I have returned with another world building post. This one however will not be written by me, it will be written by my padawan Quinnan who at this moment is undertaking a project from the ground up titled the Hexion Compendium. Disclaimer: there will be obscure references. Without further adieu, picture first!
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| WE HAVE A NAME! |
World building is one of
the most exciting and detailed aspects of writing a story; it’s also one of the
most important, especially within the fantasy genre. When writing a fantasy
story the world in which you set it has to be one of the first things you put
your mind to, whereas this commitment may not need to be so drastic with
stories set in the real world. From personal experience I know that there is
little as intimidating as the blank and empty notebook or A4 sheet of paper
that will soon hold a map of and notes about an entirely new world. Aspects
such as geography, geology, climatology, biology (both human and non-human),
religion, tradition, law, history and language are all key to building a world.
I aim to talk a little about all of the aforementioned aspects of a world.
Geography
If you’re reading this
post for the first time, I would suggest reading the other sections first and
coming back to this one.
Out of the aspects listed,
it’s definitely the widest ranging and one of the trickiest to get to grips
with. If you have artistic skills then drawing a map shouldn’t be too difficult
– even if you don’t have those skills you can produce rough sketches and ask a
more talented individual for a favour. When drawing the map of a world, always
leave room for editing and be prepared to make alterations several times before
completing the final version as the geography may need to reflect some of the
other aspects of world building, hence its ‘trickiness’. For example, if you
consider history while drawing you can add ancient or abandoned cities or mark
famous battlefields of the past. If you consider geology and climatology,
environments like forests, mountain ranges, deserts and blizzard swept tundra
will be more thought through and strategically placed, adding to the depth of
the world. Naming places in your world could also reflect the languages within
it and the people or races that live there. Going back to making a map, don’t
forget to make it the way YOU WANT TO. If you want to add a lake, river or city,
put it where you want and not where somebody tells you it should go… not that
you shouldn’t listen to constructive criticism, but you know what I mean.
Geology and Climatology
The construction of the
earth itself and the patterns of the weather may not be a detail that you want
to delve too much into unless you plan to have some link between it and the
plot. If that’s the case, definitely read this section. When creating my world
for my story I did next to no research into the patterns of the weather and
decided that places would have either random weather or the stereotypes
associated with them (i.e. it’s always sunny in a desert etc.) I did that
because I decided that this aspect of world building wasn’t going to be high on
my list of priorities, however if it is for you then by all means take as much
time as you feel is necessary to develop this aspect of your world. Think about
what may cause weather events, whether its down to a living creature or an
uncontrollable force, it’s all down to you.
Biology
This aspect of world
building closely links to character design. Personally I worked simultaneously
on world building and character design, and I think that was the best way to
go, because it allowed me to apply the same level of detail that I had put into
my world into the characters. If you plan on including non-human races in your
story, definitely make sure to record your ideas on their physiology,
psychology and societies.
Religion
Creating a religion, or
indeed more than one religion, can be an arduous task, but may be an essential
part of your world if that’s the path you intend on going down. I haven’t put a
huge amount of effort into the religious aspects of my story in terms of
spending hours and hours poring over religious texts and other sources of
possible inspiration, but I definitely wanted to make sure that anything
related to religion made sense in terms of lore and history. That was mainly
due to the fact that at least two religious beliefs in my world are governing
plot points early on in my story. When thinking about religion in your story it
is important to remember that it doesn’t have to exist at all. If you don’t
want to have religion as a theme or aspect of your world then you can drop it
in favour of adding more detail to the other aspects. That’s what I did, and I
still have a balanced, lore entrenched and detailed world. Don’t be afraid to
leave behind aspects that you may not be interested in developing.
Tradition
This may sound like
religion again, but bear with me. Religion refers to beliefs and stories that characters
in your world believe in. Tradition refers to rituals and actions that those
characters perform as a part of your world, and while traditions can be born
out of religion, they aren’t always. Tradition can also refer to festivals or
special occasions that your world celebrates, and can be a worldwide, national
or regional event. An early tradition revealed in my story is the anniversary
of a town’s founding – not born out of religion, and only takes place in that
specific town. When creating traditions, remember to link in the historical
aspects of your world. Traditions are always of great historical significance
(fictional or not), and so try to come up with reasons or events that would
lead to traditions being born. A town’s foundation is but one simple example.
Law
The laws of the land are a
crucial societal aspect of your world, and need to be taken into consideration
at some level. What laws will your world have in place? What will be the
punishment for breaking them? Why did these laws come into being? These are
questions that you should at least think about when designing your world, but
not all of them have to be answered. Adding laws to your world will add a sense
of depth and influence the way you make characters behave, and so it would be
more than foolish to completely ignore the impact law has on your world.
History
“History is the backbone
of our very society! And the kidneys! And the liver too if I were to wager.”
This quote from Bartholomew Oobleck in Rooster Teeth’s series ‘RWBY’ perfectly
sums up the importance of our history and ancestry. To not apply this sense of
importance to the history in your story would result in a more two-dimensional
world than you perhaps had hoped for. Many other aspects of world building rely
on history: geography, law and tradition most of all. When I was creating my
world, I recognised this, and realised that I would have to create some events
that happened before the time period in which my story was set to give the
actions and speech of the characters some context and logical reasoning behind
them. Doing this made my world richer in the sense that historical aspects of
my world can be used as plot points throughout the story, and not just once.
Language
By far one of the most
in-depth and technical aspects of the world building process, languages can be
created or adapted within your story to a number of effects. I personally have
had to create three languages for three of the non-human races that I created.
When doing this, grammar structure, writing and pronunciation are sub-aspects
that I had to think about. Of course languages are an aspect that comes into
play most of all within the fantasy genre, and so it was essential for my
writing a book of that genre to utilise the linguistic aspects of my world. Oh,
and a personal tip: keep a dictionary of the words you create. There’s nothing
more frustrating than coming up with a word in another language that perfectly
suits your purpose only to forget it – make sure to have a notepad or separate
Word document to keep all of your words and important linguistic features in. I
have done the latter, and through using a table have managed to keep track of
three different languages and their translations into English.
So, I’m well aware that
this has already been a long and extremely detailed entry by myself, so I’ll
stop here. I hope that when designing your world you will do what I did and
develop the above aspects in the way you want to develop them, and at the individual
levels that you desire. Good luck to you, future world builders!
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I hope that my young friend was helpful. We have been working closely together for a number of months so I have been a minor influence on his work, more so on his execution rather than idea development.
The next post will hopefully be the last on world building. World building 3: history and Lore.
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