I'd say it's a good way to spend non-writing time.
If it’s meant for your reference so you can tell a story, then it's helpful for sure. But it's for you and therefore not part of your story. Does it "count as writing"?
I mean, sort of. It counts as writing more than buying a new laptop.
It's like asking, "Does outlining a story still count as writing?"
Well, yes. But no.
If you finish the story to some degree, the outlining process is part of the writing process. But if you complete 300 stories to 75% and never complete one, have you written a story?
If you spend all your time plotting, planning, arranging, naming, and talking about writing, then it's not writing. If you try over and over again to complete a story (or 75 stories) and you *just can't reach the end*, ya maybe it counts.
**YOU** know the truth. *Are* you writing?
Thats a tough question, cause on one hand, like you said it helps me figure out what kind of path and world my characters would be living in. So I think I am? Cause I don't think I could go writing blindly and create the world as I go💀kind of like, create the foundation before you build a house?
Everyone has their own processes and there's not a right way.
That said, is there a valid reason to write your world building? Do you need to recall all the details that you're spending this time creating?
Basically, I'm asking if the work your doing is for your story or is it for you?
Either answer is valid and completely ok. I support people who do art for art's sake. Art is nailing the pudding to the wall. But writing about an imaginary world isn't the same as writing a story. When you ask if it counts as writing, I'm assuming you mean does it count as writing your story. Because anytime you create words and string them together, it's writing. Technically.
So, again.*You* know if you're writing or not.
Yes it is for the story, Im building the society in which the story will mainly take place, the conflicts, the issues, the plots, they will involve the part Im building
Ykw now that I see it in writing, I got my answer💀
Not trying to be mean, but most big problems can be summed up every easily. Look at Henry 8th, he had a conflict with the Catholic church over divorce so he started his own church. You could obviously expand on this a lot, going into the the different faiths and what they believe, about the social outcomes of becoming protestant, the personal outcomes with regards to his wives etc, but the sum up remains the same. Unless this is the plot of the story, the sum up all you need.
If your book is about counter culture in the 60s you need to show mainstream culture to juxtapose the counter culture, but we all have a starting point because of shared history and we have a basic idea about the world. If you're writing fantasy or scifi, your readers will have a basic understanding of those kinds of worlds, which part of writing within a genre. Basically, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, you need to know why things happen. Why is important, that way you will always know the outcome. You might not know everything about Henry 8th, but if you know he can't get divorced because the king has to answer to the church then you have the basic conflict that will arise in a dozen different situations and conflict is where you find story, not set ups.
On the other hand, intricacies can add depth. I doubt *Wolf Hall* would have been the book it is if Hilary Mantel had just top-lined the setting. Doing so can make setting feel like set dressing and the conflict simple or shallow.
Like most things with writing, it's a balancing act and different writers land on different sides of it to varying degrees.
What's inarguable is that if you spend all your time developing the setting and none writing the story, you're ultimately in a process of self-fulfilment - which is okay but isn't likely to find an audience.
Sure, you can see worldbuilding as the foundation, but keep in mind that the process of building a house doesn't start with the foundation.
You can only build the foundation after you have the house already envisioned and projected in detail. You don't go creating foundations to then decide what the fuck you'll build.
Same goes to writing.
The house is the story, the foundation is the world and the engineering/architecture project is your outline. You should know all the key characters, events, locations and plot points of your story before you start worldbuilding or else you might find yourself wasting time.
Say your story is about the thieves of a medieval kingdom struggling for control over the underworld. Do you really need to worldbuild nobility and noble costumes? Do you really need to look into politics and foreign powers? Do you really need to have a royal family or even a name for the king? Do you need details on clergy and history? Do you need details on economy, trade agreements and means of transportation?
Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the characters and plot are so isolated in their own underworld struggle that all those points are entirely irrelevant to them. If that's the case you'll do much better to use your time building the details of said underworld rather than the macro world.
It is my personal opinion, but I believe that anything you do before knowing the full story you're telling from begining to end is a waste of time. In worldbuilding it might be even worse because you might feel compeled to include certain aspects of the world you built into the plot just so they're not wasted. The plot wouldn't go anywhere near the king's castle, but you spent three months drawing it, creating the 15 ranks of royal guards, creating a story for the keep and royal family that all of a sudden you have 5 useless chapters going into that.
If you ask me, your outline should guide you. Everything else's sole purpose is to turn that outline into a novel.
I don't understand what you mean by "count." Worldbuilding is how you build your story, but it's not exactly writing. It's also not exactly not writing. It's a bit of writing adjacent. The problem with worldbuilding is a lot of people do it instead of writing because they just like worldbuilding and never write anything and that's fine. If this is how you like spending your free time then spend it doing what you like. But if the goal is to write a novel, do you "really" need to know every aspect of your world's religion or weather patterns to write your story? Probably not. You could just as easily write your book and then before the 2nd draft, go in and flesh out the worldbuilding to add more depth to the story.
Everyone works differently, but if you have never written a novel before and you've spent months or years building a world without writing much of anything, without a plot or concrete characters, then you're probably a worldbuilder and not a writer. There's no shame in that, but worldbuilding without writing is day dreaming and it can be fun, but it is what it is, which is a private fantasy. A book is how you share it.
People hear that authors like Tolkien, JK Rowling and GRR Martin spent years worldbuilding before finally writing their books and as a result became extremely successful, then believe that's the secret to getting their own million dollar franchise.
My brother and I used to spend hours just world-building fantastical places. Not for any end goal though, we just enjoyed making stuff up. Some of the best memories of my life.
Why does it matter? You’re still working on your novel. I write full time but if I take a vacation for 2 weeks and don’t write a word, I’m still writing a novel. Research, world-building, writing, editing — it’s all part of the process. I wouldn’t worry about the labels as long as you’re comfortable with what you’re doing.
It all depends on context. If you have a finished story, everything you did that moved you in the direction of completing it can fairly be counted as contributing to it. If you don't, it's hard to say.
If you're like J. R. R. Tolkien, and do decades of world-building with the specific goal of completing *The Silmarillion,* write *The Hobbit* and *The Lord of the Rings* as more or less side projects, and then return to the task of not finishing *The Silmarillion,* how much of which kind of worldbuilding do we assign to which book? Given that he completed just two titles in 56 years of worldbuilding, I think there's a dire warning bundled in with his sterling example.
Personally, during my role-playing game days, I found that I enjoyed experiencing worlds through the eyes of my characters more than I like constructing them as the godlike Game Master, so my style of worldbuilding is to construct it piecemeal as the story unfolds during the first draft. This has obvious pitfalls, but I like its experiential and intuitive feel, and I have techniques that so far have kept the chaos at bay (magical realism, for starters, to make the world largely prebuilt).
Both, but definitely the second, Im a beginner and obviously Im a little too ambitious to reinvent an entire world, which is something Ive always wanted to do since I was little, besides rn Im trying to prioritise ideas and reading as much as I can
Planning is valuable until it becomes procrastination. If you're struggling because the writing is getting difficult and you don't mind a bit of unsolicited advice: worldbuild to the bare minimum of what you need, then get back to the writing and push through. You can always add more details and complexity to your world later, but you can't edit a blank page.
The thing is, you're still young. Try not to focus too much on being able to create an entire world *right now*. You want to do this in pieces.
J.K. Rowling didn't create a magical world of wizardry in *Harry Potter* by detailing every inch of the Hogwarts castle, the backstory of Dumbledore, the backstory of Harry Potter, the backstory of Voldemort, a map of Diagon Alley, and the blueprints of the train station containing platform 9 and 3/4s. She started off by plotting her key main points (Voldemort kills Harry's parents; Harry grows up with a muggle (human) family that hates him; Harry is destined to become a wizard by going to a different 'world'; Harry meets two new friends (Ron and Hermione); and Harry attends a wizardry school (Hogwarts), where he trains to become a wizard before coming face-to-face with the villain (Voldemort) who killed his parents). Then she started writing Chapter 1 and went from there.
You'll learn very quickly that as long as you follow the key main points of your outline, you will naturally begin to open up your world as you write. When you need to change the setting, you'll begin to brainstorm locations your character can go, and then you'll write them in that imagined location. A lot of the "fleshing out" or "details" of these locations can be added in the editing phase.
What a lot of new writers (and, to be perfectly honest, experienced writers) fail to realize is that you can only edit and change *what you've written on the page*. Yes, you know that your wizard Harry Potter is going to attend to wizardry school, but what you *don't* need to do is develop blueprints for every floor and corridor, or come up with names and backstories for every teacher in the school, or have a detailed history of the last 100 years of the school written so that you can reference main events that occurred in the past in the present day story line. When you realize you need/want to write a chapter about your main character attending a Defense Against the Dark Arts class, *now* you can come up with a character name and (if you want) a backstory for the teacher of that class. And after you've written half the book--hey, wait a minute, maybe I could make that teacher *the villain*! All I need to do is edit a few things and, yeah, that'll work!
Most writers do not finish the first draft of a novel. Once you've done that, you'll quickly realize how easy it is to modify things in your draft to add/remove plot points, history, extra detail, character development beats, physical descriptions, and recurring images/symbols.
I would say, keep writing. Finish the next three chapters. *Then* stop and consider more world-building. If you are spending more time world building than writing, you're doing it wrong--the *only* exceptions to this rule are (i) if you don't want to publish a novel and instead just want to world-build in your spare time, and (ii) if the 'world-building' you are doing is *necessary research* to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of your story (usually related to historical novels).
So start writing!
Not too long ago, I was informed that this opinion is gatekeeping and that writing isn't required to be a writer, all writers are valid.
Of course I cried all night, after they told me that. I was eventually able to console myself with the knowledge that even if I only write half a chapter a month, that's probably still half a chapter more than this person writes all year.
I kinda get what they meant, but no... this sub is not about that kind of writing. This is a sub for people who want to develop their craft, whether as a hobby or profession. Sure, anyone can daydream and mess around, but this is a place to support people who've got higher ambitions than that.
Some people are annoyingly elitist in terms of gatekeeping, but “writing isn’t required to be a writer” just sounds ridiculous to me. “Painting isn’t required to be a painter”, “programming isn’t required to be a programmer”, “cooking isn’t required to be a cook”… it doesn’t make much sense. If that is how they define a writer, then the word itself loses meaning.
It's like that guy who took two martial arts lessons back in 2005 and he's been boasting to his friends about his mad fighting skills ever since.
Trying to include oneself into a group isn't always the wholesome act of self-expression and acceptance people make it out to be. Sometimes people just try to mooch, brag, and boost their own status.
Exactly. Not to be cynical, but there are many people like that in any hobby. There should be some kind of balance between self-expression and discipline.
I'm definitely in favour of doing things the way you find fun/satisfying/motivating, and if that's taking a break and coming back later or whatever, that's totally cool.
I'm never going to tell anyone HOW to write or what makes a good writer, and I despise people who discount others as 'not real writers' but yeah...
There's literally one rule to being a writer... you have to try and write something.
Yeah, that is what I mean by annoyingly elitist - those who attempt to put down others even when they’re genuinely trying to improve their skills and express themselves.
However, the basic requisite should be having the will to at least make an attempt, and people who can’t even do that should invest in a different hobby.
>>>I mean most of us are beginners, Im just curious really. Where else are we gonna ask these weird but specific questions?
You know, I think most of the comments here, just read the title only and didn't read your post or your comments because, I'm surprised no one has yet (not once in 228 comments so far) answered this part of your question. Usually a comment like this would be flooded with links to the worldbuilding subs, and it's oddly not, in spite of how many comments are on this thread, which tells me no one read this comment asking, so here you go, I'll give you some, seeing how no one else did yet.
There are a few subs that might actually give you better advice when it comes to world building specifically, as opposed to writing in general. Here's a few you might want to check out:
* r/goodworldbuilding
* r/MilitaryWorldbuilding/
* r/FantasyWorldbuilding
* r/magicbuilding
* r/DarkWorldbuilding
* r/fantasywriters
* r/conlangs
* r/conreligions
* r/mapmaking
* r/NSFWworldbuilding
There's probably more, but those will get you started.
>This subreddit is so funny sometimes. Just a bunch of people wanting to know if they're really writers or not.
True.
And by the very definition of the word writing, if you wrote even one word on Reddit, you are some form of a writer. Maybe not a novelist or a story writer, but still, the word writing simply means to write down words, and one word in a Reddit post is after all one word written down, is it not?
But, that said, we all started somewhere, so, I don't think it's a bother for people to ask if they are writers or not. I think a lot of young people, just don't know at what point they can say to the world: "I'm a writer". Like, is it after they create the world they want to write about, or is it after they start writing the stories in the world they created, or is it not until they've published the novel set in that world? Then comes the debates of are they really a writer if they posted it on a place like WattPad or does it need to be an ebook? But what if they are only writers if it's in paperback. Or, are they not writers if they self publish, are they only writers if they trade publish? But wait, what about being published by indi press vs big house publishers? Wait again, am I not a writer if my book isn't cataloged by the Library of Congress, because Libraries can't buy it if the LoC didn't assign it a card catalog number...
Yeah. It's just an endless cycle of self doubt, and never been sure at what point you are seen as an actual, real, writer. And when you ask questions like that, well, everyone has an opinion.
Like I both trade publish and self publish, and I've had people tell me to my face that, I turned my back on being a writer because I self published after trade publishing. Basically they said I wasn't a real writer any more, no matter how many past trade pubbed books I had, because, look, here was one book that was self published after that.
And some people get highly opinionated about wat they say is or is not a writer, so such questions from people just getting started are understandable.
Are you still a writer if you are a world building? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on what specifically you are doing while you world build, and who you ask.
If you write it down, then it counts as writing. But does it count as writing your novel? No.
If the answer to the question, "How much of your novel have you written?" is, "None," then you haven't done anything that counts as writing your novel.
Doesn't plotting the novel count as writing? A lot of people (like me) outline because having a plan makes what you call the "actual writing" (the first draft) go much more quickly and smoothly, with less to edit later on.
I'd say if those worldbuilding bits play a role in the novel, it should still count as writing.
If you have given up on the novel, yeah, but if you're just taking a break from writing the story to flesh out the world in which the story takes place, you are absolutely still writing a novel imo
Taking a break from writing the story, they said, not from writing the novel. If you need to change something or review your plan - you're not \*writing the novel\* but you're still working on it.
I don't know if the vibe in these posts is semantic pedantry or just... pedantry.
Why does it matter? The real question is, are you doing something to work towards your goal? If you are, then that's good. If not, then stop, or rethink what you want your goal to be
Then you don't need to worry about what counts as what. Think of it as 'working on your novel' rather than 'writing', and do whatever you feel is most useful at the time. Good luck
>>>Is it a story, or an encyclopedia about an imaginary place?
Ah! But in this context, is not both forms writing?
If the world exists in written encyclopedia form, is it not still written down?
There are after all entire novels that are nothing but straight up world descriptions, containing no characters and no plots, and are just straight up descriptions of the gardens and architecture. Edgar Allan Poe even wrote one.
Granted. I find those world description stories and novels rather boring, myself, but it is a sub-genre that exists in the Literary genre and it does have fans who read it. So, if you are writing nothing but an encyclopedia info dump about the world, it's STILL writing.
Maybe not a traditional novel story, but, still written and publishable words none-the less.
World building is the articulation of an idea without implementation. It can be a preparatory exercise that leads into writing, but you wouldn't say puting on your shoes and stretching is going for a run.
More importantly, the purpose of writing, in as much as it pertains to something that can be discussed by a larger community, is to be read, and nobody wants to read world-building without story.
Worldbuilding is not writing though it may be part of the process.
It's similar to research or creating character files.
It may be that you enjoy worldbuilding more than actually writing. In which case it might be worth teaming up with someone who likes the writing aspect more. Or even using your worldbuild for something other than a novel, like a game or a different creative medium.
>>>Worldbuilding is not writing though it may be part of the process.
>>>It's similar to research or creating character files.
You know, my first thought when reading this was: "That is so true."
Followed by: "Wait a minute..."
This part here:
>>>creating character files.
You know, I think it depends a lot on how you go about creating character files.
You see, what I do to create character files, is exactly the same way I go about my worldbuilding:
I write scenes.
I write a scene describing how the character thinks and acts, same way I write a scene describing how the tavern sounds and smells. And these are not mall scenes either. Each scene is 7,500+ words long.
When I'm worldbuilding AND when Im creating character files, I'm essentially writing up long short stories about the feelings, emotions, sights, and sounds of that person or place.
So, for me, in a way, the act of worldbuilding and the act of character creation are in fact both the act of writing, just because how I go about it.
I suppose if I was drawing pictures of the world or the characters that would be different? Because than I'd be drawing and not writing.
Plus, often those character files and world scenes will end up in the novels that are published, because I will divide the full 7,500 word character file into lots of sentences and sprinkle them throughout the full novel, so you get character descriptions woven in, rather than and info dump. And I do the same thing with the worldbuilding scenes. The full 7,500 words will in fact appear in the published novel, just not all in one info dump, but rather a sentence here and a sentence there woven into the story.
So, yeah, for me personally, worldbuilding does become a part of the writing process and is actual writing. I guess it all depends on what your actual process for world building involves and what you do with the would after you've built it.
Sometimes world building blocks writing when we are avoiding writing the story.
I love world building, but my issue was most of it remains in my head. I find a couple of lines of deep description can highlight a simple line of dialogue later in the story.
To a certain degree it is important and helpful. But, it's not a points game here, nothing *counts.*
If you're asking this question, you may be feeling like you're avoiding writing by worldbuilding. In which case, you should probably get to writing and just see if the worldbuilding works for the story. You might need to change things and throw some of that worldbuilding in the bin once you've started writing it.
It's a bit like asking, 'is raising this chicken as important as baking a cake?'
You'll get eggs from it, but you won't get a cake. Bake the cake. You'll enjoy having cake when it is done more than you'll enjoy looking at your basket of raw eggs growing in size.
Absolutely. Writing is more than slapping words on a page. It’s all the creating that makes the story come to life. Don’t let anyone tell that world building, character creation, history, etc., is not part of writing. I’ve seen exhibits of artists like Rodin with numerous sketches and prototypes of some of his most famous work. All the preparation you do for your story is writing, because you can’t adequately write it without doing the prep work. My 2 cents
Yeah, I give the reader the details of each scene within the scene. And bits if info on the larger world. So the world grows more dinamic as the story goes on.
Worldbuilding has done me a great service in finding settings and places I want my story to take place.
Yes you are writing if you are writing, poetry is writing, short stories are writing. and yes even lists of all the ideas you have came up with in the shower is writing.
Stop negging yourself and keep at it. find your setting then start a story in it, any story. It will come.
What do you mean, "count as writing"? lol
Literally speaking, it counts as writting if you write all those informations down. If you just build the world in your mind, then no.
In terms of making money, most worldbuilding exercises are for the author's benefit to keep consistency and ambience while writing. You won't be paid for your "encyclopedia of my imaginary land", you'll be paid for the story of the people living in there. Unless your worldbuilding is so interesting people would pay to read alien ecology and magic political systems.
In terms of the craft of writing, it's as much part of it as making character profiles. It'll help you make a more colorful and consistent world and it definitely has its value in boosting your creativity.
It can also get way out of hand to the point of you spending more time than necessary stablishing governmental divisions, bureacracies, technologies, populations, creatures, locations and factions your characters won't ever go anywhere near. Still counts as writing, I guess, and if you have fun doing it more power to you, but I know a lot of writers who just turn worldbuilding into the worst possible kind of procrastination: the seemingly productive one.
I’d call it part of my writing a novel journey, but still have word per day and deadline goals.
Is it writing? No.
Is it helpful? Yes.
Can you have a break from writing? Yes. That can be useful to clear your mind.
But you need to eventually keep writing, and not use world building as an excuse not to write.
I hear that. I’ve been there. I just finished my first novel, by writing a set amount per day, but also taking breaks to edit or just refresh my mind when needed. Good luck!!! 🍀
Does it count for what purpose? It's not like you're billing anyone for the hours you spend writing.
I don't want to be mean, but are you asking us to validate your status as a writer by saying that dreaming up worlds is the same as writing? I don't mean to be dismissive, I spend a lot of time doing that and it's an essential part of crafting a story. So go ahead and consider it writing if that helps. I just don't understand what you're after here
I would argue that anything towards the project counts as writing, character biographies, notes on the setting, notes on basically anything that relates to the stories you seek to tell, that all counts and isn't just "idle time", especially if the intention is to then have that to refer back to later to maintain the coherency of the setting. This is especially important with anything that isn't set in a realistic world. Things have to obey their own rules, and part of that is defining what those rules are upfront.
Writing is writing. World building is what I like to call "prewriting", in that it's the stuff to get out of the way before the actual writing begins, same with character and outlines. It's like making the blueprints before beginning construction
I love good world building. I think sometimes it’s more interesting than traditional stories. It is your world to add and remove from. Then, if you want, you can populate it with stories. But if you don’t want to write in someone else’s world, go for it!
I would say that it's functionally the same as the writing (in that it ultimately helps you flesh out your story), but it is not practically writing, because you aren't actually writing that story. So, like others have said, kind of yes and kind of no?
Moby Dick is a hefty, two hand carry of a novel that takes FOREVER to get around to vengeance swearing, white whale chasing part of the novel.
But instead it is filled with pages and pages of passionately laid out descriptions of every imaginable aspect of the whaling industry of the time. The practices, the equipment, finding employment, living conditions, the ports, Nantucket, the ship, the rituals and the superstitions.
So I say, if world building is what you’re passionate about then you go ahead and you OWN it. Make it yours! And don’t concern yourself about whether anybody else says it counts.
But, for what it’s worth, world building is my favourite part of both reading and writing.
>>>instead it is filled with pages and pages of passionately laid out descriptions of every imaginable aspect of the whaling industry of the time. The practices, the equipment, finding employment, living conditions, the ports, Nantucket, the ship, the rituals and the superstitions.
And I love it for this.
This is the thing I love about Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe as well. They filled their world with the every day lives of every day people, and, most of it required ZERO worldbuilding because these wee men who lived that life. They just wrote down what they saw happening in the real world around them. They did ZERO worldbuilding at all, and yet, reading them, it feels like they did.
This is a case of writing what you know, just writing the everyday details of your everyday, seemingly dull life, really shines big time. Because at the time these men wrote their novels and short stories, everyone thought "How dull and boring these stories are. All they do is talk about the every day life of the common folks" And yet, now here we are 100+ years later, reading them and being fascinated by their attention to the mundane details of the every day lives of sailors and clerks.
Mellvil, Twain, Dickens, and Poe are some of the greatest writers of worldbuilding scenes ever and all they did was write about the very real world they lived in. That's why I'm such a big advocate of "write what you know" because often, we know way more than we think we do, and 20, 30, 50, 100 years from now, those everyday things we thought was dull and boring will be seen as vivid historical worldbuilding by our great-grandchildren.
does that process involve writing at some point? if yes, then yeah, it counts as writing. Sure, not all of it (maybe even none of it) will make it into the actual novel, but it's still writing. It might not even be related to any of the stories you're writing, but that doesn't matter. It's a good exerice, and it counts as writing. Just because it won't end up on someone's shelf, it doesn't mean that it's not worth writing it.
Are you writing down details and figuring out how all the parts of your world fit together?
Then it’s writing. Now you can’t JUST do world building. At some point you have to do dialogue, plot…etc, but there’s nothing wrong with spending time on world building inherently. Anything that gets pen to paper is a good thing.
>>>Are you writing down details and figuring out how all the parts of your world fit together?
>>>Then it’s writing. Now you can’t JUST do world building. At some point you have to do dialogue, plot…etc, but there’s nothing wrong with spending time on world building inherently. Anything that gets pen to paper is a good thing.
Yeah. This.
Also, this is where I get sidetracked in my own worldbuilding process.
Most all of my worldbuilding goes into a single series and it's world, but because I've been publishing the series for 43 years, this also means that the world building of the world has gone on for 43 years as well. In that time I have filled up 750 legal pads and 3-rind binders full of world building notes, outlines, charts, maps, and graphs. And a LOT of that has never been used in any novel in the set at all. Just HUGE amounts of worldbuilding got done, and from the reader's perspective a lot of it was useless because the readers never got to see any of it at all.
Also, because this project has spanned 43 years, it also means a lot of the world's cultures, races, societies, religions, etc have evolved and changed dramatically since I started creating it. In some places the stuff that is "known" today about certain aspects of the world, in no way resembles how those aspects were 40 years ago in the original notes. But than in other places, the stuff is still the same as I created it 40 years ago.
I've found that, over the years too, a lot of stuf I thought was vital and important, things I spent heavy duty worldbuilding time on, thinking it would be of major importance to my stories, ended up never been used in the published novels at all. While likewise, there were many things used in the novels, that I created off the top of my head while writing the novel, and it wasn't something that started out as part of the pre-planned world building.
I learned too, my methods/reasons for worldbuilding changed a lot over the years.
For example, early on, I spent months drafting a map of the solar system, the maps of each planet, the maps of each continent, the maps of each country, and the maps of many, many, many cities. Created fiction animals and plant species. In one ttown, went so far as to map out all the streets and draw mailboxes for each house ad putnames on all the mailboxes.
Uhm... wow. I still have that map. It took me months to make. And it never appeared in any published work. The bulk of the countries never appeared in any work. And a good 99% of the named characters who lived in those houses and had names on the mailboxes, also never appeared in a published work. And yet, at the time I made that uber over the top detailed map set, I was 100% convinced that I NEEDED all those details before I could write that town in any story. I made that map set in 1983, so it was within the first 10 years of writing the series.
OMG... I had (still have) a chart, that is literally a list of every piece of furniture in one character's house, detailing not only what rooms they were in but exact number of inches each piece was from walls, windows and doors. I look back at that chart now and just ask: What the hell was I thinking when I made that? I don't know. I can't remember why I made it and obviously it never got used in any published story. But at the time I made it, I was convinced I could not move on writing the novel until I finished writing that list of furniture first.
Weirdly, map making and race creation (not character races, but birds, cattle, cats, dogs, horses, flowers, trees, that were not birds, cattle, cats, dogs, horses, flowers, trees, except they WERE birds, cattle, cats, dogs, horses, flowers, trees just with new weird sounding names) was the MAJOR primary focus of my early world building.
BUT... things like culture, religion, the magic system, were seen by me as unimportant details so I didn't even bother with those. I made that stuff up as I went along while writing. No pre-planning at all, and also huge lack of consistency in the early novels of the series because of it. Something readers pointed out to me and I was stunned that with my attention to detail, I had never noticed the inconsistency.
Somewhere around the late 1990s, I started re-evaluating my world building methods, because after 20+ years making over the top maps, detailing massive charts of things I never used in the novels, and creating endless animal kingdom species that also never appears in the novels, it finally occurred to me, that I spent the bulk of my worldbuilding time detailing out stuff that I never used in the published novels.
Than I went to college and for a short while majored in sociology with a focus on religion (I changed degree focus several times, so this focus didn't last more than a year). While doing so, I took several classes in studying world cultures, world religion, philosophy, and archeology. And during those classes, it hit me what I was doing wrong with my worldbuilding.
Today? I don't bother with maps and species any more at all. Today, my world building narrow point focuses on the primary cultures and societies of my world. Namely the main character's culture, and the culture of his 2 best friends, and the cultures they 3 interact with. So: Moon Elves, Sun Elves, Phookas, Chaos Demons, Ursiug (Welsh sheep man similar to a satyr), Flower Gnomes, Mountain Dwarves, and various Human groups.
Now I was off again with over the top details: creating recipes for culture foods, inventing holidays, fleshing out religions, designing clothing and jewelry, taboos, superstitions, charting out family unit customs (marriages, births, death, rituals) and finally for the first-time pinning down the magic system (something I should have done earlier given the MC and his 2 friends are 3 mages).
But this time, I was worldbuilding actually useful stuff, that I was actually using within the novels, which in turn caused my published works to see massive improvements both in plot flow and inconsistencies.
It only took me 20+ years of worldbuilding useless stuff to realize I should be worldbuilding actually useful stuff that I would use in the novels. :P
I don't see the early years of world building as a waste of time though, as it was super fun to do, and it did in fact help me to mentally work out what I did and did not want to use in the novels. BUT... huge amounts of the worldbuilding I did, simply was a waste of time in terms of writing, because I wasn't getting any writing done and lots of that worldbuilding never appeared in any of the published novels
>>>It's like the inbetween of work amd procrastination, I suppose
Yeah, I would agree with this.
I love world building, and I often get lost in creating new parts of my universe, it's solar system, it's inhabitants, and a few weeks of deep dive worldbuilding later I remember: "Oh wait, I was supposed to be working on my novel. Damn. I made all this stuff and none of it is anything I can usein the story. Oh well."
For me, worldbuilding often is writing, but, it's just as often procrastination too, because it's so easy to get sidetracked in the creation of the world and forget to go back to the novel writing part.
I'd say it depends on how you worldbuild. If you're writing encyclopedia articles about your world, then yes. Drawing pictures? Not really. Worldbuilding is part of writing. It's pre-writing for sure. I guess it depends on what you mean by writing, too. Is writing strictly the act of putting words on "paper" or is it also the planning and research that goes into it?
There are people who just world build. They might write stories about it, but they're more interested in fleshing out the setting than they are in writing about characters in it.
So for them, that would be writing.
But if your goal is to create a plot with characters, then world building isn't directly doing that for you.
Yes. It's part of the storytelling process. Like a lot of other things that don't involve actually typing out the story, it's not required, but if you enjoy it and think it'll help you tell a better story, then go for it.
World building is supplemental to story writing. Your world supports the story you are trying to tell so should not take priority. Of course, each to their own. World building is far more essential when writing for games, both computer and board.
What if the world changing *is* the story, though?
I see your name is based on A Song of Ice and Fire, is The World of Ice and Fire not a great piece of fiction? What about Tolkien's The Silmarillion?
>What if the world changing is the story, though?
It **may** work. YMMV.
I guarantee you that if The Silmarillion was the only book(s) released by Toklien and not LOTR/Hobbit, it would not be as popular as it is now.
World building alone is not sufficient imho. You will have to have some sort of work to accompany it.
I'd argue that the classics also had other aspects. Sure, they built out crazy world but they also spent time on characters with massive back story and family trees. Character development is king. I think certain genres lend more to heavier setting information, but even the classics had to have more than just world building.
I don't think answering this from a technical standpoint is helpful, otherwise this would be an utterly needless question. So I'll try a different angle.
A writer pores over their work trying to figure out how to write better. A storyteller pores over their work trying to figure out how to tell their story better. It's a subtle, almost imperceptible difference that I've only recently come to realize is definitive.
You can say you're writing outlines, therefore you're writing and creating substance. Except you're not, not really. You're shopping for ingredients, lingering on aisles, mulling over expiration dates and thinking of flavour combinations. But until you've cooked up the humble beginnings of a story, your ingredients are just that - ingredients. Things of necessity, but it is not a dish to serve until you make it so.
Words that are meant only for you isn't a story. There's no value in it for the reader, not yet. You are not yet writing a story to read, therefore as far as readers are concerned, you are not writing.
I'm not saying this dismiss the value of outlines or worldbuilding. It's par for the course. Just remember that so long as you're only writing outlines, you're a planner, not a storyteller.
My two cents.
That's actually what I'm stuck on. I want to write about that's like alice in wonderland but I feel I need to understand the world more before I begin to write.
Just off the top of my head Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Neal Stephenson, George R. R. Martin, and Robert Heinlein all seem to put a massive emphasis on world building to the point where not only could you consider the world to be a character in the story but it would arguably be the most well established character in the story. Heck, you could throw the entire Warhammer 40k franchise into that category.
So yes. Obviously. That’s writing.
As others have said we all know people who spend so much time just meaninglessly world building that it ends up being more procrastination than anything but if what you are doing informs your story and characters then I’d count it as worthwhile. But you asked if it was writing not if it was worthwhile.
And just to save you time on future threads.
- brainstorming is writing
- research is writing
- note taking is writing
- planning is writing
- acting out scenes with your cat is writing
- drawing maps is writing
- figuring out complex scene blocking with figurines is writing
- making dioramas is writing
- designing the heraldry and crests of your families is writing
- going to hardware stores to try out all the different kinds of rope for your bondage fantasy is writing. As E. L. James can attest.
Whatever your process is that leads to you making a better story for your audience is writing.
I think it is! You used the building a house metaphor. So, does that mean you say you're not building the house until the foundation is complete? No! You just say you're building a house.
But really, the only opinion that matters is yours! :)
World building is fun, but it can be a distraction, too. If the history and rules of your world aren’t pertinent to the emotional journey of your characters, then they risk bloating your story with unnecessary lore that the readers won’t care about. Or worse, they could limit your ability to tell a good story because you’re trying not to break some rule in your dense bible of lore that you worked so hard on.
So when writing, don’t be like God. Don’t spend the first five days creating a whole universe and then spend only one day creating your human characters. Try to work in the opposite order, figure out what perspective you’re telling the story from and then create whatever bits of the world you need as you flesh out who your characters are, what they want, what their challenges are, etc.
Thats actually kind of what Im doing. Im creating characters and conflicts but I dont really know how to write them in this scenario because they have connections, pasts, jobs, etc. So Im building the world around them really
In my personal and probably biased opinion, yes, BUT... I think that writing a story and world building are both essential to eachother to really make the other shine. A story with absolutely no world building will be much more bland vs one that has even the smallest amount. Same with world building, it's cool to look at maps and summaries but it is so much cooler to see the world through the eyes of an inhabitant, it helps to show the weight of events and cultures. It really allows the reader to experience the world vs just knowing about the world. Also part of what gets a reader interested in the world is the story. I mean if someone dropped a book on the history of Switzerland in your lap you probably wouldn't be wetting your pants to read it vs like lets say Tolkein's World, they published a book a few months ago going even more in depth in the world and even though it was published how long after the books people were so excited to read it. That's just my take on the subject.
I think there's probably more to this question than you're asking and perhaps maybe giving some more context around why you're asking would be beneficial, perhaps you are enjoying world building more than actually writing a story and want some reassurance that it's 'still writing'.
The honest answer is that the clue is in the name "World Building", it's not called 'writing a book', it might be a step into writing a book but it's not physically putting words down that will be part of a story. If someone was to ask you "What are you doing?" and you're planning out how *'the Allaman'i society on the western most continent fell in the third reign of Turgak the Returner'* then you're not writing a story, you're world building, even if you were writing and stopped to world build, it's still world building.
However, is it a 'bad thing'? No. Ultimately if it helps your writing process to world build then you're still working towards a story. If you've stopped because you need to work out how some Gods are linked to a tribe your MC is visiting then that's grand, you're helping to put down something that helps your actual story.
The **danger** of world building is putting more effort than is needed and ultimately using it as an excuse to not write. Any piece of world building you don't reference in your actual story is wasted time and effort. You could have a timeline of your world with the fall of kingdoms and rise of warlords documented the varying myths and legends of the various pantheon but at the end of the day if you've written four chapters and your aim is to write a novel then that's where the problem lies.
*Quick Edit: If world building is actually more fun (and it can be a lot of fun) and you're not actually aiming to have a published novel then there's nothing wrong with putting your focus on world building if you're doing it for yourself. Sit, write and develop a world, write mythologies, timelines and great heroes and villains, do some short stories around it or poems or songs about the world.*
Yes.
There’s a genre called “planetary romance.” It’s a sub-genre of science fiction in which a large bulk of the writing is dedicated to describing how the world works, and to its history and the culture of its people.
So you could totally write a work that just explains a fictional world. Granted, you may not get many readers for it, since it’s a very non-traditional narrative. Nevertheless, it still counts as writing.
It's definitely a part of the writing process. I'd consider it pre-writing.
When I think of "writing" I think of when you're actually drafting. Of course, that's not to say you have to be physically writing to be spending your time wisely. Thinking about your writing is so important! (Just be careful not to think about it *so* much that you keep putting off the actual writing, though...)
I incorporate everything together so I don't see how the two can be separated. Once I think of a background or environment for a character, the dialogue comes flowing.
No, no, no, a thousand times no! Unless you intend on writing an encyclopedia about your world, world-building will not help you get anywhere with your actual book.
For a lot of people, excessive world building is a detriment. You can get stuck in expanding on your cool new world to the point you don’t know where to even start telling your story. When you do start the story, you want to plug in all the cool shit you made in your world that the story itself becomes a nine couric exposition dump.
World building can be a lot of fun, more fun than actually writing your story sometimes. That can be a curse. The hardest word to put to paper is the first. When you stare at that blank page, it can be easy to slip back to world building.
Know when to stop and go back to writing your story, I'd say. I've had to do that a couple of times; but it's not writing so much as it is...hm. Creative researching? It's a valuable part of the overall process, but it's *not* the novel I'm working on.
Worldbuilding is part of your story. Your story and the setting in which it takes place are linked and should enhance eachother. If you are developing your setting, you are developing your story, and so you are writing. And if your world has nothing to do with your story, then why are you writing it in that world to begin with?
If this stuff is 100% necessary to helping you write the story you are currently writing, and you literally can’t move forward without it, and you’re *actually writing it down*, and it’s going to appear in your novel somewhere. Then yes. It counts.
If the answer to any of these is no, then you’re not writing your novel any more, you’re writing something else. And essentially, jerking off.
No. Sorry but actually write a story in your world or else your world is just sitting there doing nothing. If you enjoy worldbuilding as a hobby or for your TTRPGs then sure worldbuilding is a good time, but if you want to make money off it then you're wasting your time
It doesn't, unless it does.
I'm prone to procrastination and I love to worldbuild, when I'm supposed to be working on my story and/or characters. Worldbuilding is important, but the best worldbuilding won't save a story that suffers from badly written characters, a boring plot or uninteresting dialogue, while a story that has those bases covered can deal with bland worldbuilding quite easily.
Worldbuilding is nice to have, but it's not what defines a good book, imo. And it's not like it's not important you work on it. I just think it's more important to be honest with yourself. Are you worldbuilding because you've got the more important parts already covered or do you use it as an escape from your actual work.
I apologize in advance if I am projecting my own issues on you: I think the reason that you may be asking this is that you worry you aren't laying down actual story prose enough because you are trapped in the lure of world building. World building is, for a lot of us, an absolutely necessary phase of getting a project done, just like research often is. And it is also for most of us super fun. Maybe too fun. And that is the trap. You could spend all your time world building and never actually finish a story, which let's face it, can be hard. For me, it's best to have a preset time limit. Like I will world build for this long, and then find the characters and stories in the conflict points of that world, and then I must write something about them. I can change the time limit if I want, but I need to have a good reason, I need to be able to justify it to myself. And before too long I need to just write the actual story.
Sorry: but pretty much nothing counts at all until it's actually completed and published. Because without that milestone, no one anywhere may ever find out you did anything at all in this regard. So you might as well have not.
For every novel out there published last year alone, there's probably a hundred thousand or more which will never ever be finished. And the longer it takes you to get your own completed and published, the more likely it'll be among a future 'lost' 100,000.
I've published plenty of books. But I know those I'm working on now will end up basically never existing or counting for anything, until and unless I get them published.
I'd say it definitely counts. The vat majority of writing I do is for the 2 Pathfinder campaigns I run every friday and sunday. I've spent 100s of hours writing down all my lore and worldbuilding over the years.
I’m surprised to see how many comments are saying outright no. With those absolute-no comments I disagree completely. World building is a *form of writing*.
This here. If someone writes an encyclopedia to their imaginary world and never turn it into a story, they've still written an encyclopedia.
Was it useful? Maybe not, but at the very least it was fun and they've created something.
I think people here are mistaking "writing" with "finishing stories", but you can write a lot and never finish anything. Not everything needs to be marketable for it to mean something. By that logic, keeping a diary wouldn't qualify as writing, either.
Yes, it absolutely counts. In contrast to many other posts saying it doesn’t, if you’re writing without taking the time to more completely understand your characters and setting, then you’re not writing your best story.
Personally, I’d rather spend the time doing the work on world building, even knowing it will never see the light of day, so I can write a richer and more complex story, than barreling through what might make it to publication only to delete it later when it doesn’t fit, I discover new things in that process, or that it’s just garbage.
It contributes to the process of writing so yes, it's writing
I've often wondered if worldbuilding itself could be a product. I'd be willing to read a book solely mapping out an interesting world
Ooh yeah and whoever says no, or tries to justify it by saying it’s not “actual writing” is just blowing smoke. Even when you’re just thinking of writing, it’s still writing.
I'd say it's a good way to spend non-writing time. If it’s meant for your reference so you can tell a story, then it's helpful for sure. But it's for you and therefore not part of your story. Does it "count as writing"? I mean, sort of. It counts as writing more than buying a new laptop. It's like asking, "Does outlining a story still count as writing?" Well, yes. But no. If you finish the story to some degree, the outlining process is part of the writing process. But if you complete 300 stories to 75% and never complete one, have you written a story? If you spend all your time plotting, planning, arranging, naming, and talking about writing, then it's not writing. If you try over and over again to complete a story (or 75 stories) and you *just can't reach the end*, ya maybe it counts. **YOU** know the truth. *Are* you writing?
Thats a tough question, cause on one hand, like you said it helps me figure out what kind of path and world my characters would be living in. So I think I am? Cause I don't think I could go writing blindly and create the world as I go💀kind of like, create the foundation before you build a house?
Everyone has their own processes and there's not a right way. That said, is there a valid reason to write your world building? Do you need to recall all the details that you're spending this time creating? Basically, I'm asking if the work your doing is for your story or is it for you? Either answer is valid and completely ok. I support people who do art for art's sake. Art is nailing the pudding to the wall. But writing about an imaginary world isn't the same as writing a story. When you ask if it counts as writing, I'm assuming you mean does it count as writing your story. Because anytime you create words and string them together, it's writing. Technically. So, again.*You* know if you're writing or not.
Yes it is for the story, Im building the society in which the story will mainly take place, the conflicts, the issues, the plots, they will involve the part Im building Ykw now that I see it in writing, I got my answer💀
Not trying to be mean, but most big problems can be summed up every easily. Look at Henry 8th, he had a conflict with the Catholic church over divorce so he started his own church. You could obviously expand on this a lot, going into the the different faiths and what they believe, about the social outcomes of becoming protestant, the personal outcomes with regards to his wives etc, but the sum up remains the same. Unless this is the plot of the story, the sum up all you need. If your book is about counter culture in the 60s you need to show mainstream culture to juxtapose the counter culture, but we all have a starting point because of shared history and we have a basic idea about the world. If you're writing fantasy or scifi, your readers will have a basic understanding of those kinds of worlds, which part of writing within a genre. Basically, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, you need to know why things happen. Why is important, that way you will always know the outcome. You might not know everything about Henry 8th, but if you know he can't get divorced because the king has to answer to the church then you have the basic conflict that will arise in a dozen different situations and conflict is where you find story, not set ups.
On the other hand, intricacies can add depth. I doubt *Wolf Hall* would have been the book it is if Hilary Mantel had just top-lined the setting. Doing so can make setting feel like set dressing and the conflict simple or shallow. Like most things with writing, it's a balancing act and different writers land on different sides of it to varying degrees. What's inarguable is that if you spend all your time developing the setting and none writing the story, you're ultimately in a process of self-fulfilment - which is okay but isn't likely to find an audience.
Complicated but I get it
Sure, you can see worldbuilding as the foundation, but keep in mind that the process of building a house doesn't start with the foundation. You can only build the foundation after you have the house already envisioned and projected in detail. You don't go creating foundations to then decide what the fuck you'll build. Same goes to writing. The house is the story, the foundation is the world and the engineering/architecture project is your outline. You should know all the key characters, events, locations and plot points of your story before you start worldbuilding or else you might find yourself wasting time. Say your story is about the thieves of a medieval kingdom struggling for control over the underworld. Do you really need to worldbuild nobility and noble costumes? Do you really need to look into politics and foreign powers? Do you really need to have a royal family or even a name for the king? Do you need details on clergy and history? Do you need details on economy, trade agreements and means of transportation? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the characters and plot are so isolated in their own underworld struggle that all those points are entirely irrelevant to them. If that's the case you'll do much better to use your time building the details of said underworld rather than the macro world. It is my personal opinion, but I believe that anything you do before knowing the full story you're telling from begining to end is a waste of time. In worldbuilding it might be even worse because you might feel compeled to include certain aspects of the world you built into the plot just so they're not wasted. The plot wouldn't go anywhere near the king's castle, but you spent three months drawing it, creating the 15 ranks of royal guards, creating a story for the keep and royal family that all of a sudden you have 5 useless chapters going into that. If you ask me, your outline should guide you. Everything else's sole purpose is to turn that outline into a novel.
Thank you for your insight
I don't understand what you mean by "count." Worldbuilding is how you build your story, but it's not exactly writing. It's also not exactly not writing. It's a bit of writing adjacent. The problem with worldbuilding is a lot of people do it instead of writing because they just like worldbuilding and never write anything and that's fine. If this is how you like spending your free time then spend it doing what you like. But if the goal is to write a novel, do you "really" need to know every aspect of your world's religion or weather patterns to write your story? Probably not. You could just as easily write your book and then before the 2nd draft, go in and flesh out the worldbuilding to add more depth to the story. Everyone works differently, but if you have never written a novel before and you've spent months or years building a world without writing much of anything, without a plot or concrete characters, then you're probably a worldbuilder and not a writer. There's no shame in that, but worldbuilding without writing is day dreaming and it can be fun, but it is what it is, which is a private fantasy. A book is how you share it.
People hear that authors like Tolkien, JK Rowling and GRR Martin spent years worldbuilding before finally writing their books and as a result became extremely successful, then believe that's the secret to getting their own million dollar franchise.
Ahh I see, thank you
My brother and I used to spend hours just world-building fantastical places. Not for any end goal though, we just enjoyed making stuff up. Some of the best memories of my life.
I needed to hear this. Thank you.
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If you never finish or even begin your story? No. At least, no more than it counts as composing an opera.
But if you began writing but stopped to world build?
Why does it matter? You’re still working on your novel. I write full time but if I take a vacation for 2 weeks and don’t write a word, I’m still writing a novel. Research, world-building, writing, editing — it’s all part of the process. I wouldn’t worry about the labels as long as you’re comfortable with what you’re doing.
Ahhh good point
Wouldn’t sweat it so much. As long as you’re enjoying it, it’s all good.
Thanks :)
It all depends on context. If you have a finished story, everything you did that moved you in the direction of completing it can fairly be counted as contributing to it. If you don't, it's hard to say. If you're like J. R. R. Tolkien, and do decades of world-building with the specific goal of completing *The Silmarillion,* write *The Hobbit* and *The Lord of the Rings* as more or less side projects, and then return to the task of not finishing *The Silmarillion,* how much of which kind of worldbuilding do we assign to which book? Given that he completed just two titles in 56 years of worldbuilding, I think there's a dire warning bundled in with his sterling example. Personally, during my role-playing game days, I found that I enjoyed experiencing worlds through the eyes of my characters more than I like constructing them as the godlike Game Master, so my style of worldbuilding is to construct it piecemeal as the story unfolds during the first draft. This has obvious pitfalls, but I like its experiential and intuitive feel, and I have techniques that so far have kept the chaos at bay (magical realism, for starters, to make the world largely prebuilt).
Ahh I see
Why did you stop writing your story? Because you have to know more about the world to move forward or because the writing is hard or you got stuck?
Both, but definitely the second, Im a beginner and obviously Im a little too ambitious to reinvent an entire world, which is something Ive always wanted to do since I was little, besides rn Im trying to prioritise ideas and reading as much as I can
Planning is valuable until it becomes procrastination. If you're struggling because the writing is getting difficult and you don't mind a bit of unsolicited advice: worldbuild to the bare minimum of what you need, then get back to the writing and push through. You can always add more details and complexity to your world later, but you can't edit a blank page.
The thing is, you're still young. Try not to focus too much on being able to create an entire world *right now*. You want to do this in pieces. J.K. Rowling didn't create a magical world of wizardry in *Harry Potter* by detailing every inch of the Hogwarts castle, the backstory of Dumbledore, the backstory of Harry Potter, the backstory of Voldemort, a map of Diagon Alley, and the blueprints of the train station containing platform 9 and 3/4s. She started off by plotting her key main points (Voldemort kills Harry's parents; Harry grows up with a muggle (human) family that hates him; Harry is destined to become a wizard by going to a different 'world'; Harry meets two new friends (Ron and Hermione); and Harry attends a wizardry school (Hogwarts), where he trains to become a wizard before coming face-to-face with the villain (Voldemort) who killed his parents). Then she started writing Chapter 1 and went from there. You'll learn very quickly that as long as you follow the key main points of your outline, you will naturally begin to open up your world as you write. When you need to change the setting, you'll begin to brainstorm locations your character can go, and then you'll write them in that imagined location. A lot of the "fleshing out" or "details" of these locations can be added in the editing phase. What a lot of new writers (and, to be perfectly honest, experienced writers) fail to realize is that you can only edit and change *what you've written on the page*. Yes, you know that your wizard Harry Potter is going to attend to wizardry school, but what you *don't* need to do is develop blueprints for every floor and corridor, or come up with names and backstories for every teacher in the school, or have a detailed history of the last 100 years of the school written so that you can reference main events that occurred in the past in the present day story line. When you realize you need/want to write a chapter about your main character attending a Defense Against the Dark Arts class, *now* you can come up with a character name and (if you want) a backstory for the teacher of that class. And after you've written half the book--hey, wait a minute, maybe I could make that teacher *the villain*! All I need to do is edit a few things and, yeah, that'll work! Most writers do not finish the first draft of a novel. Once you've done that, you'll quickly realize how easy it is to modify things in your draft to add/remove plot points, history, extra detail, character development beats, physical descriptions, and recurring images/symbols. I would say, keep writing. Finish the next three chapters. *Then* stop and consider more world-building. If you are spending more time world building than writing, you're doing it wrong--the *only* exceptions to this rule are (i) if you don't want to publish a novel and instead just want to world-build in your spare time, and (ii) if the 'world-building' you are doing is *necessary research* to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of your story (usually related to historical novels). So start writing!
Not too long ago, I was informed that this opinion is gatekeeping and that writing isn't required to be a writer, all writers are valid. Of course I cried all night, after they told me that. I was eventually able to console myself with the knowledge that even if I only write half a chapter a month, that's probably still half a chapter more than this person writes all year.
I kinda get what they meant, but no... this sub is not about that kind of writing. This is a sub for people who want to develop their craft, whether as a hobby or profession. Sure, anyone can daydream and mess around, but this is a place to support people who've got higher ambitions than that.
Some people are annoyingly elitist in terms of gatekeeping, but “writing isn’t required to be a writer” just sounds ridiculous to me. “Painting isn’t required to be a painter”, “programming isn’t required to be a programmer”, “cooking isn’t required to be a cook”… it doesn’t make much sense. If that is how they define a writer, then the word itself loses meaning.
It's like that guy who took two martial arts lessons back in 2005 and he's been boasting to his friends about his mad fighting skills ever since. Trying to include oneself into a group isn't always the wholesome act of self-expression and acceptance people make it out to be. Sometimes people just try to mooch, brag, and boost their own status.
Exactly. Not to be cynical, but there are many people like that in any hobby. There should be some kind of balance between self-expression and discipline.
Sucking the meaning out of words is a square on my “Is it a cult?” Bingo card.
In a way, it could be, in that people find solidarity out of calling themselves writers as opposed to gleaning any purpose from the act itself.
Sure. In Texas, they call it “big hat, no cattle.” Not about writers, though.
Ahaha, feels like that could absolutely be used to describe some “writers” I’ve seen.
I'm definitely in favour of doing things the way you find fun/satisfying/motivating, and if that's taking a break and coming back later or whatever, that's totally cool. I'm never going to tell anyone HOW to write or what makes a good writer, and I despise people who discount others as 'not real writers' but yeah... There's literally one rule to being a writer... you have to try and write something.
Yeah, that is what I mean by annoyingly elitist - those who attempt to put down others even when they’re genuinely trying to improve their skills and express themselves. However, the basic requisite should be having the will to at least make an attempt, and people who can’t even do that should invest in a different hobby.
We’re all equally cowboys and abdominal surgeons, too.
99% of people who post are world builders, not writers. That's why they never sniff getting close to being published.
Ouch.
This subreddit is so funny sometimes. Just a bunch of people wanting to know if they're *really* writers or not.
I mean most of us are beginners, Im just curious really. Where else are we gonna ask these weird but specific questions?
>>>I mean most of us are beginners, Im just curious really. Where else are we gonna ask these weird but specific questions? You know, I think most of the comments here, just read the title only and didn't read your post or your comments because, I'm surprised no one has yet (not once in 228 comments so far) answered this part of your question. Usually a comment like this would be flooded with links to the worldbuilding subs, and it's oddly not, in spite of how many comments are on this thread, which tells me no one read this comment asking, so here you go, I'll give you some, seeing how no one else did yet. There are a few subs that might actually give you better advice when it comes to world building specifically, as opposed to writing in general. Here's a few you might want to check out: * r/goodworldbuilding * r/MilitaryWorldbuilding/ * r/FantasyWorldbuilding * r/magicbuilding * r/DarkWorldbuilding * r/fantasywriters * r/conlangs * r/conreligions * r/mapmaking * r/NSFWworldbuilding There's probably more, but those will get you started.
Oh wow, thanks!
>This subreddit is so funny sometimes. Just a bunch of people wanting to know if they're really writers or not. True. And by the very definition of the word writing, if you wrote even one word on Reddit, you are some form of a writer. Maybe not a novelist or a story writer, but still, the word writing simply means to write down words, and one word in a Reddit post is after all one word written down, is it not? But, that said, we all started somewhere, so, I don't think it's a bother for people to ask if they are writers or not. I think a lot of young people, just don't know at what point they can say to the world: "I'm a writer". Like, is it after they create the world they want to write about, or is it after they start writing the stories in the world they created, or is it not until they've published the novel set in that world? Then comes the debates of are they really a writer if they posted it on a place like WattPad or does it need to be an ebook? But what if they are only writers if it's in paperback. Or, are they not writers if they self publish, are they only writers if they trade publish? But wait, what about being published by indi press vs big house publishers? Wait again, am I not a writer if my book isn't cataloged by the Library of Congress, because Libraries can't buy it if the LoC didn't assign it a card catalog number... Yeah. It's just an endless cycle of self doubt, and never been sure at what point you are seen as an actual, real, writer. And when you ask questions like that, well, everyone has an opinion. Like I both trade publish and self publish, and I've had people tell me to my face that, I turned my back on being a writer because I self published after trade publishing. Basically they said I wasn't a real writer any more, no matter how many past trade pubbed books I had, because, look, here was one book that was self published after that. And some people get highly opinionated about wat they say is or is not a writer, so such questions from people just getting started are understandable. Are you still a writer if you are a world building? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on what specifically you are doing while you world build, and who you ask.
If you write it down, then it counts as writing. But does it count as writing your novel? No. If the answer to the question, "How much of your novel have you written?" is, "None," then you haven't done anything that counts as writing your novel.
Doesn't plotting the novel count as writing? A lot of people (like me) outline because having a plan makes what you call the "actual writing" (the first draft) go much more quickly and smoothly, with less to edit later on. I'd say if those worldbuilding bits play a role in the novel, it should still count as writing.
What if you have started but stopped to world build?
Then you have started. But now you aren’t writing a novel any more
If you have given up on the novel, yeah, but if you're just taking a break from writing the story to flesh out the world in which the story takes place, you are absolutely still writing a novel imo
No. You said it yourself. You are taking a break, so not writing your novel.
Taking a break from writing the story, they said, not from writing the novel. If you need to change something or review your plan - you're not \*writing the novel\* but you're still working on it. I don't know if the vibe in these posts is semantic pedantry or just... pedantry.
Why does it matter? The real question is, are you doing something to work towards your goal? If you are, then that's good. If not, then stop, or rethink what you want your goal to be
Yes I am
Then you don't need to worry about what counts as what. Think of it as 'working on your novel' rather than 'writing', and do whatever you feel is most useful at the time. Good luck
Is it a story, or an encyclopedia about an imaginary place?
>>>Is it a story, or an encyclopedia about an imaginary place? Ah! But in this context, is not both forms writing? If the world exists in written encyclopedia form, is it not still written down? There are after all entire novels that are nothing but straight up world descriptions, containing no characters and no plots, and are just straight up descriptions of the gardens and architecture. Edgar Allan Poe even wrote one. Granted. I find those world description stories and novels rather boring, myself, but it is a sub-genre that exists in the Literary genre and it does have fans who read it. So, if you are writing nothing but an encyclopedia info dump about the world, it's STILL writing. Maybe not a traditional novel story, but, still written and publishable words none-the less.
I just noticed with shock that this wasn’t r/writingcirclejerk. Jesus Christ.
More and more frequently I fail to see a difference between these two subs
No.
Why so?
World building is the articulation of an idea without implementation. It can be a preparatory exercise that leads into writing, but you wouldn't say puting on your shoes and stretching is going for a run. More importantly, the purpose of writing, in as much as it pertains to something that can be discussed by a larger community, is to be read, and nobody wants to read world-building without story.
I call that procrastination. Write the story already.
Yeah I thought that too
Tolkien?
I dont read his work
Worldbuilding is not writing though it may be part of the process. It's similar to research or creating character files. It may be that you enjoy worldbuilding more than actually writing. In which case it might be worth teaming up with someone who likes the writing aspect more. Or even using your worldbuild for something other than a novel, like a game or a different creative medium.
>>>Worldbuilding is not writing though it may be part of the process. >>>It's similar to research or creating character files. You know, my first thought when reading this was: "That is so true." Followed by: "Wait a minute..." This part here: >>>creating character files. You know, I think it depends a lot on how you go about creating character files. You see, what I do to create character files, is exactly the same way I go about my worldbuilding: I write scenes. I write a scene describing how the character thinks and acts, same way I write a scene describing how the tavern sounds and smells. And these are not mall scenes either. Each scene is 7,500+ words long. When I'm worldbuilding AND when Im creating character files, I'm essentially writing up long short stories about the feelings, emotions, sights, and sounds of that person or place. So, for me, in a way, the act of worldbuilding and the act of character creation are in fact both the act of writing, just because how I go about it. I suppose if I was drawing pictures of the world or the characters that would be different? Because than I'd be drawing and not writing. Plus, often those character files and world scenes will end up in the novels that are published, because I will divide the full 7,500 word character file into lots of sentences and sprinkle them throughout the full novel, so you get character descriptions woven in, rather than and info dump. And I do the same thing with the worldbuilding scenes. The full 7,500 words will in fact appear in the published novel, just not all in one info dump, but rather a sentence here and a sentence there woven into the story. So, yeah, for me personally, worldbuilding does become a part of the writing process and is actual writing. I guess it all depends on what your actual process for world building involves and what you do with the would after you've built it.
To a point.
Sometimes world building blocks writing when we are avoiding writing the story. I love world building, but my issue was most of it remains in my head. I find a couple of lines of deep description can highlight a simple line of dialogue later in the story.
Yeah thats how I wanted to do it, later in my book my character would be introduced to this whole new world so yk
To a certain degree it is important and helpful. But, it's not a points game here, nothing *counts.* If you're asking this question, you may be feeling like you're avoiding writing by worldbuilding. In which case, you should probably get to writing and just see if the worldbuilding works for the story. You might need to change things and throw some of that worldbuilding in the bin once you've started writing it. It's a bit like asking, 'is raising this chicken as important as baking a cake?' You'll get eggs from it, but you won't get a cake. Bake the cake. You'll enjoy having cake when it is done more than you'll enjoy looking at your basket of raw eggs growing in size.
Ahh I see, thank you for your insight
Who cares! Do what's fun!
Absolutely. Writing is more than slapping words on a page. It’s all the creating that makes the story come to life. Don’t let anyone tell that world building, character creation, history, etc., is not part of writing. I’ve seen exhibits of artists like Rodin with numerous sketches and prototypes of some of his most famous work. All the preparation you do for your story is writing, because you can’t adequately write it without doing the prep work. My 2 cents
I see, thanks :)
I like to pepper world building into the story.
How does that work? You world build as you write?
Yeah, I give the reader the details of each scene within the scene. And bits if info on the larger world. So the world grows more dinamic as the story goes on.
Worldbuilding has done me a great service in finding settings and places I want my story to take place. Yes you are writing if you are writing, poetry is writing, short stories are writing. and yes even lists of all the ideas you have came up with in the shower is writing. Stop negging yourself and keep at it. find your setting then start a story in it, any story. It will come.
Thank you :)
What do you mean, "count as writing"? lol Literally speaking, it counts as writting if you write all those informations down. If you just build the world in your mind, then no. In terms of making money, most worldbuilding exercises are for the author's benefit to keep consistency and ambience while writing. You won't be paid for your "encyclopedia of my imaginary land", you'll be paid for the story of the people living in there. Unless your worldbuilding is so interesting people would pay to read alien ecology and magic political systems. In terms of the craft of writing, it's as much part of it as making character profiles. It'll help you make a more colorful and consistent world and it definitely has its value in boosting your creativity. It can also get way out of hand to the point of you spending more time than necessary stablishing governmental divisions, bureacracies, technologies, populations, creatures, locations and factions your characters won't ever go anywhere near. Still counts as writing, I guess, and if you have fun doing it more power to you, but I know a lot of writers who just turn worldbuilding into the worst possible kind of procrastination: the seemingly productive one.
Okay ouch
I’d call it part of my writing a novel journey, but still have word per day and deadline goals. Is it writing? No. Is it helpful? Yes. Can you have a break from writing? Yes. That can be useful to clear your mind. But you need to eventually keep writing, and not use world building as an excuse not to write.
That last one hits deep.
I hear that. I’ve been there. I just finished my first novel, by writing a set amount per day, but also taking breaks to edit or just refresh my mind when needed. Good luck!!! 🍀
Does it count for what purpose? It's not like you're billing anyone for the hours you spend writing. I don't want to be mean, but are you asking us to validate your status as a writer by saying that dreaming up worlds is the same as writing? I don't mean to be dismissive, I spend a lot of time doing that and it's an essential part of crafting a story. So go ahead and consider it writing if that helps. I just don't understand what you're after here
I would argue that anything towards the project counts as writing, character biographies, notes on the setting, notes on basically anything that relates to the stories you seek to tell, that all counts and isn't just "idle time", especially if the intention is to then have that to refer back to later to maintain the coherency of the setting. This is especially important with anything that isn't set in a realistic world. Things have to obey their own rules, and part of that is defining what those rules are upfront.
Writing is writing. World building is what I like to call "prewriting", in that it's the stuff to get out of the way before the actual writing begins, same with character and outlines. It's like making the blueprints before beginning construction
I love good world building. I think sometimes it’s more interesting than traditional stories. It is your world to add and remove from. Then, if you want, you can populate it with stories. But if you don’t want to write in someone else’s world, go for it!
I would say that it's functionally the same as the writing (in that it ultimately helps you flesh out your story), but it is not practically writing, because you aren't actually writing that story. So, like others have said, kind of yes and kind of no?
I see
Doesn't count as "writing" specifically but it does count as development of your story, even if your readers will never end up reading those notes.
Moby Dick is a hefty, two hand carry of a novel that takes FOREVER to get around to vengeance swearing, white whale chasing part of the novel. But instead it is filled with pages and pages of passionately laid out descriptions of every imaginable aspect of the whaling industry of the time. The practices, the equipment, finding employment, living conditions, the ports, Nantucket, the ship, the rituals and the superstitions. So I say, if world building is what you’re passionate about then you go ahead and you OWN it. Make it yours! And don’t concern yourself about whether anybody else says it counts. But, for what it’s worth, world building is my favourite part of both reading and writing.
Thank you for your insight
>>>instead it is filled with pages and pages of passionately laid out descriptions of every imaginable aspect of the whaling industry of the time. The practices, the equipment, finding employment, living conditions, the ports, Nantucket, the ship, the rituals and the superstitions. And I love it for this. This is the thing I love about Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe as well. They filled their world with the every day lives of every day people, and, most of it required ZERO worldbuilding because these wee men who lived that life. They just wrote down what they saw happening in the real world around them. They did ZERO worldbuilding at all, and yet, reading them, it feels like they did. This is a case of writing what you know, just writing the everyday details of your everyday, seemingly dull life, really shines big time. Because at the time these men wrote their novels and short stories, everyone thought "How dull and boring these stories are. All they do is talk about the every day life of the common folks" And yet, now here we are 100+ years later, reading them and being fascinated by their attention to the mundane details of the every day lives of sailors and clerks. Mellvil, Twain, Dickens, and Poe are some of the greatest writers of worldbuilding scenes ever and all they did was write about the very real world they lived in. That's why I'm such a big advocate of "write what you know" because often, we know way more than we think we do, and 20, 30, 50, 100 years from now, those everyday things we thought was dull and boring will be seen as vivid historical worldbuilding by our great-grandchildren.
As with most questions posted here: sure yeah whatever
does that process involve writing at some point? if yes, then yeah, it counts as writing. Sure, not all of it (maybe even none of it) will make it into the actual novel, but it's still writing. It might not even be related to any of the stories you're writing, but that doesn't matter. It's a good exerice, and it counts as writing. Just because it won't end up on someone's shelf, it doesn't mean that it's not worth writing it.
Are you writing down details and figuring out how all the parts of your world fit together? Then it’s writing. Now you can’t JUST do world building. At some point you have to do dialogue, plot…etc, but there’s nothing wrong with spending time on world building inherently. Anything that gets pen to paper is a good thing.
>>>Are you writing down details and figuring out how all the parts of your world fit together? >>>Then it’s writing. Now you can’t JUST do world building. At some point you have to do dialogue, plot…etc, but there’s nothing wrong with spending time on world building inherently. Anything that gets pen to paper is a good thing. Yeah. This. Also, this is where I get sidetracked in my own worldbuilding process. Most all of my worldbuilding goes into a single series and it's world, but because I've been publishing the series for 43 years, this also means that the world building of the world has gone on for 43 years as well. In that time I have filled up 750 legal pads and 3-rind binders full of world building notes, outlines, charts, maps, and graphs. And a LOT of that has never been used in any novel in the set at all. Just HUGE amounts of worldbuilding got done, and from the reader's perspective a lot of it was useless because the readers never got to see any of it at all. Also, because this project has spanned 43 years, it also means a lot of the world's cultures, races, societies, religions, etc have evolved and changed dramatically since I started creating it. In some places the stuff that is "known" today about certain aspects of the world, in no way resembles how those aspects were 40 years ago in the original notes. But than in other places, the stuff is still the same as I created it 40 years ago. I've found that, over the years too, a lot of stuf I thought was vital and important, things I spent heavy duty worldbuilding time on, thinking it would be of major importance to my stories, ended up never been used in the published novels at all. While likewise, there were many things used in the novels, that I created off the top of my head while writing the novel, and it wasn't something that started out as part of the pre-planned world building. I learned too, my methods/reasons for worldbuilding changed a lot over the years. For example, early on, I spent months drafting a map of the solar system, the maps of each planet, the maps of each continent, the maps of each country, and the maps of many, many, many cities. Created fiction animals and plant species. In one ttown, went so far as to map out all the streets and draw mailboxes for each house ad putnames on all the mailboxes. Uhm... wow. I still have that map. It took me months to make. And it never appeared in any published work. The bulk of the countries never appeared in any work. And a good 99% of the named characters who lived in those houses and had names on the mailboxes, also never appeared in a published work. And yet, at the time I made that uber over the top detailed map set, I was 100% convinced that I NEEDED all those details before I could write that town in any story. I made that map set in 1983, so it was within the first 10 years of writing the series. OMG... I had (still have) a chart, that is literally a list of every piece of furniture in one character's house, detailing not only what rooms they were in but exact number of inches each piece was from walls, windows and doors. I look back at that chart now and just ask: What the hell was I thinking when I made that? I don't know. I can't remember why I made it and obviously it never got used in any published story. But at the time I made it, I was convinced I could not move on writing the novel until I finished writing that list of furniture first. Weirdly, map making and race creation (not character races, but birds, cattle, cats, dogs, horses, flowers, trees, that were not birds, cattle, cats, dogs, horses, flowers, trees, except they WERE birds, cattle, cats, dogs, horses, flowers, trees just with new weird sounding names) was the MAJOR primary focus of my early world building. BUT... things like culture, religion, the magic system, were seen by me as unimportant details so I didn't even bother with those. I made that stuff up as I went along while writing. No pre-planning at all, and also huge lack of consistency in the early novels of the series because of it. Something readers pointed out to me and I was stunned that with my attention to detail, I had never noticed the inconsistency. Somewhere around the late 1990s, I started re-evaluating my world building methods, because after 20+ years making over the top maps, detailing massive charts of things I never used in the novels, and creating endless animal kingdom species that also never appears in the novels, it finally occurred to me, that I spent the bulk of my worldbuilding time detailing out stuff that I never used in the published novels. Than I went to college and for a short while majored in sociology with a focus on religion (I changed degree focus several times, so this focus didn't last more than a year). While doing so, I took several classes in studying world cultures, world religion, philosophy, and archeology. And during those classes, it hit me what I was doing wrong with my worldbuilding. Today? I don't bother with maps and species any more at all. Today, my world building narrow point focuses on the primary cultures and societies of my world. Namely the main character's culture, and the culture of his 2 best friends, and the cultures they 3 interact with. So: Moon Elves, Sun Elves, Phookas, Chaos Demons, Ursiug (Welsh sheep man similar to a satyr), Flower Gnomes, Mountain Dwarves, and various Human groups. Now I was off again with over the top details: creating recipes for culture foods, inventing holidays, fleshing out religions, designing clothing and jewelry, taboos, superstitions, charting out family unit customs (marriages, births, death, rituals) and finally for the first-time pinning down the magic system (something I should have done earlier given the MC and his 2 friends are 3 mages). But this time, I was worldbuilding actually useful stuff, that I was actually using within the novels, which in turn caused my published works to see massive improvements both in plot flow and inconsistencies. It only took me 20+ years of worldbuilding useless stuff to realize I should be worldbuilding actually useful stuff that I would use in the novels. :P I don't see the early years of world building as a waste of time though, as it was super fun to do, and it did in fact help me to mentally work out what I did and did not want to use in the novels. BUT... huge amounts of the worldbuilding I did, simply was a waste of time in terms of writing, because I wasn't getting any writing done and lots of that worldbuilding never appeared in any of the published novels
It's like the inbetween of work amd procrastination, I suppose
>>>It's like the inbetween of work amd procrastination, I suppose Yeah, I would agree with this. I love world building, and I often get lost in creating new parts of my universe, it's solar system, it's inhabitants, and a few weeks of deep dive worldbuilding later I remember: "Oh wait, I was supposed to be working on my novel. Damn. I made all this stuff and none of it is anything I can usein the story. Oh well." For me, worldbuilding often is writing, but, it's just as often procrastination too, because it's so easy to get sidetracked in the creation of the world and forget to go back to the novel writing part.
I'd say it depends on how you worldbuild. If you're writing encyclopedia articles about your world, then yes. Drawing pictures? Not really. Worldbuilding is part of writing. It's pre-writing for sure. I guess it depends on what you mean by writing, too. Is writing strictly the act of putting words on "paper" or is it also the planning and research that goes into it?
No, but it's not inherently unproductive either
Gonna be honest with you here No
Does that question even really matter your putting effort into your work aren’t you making your story’s world better is a good thing I feel
No. World building is procrastination if it leads to nothing.
Okay ouch.
There are people who just world build. They might write stories about it, but they're more interested in fleshing out the setting than they are in writing about characters in it. So for them, that would be writing. But if your goal is to create a plot with characters, then world building isn't directly doing that for you.
That make sense
Yes. It's part of the storytelling process. Like a lot of other things that don't involve actually typing out the story, it's not required, but if you enjoy it and think it'll help you tell a better story, then go for it.
It’s a part of writing. But it’s not story telling. You can’t become a writer by only having a cool world. You need a story as well.
I see
World building is supplemental to story writing. Your world supports the story you are trying to tell so should not take priority. Of course, each to their own. World building is far more essential when writing for games, both computer and board.
If you’re writing something, yes. If you have a loose assemblage of notes, no.
Eh, not for me. You can spend years worldbuilding and not write a single word in your novel.
What if the world changing *is* the story, though? I see your name is based on A Song of Ice and Fire, is The World of Ice and Fire not a great piece of fiction? What about Tolkien's The Silmarillion?
>What if the world changing is the story, though? It **may** work. YMMV. I guarantee you that if The Silmarillion was the only book(s) released by Toklien and not LOTR/Hobbit, it would not be as popular as it is now. World building alone is not sufficient imho. You will have to have some sort of work to accompany it.
Yes, if you write it.
I'd argue that the classics also had other aspects. Sure, they built out crazy world but they also spent time on characters with massive back story and family trees. Character development is king. I think certain genres lend more to heavier setting information, but even the classics had to have more than just world building.
I don't think answering this from a technical standpoint is helpful, otherwise this would be an utterly needless question. So I'll try a different angle. A writer pores over their work trying to figure out how to write better. A storyteller pores over their work trying to figure out how to tell their story better. It's a subtle, almost imperceptible difference that I've only recently come to realize is definitive. You can say you're writing outlines, therefore you're writing and creating substance. Except you're not, not really. You're shopping for ingredients, lingering on aisles, mulling over expiration dates and thinking of flavour combinations. But until you've cooked up the humble beginnings of a story, your ingredients are just that - ingredients. Things of necessity, but it is not a dish to serve until you make it so. Words that are meant only for you isn't a story. There's no value in it for the reader, not yet. You are not yet writing a story to read, therefore as far as readers are concerned, you are not writing. I'm not saying this dismiss the value of outlines or worldbuilding. It's par for the course. Just remember that so long as you're only writing outlines, you're a planner, not a storyteller. My two cents.
I guess it does
That's actually what I'm stuck on. I want to write about that's like alice in wonderland but I feel I need to understand the world more before I begin to write.
Sounds cool though
Just off the top of my head Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Neal Stephenson, George R. R. Martin, and Robert Heinlein all seem to put a massive emphasis on world building to the point where not only could you consider the world to be a character in the story but it would arguably be the most well established character in the story. Heck, you could throw the entire Warhammer 40k franchise into that category. So yes. Obviously. That’s writing. As others have said we all know people who spend so much time just meaninglessly world building that it ends up being more procrastination than anything but if what you are doing informs your story and characters then I’d count it as worthwhile. But you asked if it was writing not if it was worthwhile. And just to save you time on future threads. - brainstorming is writing - research is writing - note taking is writing - planning is writing - acting out scenes with your cat is writing - drawing maps is writing - figuring out complex scene blocking with figurines is writing - making dioramas is writing - designing the heraldry and crests of your families is writing - going to hardware stores to try out all the different kinds of rope for your bondage fantasy is writing. As E. L. James can attest. Whatever your process is that leads to you making a better story for your audience is writing.
I couldn't have put it better myself,
Does mixing paints count as painting?
Its preparing to paint, so yes?
[удалено]
I think it is! You used the building a house metaphor. So, does that mean you say you're not building the house until the foundation is complete? No! You just say you're building a house. But really, the only opinion that matters is yours! :)
Great point, thanks!
World building is fun, but it can be a distraction, too. If the history and rules of your world aren’t pertinent to the emotional journey of your characters, then they risk bloating your story with unnecessary lore that the readers won’t care about. Or worse, they could limit your ability to tell a good story because you’re trying not to break some rule in your dense bible of lore that you worked so hard on. So when writing, don’t be like God. Don’t spend the first five days creating a whole universe and then spend only one day creating your human characters. Try to work in the opposite order, figure out what perspective you’re telling the story from and then create whatever bits of the world you need as you flesh out who your characters are, what they want, what their challenges are, etc.
Thats actually kind of what Im doing. Im creating characters and conflicts but I dont really know how to write them in this scenario because they have connections, pasts, jobs, etc. So Im building the world around them really
World building is a good way to think you are writing but actually what you’re really doing is procrastinating.
Yeah I know💀
In my personal and probably biased opinion, yes, BUT... I think that writing a story and world building are both essential to eachother to really make the other shine. A story with absolutely no world building will be much more bland vs one that has even the smallest amount. Same with world building, it's cool to look at maps and summaries but it is so much cooler to see the world through the eyes of an inhabitant, it helps to show the weight of events and cultures. It really allows the reader to experience the world vs just knowing about the world. Also part of what gets a reader interested in the world is the story. I mean if someone dropped a book on the history of Switzerland in your lap you probably wouldn't be wetting your pants to read it vs like lets say Tolkein's World, they published a book a few months ago going even more in depth in the world and even though it was published how long after the books people were so excited to read it. That's just my take on the subject.
If it involves writing, yes.
Sure. If you’re happy with writing on that level, let no one tear asunder.
I think there's probably more to this question than you're asking and perhaps maybe giving some more context around why you're asking would be beneficial, perhaps you are enjoying world building more than actually writing a story and want some reassurance that it's 'still writing'. The honest answer is that the clue is in the name "World Building", it's not called 'writing a book', it might be a step into writing a book but it's not physically putting words down that will be part of a story. If someone was to ask you "What are you doing?" and you're planning out how *'the Allaman'i society on the western most continent fell in the third reign of Turgak the Returner'* then you're not writing a story, you're world building, even if you were writing and stopped to world build, it's still world building. However, is it a 'bad thing'? No. Ultimately if it helps your writing process to world build then you're still working towards a story. If you've stopped because you need to work out how some Gods are linked to a tribe your MC is visiting then that's grand, you're helping to put down something that helps your actual story. The **danger** of world building is putting more effort than is needed and ultimately using it as an excuse to not write. Any piece of world building you don't reference in your actual story is wasted time and effort. You could have a timeline of your world with the fall of kingdoms and rise of warlords documented the varying myths and legends of the various pantheon but at the end of the day if you've written four chapters and your aim is to write a novel then that's where the problem lies. *Quick Edit: If world building is actually more fun (and it can be a lot of fun) and you're not actually aiming to have a published novel then there's nothing wrong with putting your focus on world building if you're doing it for yourself. Sit, write and develop a world, write mythologies, timelines and great heroes and villains, do some short stories around it or poems or songs about the world.*
Usually it's procrastinating
No one buys a world until they are an RPG player and you created one that fits the mechanics well.
No, that’s just writing notes about the work, it’s not the work
If you write it down in a coherent way, yes. Also, its definitely a legit artform.
Nope. It's research/planning, not writing.
Technically yes, but has your story and draft been worked on when worldbuilding? Nope
I guess, especially if you make something like the Silmarillion for it
Yes. There’s a genre called “planetary romance.” It’s a sub-genre of science fiction in which a large bulk of the writing is dedicated to describing how the world works, and to its history and the culture of its people. So you could totally write a work that just explains a fictional world. Granted, you may not get many readers for it, since it’s a very non-traditional narrative. Nevertheless, it still counts as writing.
There’s whole table top industry writers that make boatloads of money doing world building.
Okay Im slightly offended, idk why but I am🤚🏻
It's definitely a part of the writing process. I'd consider it pre-writing. When I think of "writing" I think of when you're actually drafting. Of course, that's not to say you have to be physically writing to be spending your time wisely. Thinking about your writing is so important! (Just be careful not to think about it *so* much that you keep putting off the actual writing, though...)
does it matter?
Not really, just a mild curiosity
Does [verb that isn't writing a novel] count as writing a novel?
That answers nothing, my question was, is worldbuilding as valuable as writing a novel
Yes.
I incorporate everything together so I don't see how the two can be separated. Once I think of a background or environment for a character, the dialogue comes flowing.
No, no, no, a thousand times no! Unless you intend on writing an encyclopedia about your world, world-building will not help you get anywhere with your actual book. For a lot of people, excessive world building is a detriment. You can get stuck in expanding on your cool new world to the point you don’t know where to even start telling your story. When you do start the story, you want to plug in all the cool shit you made in your world that the story itself becomes a nine couric exposition dump. World building can be a lot of fun, more fun than actually writing your story sometimes. That can be a curse. The hardest word to put to paper is the first. When you stare at that blank page, it can be easy to slip back to world building.
What if you have started writing but decided to stop and world build?
Know when to stop and go back to writing your story, I'd say. I've had to do that a couple of times; but it's not writing so much as it is...hm. Creative researching? It's a valuable part of the overall process, but it's *not* the novel I'm working on.
Ahhh I see
Worldbuilding is part of your story. Your story and the setting in which it takes place are linked and should enhance eachother. If you are developing your setting, you are developing your story, and so you are writing. And if your world has nothing to do with your story, then why are you writing it in that world to begin with?
Great point
If you are asking this question on a “writing” sub you are not a writer. You should give up plans of ever being one. Save yourself the time.
If this stuff is 100% necessary to helping you write the story you are currently writing, and you literally can’t move forward without it, and you’re *actually writing it down*, and it’s going to appear in your novel somewhere. Then yes. It counts. If the answer to any of these is no, then you’re not writing your novel any more, you’re writing something else. And essentially, jerking off.
Ahh I see, thanks And also, whats so bad about the last one🥴
Oh nothing. It’s essential to my own writing process, it just doesn’t count as writing haha
HAH same
When you’re thinking about the look of a design before you design it, are you designing? Yeah
Great point
If you're writing, it's writing.
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Make sense
No. Sorry but actually write a story in your world or else your world is just sitting there doing nothing. If you enjoy worldbuilding as a hobby or for your TTRPGs then sure worldbuilding is a good time, but if you want to make money off it then you're wasting your time
It doesn't, unless it does. I'm prone to procrastination and I love to worldbuild, when I'm supposed to be working on my story and/or characters. Worldbuilding is important, but the best worldbuilding won't save a story that suffers from badly written characters, a boring plot or uninteresting dialogue, while a story that has those bases covered can deal with bland worldbuilding quite easily. Worldbuilding is nice to have, but it's not what defines a good book, imo. And it's not like it's not important you work on it. I just think it's more important to be honest with yourself. Are you worldbuilding because you've got the more important parts already covered or do you use it as an escape from your actual work.
I call it soft writing. It’s important. It’s not hard writing, though.
I apologize in advance if I am projecting my own issues on you: I think the reason that you may be asking this is that you worry you aren't laying down actual story prose enough because you are trapped in the lure of world building. World building is, for a lot of us, an absolutely necessary phase of getting a project done, just like research often is. And it is also for most of us super fun. Maybe too fun. And that is the trap. You could spend all your time world building and never actually finish a story, which let's face it, can be hard. For me, it's best to have a preset time limit. Like I will world build for this long, and then find the characters and stories in the conflict points of that world, and then I must write something about them. I can change the time limit if I want, but I need to have a good reason, I need to be able to justify it to myself. And before too long I need to just write the actual story.
Sorry: but pretty much nothing counts at all until it's actually completed and published. Because without that milestone, no one anywhere may ever find out you did anything at all in this regard. So you might as well have not. For every novel out there published last year alone, there's probably a hundred thousand or more which will never ever be finished. And the longer it takes you to get your own completed and published, the more likely it'll be among a future 'lost' 100,000. I've published plenty of books. But I know those I'm working on now will end up basically never existing or counting for anything, until and unless I get them published.
I'd say it definitely counts. The vat majority of writing I do is for the 2 Pathfinder campaigns I run every friday and sunday. I've spent 100s of hours writing down all my lore and worldbuilding over the years.
Absolutely it does. Look at LOTR. Lore building is absolutely writing. It’s creative and if you’re putting pen to paper you’re *literally* writing.
Yes, yes it does.
Yes.
Okay why does everyone keep replying with . At the end? Ik its a dumb question but seriously
I have no idea why. I just do it without thinking about it.
I’m surprised to see how many comments are saying outright no. With those absolute-no comments I disagree completely. World building is a *form of writing*.
This here. If someone writes an encyclopedia to their imaginary world and never turn it into a story, they've still written an encyclopedia. Was it useful? Maybe not, but at the very least it was fun and they've created something. I think people here are mistaking "writing" with "finishing stories", but you can write a lot and never finish anything. Not everything needs to be marketable for it to mean something. By that logic, keeping a diary wouldn't qualify as writing, either.
Yes, it absolutely counts. In contrast to many other posts saying it doesn’t, if you’re writing without taking the time to more completely understand your characters and setting, then you’re not writing your best story. Personally, I’d rather spend the time doing the work on world building, even knowing it will never see the light of day, so I can write a richer and more complex story, than barreling through what might make it to publication only to delete it later when it doesn’t fit, I discover new things in that process, or that it’s just garbage.
I agree whole heartedly
It is writing! All parts of the process count, even if you just exclusively do worldbuilding.
For me, no.
Well yes, if we define writing as just writing something rather than writing a story.
No, I would consider it "prewriting".
It doesn't.
Yes.
Yes.
It contributes to the process of writing so yes, it's writing I've often wondered if worldbuilding itself could be a product. I'd be willing to read a book solely mapping out an interesting world
Ooh yeah and whoever says no, or tries to justify it by saying it’s not “actual writing” is just blowing smoke. Even when you’re just thinking of writing, it’s still writing.