30 Days of Worldbuilding: An Author's Step-by-Step Guide to Building Fictional Worlds

by A. Trevena

Overwhelmed by creating fantasy worlds?

Lost in your world? Unsure where to go next?

30 Days of Worldbuilding breaks the task into manageable chunks. By following 30 creative prompts, this book will guide you from idea, to full world.

This workbook will help you to:

* Break the epic task of worldbuilding into easy steps
* Build a full and complete world with prompts you may not have thought of
* Tie your worldbuilding into your story to increase tension and conflict
* Bring your worldbuilding back to your characters to get your readers hooked

This book also includes a bonus lesson on building magic systems that work.By completing just one prompt each day, you can have a fully created fantasy world in a month. You will also have an invaluable book of worldbuilding notes to keep beside you as you write.

Get 30 Days of Worldbuilding today, and stop getting lost in your world.

Available as both an ebook Guidebook and a paperback Workbook with space for answering each prompt.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Role Playing Games, How To, Research

103 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 22, 2019

About the author

Angeline Trevena was born and bred in a rural corner of Devon, but now lives among the breweries and canals of central England with her husband, their two sons, and a rather neurotic cat. She is a dystopian urban fantasy and post-apocalyptic author, a podcaster, and events manager.

In 2003 she graduated from Edge Hill University, Lancashire, with a BA Hons Degree in Drama and Writing. During this time she decided that her future lay in writing words rather than performing them.

Some years ago she worked at an antique auction house and religiously checked every wardrobe that came in to see if Narnia was in the back of it. She's still not given up looking for it.

Reviews

[Dreamcatcher (HIATUS)]

If you're looking for a good World building guide, pick this one. It's the only one I've found where the author doesn't dump their life story in the first 40 pages, then manhandles the reader for the next 40 and THEN get to the main topic

[Matthew Goodall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got a bunch of kick-ass characters but not sure how to make their setting sparkle?
Got a crazy idea for a world but don’t know how to make it feel real?
Dive into 30 Days of Worldbuilding and learn how to make all your ideas connect.

Every chapter covers a different aspect of the setting you want to imagine - be it an alien planet, a fantasy kingdom or just a local neighbourhood.

Simple discussions help you to consider topics such as resources (like where water sources are), class systems (who has access to education and why), faith, weather and more.

Each section covers one topic and includes a series of prompts so that you can apply it to your own setting over the course of a month.

Simply reading through this in advance got my head swimming with ideas for how to start to connect some of my story worlds in a more cohesive and considered fashion.
I can’t wait to use it throughout a month and apply the advice and wisdom to my projects!

A fantastic and extremely easy-to-read book that absolutely deserves a place on every story-teller’s bookshelf!

(I received an advance copy from the author. This is my honest review).

[Alyssa Kuron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will be honest up front that I received this book as a prize from an author I'm a patron of. With that said, it's a fantastic book! I am still very early in my writing career and what I have created thus far is not the type of writing that requires vast amounts of worldbuilding. However, this is an extremely thorough guide with many, many great points to consider. Some sections may be more applicable than others for any given story and I'm certain I'll come back to it time and time again. It might even inspire me to write something more along the fantasy lines that requires a bit more worldbuilding (but to be clear it’s applicable to so much more than that - reading it just got all sorts of creative juices flowing). I also bought her book "How to destroy the world", which was equally fantastic!

[Hannah Proviance · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is extremely helpful and breaks a lot of things down to make them more manageable and less daunting for the writer. Trevena pulls you into the headspace needed to consider and decide what type of governmental system, landscape, climate, natural resources, etc., for the writer's story and adds in a bonus section for magical systems at the end. It is a good check list to work through and what you have at the end is a personal author's resource guide from which you will be able to pull from when working on your story. It's applicable, I think, for just about any genre. I've found it a pleasant aid in my own worldbuilding process.

[Emé Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a worldbuilding guide with a prompt a day for 30 days. It also has an additional 10 prompts on magic systems.

What I liked:
The prompts are easy to follow, and it gives you plenty of room to take initial notes. I used it to get my worldbuilding notes in order for my SciFi Series, but this could be easily be applied to any genre. I think it would be especially useful for first-time authors. And yet seasoned authors can use it as a tool for organization.

What I didn't like:
I thought it was really well done. I can't find fault with any of it.

Overall, I would highly recommend this to all authors and I will definitely be adding her other guides onto my wishlist.

[James Geary · Rating 5 out of 5]

30 Days of Worldbuilding is an excellent step by step guide to creating a world for your story from scratch. Even if you're creating an epic fantasy world or just one location set in our world with minor changes, there's definitely points you can pull from this guide for either scenario, and anything in-between. I also found it to be a great prompt for my existing works-in-progress, as it made me ask questions and think of ideas that I hadn't when originally drafting, so useful for edits! Highly recommend!

[Matthew Hyde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, short, and to the point.

This book gives you 30 pillars of world building from which to work with for your world. It doesn't meander or spend to much time on a single subject. Instead the book works the broad strokes and let's your creativity and ideas do the rest. Despite it being as short as it was, it is something you'll want to reference over and over during the process of creating a world, and another time when you start work on your next world.

[Sara Blackard · Rating 5 out of 5]

"How is history stopping them from getting what they want from life?" As a writer of historical romance (and dabbler in dystopian worlds), I found the 30 Days of Worldbuilding worksheet freeing. I love the way the author suggests looking history in relation to our character. I'll definitely be utilizing this timeline next time I plot a new series.

[Brian Hinck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great guide!

This is a great primer on world building, with specific actionable instructions, which is broken down into 1 task per day for30 days!

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will probably never write the book, but I love stories with unusual worldbuilding, and this book will absolutely help someone who is trying to build a world for fun or profit! It breaks an unmanageable task into easier pieces, asks the new author to think of things they might've not thought of on their own, and above everything else, stresses consistency. It's the best book about worldbuilding that I have read to date.

[Patrick Hearn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of solid advice, especially for beginners.

I’ve been writing for a while and knew much of the information presented, but I also learned several new things. The vibes advantage of this book is that it forces you to ask questions about your world that you might not have thought of, and it can help fill in blanks

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading from sanctity to magic I decided to buy this book by the same author. To my surprise I liked the way it’s organized better and it helped me land the rest of the world building.

I recommend this book who any writer, even if they write outside scifi and fantasy!

[Rosemarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful.

[Kym · Rating 5 out of 5]

offers a lot of good questions to think about when considering various aspects of your worldbuilding.

[Laura Kunigėlytė · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great help to create your world

[Cesar del Pozo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muy interesante y un buen manual para intentos de escritores

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great ideas for running a homebrew RPG campaign and writing both a short story or novel, this is well laid out and flows easy. I look forward to the other books in the series, check it out.

[Daneca Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great start

Great way to start. I finished the 30 days and ready to move on to the next book in the list.

[Kimberly Swan · Rating 5 out of 5]

VERY in-depth. Probably too much information that you're not gonna use, but it's better to have more than less.

[Jonathan Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction to the core challenges of doing competent worldbuilding. I'm going to use this to inform my work in the worldbuilding class I'm teaching this year.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was absolutely as advertised. Well written, direct, and offering practical advice and considerations. If you’re hoping for something different than advertised, no one can help you.