I've heard that writers are often called egoistical maniacs with god complexes and I kind of have to agree. Sort of. We essentially are the gods of the worlds we create. Think about it. Our stories begin as nothing more than a blank piece of paper or a blank word document and then, boom, there's life. We create. We are gods. We rule over the worlds we create. Awesome? Intimidating? Both? Well its something we're not going to escape, which brings me to the topic of today's post. World Building.
What is World Building?
World Building is what it sounds like. You're building a world. Your story takes place somewhere, be it modern day New York City or a medieval fantasy world or maybe even the outer planetary ring in a sci-fi future. You have to set the world that your story is taking place and this is often pushed to the back burner. We all know characters are the most important, right? Or was it the plot? Maybe it was the sentence structure? Actually all of them are important, but World Building is one of the most important ones. Without your world, you don't have a place to place your story.
Your World is a Character
People give me a weird look when I say that the world is a character and like any other character that you'd create, there is a lot of questions that you need to ask yourself while creating this character. How big is world? What type of world are you going for? Why are things the way they are? If you think making your main character is a lot of work, then you're going to be blown away by how much you need to do with world building. Here's a great starter list for you if you need some starting points. Click Me
How Much World Building is Needed?
Alright, this is a tough question to answer. In all honesty, you'll probably never be done world building. There will always be something that'll come up and you'll realize that you didn't address. For me, I recently realized that my world didn't have any holidays. Okay, you're probably thinking "holidays" really? Yeah, it makes total sense that my world would have holidays, they're part of culture. So I had to make sure to create theses. Here's the the thing, you'll work and work and work and work on your world building but only like 10 to 15 percent will make it into your writing. But you're going to need it.
But What If My World Isn't A Made Up One?
So you're basing your story in the real world? You still have to world build. You're basing your story in New York City? You'll have to build up New York as the world. What's the culture, the sounds, the feel, how does the city interact with your character, how does your character interact with the city; not everyone knows New York so you'll have to create this place for the reader. Details are everything. Take a look at any of the popular Young Adult novels out there. If they're based in the real world, the authors have created the world again inside their novels. I hate to talk about her, but Stephenie Meyer did a great job with her Twilight Series. Everyone knows about Forks and its a real place.
Great Novels and Great Worlds
With every great story, there is a great world that it is based in. Some are created so well we don't even notice them, but then are those who we have fallen in love with the world. J. R.R. Tolkien created one of the most influential fantasy worlds out there with his Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is an amazing dystopian novel that, arguably, predicted many events that have come to pass. Then you have J. K. Rowling's wizarding world that is more than just a craze for thousands, if not millions, of people. When your world is great, it'll help make your story great.
There are so many things that go into world building and some people may hate it. It can be incredibly tedious, but at the same time, I find it to be incredibly fun. Making a world come to life will be a challenge, but you'll love it.
Just remember to keep writing,
Dakota
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