Fantasy stories don’t always take place in our world. Sometimes it simply isn’t possible. Some fantasy stories are so wild and full of imagination that our dull and painfully ordinary world can’t hold them. It certainly can’t hold dragons or spells.
That’s where fantasy worldbuilding comes in. Fantasy worldbuilding is the process of creating a fictional setting for your story. It’s a clever solution to the hindrance of creativity that our world sets for writers. You can create your fictional world any way you want and use it to shape your story to any form.
However, that might be an issue if you have never worldbuilded before or have no idea where to begin. Worldbuilding doesn’t have to be a complicated process, although it might seem so at first glance.
Today, I’m going to narrow the process of fantasy worldbuilding into two essential areas to focus on if you want to create your own world from scratch.
What Is Fantasy Worldbuilding?
Fantasy worldbuilding is the act of creating a fictional world in which your story will take place. Instead of using a real location, you can invent a whole new world. That way, you can decide what the geography, history, and society of your story will look like. All of these elements are decisive in how a story unfolds, so when you create a fictional world, it can become incredibly unique.
It does sound good, but be wary. Unstructured fantasy worldbuilding can leave large plot holes in your story, or make the world seem completely made up, instead of letting your readers immerse themselves. Bad fantasy worldbuilding can take away more from the story than it gives; therefore, pay attention to the two elements I’m going to teach you soon.
The Importance of Good Worldbuilding
Good worldbuilding isn’t just decent worldbuilding; it can determine the quality of your story. You’re writing a story that takes place in an imagined place, and your readers heavily rely on you to help them understand how the world works. Without strong worldbuilding, you are in danger of creating a story that doesn’t make sense, and worse, confuse your readers.
Here are some good worldbuilding tips to consider.
Create Immersion
Any story depends on the writer’s ability to immerse readers in it. Your audience wants to step into a real place when they pick up your book; don’t steal that privilege from them.
Strengthen the Plot
You can strengthen your plot by designing a world that naturally creates challenges and conflicts for your characters. Use the whole story, and the world it takes place in, to do that. Geography, resources, political systems, and social structures should influence what problems exist in the story.
Make Characters Believable
Have you ever heard someone say, “They’re a product of their environment.” Well, it’s because it’s true. Your characters become more believable when their attitudes, skills, and beliefs are shaped by the world they live in.
To achieve this, consider the culture, environment, and social systems surrounding your characters.
Give Your Story Uniqueness
A world feels unique when it has its own clear identity. You can achieve this by designing cultures, environments, and systems that differ from typical fantasy settings.
This doesn’t require complex ideas. Even small differences in architecture, traditions, political systems, or daily routines can make a world feel distinctive.
Start With the Foundation of Your World
I don’t know about you, but I used to have one long document containing every single piece of information about the fantasy world I was creating. It was a bit messy, but that wasn’t my biggest issue. The problem was that I was trying to worldbuild everything there was to worldbuild.
Fortunately, I learned from my experience, and I hope you can too, so you don’t make the same mistakes as I did.
A simpler and more effective approach to fantasy worldbuilding is to start with the foundation of your world, literally. Create the physical landscape of your world. In short, I’ll show you how you can do that by creating these two things:
- The geography of your world.
- The city where your characters live.
Worldbuilding Geography
One of my favourite aspects of writing is the creative freedom to create a completely fictional world. I love how some words on a paper can turn into a whole world you can envision as if you’re right there. That’s the magic of worldbuilding.
Geography affects everything in your world. Believe it or not, it’s more than beautiful wallpaper. Geography is the physical space where your story exists. It’s the ONLY place your characters can live, move, struggle, and grow. Your plot unfolds within mountains, deserts, cities, forests, and oceans.
With that said, here is a simple way to worldbuild geography:
Start with the bigger picture: Consider the overall structure of your world first. The large landmasses, bodies of water, and climate zones create the foundation on which everything else depends. If the big picture makes sense, the smaller details will feel much more natural and easier for you to write.
Good geography tells a story: Good worldbuilding geography isn’t about making your world realistic. It’s about making it meaningful within the context of your story. Your world only exists on its own terms, with its own rules, limits, and possibilities. Geography sets those rules.
Don’t rely on maps: Without a map, it’s easy to make travel impossible accidentally and have characters cross impossible distances too quickly. Regardless of how helpful maps can be, they’re only great if they help you write a great story. If the technicality of it all hinders you from writing, don’t worry about it. It’s never that important.
Learn more about how to worldbuild geography with this in-depth guide.
Create a Fictional City
You don’t realize how complex a city is until you have to create a fictional city from scratch. At least I didn’t. To be honest, I never thought of all the things that made a city a city.
A city is a planet with its own solar system. It’s somewhere where culture, power structures, history, and daily life revolve around a relatively large place.
I know 7 neat steps to create a well-rounded fictional city. This technique is pretty straightforward and lets you create your city in your vision. Let’s take a look at what they are.
Step 1: Define your city’s purpose.
Step 2: Connect your city to your world.
Step 3: Take Inspiration from Real Cities
Step 4: Design the physical landscape.
Step 5: Build the systems that keep your city alive.
Step 6: Shape daily life and economy.
Step 7: Add culture and history.
Common Worldbuilding Mistakes to Avoid
Weak worldbuilding can do your story more harm than good. In fact, weak worldbuilding can spoil your entire story. I know, how scary, everything you worked hard for can be ruined by one single thing.
But then again, worldbuilding is a huge part of creating a good fantasy story that doesn’t take place in this world. Here are some common mistakes to avoid at all costs.
Spending too Much Time on Trivial Details
Please, don’t spend an unreasonable amount of time creating languages, histories, and systems you won’t even mention in your story. Worldbuilding is only useful if it supports your story. Instead of spending time on trivial details, write your story.
Lack of Logical Worldbuilding
Avoid designing parts of the world that don’t connect logically. Geography, politics, culture, and economy should influence one another so the world feels consistent and believable.
Copying Other Fantasy Worlds
There isn’t anything virtuous about copying anyone’s work, even less copying someone’s fantasy worldbuilding. Of course, you should take inspiration, but don’t ever copy another writer’s work. You’re stealing from the author and taking the uniqueness out of your story.
Worldbuilding Separate From the Story
Avoid creating a world that doesn’t influence the characters or the plot. The setting should affect the events of the story and shape how characters act and make decisions.
Build Your World Step by Step
Fantasy worldbuilding doesn’t have to be complicated. All you need is to break down the process into smaller, digestible bites. Hence, begin with the physical layout.
The best advice I can give you is to begin outlining your story. You won’t come anywhere if you don’t sit down and put in the work. It won’t be perfect in the beginning, but it doesn’t have to. All you need to do is make it exist first.
