The A-Zs of Worldbuilding: Building a Fictional World From Scratch

by Rebekah Loper

Worldbuilding is the ultimate act of creation for speculative fiction writers, but how exactly do you worldbuild? You ask 'what if' and use each answer as a springboard to more questions and answers about your fictional world.

In The A-Zs of Worldbuilding, that ‘what if’ process is broken down into 26 themed chapters, covering topics ranging from architecture to zoology. Each chapter includes a corresponding set of guided exercises to help you find the ‘what if’ questions relevant to your story’s world.

Fair warning, worldbuilding is addictive. Once you get started, you might never put your pen down again.

Genres: Writing, Reference, Nonfiction

177 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 7, 2017

About the author

Rebekah Loper loves to create worlds – whether they are magical and fictional, or a productive farm in her suburban backyard where she makes futile attempts to curse Bermuda grass from all existence.

Rebekah lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband, dog, three cats, a flock of chickens, and an extensive tea collection. She blogs at rebekahloper.com.

Reviews

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

World building is an essential skill for every writer of speculative fiction, and this A-Z is a great place to start.
Originally an exercise for a blog challenge, the author has developed this into a really useful workbook to guide, inform and stimulate writers as they settle down to create their own unique worlds. Consistency, believability, and logic are essential when designing a world, and there are many aspects to consider, from moons and gravity, to geography and weather, through societies, economics, fashion, food, flora and fauna, to name but a few, and this excellent work book, while by no means exhaustive, covers a huge range of topics every writer should know about their world, even if the information never comes to the fore of their narrative.
I hope many writers will use this excellent resource to help guide their creativity. On a personal level, as an author who has written several books in an established world created many years ago, I still found a few points in this book that brought new perspectives and inspired some new ideas.
Highly recommended for all spec fic authors.

[J. Dorner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is dedicated to the A to Z Challenge bloggers of 2014. I was one of those people! So, though the author and I do not know each other, we have participated in the same (very large) blog hop, and in the same book tour. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review of it.

I enjoyed the book very much. I have a reference book out on a related topic (Preparing to Write Settings That Feel Like Characters), so I know quite a bit about this genre. The A-Zs of Worldbuilding is a very well written and comprehensive book. It's informative and has a strong author voice. And, because of the subject matter, it even covers the importance of diversity. I would recommend it to any writer who is building a world from scratch, and also to those who are writing a story using a setting with which they are not very familiar. The book has a definition of Speculative Fiction because that is the core reader audience.

Some of my favorite parts include:
"Is there any reason why a society would only construct square buildings, or even round ones?"

"The government's agenda is to spread their own versions of, well, everything. They will actively destroy knowledge that contradicts their agenda."
That's so true. It really hit home for me. My parents told me stories like that, how much of the Lenni-Lenape history was taken away.

"Additionally, in some cultures, receiving a name is a rite of passage, and people may change their names at different points in their lives."
This is another quote to which I could relate.

There's also a mention of how ridiculous revealing armor is, something which happens in fantasy, that made me want to high-five the author.

I read this book cover to cover, and will reread it, because it's well done and very useful. I feel the book is an excellent reference tool. I can use it when I'm writing fantasy stories. I feel that it's beneficial to the writing community.

[Jemima Pett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a handbook, or manual, to an essential activity for any author.  Even when you think you've got your world down taped I guarantee that working through this book, or even flicking through it, will bring something new to your ideas.  I learnt on my first A to Z that I hadn't delved deeply enough into my Princelings world.  Reading through Rebekah Loper's guide, I thought of two more aspects I'd never really considered in depth.  And although I've done better with the Viridian System, there are still aspects of culture on all the different worlds which need attention.  My weak spots in the books are history, religion and arts.  But Rebekah highlights other aspects that I hadn't really thought of, one of which is reproduced as an excerpt below (the author provided it for this blog tour).

If you aren't actually building worlds from scratch, I expect you think this is of no interest to you.  Wrong!

I think any reader deserves that the author has taken this much care over building their world.  If feel there's something missing, this book could help you spot it.  In any case, don't you sometimes wonder about how 'x' works?

Rebekah Loper covers a huge range of topics; I'd have difficulty identifying one not covered. She wisely suggests talking to experts on some of them where she feels she has limited knowledge.  As time went on I felt glad I'd waited this long to get back to world-building.  Experience and training in so many fields has finally come to fruition.  Even if I'm still not interested in history and religion!

This is an essential piece of any author's kit, especially when they are dealing with places outside their own country!

[M.A. Chiappetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a writer, I found this book to be super helpful for thinking through all the elements that go into creating a fantastical or science fiction world. Honestly, even if you're writing about a time in the historical past or a place of the world that you've never lived, this book would be useful. It encourages you to consider everything from wild life and plants to religions and family... and so much more that can potentially use to help create plot complications and inform the motives of different characters. It includes exercises to help you work through these different world elements, if you're so inclined. It's probably the most accessible and practical book on this topic that I've personally come across.

[Anna Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Covering everything from Architecture to Zoology, The A-Zs of Worldbuilding is a comprehensive workbook on how to build a fictional world from scratch. Evidently.

Each chapter provides some background on the chosen topic, giving examples of how that specific aspect may affect people or culture, both individually and as a whole. This is followed by exercises: questions about the topic, plus guidance on things to think about in answering those questions, which I found useful. A lot of times, I give up on workbooks because the questions are either too vague or too difficult to answer--and then everything goes all over the place. However, with the guided questions, Loper provides a structure that is both general (if you're experienced and just need a checklist) and focused (if you still need help figuring out what's going on).

Each chapter of the workbook, although interconnected, is mostly self-contained and can be focused on according to your individual needs. Reading & working through it with my own story world in mind, I found that some of the topics were super relevant (I should probably work a bit more on History, Queens [government], and Science [both tech levels and magic use]) but some were things I could easily decide to skim through for now (births, for one, since there's none in my story yet; time, for another, since I'm not messing about with that).

Overall, this workbook is a great resource when building your own science fiction or fantasy world. Obviously, what you get from it is going to be as much as the effort you personally put in, but so far it's been a great fodder for thought on how to fix and refine the world I'm building.

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review as part of the launch tour.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was one of a lucky few who got to preview this book in April of 2017, and to beta test the exercises. If you are a writer, a thinker, a reader, a fantasy game builder or player, I would highly recommend The A-Zs of Worldbuilding to you.

This book's format will guide you through the creation of a whole new world, crafted from your own imagination and with the prompts on these pages, including the obvious necessities (what is the family structure, where do they live, what do they wear, and eat, and create?) as well as the politics and belief systems that will enrich the literary home for your characters and their adventures, giving them things to strive to attain, and logical obstacles to block their way.

The author has a lifetime love and talent for crafting the details it takes to make the realms in her stories spring to life and shares her secrets and methods in this accessible, organized course that will do the same for your fictional planets and kingdoms and time periods.

This book absolutely belongs in every fiction writer's tool kit!

[Caroline Sciriha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received A to Z as a prize in a writing competition and I must say it has been a great book to have. As a writer of fantasy, getting to know my world before I begin to write is a necessity for me. I found Rebekah's 26 topics and the corresponding exercises extremely helpful to trigger ideas, dig deeper and flesh out the world.

[J.R. Vincente · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always been a fiction writer, but I have exclusively written in the "real world." I might make some mild changes like omitting STDs and pregnancy scares for the sake of sexiness, but I have never even touched on the realm of historical fiction, much less worldbuilding. The idea of it, honestly, was terrifying.

That's why I was so excited to pick up a book that would guide me through the process of worldbuilding! I have had an idea floating around in the back of my mind that would take place on Earth but in a totally different society than what exists, but I had absolutely no idea how I would ever make that idea a reality. I didn't even know where to begin.

Well, now I do. The A-Zs of Worldbuilding helped me to work out my ideas. I decided that I would read through the whole book once and then I'll go back and work on actually outlining my world. That was a mistake. I should have just worked on my outline as I read the first time. But, the book is 140 pages, so it was a quick read, and it's not a big deal to go back.

The writing was direct and succinct. Rebekah Loper explained things clearly, and the ideas were easy to follow. She even referenced other resources if you needed more depth or other chapters within her book for deeper thoughts. I am really excited now to delve into the realm of worldbuilding! 5 stars!

[Ali Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thorough and helpful. It covers all areas that require consideration, deeply expanding on multi-faceted aspects of culture and why things work and how they work. Would recommend this to anyone who is writing fiction in any form... not all the questions will need to be answered for every type of fictional world, but each chapter is full of topics worthy of consideration within any fictional world - realistic or fantastic or alien.

[Howard Gibbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title indicates this book deals with 26 topics on the subject of world building. I felt some of the choices of topics assigned to the various letters were a little odd, and some readers may not know what the terms she uses mean until they look them up, but the author does give very good information in all the sections.

Some of the topics covered include architecture, birth, clothing, death, economy, geography, and history. One nice feature about all these various topics is the author gives exercises composed of a series of questions / prompts at the end of each chapter as an assist for writers in building their worlds.

In some cases their are significant areas of crossover such as M is for Military, and W is for Weapons and Warfare, and I feel these two sections could easily have been combined. This also goes for A is for Architecture, and I is for Interior Design.

None of the chapters in this book are overly long, with the average being 3 to 4 pages, with generally more pages in the exercises section mentioned above (as it is laid out workbook style with room for writing). I believe it would have given potential authors more information if Ms. Loper had gone into more detail in the various sections, but for a quick reference guide, or for a novice author that is just getting into world building it is adequate.

I found this book to be quite helpful in my research, and would recommend it to anyone interested in world building.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

**Disclaimer: I received this book as an ARC**

I love this book. With printable access to extra worksheets, you can write out your exercises in this book without fear of running out of space or changing your mind. Rebekah brought together various aspects of worldbuilding with questions I've never even considered for my own worlds such as birth/death rituals, how architecture affects and is affected by the world and climate, vegetation, and the science/religion/magic conundrum. This book and the corresponding worksheets made me think about my world and what's missing from it. I've already recommended it to multiple writing friends.