When I said that geography came after culture and history, I was referring to the level of detail and effort that you must put (you want or you do not want to have to prioritize, unless you want to take your time doing it) Culture is closely related to geography (a coastal city has a culture very different from a mountainous one) as well as its history then when you develop a culture you develop the physical space in which it develops and grows, but your focus is still the culture and how it affects your characters,not how big a mountain range is or how many towns there are between cities a and b, that can be done after you already have a culture that feels alive based on a history that is credible and verifiable within that culture P.s: Google translate is my friend
The way I see it there are two approached with their pros and cons. You can go world first, this is great for diversity of novels, gives you a bit of a playground to have characters interact in and with and has the advantage of usually being very reusable for a completely different series, making a recognizable world somewhat easier to achieve. Of course it has the disadvantage of being a world your character has to interact with, rather than one that directly meets your character. This isn't a problem early on when your MC is still weak and can't change much, but later on when your MC becomes a more substantial character, it can be hard to have them have any direct effect on the world for fear of altering it drastically. There then the character first approach where you have a general plot, some characters and a few set pieces, then flesh that out into a world. This has the advantage of allowing you to very easily create action in the story. With a world first approach, you're constantly require to coerce the world into interacting with your character. In a character first world though, you can design the world to fit your plot and and go on from there. Of course there's the disadvantage of easily getting caught up in what the MC is doing and have the world essentially be frozen/non-existent till it has to interact with the plot. Really, even though I make such a dichotomy, it's more a sliding scale. Most (good) stories do some combination of the both and the majority of those are near 50/50 in what methods they use (normal distributions!).
Making a less defined world seems real and interesting need more on the writing style whereas the usual where we fill out everything beforehand is just standard. It's hard to make a noncontradictory as well as to make it interesting to read than you thought.
Depends, if i want "realistic" settings, then yes, i have to take notes on every aspect once i decide on it. then i pick historic events and adapt them to fit into my story, say, if i want a nomad tribe, i search for nomad in google and read a couple of sites to know diferent behaviours, then i pick one, noted it down and when i have the need see if there is any story event that would meld nicely with my story then try to reflect or add it as "past".
IMHO, there are two ways of worldbuilding. 1. conflict based 2. theme based Conflict is what motivates/drives your MC. Like in Reincarnation/another world genres, conflict usually involves (man vs. environment) adjusting to the new world, so world building involves creating worlds that is "worlds apart" where they came from. Same as in survival horror genres. Basically, this is the easiest for webnovels I think, because it only introduce things that the MC actually encounters. This is also the formula used by Adventure Time (boy & dog against the world), which is why each of their episodes is kinda wacky and doesn't adhere to a standard trope. Theme is the concept that your story is based on. And I think, this is the harder way of worldbuilding because everything is planned out. Like in the "name of the wind", it's theme is about the wind, which is how the magic system work, it also encapsulates the fleeting (constantly displaced) life of the MC, his lovelife and his hunger for revenge, and the passing (impermanent) characters he meets and leaves. Or in Pivot of the Sky, which I think is about Ancient Deities, it creates a world where religion, culture and locations involves these deities and the plot revolves around them.
I prefer the world first approach, but it is also why I never really get around to writing the stories I have planned because I'm too engrossed with just the planning stage. lol I generally consider a map the most important part of world building though, it let's you figure out borders between countries, distances between places and the time it takes for people to travel from place to place, as well as things like population density so you know just how many that can die before an area can be counted as a wasteland...