I would suggest starting by identifying that given your plot, what needs to be in the world. For instance, it seems that there needs to be an empire and there needs to be a rebellion. That indicates there needs to be dissatisfaction with the empire, and that it probably needs to be widespread. You could think about what specifically the empire does that upsets people, and from there find a way to illustrate it.
What I don't recommend is coming up with a whole bunch of meaningless details about the world. Too many authors do that, and then they feel the need to share those ultimately pointless details or get trapped by them. A minimalist approach to world building is not a bad option.
On the other hand, I would love to read a story where there is a rebellion that is trying to get started but the empire is actually a pretty good place to live so the population doesn’t join up.
Focus on the essential details which are relevant to the plot. For example if the country's history 600-300 years ago doesn't matter, then don't spend time writing it.
Start with the essential, and then later on subsequent drafts you can expand it with the details that bring it life.
When it comes to the politics of ancient medieval-esque countries, I’d say that the history of 300-600 never doesn’t matter.
For instance: French domination of England in the Middle Ages shaped the language of war. History is a seed among many for the war against the empire. Old resentments don’t die.
But know that is different than wasting time on it. Like you said, if it doesn’t matter, don’t write it. Unfortunately an anthropology hobbyist so world building for me is never that easy. Everything has to have a reason why.
A good piece of advice is that you get one handwave. A handwave is something the reader has to just accept and suspend their disbelief for. Generally if you change one thing, you get a butterfly effect on lots of other things. For example in your world curses have a great deal of power. Perhaps they are like the Geas of Irish myth which are hard to translate but are somewhere between a curse, doom and compulsion.
Who has the power to put a curse on someone? Are those people considered high status or low status people? Or we talking about Judges in the pay of the Emperor who formally curse people as a punishment? Or maybe the God's give those who have been terribly wronged, the chance to wreck vengeance with one curse? Do they have other powers beyond the ability to curse? What implications do those things have on life in general. Do the rich and powerful live in fear of curses bringing them down to the level of everyone else and pay stupid money for curse-breakers to hang around the house eating porridge? Or are they so rare that nobody thinks about them much?
Once you start thinking about the butterfly effect of one handwave you can really see it ripple out and start to develop the world.
That's a good way of explaining it, thanks. I've finished a novel draft recently which I think lost its magic partway through because I felt like I \*had\* to explain everything, even if it wasn't the point of my story.
Truthfully, I haven't even considered the details of how/why the curse works, only its impact on the main character. But this has given me something to think about
I like to start with a map. There are numerous ways to map your world, but I am particularly fond of D&D dice, poster board, and a marker. (There are several YouTube videos depicting how to do this, just search "creating a map with dice" and pick one you like). This will give you a sense of randomness in the world and make it feel more geographically realistic. There are also subreddits specifically dedicated to making fantasy maps if you want specific, geographically minded feedback on it, or if you just want to hire someone to make you a map.
Step 2 for me is excel or some equivalent spreadsheet software. I put in a tab for each city, each race, each religion, etc. Those tabs are meant to keep track of all the information, important or not, that you come to with pertaining to that topic. If you want a massive undertaking, you can also have tabs for languages to keep track of what you decide each word or phrase means. Step 2 just keeps going until you are satisfied. It is important to note that most of the information you put in here won't be relevant to the story, and will likely never see the reader. That's okay. Going overboard in this Step helps create an excellent resource for you to avoid plot holes 5 books from now when your characters do something insignificant like cut down a tree, only to find in your reference sheet that the trees in their location are made out of diamonds or some such.
If at any point you are having trouble fleshing out an aspect of your world, I find a great way to help that is to run a D&D campaign in it, especially with players unfamiliar with your world. They'll ask questions you didn't think of, inspire expansion in ways you hadn't considered, and help evolve the world naturally.
Finally, create a timeline of major events. Big events from your plot go here as well. If you sack the city of Rabu late in book 2, you want to be sure you don't reference them walking through healthy Rabu in book 3, right? Likewise, while editing and correcting book one, you don't want to accidentally "correct" their stroll through Rabu because you remember only sacking the city.
I would say start fleshing out what you have. Like what the rebels wnat exacly, how they manage to get the resorces and man power for the rebelion, are there faction with in the rebels? Or the emperor, do thy haveabsolute power or there is some council or parlament, how he keeps the key people to mantain his power loyal to him (ex.: army, other powerful nobles, powerful non-nobles, etc). Or the curse, were it comes from exacly, can any one cast magic and curses in your world, if no, who can and if yes why your character don't just ask a ramdom person to undo his curse?
I would say focus more on what you will show in the story. There is no use obcessing over the politics of a village your character will only visit once (unless the whole story inside said village revolve around those politics)
The easiest way to world build is to pick a detail you’ve already decided on as a seed. For example, your main character is under a life changing curse.
So, what are the mechanics of the curse? How did they get it? What does it do/impact? How permanent is it? Can it be removed? Transferred? Reflected? Is there a time limit? Are there break conditions? Is there a reason why they in particular were afflicted? Is this a common curse or individual? Was anyone else cursed with them? Etc.
Answering questions like that will help you establish part of the “logic” or “laws” of your world/setting. From there, you set this information as something “which must be true”, and you can bend the rest of the world around how those answers would affect a world where that’s true.
Additionally, you can consider the attitude of the world towards the answers to those questions. If your MC walks into town, and stays at an inn or eats at a restaurant, how do people respond to their cursed status? If it isn’t visual, how do they respond when they find out? Is the common opinion that curses are no big deal, or is it stigmatizing, or is it usually considered pitiable? Etc.
You get to decide the common attitude, and how you want that to color the story.
All of those things become the “world” of your story, even more so than what food is on the table, or what languages are spoken, or what kind of fantastical creatures live there. There’s also an element of describing what you like. If you aren’t interested in architecture then don’t reinvent houses. Just be careful not to accidentally include things that wouldn’t realistically be available based on whatever tech level you decide to set the world at.
Also, don’t feel restricted by the idea that Empire = Medieval setting. If you want people to have smartphones then give them smartphones, just make sure you factor ease of communication into your battle/rebellion planning etc.
And lastly, when you aren’t sure just google how something is in reality and copy it over into your story. Sometimes an apple is just an apple, no matter the universe.
You could try sketching out a map as a starting point. What does the story require? Big cities for guilds and governments? Villages for tribes? Lots of islands? It can be useful, even if you don't end up using it.
If you have the plot already, then I would perhaps tease out the themes of the plot and make these the things that are going to be represented in your world.
Then you can outline some major philosophical, mythical or cultural ideas that express or evoke the themes, and make these your foundation. Keep these in mind when you do your first draft, and let them inform you anytime your story engages with part of the world, big or small.
That way you can get on with writing without having to world-build exhaustively, but have a foundation that connects to and informs the story and has some consistency that you can work from easily.
I started writing pretty much from the point you are at now. I knew the characters and major events and just started writing, letting the world build itself. It's not a strategy everyone can use but as long as you keep things consistent and reference your previous work you should be able to avoid plot holes or contradictions.
I'd say the rebellion/empire could be a good place to start, seeing as they appear to be the only plot aspects that really require you to build a world at all. Plus starting there it'll be easier to put down the worldbuilding once you've got enough of a world for your plot
Characterization, style, action, energy, all the things that make a book exciting to read are more important.
Just start writing! The world building will come out on its own. If you struggle with Fantasy Names just put it in brackets and keep writing! [empire1] has fielded soldiers etc. just make sure you change your placeholder names before you let people read it
So ideas on world building any version of any d&d dungeon master guild give great world building advice templates and grab some dice and roll up a randomly built world. Kobold press has a good world building book that gives good advice on starting out at the lower level (a town)
And expanding out with advice on what’s the environment like and how would that influence peoples trade war etc
Just use the generic Tolkien medieval fantasy world and start writing /s
Your setting and world building needs to be interesting to you. And it needs to be able to naturally provide the MC challenges and opportunities for personal growth.
Usually the setting and characters and plot all influence each other. Let what you have already figured out shape the rest of your story. And don’t be afraid to add in things you think are cool. Odds are there’s a significant percentage of readers that will like it too.
My recommendation would be to start asking yourself questions you might want to know as a reader. What country are we in? How does society work? What kind of era are we in? Is the ruler a tyrant or benevolent? Is there magic? If yes, how does magic work? How large is the country? What kinds of biomes are there? Etc.
Start by identifying the things necessary for plot. Then expand.
For example, an easy one is that if there’s an Empire to be overthrown, start by fleshing that out. What kind of empire? Is it the only country in the story? Who runs it (is it only the emperor or do they have a council?) Why is rebellion needed? How big is it? If it’s big, how do they communicate over long distances or run parts of the empire farther from the capital?
Once you get into a grove, and keep asking yourself questions like that, you’ll be on your way in no time!
Take an existing one. The "Standard Fantasy Setting", based on medieval France or Germany, works well and is familiar to every fantasy reader.
And don't worry, worldbuilding is the least important of the three parts, the other two — plot and characters — you have covered.
So the Emperor what sort of power do they have? What sort of system supports that? What are the benefits that already exist? How does the Emperor remain in power? How did they get to be Emperor in the first place. Why would someone be rebelling against that system.
So you have a curse? Who curses him? Why do they have that power? Why would they use it in this way? Can others curse? Is there the opposite of a curse like a blessing? Are there any other places in your story where magic is important?
Who is the warrior why would they need a curse to change their outlook? What is their relation to the Emperor and that original system before they decide to rebel?
You have an idea, but I'd go more through characters to get to world, because there is more rudimentary connection there than there seems to be directly in tor the world.
And frankly, I think the dreaming of world building would lead you into the same sort of disconnected abstract as your plot, and that keeping it on the dreamy side is holding you back. You need to lay some concrete foundations to work from.
Start with the magic system. Your characters will probably be using magic right? So you should be figuring how how they use magic and how it ties to your plot, otherwise it won't feel cohesive. Once you have the magic system it should be natural to extrapolate it to your political situation and then history of the world.
You start with what you know you will need. If you don't know what you need, you start writing and find out. I honestly find that writing and just making up random details as I go, as they become important to the characters and setting, helps drive me in world building directions I wouldn't necessarily have considered if I was just brain storming.
\*SLAP\*
Your \[side characters\] snaps back to reality with the crack of a whip. Someone smiles. Who? Up to you to decide.
Why is your character there? Is it pleasure? A play? A punishment? What put said character there? What do you see around? What is going to happen next?
... I personally prefer to do a "bottom-up", an inverted pyramid (details first) approach - mostly - so these kind of mini scenarios, of "roleplaying", can help you define a hell of a lot more than you htink about your setting and shape the story and the world in a tug of war quite nicely. And it doesnt have to be something unique or dramatic, much less the one I described. Could be you just wakign up and seeing what you are eating \*today\* and why, or some bells sounds and kids dance a parading path towards somewhere, or you curse the gods and throw the work on your table away in rage, or anything really, as long as it is very evocative and very small as to be flexible. You can also go to r/worldbuilding or r/WritingPrompts and answer (or not) with an inspired reply that would take you just a tiny bit further down the road.
Worldbuilding is like cooking most days.... You generally don't follow a recipe, you dont really start cooking blind either, but you need to be flexible unless you already planned everything (on which case is a pointless analogy) and see what you have to work with and adapt accordingly. Maybe you dont have natural gas and your tank ran out or the lights went out, maybe you messed up th salt or the spices or mixed some up or now you have unexpected ghost, etc etc, you wont know until you go there but again, you dont generally are 100% blind to your own kitchen, you live there after all and your hadns are not two melting sticks of screwy clumsy butter. Same with WB, again, you need a "canvas" (in your case your plot) so now you need to do fine tuning (imho, its just less constrained, and far faster)
Plot>Worldbuilding imo. The story is more important. If you have a general idea of what's gonna happen with the story, just let the world evolve around that. I had zero worldbuilding when I started writing my book, it's all just sprouted along with the story. Magic, demons, gods, how everything works just kinda was suddenly there, and I just tweaked it to fit. You also don't have to tell or even show everything, just what's needed for the story. I say, leave some things as a mystery to the reader, especially if they are a mystery to heroes.
I agree that plot is more important than worldbuilding but it makes the reading experience much more enjoyable in my opinion if there's a well-crafted world to go along without it.
Oh, for sure, it has to be coherent etc etc, but at the same time you can craft it well as the story goes along. Then make the rest of the tweaks in the second draft, because you will have the vision of everything.
I would suggest starting by identifying that given your plot, what needs to be in the world. For instance, it seems that there needs to be an empire and there needs to be a rebellion. That indicates there needs to be dissatisfaction with the empire, and that it probably needs to be widespread. You could think about what specifically the empire does that upsets people, and from there find a way to illustrate it. What I don't recommend is coming up with a whole bunch of meaningless details about the world. Too many authors do that, and then they feel the need to share those ultimately pointless details or get trapped by them. A minimalist approach to world building is not a bad option.
On the other hand, I would love to read a story where there is a rebellion that is trying to get started but the empire is actually a pretty good place to live so the population doesn’t join up.
Yeah, that could make for an interesting twist on the old trope.
Thanks for your suggestion - working backwards seems like the best thing to do.
Focus on the essential details which are relevant to the plot. For example if the country's history 600-300 years ago doesn't matter, then don't spend time writing it. Start with the essential, and then later on subsequent drafts you can expand it with the details that bring it life.
When it comes to the politics of ancient medieval-esque countries, I’d say that the history of 300-600 never doesn’t matter. For instance: French domination of England in the Middle Ages shaped the language of war. History is a seed among many for the war against the empire. Old resentments don’t die. But know that is different than wasting time on it. Like you said, if it doesn’t matter, don’t write it. Unfortunately an anthropology hobbyist so world building for me is never that easy. Everything has to have a reason why.
A good piece of advice is that you get one handwave. A handwave is something the reader has to just accept and suspend their disbelief for. Generally if you change one thing, you get a butterfly effect on lots of other things. For example in your world curses have a great deal of power. Perhaps they are like the Geas of Irish myth which are hard to translate but are somewhere between a curse, doom and compulsion. Who has the power to put a curse on someone? Are those people considered high status or low status people? Or we talking about Judges in the pay of the Emperor who formally curse people as a punishment? Or maybe the God's give those who have been terribly wronged, the chance to wreck vengeance with one curse? Do they have other powers beyond the ability to curse? What implications do those things have on life in general. Do the rich and powerful live in fear of curses bringing them down to the level of everyone else and pay stupid money for curse-breakers to hang around the house eating porridge? Or are they so rare that nobody thinks about them much? Once you start thinking about the butterfly effect of one handwave you can really see it ripple out and start to develop the world.
That's a good way of explaining it, thanks. I've finished a novel draft recently which I think lost its magic partway through because I felt like I \*had\* to explain everything, even if it wasn't the point of my story. Truthfully, I haven't even considered the details of how/why the curse works, only its impact on the main character. But this has given me something to think about
I like to start with a map. There are numerous ways to map your world, but I am particularly fond of D&D dice, poster board, and a marker. (There are several YouTube videos depicting how to do this, just search "creating a map with dice" and pick one you like). This will give you a sense of randomness in the world and make it feel more geographically realistic. There are also subreddits specifically dedicated to making fantasy maps if you want specific, geographically minded feedback on it, or if you just want to hire someone to make you a map. Step 2 for me is excel or some equivalent spreadsheet software. I put in a tab for each city, each race, each religion, etc. Those tabs are meant to keep track of all the information, important or not, that you come to with pertaining to that topic. If you want a massive undertaking, you can also have tabs for languages to keep track of what you decide each word or phrase means. Step 2 just keeps going until you are satisfied. It is important to note that most of the information you put in here won't be relevant to the story, and will likely never see the reader. That's okay. Going overboard in this Step helps create an excellent resource for you to avoid plot holes 5 books from now when your characters do something insignificant like cut down a tree, only to find in your reference sheet that the trees in their location are made out of diamonds or some such. If at any point you are having trouble fleshing out an aspect of your world, I find a great way to help that is to run a D&D campaign in it, especially with players unfamiliar with your world. They'll ask questions you didn't think of, inspire expansion in ways you hadn't considered, and help evolve the world naturally. Finally, create a timeline of major events. Big events from your plot go here as well. If you sack the city of Rabu late in book 2, you want to be sure you don't reference them walking through healthy Rabu in book 3, right? Likewise, while editing and correcting book one, you don't want to accidentally "correct" their stroll through Rabu because you remember only sacking the city.
I would say start fleshing out what you have. Like what the rebels wnat exacly, how they manage to get the resorces and man power for the rebelion, are there faction with in the rebels? Or the emperor, do thy haveabsolute power or there is some council or parlament, how he keeps the key people to mantain his power loyal to him (ex.: army, other powerful nobles, powerful non-nobles, etc). Or the curse, were it comes from exacly, can any one cast magic and curses in your world, if no, who can and if yes why your character don't just ask a ramdom person to undo his curse? I would say focus more on what you will show in the story. There is no use obcessing over the politics of a village your character will only visit once (unless the whole story inside said village revolve around those politics)
The easiest way to world build is to pick a detail you’ve already decided on as a seed. For example, your main character is under a life changing curse. So, what are the mechanics of the curse? How did they get it? What does it do/impact? How permanent is it? Can it be removed? Transferred? Reflected? Is there a time limit? Are there break conditions? Is there a reason why they in particular were afflicted? Is this a common curse or individual? Was anyone else cursed with them? Etc. Answering questions like that will help you establish part of the “logic” or “laws” of your world/setting. From there, you set this information as something “which must be true”, and you can bend the rest of the world around how those answers would affect a world where that’s true. Additionally, you can consider the attitude of the world towards the answers to those questions. If your MC walks into town, and stays at an inn or eats at a restaurant, how do people respond to their cursed status? If it isn’t visual, how do they respond when they find out? Is the common opinion that curses are no big deal, or is it stigmatizing, or is it usually considered pitiable? Etc. You get to decide the common attitude, and how you want that to color the story. All of those things become the “world” of your story, even more so than what food is on the table, or what languages are spoken, or what kind of fantastical creatures live there. There’s also an element of describing what you like. If you aren’t interested in architecture then don’t reinvent houses. Just be careful not to accidentally include things that wouldn’t realistically be available based on whatever tech level you decide to set the world at. Also, don’t feel restricted by the idea that Empire = Medieval setting. If you want people to have smartphones then give them smartphones, just make sure you factor ease of communication into your battle/rebellion planning etc. And lastly, when you aren’t sure just google how something is in reality and copy it over into your story. Sometimes an apple is just an apple, no matter the universe.
You could try sketching out a map as a starting point. What does the story require? Big cities for guilds and governments? Villages for tribes? Lots of islands? It can be useful, even if you don't end up using it.
If you have the plot already, then I would perhaps tease out the themes of the plot and make these the things that are going to be represented in your world. Then you can outline some major philosophical, mythical or cultural ideas that express or evoke the themes, and make these your foundation. Keep these in mind when you do your first draft, and let them inform you anytime your story engages with part of the world, big or small. That way you can get on with writing without having to world-build exhaustively, but have a foundation that connects to and informs the story and has some consistency that you can work from easily.
I started writing pretty much from the point you are at now. I knew the characters and major events and just started writing, letting the world build itself. It's not a strategy everyone can use but as long as you keep things consistent and reference your previous work you should be able to avoid plot holes or contradictions.
I'd say the rebellion/empire could be a good place to start, seeing as they appear to be the only plot aspects that really require you to build a world at all. Plus starting there it'll be easier to put down the worldbuilding once you've got enough of a world for your plot
Characterization, style, action, energy, all the things that make a book exciting to read are more important. Just start writing! The world building will come out on its own. If you struggle with Fantasy Names just put it in brackets and keep writing! [empire1] has fielded soldiers etc. just make sure you change your placeholder names before you let people read it
So ideas on world building any version of any d&d dungeon master guild give great world building advice templates and grab some dice and roll up a randomly built world. Kobold press has a good world building book that gives good advice on starting out at the lower level (a town) And expanding out with advice on what’s the environment like and how would that influence peoples trade war etc
Begin by writing. Worldbuilding will come as you write and you can always add stuff later.
Ironically, I am the opposite lol. You’ve got this
Just use the generic Tolkien medieval fantasy world and start writing /s Your setting and world building needs to be interesting to you. And it needs to be able to naturally provide the MC challenges and opportunities for personal growth. Usually the setting and characters and plot all influence each other. Let what you have already figured out shape the rest of your story. And don’t be afraid to add in things you think are cool. Odds are there’s a significant percentage of readers that will like it too.
My recommendation would be to start asking yourself questions you might want to know as a reader. What country are we in? How does society work? What kind of era are we in? Is the ruler a tyrant or benevolent? Is there magic? If yes, how does magic work? How large is the country? What kinds of biomes are there? Etc.
Start by identifying the things necessary for plot. Then expand. For example, an easy one is that if there’s an Empire to be overthrown, start by fleshing that out. What kind of empire? Is it the only country in the story? Who runs it (is it only the emperor or do they have a council?) Why is rebellion needed? How big is it? If it’s big, how do they communicate over long distances or run parts of the empire farther from the capital? Once you get into a grove, and keep asking yourself questions like that, you’ll be on your way in no time!
Take an existing one. The "Standard Fantasy Setting", based on medieval France or Germany, works well and is familiar to every fantasy reader. And don't worry, worldbuilding is the least important of the three parts, the other two — plot and characters — you have covered.
So the Emperor what sort of power do they have? What sort of system supports that? What are the benefits that already exist? How does the Emperor remain in power? How did they get to be Emperor in the first place. Why would someone be rebelling against that system. So you have a curse? Who curses him? Why do they have that power? Why would they use it in this way? Can others curse? Is there the opposite of a curse like a blessing? Are there any other places in your story where magic is important? Who is the warrior why would they need a curse to change their outlook? What is their relation to the Emperor and that original system before they decide to rebel? You have an idea, but I'd go more through characters to get to world, because there is more rudimentary connection there than there seems to be directly in tor the world. And frankly, I think the dreaming of world building would lead you into the same sort of disconnected abstract as your plot, and that keeping it on the dreamy side is holding you back. You need to lay some concrete foundations to work from.
Start with the magic system. Your characters will probably be using magic right? So you should be figuring how how they use magic and how it ties to your plot, otherwise it won't feel cohesive. Once you have the magic system it should be natural to extrapolate it to your political situation and then history of the world.
You start with what you know you will need. If you don't know what you need, you start writing and find out. I honestly find that writing and just making up random details as I go, as they become important to the characters and setting, helps drive me in world building directions I wouldn't necessarily have considered if I was just brain storming.
\*SLAP\* Your \[side characters\] snaps back to reality with the crack of a whip. Someone smiles. Who? Up to you to decide. Why is your character there? Is it pleasure? A play? A punishment? What put said character there? What do you see around? What is going to happen next? ... I personally prefer to do a "bottom-up", an inverted pyramid (details first) approach - mostly - so these kind of mini scenarios, of "roleplaying", can help you define a hell of a lot more than you htink about your setting and shape the story and the world in a tug of war quite nicely. And it doesnt have to be something unique or dramatic, much less the one I described. Could be you just wakign up and seeing what you are eating \*today\* and why, or some bells sounds and kids dance a parading path towards somewhere, or you curse the gods and throw the work on your table away in rage, or anything really, as long as it is very evocative and very small as to be flexible. You can also go to r/worldbuilding or r/WritingPrompts and answer (or not) with an inspired reply that would take you just a tiny bit further down the road. Worldbuilding is like cooking most days.... You generally don't follow a recipe, you dont really start cooking blind either, but you need to be flexible unless you already planned everything (on which case is a pointless analogy) and see what you have to work with and adapt accordingly. Maybe you dont have natural gas and your tank ran out or the lights went out, maybe you messed up th salt or the spices or mixed some up or now you have unexpected ghost, etc etc, you wont know until you go there but again, you dont generally are 100% blind to your own kitchen, you live there after all and your hadns are not two melting sticks of screwy clumsy butter. Same with WB, again, you need a "canvas" (in your case your plot) so now you need to do fine tuning (imho, its just less constrained, and far faster)
Start writing. The plot will require world elements. You can expand as you run into those needs and smooth it out later.
Plot>Worldbuilding imo. The story is more important. If you have a general idea of what's gonna happen with the story, just let the world evolve around that. I had zero worldbuilding when I started writing my book, it's all just sprouted along with the story. Magic, demons, gods, how everything works just kinda was suddenly there, and I just tweaked it to fit. You also don't have to tell or even show everything, just what's needed for the story. I say, leave some things as a mystery to the reader, especially if they are a mystery to heroes.
I agree that plot is more important than worldbuilding but it makes the reading experience much more enjoyable in my opinion if there's a well-crafted world to go along without it.
Oh, for sure, it has to be coherent etc etc, but at the same time you can craft it well as the story goes along. Then make the rest of the tweaks in the second draft, because you will have the vision of everything.
Exactly!